The world shivered as the demon rose from the crater, dust clouds curling around its massive, jagged frame. Its glowing veins throbbed with furious energy, the earlier blast only feeding its rage. Every exhalation sent tremors through the cliffside. Every step shook the ground beneath Erevos' boots.
Karl tightened his grip on the controls, feeling the nanites in Erevos pulse like living muscle, responding to the torrent of Vythra that surged through him. Agnes hummed in his HUD, calm but sharp, every calculation and probability feeding into their plan.
"Close quarters first, Karl," she whispered, almost reverently. "We need to test it… break its rhythm… find the gaps before it accelerates."
Karl's visor flared as Erevos pivoted into a defensive stance, gears spinning with precision. The floating halo-gear shields hovered, rotating in micro-adjustments, ready to deflect or counter anything the demon threw their way.
The demon lunged. Not a swing, not a stomp — a pure, brutal grapple. Its hand shot toward Erevos' torso, fingers like twisted steel bars. Karl ducked slightly, activating the nanite blade arms just in time. The demon's claw scraped across the reinforced armor, sparks flying, each strike ringing with a force that would have shattered ordinary mountains.
"Torque up, Agnes!" Karl barked.
"Already—layering micro-gear resistance—augmenting Nanite feed—contact in three… two… one—!"
The blade arms rotated, spinning in a lethal counter. They deflected the demon's claws, slicing the air as the monster recoiled, momentarily thrown off balance. But it recovered instantly, roaring in fury. Its speed wasn't immense yet — close quarters, deliberate, testing Erevos' reflexes, but every movement carried lethal precision.
Karl surged forward, using the close-range advantage. He slammed a shoulder-mounted blade into the demon's forearm, torque pumping through the armor to maximize impact. The demon grunted, staggering only slightly — far stronger than any training dummies or Berserkers he had faced.
"Reinforce knee gears! Pivot off left flank!" Agnes shouted.
Karl obeyed, spinning Erevos with micro-gear rotation amplifying torque through the legs. He slammed a spinning kick into the demon's ribcage, knocking it backward, but it didn't fall. It caught Erevos mid-rotation, its other arm slamming into the chest, forcing Karl back another meter. The cockpit rattled, nanites screaming in protest, and he felt Vythra spike dangerously.
"Focus the Nanites in the torso shields!" Karl yelled.
Agnes complied instantly, sending a surge of Royal Azure spiraling through the chest and shoulder gears. The impact of the demon's strike was absorbed and redirected, shattering a few cliffside rocks but leaving Erevos intact. Karl grinned behind the visor.
"Not bad. Not bad at all," he muttered.
The demon snarled, lunging again, faster this time. Each punch was a calculated hammer strike, but now Karl could read the rhythm. Spin. Duck. Counter. Pivot. The floating gears shifted automatically, intercepting claw and fist alike, slashing, bouncing, grinding, each hit sending shockwaves of torque and Royal Azure rippling through Erevos' limbs.
"Karl—its left arm!" Agnes barked.
Karl reacted instantly, slamming a blade into the demon's bicep as a floating gear spun into the elbow joint, locking it mid-swing. Sparks flew, and the demon shrieked in frustration, reeling slightly. Every strike Karl made now carried feedback into the nanites, data Agnes consumed like a predator.
They danced a brutal mechanical waltz. The demon's hands tore through air and stone, but Erevos met every strike with torque-fueled resistance. Each contact sent shivers through the cockpit. Karl's knuckles whitened as he pushed harder.
Agnes' voice rang sharp and urgent.
"Spiral them! Spiral the micro-gears around the core! Force transfer—maximize close-range control!"
Karl activated Blueprint Overdrive micro-rails in the arms, spinning the gears in perfect counter rotation. The demon grabbed the spinning arms, expecting to crush them, but instead found every force redirected. Its momentum threw it off balance again, slamming into the cliffside, sending boulders tumbling like pebbles.
"Karl… it's adapting…" Agnes warned.
"Let it adapt," Karl muttered. "We're the ones who set the pace."
The demon's growl deepened. It lunged again, fist raised, but this time Karl used the close-range precision they'd honed over minutes of combat. He parried with a spinning forearm blade, pivoted, then drove a knee gear into the monster's torso, levering it upward. It stumbled, and Karl followed with a series of close-range strikes — elbow blades spinning, shoulders torqueing, floating gears spinning, smashing into ribs and shoulders.
It was chaos — pure, calculated chaos. Dust, sparks, and Royal Azure light exploded around them, reflecting off the jagged cliffs. Each microsecond counted. Each strike, block, and pivot demanded absolute precision. But Erevos, Karl, and Agnes moved as one — a symphony of machine, human, and code.
The demon roared, staggering backward, veins glowing brighter with rage. Karl seized the moment. He pivoted around it, closing the gap. Spinning arms, torque-assisted shoulders, and floating gears struck in a perfect chain — a storm of close-range destruction that pushed the monster back step by step.
"Karl, speed shift ready," Agnes whispered, almost breathless.
Karl nodded. "Soon… but first, let's finish the warm-up."
The demon lunged one final time in the tight quarters, swinging fists that could crush Erevos entirely. Karl braced, spinning the floating gears into a compact, rotating storm that absorbed the blows. Each strike ricocheted off the rotating metal, creating a sonic shockwave that shredded nearby stone. Torque-fed pulses reinforced every gear, converting brute force into energy that fed back into Erevos' systems.
The monster froze, shocked for a heartbeat. Karl grinned.
"That's your cue."
"Cue received," Agnes replied, voice steady and precise.
With a surge of Vythra, the cockpit glowed. Torque conduits fired in perfect synchronization. Floating gears shifted outward, embedding new rotations into Erevos' frame. Blue sparks crackled along the nanites. Blueprint Overdrive rails spiraled upward, ready to accelerate.
The demon lunged again — faster this time. The air detonated around it. Rock dust exploded. Its speed had multiplied exponentially. The close quarters were gone.
Karl activated Gearstorm Nova fully, torque feeding into the floating gears, nanite blades spinning, Royal Azure igniting the mountainside. The battlefield blurred. Every punch the demon threw was now met by counter rotations and micro-gear pivots that kept Karl ahead by milliseconds.
The first impact — a fist of incomprehensible speed — slammed into the outer floating gear storm. Sparks, shockwaves, and Royal Azure torrents exploded. Karl pivoted Erevos mid-air, letting the momentum fling him along Blueprint Overdrive rails that twisted and spiraled around jagged cliffs.
The demon followed, faster than the eye could track. Karl cut angles, spun blades, and redirected forces. The clash became a blur of steel, torque, light, and raw power. The cliffside trembled, the mountainside shredded, and yet Karl and Erevos remained unbroken — pushed to the very edge of mechanical and human capability.
"Karl… we're moving too fast to think conventionally," Agnes warned, voice vibrating with calculation overload.
"Good," Karl replied. "We don't need to think. We react. We survive. We win."
The demon roared, fists swinging with unstoppable force, but Karl had transitioned from close quarters to full-speed combat. Torque-enhanced pivots, Royal Azure trails, floating gear strikes — everything converged into a perfect storm. Every second brought more destructive power, more tactical advantage, more chaos.
And as the monster lunged, the battle escalated from a brutal brawl into a high-speed cataclysm — Karl, Agnes, and Erevos at the apex, ready to dictate the terms of this fight.
The world itself seemed to hold its breath.
And Karl smiled behind the visor.
"Let's finish this."