The absolute brute force of the Tyrant-Frame was unlike anything Asher had ever faced. The concrete beneath his boots didn't just crack; it pulverized into fine gray dust.
"Is this the limit of your evolution?!" Briggs shouted through his external amplifiers, his voice vibrating with the mechanical hum of his dual-fusion core. "A parlor trick from the deep zones?! You are nothing but an undocumented error in my sector, and I am deleting you!"
The two-meter plasma broadsword bore down inch by inch. The superheated white energy was actively eating through Asher's [Abyssal Void-Blades], sending white-hot sparks directly into his face.
[Warning: Host HP dropping rapidly!]
[Current HP: 195/270]
[Left forearm structure experiencing micro-fractures under 40+ Tier Kinetic Pressure.]
Asherās crimson vision flickered with red static warnings. His 31 Strength was completely maxed out, his muscles coiled so tightly they felt like over-tensioned steel cables. He couldn't step out of the way; the sheer gravity well generated by the Tyrant-Frameās localized forcefield was trapping his 41 Agility, dragging him down like quicksand.
For the first time since he crawled out of the Abyss altar, Asher tasted his own bloodāa thick, violet fluid that sizzled as it dripped onto the molten concrete.
"Asher!" Jax roared from the edge of the plaza.
The silver-haired boy lunged forward, his matte-black Abyssal Obsidian Arc-Arms flaring a violent purple as he tried to break through the gravity barrier to aid his king. But before he could even take three steps, a heavy automated turret mounted on Briggsā shoulder swiveled and unleashed a barrage of micro-rockets.
Boom! Boom!
The explosions threw Jax backward into a heap of rusted metal. Lucy caught him, her teeth gritted as she fired her scavenged kinetic pistol at the Tyrant-Frameās energy shield, the bullets flattening uselessly against the gold-and-silver barrier.
"Don't come near him!" Lucy yelled to the militia, her military tactical mind recognizing the danger instantly. "That gravity well will crush you before you can touch the hull! We need to disrupt his power supply!"
"I'm on it!" Nora shouted, sprinting through the debris. She was hauling her modified industrial plasma cutter, her oil-smeared goggles reflecting the fires of the plaza. "Ren! Cover me! I need a direct line to the primary ventilation port on that mech's lower spine!"
"Understood," Ren whispered.
The blind-eyed gladiator faded into the thick smoke like a literal wraith. When a squad of Briggsā elite shock-troopers tried to intercept Nora, Ren materialized out of the haze behind them. His monomolecular blades flashed in three silent, horizontal arcs, severing their rifle barrels and armor seals before vanishing back into the darkness.
Nora dropped to one knee behind a shattered pillar, her fingers moving like a blur as she over-clocked her plasma cutter's internal battery core. "Hey, gold boy! Catch a slum surge!"
She pulled the trigger. A hyper-concentrated, blinding beam of unstable thermal energy erupted from the cutter, striking the precise secondary exhaust port on the back of Briggsā right leg.
Sparks!
The Tyrant-Frame glitched for a fraction of a millisecond. The white-hot beam didn't penetrate the heavy armor, but it caused a sudden thermal spike in the suit's coolant lines.
That micro-second of disruption was all Asher needed.
The suffocating gravity well flared and dipped. With his Agility unlocked for a split heartbeat, Asher didn't try to push back against the broadsword. He dropped his left Void-Blade entirely, letting the physical weapon dissolve back into his hand, and threw his body to the right.
The massive plasma broadsword slammed into the ground where Asher had been standing a microsecond prior, slicing a six-foot-deep trench into the earth.
Asher materialized at the side of the massive mech. His face was a mask of cold, demonic rage, the neon-purple veins along his throat pulsing erratically. He didn't use a blade this time. He rammed his bare, talon-tipped right hand straight into the exposed, sparking leg joint Nora had just heated up.
[Skill Activated: System Dominator.]
[Attempting to forcefully override Rank 3 Dual-Fusion Core...]
[Warning: Enemy firewall is Military-Grade Tier 4 Encryption.]
[Processing... 12%... 24%... Feedback detected!]
"Argh!" Asher roared as a massive jolt of raw, unrefined fusion electricity backfired through his arm. The digital feedback burned his internal networks, throwing his system into a temporary state of shock.
Briggs laughed, a harsh, mechanical sound as the suit's automated gyros stabilized him. He swung his heavy armored elbow backward, catching Asher square in the chest.
CRACK.
Asher was sent flying through the air like a ragdoll, smashing through two concrete pillars before burying deep into the brick wall of a burning warehouse at the edge of the plaza.
[Critical Damage Sustained!]
[Current HP: 110/270]
[Warning: Internal core instability detected. System Dominator failing to lock.]
Inside the rubble, Asher lay still for a moment, his chest heaving as violet smoke rose from his cracked skin. He looked down at his trembling hand. The Tyrant-Frame was too advanced to simply hack from the outside, and its physical defense was too high to break with pure Strength.
To kill a god of the Federation, he was going to have to do something completely insane. He was going to have to let Briggs open him up, just to get close enough to devour the core from the inside out.