No time to think.
Quinn's final whisper still hummed in his ears, but the shrieking blade-wheels tearing through the air behind him surged like an incoming tide. Thought was a luxury, a prelude to death. Before his consciousness could parse fear or tactic, his body's instinct took over completely.
Erika didn't even decide to dodge. The muscles in his calves exploded into action, and he threw himself forward and sideways like a startled beast—a desperate, reckless lunge driven purely by the will to survive.
At the moment he lunged, the Marks on his arms erupted with a blinding, unprecedented brilliance. A searing torrent of dark golden light burst from their cores and raced madly along the channels in his arms.
"Grhh—AAGH!"
This eruption of power was no gift. It came with excruciating, heart-rending agony. It felt like red-hot needles were scouring his energy pathways, every bone humming, every muscle spasming. Yet it was precisely this violent, uncontrolled flood of force that, in the instant of his lunge, forcibly amplified his speed—just enough.
Swoosh—!!!
The cold metal edge passed so close it sheared off strands of his flying hair and strips of tattered cloth. A near miss. The visceral shudder of death brushing past made his scalp crawl.
However, the damaged Golem's assault was not limited to its blades.
Just as Erika's initial momentum was spent—before new strength could gather, his body momentarily stiffened by the Mark's agonizing eruption—
The Golem's severed left arm stump, which had hung limp at its side, suddenly lashed out. Driven by dark red energy, it moved with a precision and ferocity utterly unlike its clumsy bulk—a steel viper striking from below, its brutal uppercut smashing squarely into Erika's chest and abdomen.
THUMP—!!!
A dull, nauseating impact thundered through him.
Erika felt as if he had been struck head-on by a battering ram. All the air was instantly driven from his lungs. The pain was not localized—it exploded outward, a shattering wave that swept through his entire body. He heard the brittle, horrifying crack of his own ribs.
All color drained from his vision, replaced by black-and-white static. Sound vanished, leaving only a blank, ringing void—like a heart stopping mid-beat.
His body, completely beyond his control, was flung backward like a kicked sack of rags, tracing a short arc before—
CRASH!
His back slammed into a distant mountain of cold metal shelving and debris. The impact shook the entire pile. Rusted components, twisted sheets of metal, and dust-caked wreckage avalanched down, burying him alive. A thick gray curtain of dust billowed upward, swallowing him whole.
For a moment, the world fell silent.
Only the faint rustle of settling dust remained—and far away, the steady hum… clang… of the Golem's blade-wheels realigning.
Pain.Everywhere.
Fire burned through his chest. Each shallow breath tore through him, as if jagged shards of bone scraped against his organs. His back pressed against cold, angular metal; the point of impact had gone numb, followed by a deep, spreading ache. The overstrained Marks on his arms felt like cooling brands, throbbing with residual heat and needle-sharp pain.
Dust choked his throat, triggering violent coughing that doubled the agony in his chest. The coppery taste of blood flooded his mouth.
He lay collapsed in the rubble, half-buried, unable to move. His vision swam; his ears rang. Only the heavy, wet gasps—bubbling with blood—proved he was still alive.
A cornered beast.
The phrase surfaced coldly in the final fragment of his awareness. Not a metaphor. A fact.
He had been beaten back into this cage of steel and dust—gravely wounded, dying—while the hunter calmly adjusted its blades for the next, and final, strike.
The Golem's single dark-red eye pierced the thinning dust and locked onto him once more. The shriek of its spinning blades settled into a steady, murderous rhythm.
Escape? Nearly impossible.Fight? What could this broken body still do?
The Marks' glow had long faded, leaving only burning pain. Whatever strength he had left felt scattered, shattered by that blow.
Yet deep within the darkness of his consciousness—soaked in agony and despair—one infinitesimal, stubborn spark still struggled.
Fragments of Quinn's words flickered through his mind:
"Overcome it… persevere a little longer…"
Loren's terrified face before being flung into the fissure.Anna's pure, worried eyes.Wolfgang's stern, complicated gaze during training.
"Cough… hack…"
He spat another mouthful of bloody froth and forced his arms to move, dragging himself upward from the wreckage. His limbs trembled like leaves in an autumn gale. Each minuscule motion sent fresh lances of pain through him, tunneling his vision toward blackness.
The Golem began to move.
Dragging its ruined body, blades leading, it advanced unhurriedly—like an executioner carrying out a sentence already decided.
Propped against cold metal, Erika stared through the dust at the approaching shadow of death. His mind wavered on the brink of collapse. His body stood at its breaking point.
But he was not down yet.
This cornered beast was still breathing.Even if only its last, blood-flecked breaths remained.
"RRRAGGGHHH—!!!"
A roar tore from the deepest part of him—raw pain, fury, refusal—ripping through the dust-choked stillness. His eyes were bloodshot; veins bulged at his temples. Even if the blades tore him apart the next second, he would spend his final breath fighting, not choking in the rubble.
Agony still shredded his nerves, but something more primal crushed it beneath its weight—the absolute refusal to be broken.
With his still-functioning right arm, he slammed down onto the debris beneath him—not in blind rage, but to use the recoil. Bracing with his left arm, he wrenched himself free of the collapsed wreckage. The movement tore at his wounds; darkness swarmed his vision. He clenched his teeth and forced himself upright, staggering.
The Golem was upon him.
The spinning shadow of its blade-wheel engulfed him.Its cold red eye locked on.
No time to hesitate.
Erika's gaze snapped wildly across the battlefield—toppled racks, scattered metal rods, brick-thick rotting tomes—until it fixed on the Golem's single supporting leg, webbed with cracks, and the subtle instability in its center of gravity as it turned with its incomplete frame.
Now.
He surged forward instead of retreating.
A heartbeat before the blade swept toward him, he poured every last scrap of strength into his legs and launched himself diagonally into the Golem's blind spot. This wasn't a panicked roll—it was a suicidal, vicious lunge, aimed straight at the most visible fracture where the single leg met the torso.
At the same time, his left hand snatched up a twisted metal rod from the ground—part railing, part tool, one end jagged—and drove it forward with everything he had, stabbing, prying, tearing at the fracture.
KLAANG—!!! SCREEEE—!!!
Metal screamed as it collided and ground together. The blade-wheel grazed his shoulder, spraying blood and shredded cloth, but Erika ignored it entirely. Every shred of focus locked onto the rod in his hand and the fracture before him.
His grip split. His arm bones screamed. Even the last faint warmth buried deep within his Marks was wrung out and forced into this final strike.
CRACK—SNAP!
A fracture more chilling than any before.
The twisted rod shattered—but Erika had achieved his goal. The fracture in the single leg's joint split wide, internal structures sparking violently as dark red energy leaked out.
The Golem's entire frame lurched. Its eye-light flickered madly. It flailed its other blade-arm to stabilize itself, but its movements twisted and faltered as its balance collapsed.
The recoil hurled Erika backward.
He crashed into a pile of books several meters away, blood bursting from his mouth. His vision was completely swallowed by red and black, consciousness guttering like a candle in a storm.
The last thing he saw was the Golem staggering—then, its single leg compromised, collapsing sideways with a thunderous crash. Its blade-wheel bit into the ground, spraying sparks and dirt, temporarily immobilized, spinning and struggling uselessly in place.
He… had done it?
No.Only knocked it down.
It wasn't dead.
Darkness surged like a tide. Erika lay on cold books and dust, feeling life drain away.
Persevere…Still have to…Persevere…