Griselda flashed an even more sinister, almost tender smile before laughing softly.
"You guys are really hard to strip of your souls, aren't you…" She took a few steps back, her silhouette gradually merging into the shadows of the metal structures.
"Eliminate them all."
"No survivors."
"…except the little girl in the hooded sweatshirt." Then she vanished, as if swallowed by the island itself. A low rumble answered her command. From all sides, the platform filled with humanoid robots, mechanical colossi, heavily armed soldiers, and deformed monsters, some crawling, others winged, still others so massive that the ground vibrated with each step. A living, mechanical tide completely surrounded the group. Yamero slowly cracked his knuckles, a predatory smile stretching the corners of his lips.
"Okay…"
"We'll have dessert before the main course, haha." Daru rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck with a sharp sound.
"Let's go." Yamero vanished. A sonic boom erupted, the air exploding with the sudden acceleration. He burst into the heart of the horde like a human meteorite. With his bare hands, he crushed a robot, driving its skull into its chest, ripped off a soldier's arm to use as a club, and smashed three other enemies in the same movement. The carnage became instantaneous.
He tore limbs apart, broke spines, and severed arteries with a swift gesture. Bodies flew through the air before disappearing into the void around the platform. A massive monster tried to grab him: Yamero jammed his fingers into its eye sockets, spun around, and hurled the creature against a mechanical giant, obliterating them both.
He then seized a soldier by the ankles… and used him as a living shield, absorbing the blasts before launching him in a spinning attack into the crowd, mowing down enemies and machines like bowling pins.
Meanwhile, Daru sprang into action. A simple flick of his wrist, and invisible gashes ripped through the air. Robots were sliced cleanly, monsters were sliced into perfect layers, soldiers were reduced to pieces before they even knew what had hit them. Every step he took was followed by a trail of silent death.
Maki calmly raised his hand.
The sky above the platform darkened abruptly. Luminous circles appeared in the air, and lightning bolts of absolute violence struck in bursts, vaporizing heavy units, melting metal, and charring flesh and bone. Cries were muffled by thunder.
The massacre continued.
Around the floating island, the flying monsters, which had been patrolling, broke formation and charged en masse, their shrill cries tearing through the air like war sirens. The sky darkened beneath their gigantic wings, casting shifting shadows on the platform already littered with corpses.
Yamero pushed off from the ground and leaped forward in a single stride, covering an absurd distance. He gripped the membranous wing of an immense creature, his fingers digging into the steely flesh. The beast let out a furious roar and twisted its long, scaly neck, trying to bite him, its fangs snapping inches from his face.
But Yamero smiled.
With each attempt, he shifted his position with precision, using the monster's speed and mass against itself.
Meanwhile, Daru vanished.
He reappeared instantly, perched atop another giant creature charging straight toward the platform. Without the slightest hesitation, he dug his fingers into the beast's neck, seizing and pulling at the exposed nerves as one would pull the reins of a horse. The creature screamed in pain, its body stiffening, then abruptly changed course at Daru's command.
The two monsters, now out of control, hurtled straight toward each other.
A fraction of a second before the collision, Yamero released his grip and launched himself into the void while Daru teleported just above, both dismounting their cursed mounts. The creatures crashed into each other with a monstrous thud, their bodies exploding into a jumble of flesh, bone, and torn wings that rained down upon the island in a bloody shower.
The two men were now in freefall. Yamero, his body straight, head held high, arms crossed, fell as if he still dominated the sky.
Daru, on the other hand, was upside down, feet pointing skyward, perfectly relaxed, watching the debris drift around him.
Yamero said, almost amused,
"So... you're having fun?"
Daru replied arrogantly, a cold smile on his lips,
"Indeed."
"I haven't had this much fun in a long time." They reached out and clapped their palms together, the impact creating a visible ripple that made the air around them vibrate.
At that precise moment, something changed. Beneath their feet, the floating island reacted.
Colossal cannons emerged from all corners of the floating island, bursting from the walls, the ground, and even the aerial structures as if the fortress itself had awakened. Their gaping mouths slowly swiveled… then froze, lined up directly on Yamero and Daru.
A moment of silence.
Then all hell broke loose. Blood-red energy blasts exploded in continuous volleys, tearing through the air with a deafening roar. Each discharge shattered the sound barrier, leaving behind scorching trails that incinerated everything they touched. The platform cracked, chunks tore away and plummeted into the void.
Yamero and Daru began traversing the platform at superhuman speed.
Yamero slid across the ground, leaped against suspended debris, bounced off shattered walls, dodging blasts by mere millimeters. An explosion grazed his shoulder, tearing away a chunk of the ground behind him.
