[The Royal Plaza]

"Now let's even the odds!"

Damien sprinted toward the towering leg of the Royal Guardian Titan.

The Bone Dragon didn't wait. Seeing a threat to its dominance, the colossal undead construct roared, a sound of twisting metal and wailing souls.

It abandoned the cowering civilians and lunged at the stationary mech.

A skeletal claw the size of a carriage slashed through the air, aiming to decapitate the Titan before it could wake up.

"It's too fast!" Hephaestus screamed over the external speakers. "The hydraulics are cold! I can't move the arm!"

"Shadow Step!"

Damien didn't run up the leg. He vanished in a blur of black mist and reappeared fifty feet in the air, landing perfectly on the open chest hatch of the Titan.

He instantly dropped inside.

CLANG-HISS.

The heavy Mithril hatch sealed shut, cutting off the screams of the city.

The cockpit was plunged into silence, illuminated only by the frantic red blinking of emergency runes.

It was a tight, spherical space filled with brass levers, mana-gauges, and a smell of ozone and new leather.

Hephaestus was strapped into the gunner's seat, his hands flying across a crystal keyboard. He looked terrified.

"Zero!" The Prince yelled. "The core is empty! This prototype was designed to run on a Class-A Ley-line tap! Without a power source, it's just a statue!"

"A power source?" Damien grabbed the dual control spheres. They felt cold and dead in his hands.

"I am the power source."

Damien closed his eyes.

"Dual-Core: Output 100%."

VOOOM.

He didn't hold back. He unleashed the full torrent of his mana.

His left hand injected the cold, abyssal Shadow Mana. His right hand injected the burning, explosive Golden Aura.

The Titan shuddered violently, as if it had been shocked with a defibrillator.

Outside, the machine's eyes flickered.

The left eye lit up Shadow Black. The right eye lit up Dragon Gold.

Although still lacking in mana, but with Damiens help, it was able to move better.

Steam vented explosively from the Titan's shoulders, blasting the approaching Bone Dragon back with a wave of superheated pressure.

[System Alert!] [External Chassis Detected: Royal Guardian Titan (Prototype).] [Energy Input: Low.] [Syncing Will Armament...]

"It's awake!" Hephaestus gasped, watching the power gauges snap the needles off. "But the weight... the chassis is too heavy! The response time is lagging by three seconds!"

"There is no lag," Damien whispered.

He didn't try to pilot the mech like a machine. He expanded his [Will Armament].

Instantly, Damien felt like his soul was being strained, currently his aura, his mana, his will, everything was being stretched to the limit to fight this giant dragon.

As a machine capable of fighting sixth orders, had it not been for his dual cores and special physiqe, even if he was sucked day he wouldn't have been able to make its foot move

Rooaring out in pain he enveloped the fifty-foot metal giant in his own Intent.

Doing this, he didn't just drive it; he became it. The Mithril plating became his skin. The hydraulic pistons became his muscles.

CLANG.

The Titan moved.

It didn't jerk like before. It stepped forward with the fluid, terrifying grace of a human warrior.

The Bone Dragon lunged again, snapping its jaws where the Titan's head had been.

But the Titan was gone.

"Too slow."

Damien's voice boomed from the Titan's external speakers, shaking the plaza.

The Titan had side-stepped. It grabbed the Bone Dragon's tail with a massive metal hand. The grip was strong enough to warp the dragon's bone-armor.

"Spin cycle."

Damien twisted his hips in the cockpit. The Titan mimicked the movement instantly.

Using the momentum of the Dragon's lunge, the Titan swung the massive beast around like a flail.

CRASH!

The Bone Dragon was slammed into the empty wing of the Royal Palace. Stone masonry exploded. A tower collapsed, burying the beast in rubble.

The civilians in the plaza stared up, mouths agape.

"By the Ancestors..." General Thorgar, piloting his smaller Ironclad unit, lowered his weapon. "That thing moves like a master swordsman."

"It's not the machine," Leona grinned, standing amidst the wreckage of the cultists. "It's the pilot."

ROAR!

The rubble exploded. The Bone Dragon rose. It was hurt, but not dead. The scrap metal on its body shifted and reformed. The faces of the dead embedded in its armor screamed in unison.

It opened its mouth. A green light, brighter than the sun, gathered in its throat.

"Breath Attack!" Hephaestus shouted. "Shields up!"

A shimmering blue mana-barrier appeared on the Titan's left arm.

FWOOSH!

A beam of green Necrotic Fire, thick as a river, blasted the shield.

HISS.

[Warning! Shield Integrity failing!] The automated voice blared.

The green fire was eating the mana shield. It was rotting the energy itself.

"We can't tank that!" Hephaestus screamed, checking the readouts. "It's decay magic! If it touches the armor, it will rust the gears in seconds! We need to move!"

"I don't run," Damien said calmly his voice reaching the ground. "I'll take care of it"

The Titan crouched. Thrusters on its back flared blue.

"Shadow Art: Flash Step (Titan Scale)."

BOOM!

The fifty-foot robot vanished.

It didn't teleport; it moved so fast it broke the sound barrier. The sudden displacement of air created a vacuum that snuffed out the green fire for a split second.

The Titan reappeared in the sky, falling toward the Dragon like a meteor.

"Dual-Art..."

Damien raised the Titan's right fist. The metal glowed blinding gold as he pumped his Dragon Aura into the Mithril knuckles.

"...Golden Meteor Smash!"

The Titan punched the Dragon in the head.

KABOOOOM!

The shockwave shattered the pavement for three blocks.

The Bone Dragon's skull cracked. It was driven into the ground, creating a crater deep enough to expose the ancient sewer lines.

Inside the cockpit, sparks showered from the ceiling.

"Right arm stabilizers critical!" Hephaestus warned. "The metal can't handle your output! You're melting the joints!"

"It doesn't matter," Damien gritted his teeth, sweat dripping down his face inside the mask. "Finish it!"

Time was running out, he was already reaching his limits.

He had to end it once and for all before anything he gave out.

But as the dust settled, a cold laughter echoed through the plaza.

"Foolish..."

The Cultist's voice came from the Dragon's broken mouth.

"You break the bone? I have plenty more."

"Formation: Iron Grave."

RUMBLE.

The buildings around the plaza, the shops, the homes, the statues, began to groan.

Iron beams ripped themselves out of walls. Stone blocks flew through the air.

"It's fusing with the city!" Lyra's voice came over the comms. "It's pulling the architecture into itself!"

The Dragon rose. It was growing. It was now twice the size of the Titan. Its armor was made of palaces and towers.

It wrapped its massive, architectural wings around the Titan, pinning Damien's arms.

"Caught you," the Cultist hissed.

The green Void Core in the Dragon's chest began to pulse. It was charging a point-blank blast.

"We're pinned!" Hephaestus screamed, pulling levers that wouldn't budge. "Hydraulics failure! We can't break free!"

Damien struggled with the controls. The Titan groaned, but the Dragon's grip was absolute. The weight of the city was holding them down.

The green light of death was blinding.

"Is this it?" Hephaestus whispered.

Damien looked at the pulsing core. He looked at the sword strapped to his back inside the cockpit.

"No," Damien said.

He let go of the controls.

"Open the core port."

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