While Tatehan might have survived the attack unscathed, his hand phasing through the plasma beam like it was nothing, he wasn't sure the Skyblade would be so lucky.

The beam had missed him, but it hadn't missed the craft.

The superheated energy sliced through the Skyblade's left wing like a hot knife through butter, severing control surfaces and rupturing fuel lines in an instant. Alarms screamed in Tatehan's helmet, warning lights flashing red across his HUD as the craft began to spin, the controls going dead in his hands.

The Skyblade was going down.

And it was doing so fast!

Tatehan had maybe two seconds before the whole thing exploded, taking him with it.

He didn't hesitate.

He released his grip on the useless controls, focused inward, and activated his gravity manipulation. His body became weightless in an instant, the crushing pull of Mars's gravity vanishing as he made himself lighter than air. The sensation was disorienting, like floating in water, but he'd done this enough times now that he could push through the vertigo.

With a sharp mental push, he launched himself out of the cockpit, his body hurtling away from the dying Skyblade as it spiraled downward, trailing smoke and flames.

For a split second, Tatehan was suspended in the air, weightless and vulnerable, the city spinning below him and the mech looming like a metal giant in the distance.

And then he reversed the effect.

He made himself heavy. Drastically heavy.

His weight multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, and suddenly he was plummeting toward the ground like a meteor, the wind screaming past his helmet as he fell faster than any normal freefall could manage.

Behind him, the Skyblade finally gave up the fight. Its fuel tanks ruptured, and the craft exploded in a brilliant fireball, debris raining down across the rooftops below.

But Tatehan was already far ahead of the blast, dropping like a stone, putting distance between himself and the explosion.

The ground rushed up to meet him, buildings and streets growing larger with terrifying speed.

He waited. Counted the seconds. Let himself fall.

And then, just before impact, he reversed the effect again.

He made himself light.

His descent slowed dramatically, the crushing force of his increased weight vanishing as his body became almost weightless once more. The sudden shift was jarring, his stomach lurching as momentum fought against the change, but he controlled it, guided it and turned his freefall into a controlled descent.

He touched down on the street with barely a sound, his boots making contact with the cracked pavement as gently as if he'd stepped off a curb.

No impact!

No harm!

No broken bones!

It was…Crazy stuff!

Just a soft, perfect landing!

Tatehan straightened, his armor still active, his helmet reflecting the glow of fires burning in the distance. He took a breath, steadying himself, and then turned his gaze toward the mech.

It was still there, still standing and still tearing through the city with methodical, relentless efficiency.

But not for much longer.

Tatehan activated his comm, his voice cutting through the chaos with sharp, absolute clarity.

"Now!"

High above, Torvan's Skyblade hovered at a safe distance, the pilot's hands moving across the holographic controls pretty well.

He'd been waiting for this moment.

He had literally been watching and calculating. The Thrust Anchor was already in position, held in place by the Skyblade's grappling clamps.

The moment Tatehan's command came through, Torvan didn't hesitate.

He pressed the activation sequence.

The Thrust Anchor launched.

It shot forward like a missile, propelled by magnetic accelerators and guided by targeting algorithms that locked onto the mech's back. The device spun as it flew, stabilizing itself in the middle of the flight, adjusting its trajectory with micro-thrusters.

And then it made contact.

The Thrust Anchor slammed into the mech's upper back, just below the cockpit dome, and its magnetic clamps engaged instantly. Metal gripped metal with a deep, resonant clang, the device latching on with enough force that even the mech's thick armor couldn't shake it loose.

The mech's sensors registered the intrusion. Its head swiveled, trying to identify the source of the disturbance, its weapons beginning to shift.

But it was too late.

Tatehan was already moving.

He sprinted forward, closing the distance between himself and the mech, his boots pounding against the broken pavement. His mind was already focused, reaching out with his gravity manipulation, feeling the weight of the massive machine, the sheer mass of sixty tons of metal and weaponry standing before him.

It was the largest thing he'd ever tried to manipulate.

But he didn't let doubt creep in. He couldn't afford to. Besides the ability was now pretty high in level to assure him the confidence that he needed.

He focused, concentrated and poured every ounce of his ability into the mech, wrapping his gravitational influence around it like invisible hands.