"Tch... they're firing wide," he sneered. Daru, meanwhile, alternated between lightning-fast teleportations and fluid movements. He appeared where shots had just passed, literally walking between the impacts, his coat billowing calmly despite the chaos. Several times, he raised his hand and deflected a blast that disintegrated against an invisible force. A shot more powerful than the others struck the ground right in front of Yamero, unleashing a plasma explosion. He plunged through the blast, emerged from the smoke spinning, and landed on a still-smoking cannon.
"Bad idea," he murmured. He jammed his fist into the cannon's structure. The internal energy overloaded. A second later, the cannon exploded, triggering a chain reaction that obliterated three other nearby batteries.
On the other side, Daru slowly raised his hand.
"Dismantle."
The cannons aimed at him were disintegrated piece by piece, their internal layers crumbling as if reality itself were rejecting them. The structures collapsed without even exploding, reduced to inert fragments.
But the island did not yield.
New hatches opened.
Even larger cannons emerged, their power cores glowing with a more intense scarlet light.
On the other side of the platform, Maki faced alone the onslaught of soldiers, monsters, and robots charging and screaming, their weapons unleashing continuous bursts of fire.
Without flinching, she deployed a translucent force field that instantly enveloped both her and Aika. The shots crashed against the barrier in a shower of sparks and light waves, making the air around them vibrate but never managing to penetrate the defense.
While maintaining the active field, Maki slowly spread her arms.
Two colossal surfaces, like invisible plates of compressed reality, appeared on either side of the enemy ranks. The soldiers and robots barely had time to register what was happening.
Maki abruptly closed her hands.
The two masses collided with a terrifying crash, crushing everything between them. Crushed metal, pulverized bodies, stifled screams: all that remained was a shapeless mass embedded in the platform.
She released the force field.
"My turn," she murmured.
Maki lunged straight toward the remaining monsters. They opened their deformed maws wide and unleashed devastating energy blasts. She weaved between the attacks with unreal fluidity, chaining together aerial rolls, footsteps on suspended debris, and instantaneous changes of trajectory, flirting with death with every move.
A blast whizzed past centimeters from her face.
Another exploded behind her.
She suddenly leaped high into the air… then slammed her foot into the ground with a sharp, brutal impact.
The platform cracked.
A burst of pure lightning erupted from the point of impact, unfurling in violent arcs that swirled to the right before crashing down on the monsters. The discharge struck them head-on, hurling them several meters, charring their bodies, and leaving behind smoking silhouettes etched into the ground.
Aika, who had remained behind, silently observed the scene. The battlefield still shimmered with the crackling electricity as Maki slowly rose, her eyes calm, ready to strike next.
Yamero and Daru continued their deadly dance, their silhouettes blurring as their speed defied comprehension. Cannon fire slashed the air behind them, curving their trajectory like hungry predators.
Yamero narrowed his eyes.
"These aren't just projectiles... they're hunting us." No sooner had the thought entered his mind than the red energies shifted, sharply curving back to strike them once more. Space itself seemed to conspire against their movements.
Yamero raised his hand, forming a pistol grip with his fingers.
"Very well... let's play." Bursts of condensed energy erupted from his fingers, colliding head-on with the cannon fire. The impacts illuminated the platform with successive explosions. Each detonation canceled out an enemy attack, and some even faster bursts continued their trajectory right up to the cannons themselves, piercing them before detonating them in a shower of molten metal.
Daru, for his part, advanced with chilling calm.
Every shot that approached him was dismantled before it even reached him. The energy attacks fragmented into thousands of luminous shreds, instantly severed, dissolved, and then turned back on their emitters. The remaining active cannons were sliced with surgical precision, pulverized without leaving the slightest chance of retaliation.
In a few seconds, the sky above the platform fell silent once more.
Yamero and Daru finally landed on the ground, their feet slightly cracking the metal surface upon impact.
A heavy silence settled in.
Then…
The ground vibrated.
Gigantic shadows rose slowly before them. Seven colossal robots, shaped like mechanical animals, emerged from the island's structures. Their bodies were over twenty meters long, covered in thick armored plates, their artificial eyes glowing with a hostile light.
A steel wolf with rotating fangs.
A mechanical scorpion with energy stingers.
A giant falcon with razor-sharp wings.
And others, each designed to kill, crush, annihilate.
Their engines roared in unison.
Yamero sighed, looking almost weary.
Daru, on the other hand, gave a wry smile.
"Here we go again." The robots assumed attack positions, their weapon systems activating with a deafening roar.