Karl descended.
All gears spinning.
All torque funneled.
All speed aligned.
A meteor of Royal Azure.
The demon's eyes widened—
It raised its arms to block—
Karl hit like a superheated drill.
A shockwave burst across the valley.
Blueprint rails shattered.
Rock turned to dust.
The demon slid backward thirty meters, heels digging trenches through solid stone.
Karl flipped, landing in a crouch, chest gears still whirling with murderous torque.
He grinned faintly. Every evasive maneuver—every leap, spin, ricochet, and dash—was buying precious minutes. Each movement tore through the landscape, the rails and nanite projections dissolving moments after he left them. Every second on his feet, he gained distance and time.
The demon adapted. Its massive hands swung, and entire boulders became weapons, hurled like missiles. Karl's knee gears absorbed micro-jolts of force, allowing him to pivot mid-air and send the floating gears spinning to intercept the stones, pulverizing them into dust before they could hit. The mountain echoed with explosions of rock, the air thick with the smell of ozone and friction.
Blueprint Overdrive became a blur of constant redirection: lateral dashes, vertical climbs, and sudden drops. Each contact point on the ground projected short-lived rails, twisting, tilting, and curving into impossible geometries. The demon lunged, only for Karl to vanish along a twisting rail and reappear behind another ridge, every time staying barely out of reach.
Minutes stretched like hours. Every evasion burned Vythra, every torque burst stressed the Rider Frame. Sweat mixed with blood in Karl's mouth, but he gritted his teeth. He didn't need to kill the demon—he needed to survive. To survive until Erevos could be repaired. Every second he stayed alive was a victory.
Agnes' voice softened when addressing him, almost shyly, in contrast to the lethal tone she directed at the demon.
"Focus on movement, Karl… let me handle his attention… trust me."
Karl felt it. The subtle shifts in airflow, the faint hum of spinning gears, the edges of the blueprint rails bending under the tiniest micro-corrections. Agnes was guiding his evasion without touching his body—she was providing subtle nudges in timing and trajectory.
He twirled a nanite blade, cutting through shards of rock and falling debris as he vaulted from a jagged ridge to a vertical cliffside. Torque gears whirred, amplifying each pivot. A minor slip would have been fatal—one more strike from the demon could easily end him—but the precision of the Rider Frame kept him just ahead.
The demon roared again, frustrated, smashing the mountain with a single fist, sending shockwaves that could have dislodged him entirely. Karl pivoted, spinning in a horizontal arc, the chest gears forcing torque through his midsection. The floating gears struck down falling debris, protecting him in microseconds, while blueprint rails guided his path up and over another jagged slope.
Time passed. Fifteen minutes of constant bursts, spins, pivots, and ricochets. Each minute pushed Karl's Vythra lower, but each second allowed Erevos to continue repairs in the Trinity Node core.
Agnes whispered, softer now:
"You're… doing well, Karl… just a little longer…"
"Yeah…" Karl panted. "Just a little longer."
He dodged another massive fist. Blueprint rails bent under his boots, pivoted off jagged rock, launched him upward. The demon's hand barely missed him, cracking stone where he had been milliseconds before.
The floating gears spun faster now, cutting through air like serrated windmills, deflecting debris and adding torque to his jumps. He shifted, darting between lateral rails and vertical surfaces like a comet.
Agnes allowed herself a soft, almost shy laugh. "You really do make this look… beautiful."
Karl smirked despite the exhaustion, feeling the momentum, feeling alive even in the constant threat. "I'm not doing it for beauty. I'm doing it to survive."
She didn't argue, though her voice carried warmth and relief.
Minutes became another cycle. Each evasion was a heartbeat, a measured gamble. He struck the floating gears into rotating arcs, slicing at falling boulders or jagged stone spikes. Each time he landed, he barely had a second to pivot, yet he never missed a beat.
And all the while, in the back of his mind, Karl knew: Erevos was repairing. Slowly. But surely. He just had to stay ahead, stay alive. Fifteen minutes might as well have been a lifetime in the shadows of the mountain and the roar of the demon.
Finally, Karl vaulted to a high cliff, chest gears spinning furiously. His knees absorbed the torque, body coiled like a spring. He paused—not to rest, but to gauge the demon, to plan the next fifteen seconds. Each second brought Erevos closer to full repair. Each second was precious, and he would not waste it.
Agnes' voice, quiet now, almost shy again, whispered:
"Good… just… keep going… you've got this…"
Karl exhaled, pivoted, and shot into another sequence of Blueprint Overdrive rails, the floating gears slicing and spinning around him. The demon, frustration and fury building, roared, but Karl didn't care. This was a battle of survival, of endurance. He had bought the time, and nothing else mattered for the next fifteen minutes.
And as the sun dipped behind the mountains, casting long shadows across the battlefield, Karl moved like a storm of nanites and torque, his Rider Frame alive and dancing, alive and relentless, a perfect fusion of speed, precision, and cunning.