Robert activated the system, and it started scanning the beast imdiately. The activation was silent—smooth and invisible, with the information surfacing in his vision just like it always had.
BEAST SCAN Na: Iron Claw
Titan Rank: Four Cultivation Equivalent: Spirit Root Realm — Level 8 Primary Ability: Iron Skin Compression — reduces external damage by 60% at rest. Secondary.
Ability: Seismic Stomp — ground-based shockwave, fifteen-ter radius. Weakness: Neck junction — three-centiter gap between Iron Skin plates.
Robert took a mont to read it again. Spirit Root Realm Level 8. He was sitting at Level 7 Mid-Stage. The difference was significant. Just a three-centiter gap at the neck. He read that part twice. One opening.
That is all there was to it.
He closed the system, turned to SAI, raised a finger, and pointed at his neck. Sai caught on right away.
The Iron Claw Titan stood between the two oldest trunks in this section of the deep zone like sothing the forest had grown around rather than sothing that had moved into it.
Eight feet at the shoulder.
Plated hide, the color of dark iron—not like armor placed on a beast, but like iron that had grown from inside the skin outward over decades of deep zone survival. Its claws were longer than Robert's forearm. Its head was low and broad, its eyes the particular flat amber of a beast that processed threat assessnt as a function rather than a feeling.
It had remained motionless since they halted. It was still, just waiting there. It is looking for us to make the first move, eager to see how we will approach before it figures out how to respond.
Robert provided it with what it sought. He moved ahead. Twin Dragon Fang — in its full power mode. The distinction mattered.
The energy unleashed during cultivation was nothing short of explosive—it was the kind that made its presence known, demanding everything in a single mont.
It was pure power, where every technique was fine-tuned to perfection—the angle, timing, weight distribution, and the exact sequence that allowed the twin strikes to hit as one unified force instead of two separate blows.
The technique struck the Iron Claw Titan right on its left shoulder plate. anwhile, an ancient trunk, ten ters back from the beast, split right down the middle. Surprisingly, the beast remained completely still.
The Iron Skin Compression had absorbed the strike completely—distributing the force across the plate surface before it could concentrate at the impact point.
A reduction of sixty percent. The scan was spot on. Robert was already in motion before the follow-through was even finished.
Swift Turn—he shifted his weight from a loaded stance, his body already moving away from where he had been standing just as the beast's claw ca crashing down.
The ground where he had been standing cracked. Not the trunk behind him.
The ground trembled beneath him. Seismic Stomp. The shockwave reached Robert's new spot; its impact lessened but was still powerful enough to throw him off balance for a mont. Just that one mont was all it took for the Iron Claw Titan to make its move.
It closed the distance in two movents. Sothing that large should not move that fast.
With a swift motion, Sai unleashed the Shadow Cross Slash aid at the left flank. It turns out the crossing arc hit the neck junction at the wrong angle—two degrees off from that three-centiter gap. This miscalculation caused the sword to make contact with the plate's edge rather than finding its way through the opening that was created.
It did not manage to break through the beast's defenses. Instead, it got distracted from Robert and turned its gaze toward Sai. That was the plan. But that was also where things went wrong.
The Iron Claw Titan's move was quicker than Sai had anticipated. One of its claws—a backhand, not even its main attack—swiped across Sai's left side.
The Nine Shadows Step was activated, and the pressure from the afterimage absorbed so of the impact. Sai struck the ancient trunk behind him with such a force that the bark splintered in two upon contact.
He was on his feet in two seconds. Breathing hard.
His left side was compromised, yet he remained standing and functional. He looked over at Robert and nodded once. Still in the fight. Robert pulled out his second sword, now ready with both swords.
The Iron Claw Titan turned back toward him, having assessed SAI as reduced and Robert as the primary threat.
Robert ca forward.
The left sword—Swift Turn—moves in, bringing him within the beast's claw range. The blade strikes the left shoulder plate right where it did before, but without causing any damage. The plate bends just a milliter with each hit at that sa spot.
Repeated strikes at the sa location reduce the compression capacity. It is not infinite.
How many strikes? He did not know. He kept moving.
Right sword—diagonal cut across the neck junction approach angle.
Wrong angle again.
The gap was real, but accessing it required a position the beast's movent kept denying him—the neck junction faced slightly downward when the beast was in its natural stance, the approach angle requiring him to be below and inside the beast's guard simultaneously.
Below and inside. With a beast, that closes the distance, it was only two steps. While it is trying to remove Robert Arm. Robert jumped.
The shockwave passed below him. He ca down off balance.
The beast was already moving.
He activated Twin Dragon Fang with the right sword from the falling position—not aid at the neck, but aid at the left shoulder plate.
The plate cracked.
Not split in two, but it only cracked. Progress. The beast's left claw ca down. Robert rolled.
The ground where he had been standing did not crack this ti.
It compressed—a full depression, the ancient soil collapsing under the force of the strike.
It is hitting harder. Adjusting its output. This beast learns mid-fight. Robert was breathing hard now.
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