And then he lightened it.

The effect was immediate and dramatic.

The mech's weight plummeted, its mass reducing from sixty tons to thirty, then twenty, then ten. The ground beneath its feet groaned as the pressure vanished, cracks forming in the pavement where its immense weight had been pressing down moments before.

The Thrust Anchor felt the change instantly.

Its propulsion system, designed to lift heavy loads but not something as impossibly massive as a combat mech, suddenly found itself working with a fraction of the expected resistance.

And it fired.

A concentrated burst of energy erupted from the Anchor's thrusters, half fire and half exotic propulsion tech, the force so intense that the air around the mech shimmered and distorted.

The mech lifted.

Its feet left the ground, the massive machine rising into the air as if gravity had simply decided to let go. Like gravity had abandoned it!

It climbed rapidly, ascending faster and faster, the Thrust Anchor propelling it skyward with relentless force.

Ten meters.

Twenty.

Fifty.

The mech's weapons fired wildly, its systems trying desperately to compensate, to counteract the sudden loss of ground contact. Its rotary cannon spun uselessly, firing into empty air. Its plasma cutter slashed at nothing.

But it didn't matter.

It was already too high. Already doomed. Already helpless like a baby ant.

Tatehan watched from the ground, his fists clenched, his breathing heavy from the exertion of maintaining the gravity manipulation.

And then, when the mech reached two hundred meters, Torvan triggered the final command.

The Thrust Anchor detonated.

The explosion was massive.

A brilliant sphere of fire and light erupted in the sky, the shockwave rippling outward in all directions. The mech was torn apart from the inside, its armor cracking and splintering, its internal systems rupturing under the force of the blast.

Chunks of metal rained down, glowing red-hot from the heat, tumbling through the air like meteors. The cockpit dome shattered, the pilot—if there had even been one—vaporized in an instant.

Wait…

Thinking about it now, shouldn't there a controller? Someone who controlled the mech from within?

Or was the Mech controlled directly from one of the obscuron's bases?

Well, that was a mystery they would find out later.

Now, as the fireball expanded and began to dissipate, the mech's remains fell.

Burning fragments scattered across the eastern district, crashing into empty streets and already-ruined buildings. None of them were large enough to cause significant damage though. The mech had been reduced to scrap.

Tatehan released his hold on the gravity manipulation, exhaling sharply as the strain lifted.

He stared up at the sky, at the fading glow of the explosion, at the smoke trails marking where the mech had been.

And then, slowly, a grin spread across his face.

"Fucking fireworks," he muttered.

Words suddenly appeared across his retina:

[You have gained knowledge points!]

[You have leveled up in some abilities!]

[You have leveled up!]

[HOST STATUS]

Name: Tatehan

Level: 11 [NEW!]

Species: Human (Enhanced)

Knowledge: 158/200 [+8]

Repair Points: 57/100

[ABILITIES]

• Gravity Manipulation - Level 12 [+1]

• Regeneration (Partial) - Level 8 [+1]

• Enhanced Durability - Level 3

• Heightened Perception - Level 5 [1]

[INVENTORY:]

[Shadow Goblin Cores: 54 total]

[Tri-Edge Shadow Chakram]

[Serrated Heavy Chakram]

[Backpack]

[Armor]

[Novels]

[Shadow-Forged Blade]

[Kinetic Absorption Armor]

[Devastator Hand Cannon]

[Core from the Destroyed Fortress]

Lyra's voice crackled through his comm, breathless and tinged with disbelief.

"Tatehan... did you just—"

"Yeah," Tatehan interrupted, his grin widening. "I sure did."

And then… voices:

Riven's voice came through next, laced with laughter.

"That was insane," she said. "Absolutely insane."

Torvan chimed in, his tone equal parts relieved and awed.

"It worked," he said, as if he still couldn't quite believe it. "It actually worked."

The commander's voice cut through last, steady and authoritative.

"Good work, all of you," she said. "Tatehan, get back to base. We'll debrief in an hour."

Tatehan nodded, even though she couldn't see him.

"Copy that," he said.

He stood there for a moment longer, staring up at the sky, watching the last traces of smoke drift away on the wind.

The Obscuron had sent a mech.

And he had turned it into fireworks.

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