Kazuki was frustrated: his Wind Concept was useless. The sentinel was unfazed by the wind blades, and even the strongest gusts barely slowed it down. The hoplite warrior knew his Concept had little chance of aiding him against a mighty enemy, but usually, the breathless zone had so impact. Here, the only advantage the wind provided was reducing air resistance for him.
Annoyed by the ineffectiveness of his Concept, the hoplite grimaced as he blocked a vertical strike. The shockwave rippled through his body before it was absorbed by his lower limbs.
Using Micro II to focus his vitality into his legs, Kazuki dodged another attack. He landed a few ters away, hiding a wince. The microfractures in his shins and the light tears in his calves weren’t yet critical, but if left unchecked, they could lead to a fracture or a tear. In high-intensity combat, that ant death.
The sentinel raised its warhamr and charged. Kazuki’s mind, assisted by Knightmare’s AI, broke down his opponent’s movents. One foot forward, a shift in center of mass, and a grip at the base of the heavy weapon’s shaft. No doubt, the enemy was preparing a powerful vertical strike.
So might have considered it a feint, but Kazuki had studied his opponent. The sentinel was a juggernaut: it possessed insane strength and infinite endurance, but its fighting skills were unexceptional.
In an instant, the hoplite warrior reviewed his options. Should he retreat and risk underestimating the warhamr’s reach, or advance to get inside its guard? Using his physical strength and Knightmare’s thrusters, Kazuki dashed forward.
The heavy lee weapon reached its apex and then ca crashing down. Taking advantage of his opponent’s temporary imbalance, Kazuki slipped under the heavy weapon and tackled the sentinel. His shoulder slamd into the stone body with monstrous montum, sending the sentinel sprawling.
“Always press a winning exchange when you have the chance.” It was one of his maxims when he was the instructor of the Titan classes.
Following his own advice, the hoplite reactivated his armor’s thrusters. Catching up with the sentinel before it hit the ground, he doubled his attack. The tip of his spear struck the stone head with the combined power of his body, his ch, and his Mastery.
The creature hit the ground, creating a crater that widened as Kazuki tripled the attack, initiating a devastating combo. Sparing a downed opponent was not a hoplite habit, and the Champion wanted to win. Deep down, he was tired of seeing his rivals shine. Arnold, Dishnu, and, of course, Priam were monsters, but the Champion refused to be left behind.
Kazuki wanted to prove to the hoplites that they remained a force to be reckoned with, even in this new world. As a Champion, it was his responsibility to lead his people.
Deploying his Supremacies, the warrior struck again. The black stone slab under the sentinel cracked before exploding. The geyser of dust temporarily blinded Knightmare’s photosensitive sensors. When Kazuki’s Domain detected his opponent’s kick, it was too late.
Hurled backward like a rag doll, the multi-ton ch spun before landing heavily. Kazuki grimaced at the sight of the hole in his machine’s chest. Facing him, the sentinel was rising amid a cloud of dust. A flow of glowing aether leaked from the cracks in its face.
A red aura surrounded it, and the instinct Kazuki had honed over decades of combat roared.
“You’re powerful for a Tier 0, but let show you the pinnacle of Tier 1.”
Purple runes appeared on the sentinel’s surface an instant before it leapt. Kazuki blocked the first blow by instinct and the second by experience. The third pierced his armor like paper, shattering one of his kidneys. Even with his agility, the warrior couldn’t keep up.
Roaring in defiance, the spear master stopped defending to attack. The exchange went poorly for him: where the opponent’s warhamr shattered his chest plate and half a dozen ribs, his spear couldn’t pierce the sentinel’s wrist.
“My attacks should scatter you like a handful of sand. Strange,” murmured the voice of the vengeful spirit.
Kazuki spat blood as he retreated. Without [Titan of Iron], a rit that lent him the tallic constitution of a Titan, each blow from the warhamr would have reduced him to pulp.
“Sir!”
Kazuki grimaced as Gallad took position beside him, his saber pointed at the sentinel.
“Elaine is taking up position,” his subordinate explained over a secure channel. “Sakura should arrive in a few minutes.”
