Rodion cut him off, stepping between with calm inevitability. Anterior plates flared like overlapping shields. The creature's swipe crashed harmlessly against the alloy-root composite, sparks spraying. Rodion didn't budge.
A piston hissed. The construct's right arm telescoped, elbow joint popping, and hammered down in a sledge-stroke. The creature splattered against a pillar—lumpy bark bones cracking like kindling. Not finished, Rodion's forearm rotated, panels separating to reveal a bank of tiny eel-blue emitters. With a soft FWOOMP a lattice of shimmering silk shot out, blooming mid-air into a net. The strands wrapped another attacker that had been mid-leap, freezing it like an insect in amber and pinning it to the wall.
"That's my boy," Mikhailis muttered, adrenaline sharpening every syllable. His heart hammered so loudly he worried the Hollowguard could hear.
