The Colossals slowed as if sensing the shift in the air.
A weight pressed down, not from their size, but from the three figures now standing in their path.
The woman in black armor drew a long rifle-like weapon from her back. It's barrel-carved with ancient runes.
The glaive‑bearer twirled his weapon lazily, letting sparks of pale blue Aura lick along the blade.
And then...
"Power Zone: THE RAVINE."
The old man extended his hand.
A ring of silver light rippled outward from his feet, expanding.
When it reached the advancing center Colossal, the creature's massive foot sank...
And in the blink of an eye, the ground beneath it swapped with a patch of terrain far behind it.
The Colossal's momentum buckled as its leg plunged into a deep ravine that hadn't been there a second before.
Its head snapped downward in confusion, its titanic weight shifting awkwardly.
The old man didn't even flinch.
On The Left Flank.
"Power Zone: I Don't Know Where The Bullets Are Coming From."
The woman in lacquered armor raised her rifle.
Her Power Zone spread like concentric rings of scarlet light, forming a shimmering field surrounding her and the Colossal.
Each shot accelerated to hypersonic velocity, tearing the air with overlapping cracks and very loud booms.
No more than that: bullets materialised out of nowhere, they bent midair, each shot tracing invisible paths.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three shots fired in less than a heartbeat.
The left-flanking Colossal roared as its kneecap shattered.
It swiped an arm to block the next shot, but her bullet curved around its limb, drilling through its eye with a wet crunch.
On The Right Flank.
"Power Zone: Waves of Catastrophe."
The glaive-wielder slammed the butt of his weapon into the earth.
His Power Zone ignited in a burst of blue, expanding outward in rippling waves, as though the ground itself had become liquid.
When the right-flanking Colossal charged into his zone, each footstep sent waves rippling outward.
And when those waves crashed back, they struck like solid walls of force, snapping the creature's ankle mid‑stride.
It screamed, swiping, but the glaive spun in a whirl of arcs.
He leapt high, blade dripping Aura, and came down with a grin:
"Aura Power: Tidebreaker."
The glaive's strike unleashed a splash of kinetic energy, a cascading blast that tore open the Colossal's shoulder in a shower of black ichor and bone.
The three masters moved like the elements themselves.
One rearranging the world with a gesture, one bending every shot into a perfect kill and one making the ground and air a weapon.
Cid's legs felt weak, but he forced himself to stand taller, eyes locked on their every motion.
Elias muttered, almost reverently, "They're monsters in human skin…"
Yuri's hands tightened.
The center Colossal roared, wrenching its trapped leg free, slamming its fists into the earth to launch debris like meteors.
The old man calmly raised a hand, each boulder that hurtled toward them swapped midair with harmless clumps of dirt far behind the lines, detonating in empty fields.
The left-flank Colossal, blinded in one eye, charged blindly.
The woman's field lit up like a lattice of crimson stars. She fired a single shot, and then another, each rebounding off unseen vectors until they struck vital joints, peeling away armor-like plates.
On the right, a wave surged up like an ocean breaking against rocks, hurling the Colossal backward with bone-shattering force.
Explosions rippled across the front.
Aura storms flared like miniature suns, painting the night in hues of blue, silver, and red.
Cid's heart thundered, but it wasn't fear now, it was fire.
"They're buying us time to retreat," Elias said, voice trembling.
"No," Cid corrected softly, eyes locked on his master. "They're showing us the path."
The three students stood their ground, watching as their masters carved legends into the battlefieldand the war against the Colossals truly began.
The center Colossal's roar changed.
Not a mindless bellow this time, but a grinding sound that rose and fell in strange cadences, like a signal.
Cid froze.
"What... what is that sound?"
The left-flank Colossal, despite its shattered knee and gaping eye socket, stopped its charge. It turned its head toward the center, the ruined joints twisting with grotesque pops.
The right‑flank Colossal, its shoulder still gushing black ichor, suddenly stopped bracing against the glaive‑man's waves and pivoted, ignoring the master before it.
"They're... moving together," Yuri whispered, eyes wide.
"No... they are converging."
The three giants began to drag themselves, staggering but relentless, back toward the center.
Each step left craters in the mud, each movement a thunderclap.
The old man's iron eyes narrowed.
"They're not supposed to think. But that..."
He stopped mid-sentence, jaw tight.
"...that's a call."
The glaive‑man cursed, slamming his weapon down to create another shockwave."OH NO YOU DON'T!"
A wall of surging earth erupted before the right Colossal, but it didn't stop.It should have staggered, but it lowered its shoulder and pushed through, shoving aside tons of dirt and stone like mist.
The woman fired a dozen shots in rapid succession, her crimson Zone singing as bullets tore through the left Colossal's legs.
It stumbled, ichor spraying.
But then it shoved itself forward on its hands, dragging its broken frame through the mud.
The center Colossal, still half‑trapped in the ravine the old man created, slammed its fists into the ground.
The shockwaves made the earth quake.
The ravine's walls crumbled inward, letting the behemoth pull itself free.
"Stop them," the old man barked, voice sharp for the first time. "Do not let them converge!"
He snapped his hand out.
Another SWAP, two boulders from miles away suddenly traded places with the center Colossal's feet, tripping it into a crouch.
But even as it fell, it kept crawling forward, dragging its impossible weight toward the others.
Elias's voice shook. "W‑Why?! Why are they gathering?!"
"I don't know," Yuri said, eyes narrowing, "but if those things are trying to meet up... they can't let them."
The woman in black armor skated across the mud, her Power Zone pulsing brighter.
She fired again and again, bullets splitting and ricocheting along impossible curves.
Chunks of the left Colossal's arm disintegrated.
Yet still it crawled, unfazed, a nightmare refusing to stop.
The glaive‑man gritted his teeth, slashing arcs of Aura to send shockwaves through the right Colossal's legs.
"You're not going anywhere!" he roared, slamming the glaive into the ground so hard.
For a heartbeat, the Colossals slowed.
Cid felt hope rise...
...until the center one shouted again.
The sound was deeper now, vibrating in their bones.
Cid clutched at his ears, grimacing.
It wasn't a roar of pain or anger.
It was commanding.
The left and right Colossals answered with guttural bellows, forcing themselves through injuries as if pain didn't exist.
"Something's wrong," Elias whispered, backing a step.
"They're... they're pulling together for a reason."
The old man's face tightened.
"Do not let them meet! If they reach each other..."
A new quake shook the battlefield as the three titans closed the gap by another hundred meters, mud spraying, soldiers scattering in terror.
The old man thrust his hand forward again, sweat beading on his brow, trying another SWAP to scatter them...
...but the old man coughed up blood as the Swap failed, his powers took too much toll on him.
The glaive‑man's Aura flared brighter, but even he sounded strained:"Then we cut them down here! Before whatever trick they're pulling goes off!"
Cid stood rooted, watching those three impossible shapes drag themselves together despite everything thrown at them.
His breath came in ragged gasps.
"What happens... if they touch?" Elias asked quietly.
Yuri didn't answer.
Ahead, the woman in black armor crouched, her rifle glowing crimson-hot, preparing a shot that could split mountains.
The old man planted his feet, veins in his neck straining as he prepared another SWAP on a scale that might swap an entire Mount Everest.
The glaive‑man spun his weapon and charged, blue waves crashing outward like a storm at sea.
And still...
The three titans kept crawling, kept dragging their ruined bodies closer and closer together.
Something ancient and primal rose in Cid's chest as he watched, a terror he'd never known before.
"If they meet..."
The ground shuddered again.
"...something worse than anything we've seen is coming."