After smashing the head of a roughly one-meter-tall spider-like machine that pounced at him with a single punch, Kain raised an eyebrow and looked toward the direction where the biggest commotion was coming from.
What came into view was a massive machine, shaped like a gigantic hunting-hound mech that walked upright on two legs.
It really did resemble the Warhound-class Titan Kain had seen before.
But this thing was bigger, closer in size to a Reaver-class Titan, towering over twenty meters tall.
Its right mechanical arm ended in what looked like an extremely reinforced steel claw, clearly built for tearing through hard targets.
Its left mechanical arm, meanwhile, wasn't "holding" anything—five rotary cutters had been welded directly onto it as fingers.
Suddenly, the arm with the welded cutters shot straight toward this direction, and the cutters immediately spun up.
Their rotation seemed to accelerate continuously, producing a shrill, overdriven scream, as if the system was running beyond safe limits.
In fact, it really did look overloaded—like those five circular blades were about to shake loose and fling themselves free.
Wait. Fling themselves free?
Kain's expression changed.
Without hesitation, he leapt sideways.
Almost at the exact instant he left the ground, the circular blades—spinning so fast that friction turned them red-hot and glowing—broke the sound barrier as they launched, each one trailing a faint cone of vapor from the shock.
In the blink of an eye—literally a blink—they were already right in front of him, close enough to touch, like teleportation.
Of course, it wasn't teleportation. The distance was only a few hundred meters, and when something is moving faster than sound, it can easily look like instant movement.
Kain didn't blink.
In that lethal moment, he dove in the direction he'd chosen, hooked an arm around someone's back, and yanked them hard toward him.
Almost the instant the person was pulled into his arms, a spinning blade flashed past right beside them.
If he'd been even 0.1 seconds slower, their body would have been carved apart.
Behind him, the ground where he'd originally taken off was gouged open, a vicious, unforgettable scar cut straight through the earth.
When he rolled and hit the ground, Kain saw what had happened to the others.
Over where 2B's team had been, two women hadn't had time to dodge at all.
They were cut down—fatally dismembered.
Of the three who remained, one woman had lost a leg, while the other two—2B and the one called 9S—barely avoided the blades at the last possible instant.
"Thank you."
The voice was from the person he'd just saved: Ms. A2.
With her ability, she should have been able to evade as well—provided she noticed the incoming blades in time. But a nearby machine lifeform had interfered, and she hadn't immediately recognized the giant mech's attack pattern.
"Where's its power source?"
With the weapons he had on hand right now, Kain didn't have enough firepower to bring down something that large head-on.
That meant he needed a weakness—one decisive strike to kill it.
"You want to destroy the power source? Not recommended. The protective armor is too thick. Recommended: destroy the control system."
That was 2B's suggestion.
And while the two of them spoke, the three of them—Kain, 2B, and A2—were already sprinting straight at the giant machine, closing the distance rather than pulling away.
In the current situation, creating distance was actually more dangerous. It gave the machine more room to swing its limbs and unleash its full range of attacks.
Up close, however, a large mechanized beast like this had far fewer clean angles to strike.
Boom—boom—!
Two tremendous explosions detonated above them.
Those were missiles—attacks aimed by the giant machine—but they hadn't been intercepted by Kain or A2.
They were blown apart by YoRHa support.
More precisely, by support fire from the small floating machine at 2B's side.
At the same time, 2B sprinted along one flank, angling for a weak point of her own, clearly planning to exploit an opening.
In the space of a breath, they were already beneath the giant mech. Just as they prepared to climb up onto it, countless spider-like machines suddenly poured out from the mech's interior—swarming from vents, seams, and hidden corners like a nest being kicked open.
『Enable live broadcast mode?』
That message abruptly surfaced in A2's mind, making her freeze.
It was a pop-up from that chat system.
If she enabled the live broadcast, it meant their current situation would be streamed to the others in the channel.
Normally, A2 would hate being watched—like her every move was under surveillance.
But this "broadcast" had the feel of a distress call.
After all, the whole point of the channel's leaked intelligence was that someone's world might contain information about someone else's world.
If she enabled the broadcast now, maybe someone out there actually knew her world well—knew the structure of this giant machine, knew its precise weak point, and could pass that intel to her in time for her to respond properly to the crisis.
Then her body jerked violently.
Someone had grabbed and yanked her back.
A2 snapped to attention in alarm—she'd been distracted for a fraction too long, and a spider-type machine had nearly taken her head off with its scythe-like legs.
"Don't space out."
The voice belonged to the one who'd saved her again—the man she'd invited into this world.
A2 made the decision.
She confirmed the live broadcast, then focused completely on cutting down the spider swarm.
…
Finally, school was over.
Ruri Gokou logged into the [Hyperdimensional Channel] without hesitation.
Huh?
Only A2 was online.
A quiet, uncommunicative type—probably saturated with that gloomy aura.
Wait.
What was this?
Kuroneko noticed that beneath A2's avatar icon, there was a prompt indicating she was currently broadcasting live.
A2 hadn't uploaded any avatar image, so her icon was just blank white.
But the avatar didn't matter right now.
What did "live broadcast" even mean?
Ruri "clicked" it with a thought, and a cursor flicked over as if pressing a button. A window popped open.
This was—an actual live stream?
So the system had gained a function like this.
What was A2 doing?
Fighting?
On-screen, a swarm of mechanical spiders was attacking A2.
And A2—wait, with this camera tracking her as the center, she was—
A silver-haired beauty.
A truly stunning one.
Her combat stance was like a valkyrie in motion.
The footage also caught other figures.
Another woman with short silver hair dressed in black, with a figure and presence that screamed "beauty" as well.
But she had a strip of cloth covering her eyes, like a blindfold.
Was she blind?
Oh, and that one—wearing huge, heavy armor, carrying a crude-looking gun.
The bullets he fired exploded on impact.
But unfortunately, when they hit a massive metal plate, they didn't cause much damage.
And that metal plate moved.
This—
No, wait.
It wasn't a "metal plate."
As A2 repositioned, the view widened, and Kuroneko finally saw the full outline.
It was a gigantic metal mechanical monster!
What was going on?
Were they fighting a boss?
(End of Chapter)
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