What am I doing right now? Fighting the flesh creature in front. Are my tactics effective? Does it work? If not, why am I doing it?
Logical conclusions flowed through the golemite's mind, each streamlined to assess the situation.
It had tried twice now. This time, it understood the scourge whip wasn't worth the energy.
Instead, it copied the barriers — protecting itself from harm.
Ragta couldn't conjure water, he wasn't a mage after all. His eyes seared, but he forced himself to withstand it.
He'll get used to it. Eventually.
Squinted through the haze, his left eye nearly shut and burning from the chemical assault.
His right eye, still sharp, tracking the progress of the golemite.
The golemite had stopped mimicking. No more curiosity. No more play.
It had seen through him.
Ragta cursed under his breath — regretting to have toyed with his prey.
Across the ruined field, the golemite stood motionless, but its senses were anything but idle.
Cain had come to understand during his studies — all titans were hypersensitive to energy.
Whether it was prana, elemental force, spiritual flow, or condensed magicule, it could see everything.
Not just movement. Not just light. Reserves — it could measure how much power you had left, how deep your well ran.
That was why Cain had couldn't just charge up, the titan already had his energy signature memorized. It was like an identity thief that tried claiming its crime for self protection.
Ragta's true reserves were massive — larger than the golemite's by far. But that hardly mattered.
The golemite didn't rely on reserves — it absorbed.
It could tap into nearly every form of energy in existence — spiritual, elemental, raw qi, divine threads, mana flows, even prana.
It didn't store power; it learned how to use what was already present in the world around it.
That was its greatest strength — and its greatest limitation.
Because the act of learning how to use these forces — the technique, the intention, the structure behind each energy system.
That was the hard part. That was the bottleneck. Sentient beings would even stay in closed door training for hundreds or even thousands of years.
In a way, Cain had realized, the golemite itself was the living prototype of a theory many scholars had only whispered about.
Magicule — the grand unifier. A hypothetical energy field that fused prana with spiritual qi, mana with nature force, and even hints of immortal essence along with sparks of divinity.
Theoretical mimicry as reality — the everchanging weapon of mankind against the horrors of the world.
In Cain's eye, the golemite had learned the shield — but not the nuance.
It copied the form, constructed a shimmering barrier across its arm, and fired a volley of bullets.
But as they struck, the rounds ricocheted wildly — deflected not by the target, but by its own defense.
The golemite staggered slightly, stunned by the miscalculation resulting in an unintended backlash.
Ragta saw the window. Without hesitation, he surged forward, both scourge whips crackling the air with each snap.
Each chain bristled with nine cruel hooks, snapping through as it weaved deadly afterimages.
He lashed from both flanks, trying to catch the creature before it refined its mimicry — before it learned again.
But the golemite adapted fast.
It layered the shield — one became two, two became three.
With every strike that hit, the barrier thickened, recalibrated, tempered its core with data, pressure, energy.
Its resilience climbed with each second it existed — that was exactly Cain had been aiming for.
He wasn't after just survival. He was after evolution — he needed the golemite to refine its core, to push itself to a higher grade.
If it ended up killing Ragta, that would be a bonus.
But the real prize was what it became during the battle.
The data he collected? Saying it was another bonus was nonsense.
Who wouldn't learn from his enemies in every encounter. While Cain processed some profound lines in his mind.
Ragta was on the chase, closing the gap, but the golemite wouldn't stay still.
It bounded across the field in erratic arcs — leaping high, rolling low, its movements now informed by the chaotic energy patterns of Cain's earlier automaton.
Ragta's hooks lashed out, but they either missed their mark or skidded off the mirror-like barrier — an imitation of his own, perfected and turned against him.
From a distance, Cain watched it all unfold — yet he never underestimate or lowered his evaluation of Ragta at all. He increased it instead.
'The giant didn't get this strong on brute force alone. There had to be more, some deeper trick, an ace up it's sleeves. If so, how many?'
Cain had already seen what Midi and Dilim could do with their resonance weapons.
He doubted Ragta would step onto the battlefield without carrying something equally devastating — if not even more destructive.
The golemite was improving by the second — its movements sharper, its reactions more precise, its shields more refined.
But Ragta didn't flinch.
He smirked.
This wasn't his first hunt.
He had slaughtered dozens of golemite breeds across battlefields.
He'd seen them adapt. He'd seen them evolve. And he'd learned how to end them before they could.
With a sharp crack, he lashed his whip to the ground.
The nine hooked chains retracted with a hiss, links folding into one another with precision.
In seconds, they fused — melding into a single, heavier weapon.
A barbed whip — thrice the length, it's grace was like the thorn of the rose.
Cain's eyes narrowed seeing the new weapon form.
'I knew it, this guy's no brute, he's a schemer. A deep one at that.'
Ragta waved his hands, his whip slithered through the air like a living serpent.
The golemite hesitated, its body leaning back into a defensive posture.
It didn't try to block this time —it had learned that defense could cost energy.
It dodged, prioritizing preservation over brutality.
But the whip was not meant to miss.
When it finally struck, the effect was instant.
Instead of being deflected, the barbs latched on — drank the energy from the barrier like a dessert flower.
A ripple ran through the he golemite's turret arms, as the whip devoured the energy the barbs grew larger and larger.
The whip coiled, constricting like a python — Ragta gave it a single effortless sway.
The alloy arm still firing shrieked — ripped from its socket like wet dough.
After everything — the tactical traps, the potions burned, the spells spent
'This was all the golemite had to show?'
He downed another potion, the liquid it tasted like water but his pockets were the one to suffer, then Cain chased three gel rations, the strawberry flavor a consolation to failing investment.
His fingers trembled — not from fear, but from calculation.
The cost was piling up — he wasn't even sure if he wouldn't be robbed along the way.
Every potion he used could've served two purposes — recovery and training.
When consumed during active casting instead of circulating meditation, the body would rapidly convert it active magicules — but there was a catch.
With each use, the effectiveness dropped by a fifth.
Only a full day of rest could reset the oversaturation.
After hundreds of years of clinical trials — there were no long-term side effects.
But in the middle of a fight? Every second it bought was nothing short of a miracle.
And Cain was running out of miracles.
[Timer - 00:15:41]