Ragta moved again — his left arm swinging, barbed whip hissing through the air like a lashing cobra.
The golemite read it. It had already deduced the nature of the attack — primitive, direct, but devastating.
In an instant, it abandoned its shield configuration, letting the energy constructs disperse rather than waste effort reinforcing them.
But even that decision came too late.
The whip tore through another arm, its jagged barbs slicing clean through alloy and crystalline-like structure.
The limb went limp, it dropped from side to side as it almost went undone.
Cain's mind raced, he was to experienced in dealing with the golemites.
'Think. Think. There had to be a way to steer the fight. I need to push the golemite into adapting again.'
An idea sparked.
"What if I stick a magitech explosive on the foot of the giant?"
Then his eyes flicked back to the whip — its jagged length writhing through the air like a sentient blade.
'I could get close but... eight... eighty meters. Could I outrun that?'
One hit, and he wouldn't be mangled — he'd be minced beyond recognition.
Cain clenched his jaw and buried the thought.
'Too risky.'
While Cain thought of a plan, the golemite danced back under pressure.
It had shifted again — two of its arms contorting into reverse-jointed legs, built for speed.
Its movements sharpened, each step tighter and more precise. But it still wasn't enough.
The golemite let the missing arms be — it wasn't that it couldn't regenerate the arms, rather it thought they were on the way.
The giants weren't just enemies — they were templates, the strongest creatures it had encountered.
The wolf's agility and the toy's jumping capability were a different story, they inspired a set of forelimbs and hindlimbs, each optimized for motion.
The giant however was not deterred by it's everchanging strategy.
Ragta drew on earth-prana with terrifying grace, channeling it into his footwork.
Every step slid him smoothly across the rough terrain, accelerating him beyond natural limits.
He wasn't a simple brute, Ragta perused their records in his free time — the knowledge, now his weapon.
Exploiting the golemite's strange fixation — its refusal to leave the place it was born.
No matter how fast it could move or how intense the pressure, it always circled back to a scorched patch of earth.
The very spot where its greater counterpart had bled.
Some theorized that golemites could one day absorb entire battlefields, drawing residual experience from the blood of fallen sentinels — or even beings beyond their tier.
A legacy etched in ash and fire.
The theory remained controversial. The research was sparse. The claims were dismissed publicly by most scholarly circles.
All signs pointed to one thing — the shardling or golemite wanted to consume the entire patch but hadn't figured out how.
Ragta wasn't the only one who was sharp enough to read between the lines.
Cain had already connected the dots.
The high-quality blades used by Midi and Dilim. Their unmistakable craftsmanship hadn't just been for show.
Someone had invested in them. Someone had prioritized them.
Even as an entire force of fifty was left to die, those two had been spared.
'Ragta was protecting them by duty?'
Ragta wasn't just another frontliner. He was either assigned to guard them… or bound by blood.
Cain didn't dwell on it.
He disassembled his rifle device with swift, practiced hands, snapping it back into its twin pistol configuration.
Five charges in each. That would be more than enough — if he used them right.
Meanwhile, Midi and Dilim were off to the side, hurling rocks at the golemite in lazy throws as if playing catch.
The attacks weren't serious — just enough to distract it, to keep its attention divided while they regained their strength.
Giants didn't need potions like Cain.
A few bites of bark, a sip of muddy water from a cracked root — that was enough to recharge their bodies.
Midi and Dilim weren't cautious at all — they didn't need to be.
'Not as long as Ragta stood, but... what if I put them in danger, how will they react?'
Cain moved. There was no hesitation. No flourish.
Just motion of a plan in action.
His stealth dropped instantly, shimmer bleeding off his body like smoke.
At the same moment, the countdown on his terminal halted.
[Timer (Paused) - 00:08:41]
The last potion on his bag could only buy seven minutes — aiming the miracle for a 'just in case' scenario.]
To the giants, a human was barely more than a blur in the periphery — small, low to the ground, easily dismissed.
His clothes, mottled and dust-worn, blended perfectly with the scorched terrain.
The last line of camouflage wasn't magic — it was fabric.
Cain raised both arms. The twin pistols locked in his grip, angled slightly wide.
He didn't aim to kill. Not yet, the reason — the two were too seasoned.
Midi and Dilim had the kind of battle intuition that screamed at the slightest lethal intent.
Cain couldn't afford to trip that wire — not at this instant.
So he aimed lower — four bullets materialized as preloaded magic conjured the energy.
Time stretched thin.
Each bullet tracked through air, glinting over the afternoon glow.
Their targets weren't vital organs or hearts — they were joints.
Specifically, the hinge of the jaw — where cartilage met bone.
His goal was dislocation Too show brutality and lethality within visual biases of the mind.
Then a pause — Cain took the two more shot.
One second late.
Two bullet.
The shots rang out loud and clear, no silencer to muffle their intent.
Their target was the temple — and in that extended second, everything changed.
Midi and Dilim's instincts flared.
Their muscles tensed, eyes snapped toward Cain — but they were already too late.
The first four bullets hit home.
Bone shattered and fractured, the blood sprayed in crescents.
Jaws dropped literally — severed at the hinges, crashing into the dust like three day old moldy takeaways.
Molars and tusks scattered across the ground like polished stones, red-streaked and twitching with residual nerve shock.
Then the two final shot struck.