According to their training, Kazuki and Gallad were close combat masters, Elaine was a sniper, and Sakura a trap specialist and a scout. They only lacked a shield bearer to have the classic hoplite team composition.
“This isn’t a duel anymore?” the sentinel asked telepathically.
Kazuki ignored his opponent. Among the hoplites, only victory mattered.
A bullet struck the sentinel’s ear before Kazuki heard the gunshot; it was the signal. Without hesitation, he dashed forward, Gallad at his side. [Odyssey - Legendary Thrust] targeted the enemy’s fractured face while his subordinate’s saber intercepted the rising warhamr.
Both attacks hit as the sentinel trembled with rage. Kazuki’s spear widened one of the cracks on the stone face, but the saber couldn’t stop the heavy lee weapon. Rather than resist, Gallad went with the swing and leaped at the end of the arc. After almost a hundred ters of flight, he landed in a roll.
The sentinel hesitated for a mont before charging at the saber master, recognizing the team’s weak link. Kazuki gave chase while Elaine tried to slow it down with her shots. When the sentinel realized the bullets weren’t powerful enough to harm it, it stopped dodging.
“It’s ignoring my attacks,” the sniper growled over the local channel. “Its eyes and ears are costic; I can’t disorient it.”
Kazuki grimaced at the news. If their glass cannon sniper couldn’t damage the enemy, he was their only source of offense. The Champion arrived just in ti to save Gallad from a powerful blow. His subordinate dodged what he could, knowing even the weakest hit would tear him apart. For about thirty seconds, the three warriors improvised a deadly dance, with Kazuki trying to take down the sentinel before it killed his subordinate.
Each strike further damaged his opponent, and the tip of his spear always found a way to widen the existing cracks. The flow of aether escaping from the stone statue increased rapidly, depleting its energy reserves.
It was a race against ti the hoplites couldn’t afford to lose.
As Gallad retreated further, the sentinel smashed its warhamr into the ground. Powered by Tier 1, the heavy weapon triggered a small earthquake that unbalanced the hoplite. In an attempt to regain his balance, the saber master stepped into one of the newly opened fissures. His pupils dilated as he realized his mistake.
Ti slowed for Kazuki. He could already see the sentinel’s swift and deadly response. By the ti his subordinate freed himself, the warhamr would have turned him into paste. Gritting his teeth, the Champion hoplite overclocked his muscles without restraint to divert the sentinel’s attention.
Grabbing the heavy weapon with both hands, the enemy tanked Kazuki’s ultimate to execute a whirlwind strike. The wind displaced by the heavy weapon pushed the Champion back before he could dominate it, while the steel bit into Gallad’s leg. The limb vanished in an explosion of blood and bone.
Freed by the amputation, the saber master threw himself backward, dodging a second strike. A ch descended from the sky, grabbed the hoplite, and took off again. The sentinel threw its warhamr to finish the kill, but Kazuki’s spear intercepted it mid-air.
The two opponents locked eyes as their respective weapons fell back to the ground. Half the stone face was gone, revealing a glowing crystalline structure. Thousands of foreign runes glowed, exchanging energy to allow the creation to move. Far from being an enchanted statue, the sentinel was a robotic and runic creature.
It tilted its head, observing its panting opponent. Blood trickled from Kazuki’s mouth: the overclock he used to save Gallad had cost him dearly.
“If this isn’t a duel, then…”
Kazuki gritted his teeth as two new stone sentinels erged from the central building. His spear landed beside him, and he grabbed it before taking a defensive stance. With half a dozen broken ribs, a shattered kidney, torn muscles, and a pounding headache, Kazuki smiled.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He had always known his story would be written in blood and sweat.
“Sir, the Sun Shop’s dicines aren’t healing Gallad. Sothing’s blocking the regeneration.”
Elaine’s ch hovered about three hundred ters above the scene.
“Get him across the rift,” Kazuki ordered.
“But Sir—”
“That’s an order.”
Hoplite discipline was absolute, and Elaine engaged her armor’s thrusters to take Gallad back to Log-a-rhythm before he bled out.
“Without them, you don’t stand a chance.”
Recognizing the sa ntal voice, Kazuki understood the vengeful spirit identified by the System didn’t possess a sentinel; it controlled them all.
