The last two bullets tore through the air, racing toward their marks as if determined to outdo the devastation of their predecessors.
But even jawless and bleeding, Midi and Dilim were not so easily broken.
Midi staggered back, instinct wrenching control over battered flesh.
He tilted sharply to the side — just enough. The bullet grazed across his forehead, carving a shallow line through skin and bone without taking him down.
At the same time, Dilim reacted with raw, desperate force.
He threw up a battered hand, fingers clawing at the air. The shot slammed into his palm — it didn't punch through, but ripped a deep gash that exposed bone.
His calloused, battle-hardened skin absorbed the blow with a jarring smack, the impact rippling up his forearm like a hammer strike.
They didn't fall. Instead, they turned toward Cain, their bloodied eyes locking onto him — as if trying to carve his face into their memories.
It wasn't a cry for vengeance nor a challenge to fight — it was shout out of desperation, a plea for aid.
Ragta dropped his pursuit of the golemite the moment he heard the roar.
He turned — and froze at the sight of Midi and Dilim.
Shock hit first, a jarring numbness that hollowed his chest. Then rage boiled up, tightening his fists.
Beneath it all, gnawing deeper than either emotion — shame.
These two were not strangers.
They were his cousins — the sons of his uncle, blood of his blood.
Back at the tribe, he had boasted before the elders, chest high with pride.
"Yahub ako halaab! Alaws gigga langan alaga!"
(Their lives will be intact. No need for another giant to look after them.)
He had meant every word.
Now, looking at their shattered jaws and bloodied forms, the words tasted like ash.
Without hesitation, Ragta knelt and scooped a handful of soil from the scorched ground.
He spat into it, working the dirt and spit into a crude paste — a rough battlefield salve taught across generations.
Gently but firmly, he smeared it across their wounds, sealing the bleeding with the cool mud.
Midi and Dilim said nothing. They dared not.
It was shame enough to stand wounded. Worse still, to have their guardian see it.
When Ragta finally growled out the question — who did it?
Neither wanted to answer. No one wanted to lose what little pride they had left.
But the truth couldn't be hidden.
It was a human. No older than they were. A speck in their eyes — a being they should have crushed without effort.
Ragta could only sigh and give them the last shred of dignity they have left.
Across the battlefield, Cain wasn't idling around.
He didn't stay to gloat. He didn't wait for their recovery.
The moment his bullets landed, he had already abandoned his exposed position, start the timer and applied stealth once again.
[Timer - 00:08:40]
This was the effect he intended — injure, humiliate, fracture their morale.
Every step wasn't just to protect the golemite, it was to agitate Ragta.
'An angered foe will soon be a reckless foe.'
When Cain had first exposed himself — when his energy signature flared even for that single heartbeat.
The golemite immediately took notice of him as if he was something special.
It had seen more than just a flicker of power. It had understood something.
In the crude, evolving mind of the golemite, Cain was not prey. He wasn't a threat to be extinguished. No, he was something else entirely — an entity crafted to aid its growth.
A shardling, perhaps, not for devouring, but for guiding.
This logic was reinforced by simple, mechanical observation — Cain had stalled Ragta.
Had damaged Ragta's kin. Had bought the golemite precious time to learn, adapt, and survive.
There was no pattern of betrayal, no hint of hostility the golemite could detect.
To the golemite's primitive reasoning, the conclusion was inevitable — Cain wanted to make it the strongest titan.
Remembering how it had once sung to understand the world, the golemite tried again.
Its voice rasped through the battlefield, cracked and strange.
"Figaro?"
Cain didn't hesitate.
He knew better than to waste the opportunity.
Immediately, he responded — not with words, but with sound.
"La!"
A sharp tuning pitch — high and piercing.
The golemite paid with utmost attentiion, its limbs pausing mid-shift.
Cain shifted tone, pitching low.
"La..."
This time it was slower, heavier.
The golemite obeyed, halting its movement entirely.
Cain wove his commands carefully through pitch and tone — high notes to make the golemite pay attention to his movements, low notes to still it.
Exactly as documented in the deeper research files of titan scholars.
Trusted, peer-reviewed sources — no myths, no secondhand rumors.
His grandfather hadn't survived this long by believing in fairy tales.
He moved like a conductor in the ruins, guiding a monster that could someday eclipse them all.
Cain moved swiftly, pulling out automaton after automaton from his pack.
Each was no larger than a thumb, tiny constructs whirring to life in his hands.
Their movements were mechanical, simple at first glance — but deliberate.
Each toy repeated a single motion over and over, like animated still-frames captured from a larger war.
These weren't simple weapons — these were one of the best weapons of mankind.
Cain, for all his ruthless calculation, was still only ten years old. And no matter how brutal the world had shaped him, the impulses of youth still flickered inside.
An irresistible itch to create, to tinker, and to play.
What were these toys doing exactly?
They spun in loops, mimicked duels, built small illusions of war.
One automaton unfurled liquid metal over a mock fortress, armor growing and hardening with each ripple.
Another wielded an exaggerated sword — so large it dragged comically behind it.
A third fired needle-thin lasers from a glimmering crystal embedded in its chest.
Tiny spectacles — great echoes of human ambition.
The golemite watched them.
It couldn't understand sentiment. It couldn't feel nostalgia.
But it could recognize one thing clearly — purpose.
In its emerging logic, the shardling Cain was an irreplaceable tool, someone to protect
Without hesitation, the golemite turned and fled, sprinting with seismic force across the cracked plains.
It ran not out of fear, but out of strategy — pushing its computational processing to the limit, memorizing every automaton's shape, every fortress variation, every possibility Cain had shown it.
It knew the giant would not stop chasing until one of them was dead.
As dust and smoke blurred the horizon, one truth hung heavy in the scorched air.
No one could yet tell — who was the true hunter, and who was the haunted.