The world had gone silent.
Not peaceful silent — pressure-silent, the kind that crushes the lungs and tightens the air like a vice. The demon's murderous aura coiled around the cliffside, choking everything. Stone cracked. Clouds split. Even the mountain seemed to hold its breath.
Erevos stood in the center of it all, fully restored, gears humming, nanites shimmering with enriched Royal Azure from the Trinity Node Core.
Karl felt it in his bones.
Agnes felt it in her code.
The demon wasn't "serious."
It wasn't "angry."
It was finally fighting for real.
Its muscles swelled, cords twisting like molten steel. Its cracked lips peeled back in a gnarled smile. When it spoke, its voice shook the air as though the sound alone had weight.
"Chosen… now… full fight…
You push… me… far…
Passive… full…
Honor… fight…
Your name… I… remember…"
Karl rolled his shoulders inside the cockpit, smirking behind the visor.
"Save the speech. You're not living long enough to remember anything."
Agnes' voice rippled through the mech.
A low, dangerous purr, but trembling with anticipation.
"Karl… he's not lying. That punch he's charging… it can level this entire ridge."
Karl cracked his knuckles against the interface.
"Then we block it."
"Block—?! Karl, that is—"
She stopped.
Because she felt something.
Something within the Trinity Node Core.
Something overwhelming.
Something perfectly aligned to Karl's instinct.
All eight floating gears around Erevos began to glow.
Royal Azure spirals coiled around them like rotating halos.
Torque bled out into the air in hard, mechanical pulses.
The demon's killing intent destabilized the atmosphere itself.
And Karl grinned.
"Agnes… enlarge the gears."
Agnes froze.
Then—
A tiny whimper.
"You… want to take that hit… head-on?"
"Together."
Her voice cracked.
"Okay… okay. Then I'm with you. All the way."
The demon roared.
—AND MOVED.
Not just fast — impossibly fast.
The air detonated.
The mountain dipped inward from shock.
One step shook the world.
Two steps made Karl's HUD glitch.
By the third step, the demon vanished entirely.
Agnes screamed—
"KARL— RIGHT!!!"
Karl snapped Erevos to the side, and suddenly the entire world darkened beneath the shadow of a fist the size of a house.
The demon appeared in front of them mid-swing, arm pulled back, every fiber of its anatomy primed to end Karl in one strike.
But Karl was ready.
"AGNES—ALL GEARS—EXPAND!"
She obeyed instantly.
The floating gears exploded in size.
Three meters wide → seven meters → twelve → fifteen.
A circular storm of colossal, rotating cogs unfurled around Erevos, locking into a defensive formation.
Each gear vibrated with Royal Azure rotations, nanite reinforcement, and torque bleeding through the seams.
Karl braced.
Agnes' voice trembled—
"Bracing torque layers… reinforcing density… oh god oh god oh god—"
CRASH.
The fist hit the wall of gears.
Reality buckled.
Wind blasted in concentric rings.
The ground cratered fifty meters deep.
Mountains cracked open from the pressure.
Erevos skidded back ninety meters across the exploding cliffside, boots digging trenches into stone, gears shrieking under stress as they chewed through the force.
Karl's teeth rattled.
His arms shook violently inside the control gauntlets.
Agnes screamed raw code into the channels—
"REINFORCING—RECALIBRATING—TORQUE SURGE—
KARL IF THIS SLIPS WE DIE—!!"
Karl shouted back:
"DON'T LET IT SLIP THEN!!"
The demon pushed harder.
Its fist sank deeper into the gear shield, metal sparking, gears cracking at their edges. The passive ability — the accelerating rage-fueled strength — surged again. The demon's veins glowed blood red.
"Karl… Karl—!" Agnes' voice broke.
"He's getting stronger with every second—!!"
"THEN SPIN THEM FASTER!"
Agnes' eyes widened.
She forced a surge of raw Vythra through the gear architecture.
"SPINNING UP—!!"
The gears rotated. Even the ones embedded in Erevos' frame.
Torque amplified.
Royal Azure lit the mountainside blue.
The gears drank in the demon's kinetic force…
…converted it…
…and began to throw it back.
The demon froze.
Confusion.
Then—
"No… no no… no turn back… not possible—"
It pushed harder.
The gears spun faster.
Karl roared:
"AGNES—REVERSE TORQUE—NOW!!"
Agnes howled:
"REVERSE TORQUE ENGAGED—!! HOLD ON—!!!"
BOOOOOOOMMM.
The torque-reversal detonated like a mechanical thunderclap.
The demon's own punch blew backward as Karl redirected the entire momentum into a spiraling shockwave. The monster stumbled—
Then skidded—
Then flew, tumbling across the ravaged mountainside like a ragdoll the size of a skyscraper.
It smashed through a stone ridge.
Then another.
Then crashed into the valley in a plume of rock and dust.
Agnes gasped, breathlessly shaken.
"It… worked… Karl… it actually—actually worked—"
Karl exhaled slowly, adrenaline still ripping through his veins.
"Yeah. We're not done."
The gears finally shrank back down, floating around Erevos once again, humming with residual torque. Agnes flickered the damage diagnostics across Karl's HUD:
Gears: fractured but functional
Erevos armor: stable
Vythra: down to 38%
Torque conduits: overheated
Blueprint Overdrive: strained but online
The demon was pulling itself up from the crater.
Slowly.
Angrily.
Karl raised Erevos into a combat stance.
Agnes swallowed, voice tiny.
"Karl… he's… he's coming back."
Karl smiled.
"Good."
The demon roared — wounded, furious, and realizing Karl and Agnes were not prey.
They were a threat.
A real one.
Karl stepped forward.
Erevos' gears flared open like metal wings.
Agnes whispered, voice trembling but filled with awe:
"Karl…
Now we finish what we started."