“What I fear isn’t dying; it’s failing to protect my own,” Kazuki declared while communing with his bound ch. “But I shall not falter today.”
[Symbiosis - Knightmare], [Titan of Steel].
The bound cha fused with Kazuki, inert steel rging with living flesh. His blood began to boil, charged with liquid uranium. His new cells no longer ran on chemical energy but nuclear power. The AI rged with the hoplite’s mind, creating a consciousness running on a quantum processor and possessing an instinct—the best of both worlds.
When Kazuki-Knightmare opened his eyes again, his golden gaze settled on the world with confidence. Unlike his battle against Seth, his bloodline now granted him a fantastic rit, [Titan of Steel]. The boost was temporary but allowed him to ignore his injuries until the fight's end. Even better, it enabled Kazuki to adopt the physical attributes of a Titan, a mythical and tallic race.
In short, Micro II could now control his steel muscles and artificial nerves.
A drop struck the ground, capturing the attention of the new being. His sensors identified the vital liquid flowing from the warhamr of the first sentinel. Gallad's blood.
The blood of his subordinate.
Kazuki-Knightmare leapt, and his Wind Concept created a tunnel of vacuum ahead. His brutal acceleration caught his opponents off guard, leaving them no ti to react. Deploying Dóry, a four-ter spear, Kazuki-Knightmare struck with all the power contained in his pistons, enhanced by his attributes and overclocked by Micro II.
The strike slipped beneath the warhamr of the first sentinel and exploded its left arm in a cloud of stone and crystal dust. The sentinel roared, bringing down its lee weapon.
The warhamr collided with Kazuki-Knightmare's forearm, producing a clear ringing sound. A light dent appeared on the bodywork. A blow that would have once shattered flesh and bone barely dented the tal.
Surprised, the sentinel froze, and Kazuki-Knightmare punished its hesitation with a left hook. The stone body flew fifty ters before crashing into the central building. Before it could rise, a spear, faster than sound, impaled it against the wall like an insect on a pin.
Agreeing with his doubtful instinct, Kazuki-Knightmare flared his nuclear reactor and dashed. The wind accompanied him, increasing his speed and slowing the two remaining sentinels following him. In a split second, he reached the decapitated sentinel, tore his spear from the wall, and raised it high.
“[Odyssey - Coup de Grâce].”
Overclocking his tallic muscles and gathering Spear Mastery II, Kazuki-Knightmare unleashed the most powerful attack at his disposal. His spear struck the sentinel’s torso, pierced the stone skin, broke the crystalline structure beneath, and shattered its core.
The shockwave shook the ruins.
When a gust of wind dispersed the dust cloud, part of the plaza and wall had vanished. Nothing remained of the sentinel, annihilated along with Dóry.
Deprived of his spear, Kazuki-Knightmare walked to the abandoned warhamr. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, then, satisfied, turned to two shocked opponents.
His face was impassive, but his eyes smiled. His struggle, his commitnt, and the blood of his enemies were fusing, forming a truth that resonated with his soul.
A Concept was beginning to take shape, and Kazuki was determined to feed it with all the necessary blood.
Kazuki Status: (Average value for a Hoplite male before integration: PHY 23 / N 18 / TA 0)
PHYSICAL:
Strength 1107
Constitution 852
Agility 1081
Vitality 811
Perception 845
NTAL:
Vivacity 591
Dexterity 591
mory 580
Willpower 592
Charisma 311
TA:
ta-affinity 184
ta-focus 152
ta-endurance 352
ta-perception 160
ta-chance 79
ta-authority 180
Potential: 10 763
Tier 0
Race: Titan Hoplite (Tier 1)
Bloodline:
Titan - Purity
Concepts:
Wind (T0) - Harmony
? (T1) - Awakening
Suprématies:
Micro II
Spear Mastery II
Domain I
[Symbiose - Knightmare] - Active.
[Tribulation]: FourTribulations are coming.
Ti: 1 day 9 hours 13 minutes 22 seconds.
Your Soul Baptism is due.
Ti limit: 69 days 15 hours 34 minutes 12 seconds.
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