The Fall of Falcon Scott (49)

Goliath walked forward, the world quaking under the weight of his steps. The sea of Nightmare Creatures was flowing past his titanic feet, and all around them the furious blizzard was slowly retreating, the winds dying down as pale starlight washed over the vast killing field.

On the tall, broken wall of the city, thousands of turrets were roaring as they sent rivers of bullets into the attacking horde. The moonless night was torn apart by the glow of overheated barrels, the shine of swift tracer rounds, and the flashes of railgun rounds striking their targets in a conflagration of force, heat, and blinding light.

A few of those heavy tungsten rounds had hit Goliath, only to disintegrate fruitlessly without leaving even a scratch on the stone hide of the menacing titan.

The soldiers of the First Army trembled as they joined the barrage — the mundane soldiers, the Awakened, the towering war platforms, the few Masters that were still alive after two weeks of the dreadful siege. On the ground near the breached sections of the wall, others were shivering as they craned their necks to stare at the approaching titan.

...However, Sunny remained still.

'Closer... get closer...'

He was perhaps the only human in Falcon Scott who wanted the colossal giant to walk faster. The Siege Souvenir could only be used once, so he had only one shot to shatter Goliath's stone carapace.

Standing indifferently by his side, Saint raised the long javelin and placed it on her shoulder. The four shadows moved, fusing with her onyx armor. It shone with black radiance, and the feeling of great power emanating from the graceful figure of the taciturn stone knight instantly became much vaster, much deeper, and much more terrifying.

At the same, darkness flowed from Saint's gauntlet, slowly spreading across the length of the white javelin. Its whiteness was consumed, replaced by a lightless blackness. While the Transcendent Devil herself was augmented by the shadows, her weapon was now enhanced by the [Blade of Darkness].

There was the [Mantle of Darkness], as well, which made Saint stronger when surrounded by darkness and shadows. Sunny summoned the Shadow Lantern, allowing it to consume all surrounding light.

Soon, the three of them — Sunny, Saint, and Jet — were hidden from sight within a circle of deep shadow.

'Almost there...'

The fastest of the Nightmare Creatures — those that had survived the barrage, meaning the strongest and most vile of them — were already moments away from reaching the wall, separating into four wide rivers of flesh to attack the four breaches. Goliath, meanwhile, was a few steps away from crossing half of the killing field.

Sunny looked directly at the hateful giant and prepared to give Saint the command...

At that moment, however, something changed.

The titan's massive, malformed head turned slightly, and his sole eye stared back.

Sunny shivered.

There were thousands and thousands of humans on the wall, and all of them must have looked like mere ants to Goliath. However, somehow, it felt as though the titan was gazing directly at him.

The weight of that gaze was almost physical. No... it was much more dire than that.

Sunny gritted his teeth, feeling a very bad premonition grasp his heart.

'What...'

Then, the milky surface of the giant's eye quivered... and slid away like an eyelid.

Behind it, a second eye was revealed. Unlike the first one, which was white and had neither an iris nor a pupil, that one was of a furious red color, as if made of pure magma, and had three incandescent pupils floating in its depths, like windows into a scorching inferno.

Suddenly, Sunny was enveloped by unbearable heat. He felt water streaming down on him, and looked up to see the snow clouds melting in the skies above. Bizarrely, it was raining in the middle of the polar winter.

Beneath him, the seventy-meter tall defensive wall of the city suddenly moved and groaned. Glancing over the parapet, Sunny saw with horror that the impregnable alloy... it was melting, too.

All around him, the mighty MWPs were collapsing into puddles of liquid metal, the pilots screaming as they burned alive. The barrels of the powerful turrets disappeared into streams of incandescent drops, and the mighty railguns grew silent. A few meters away, Samara screamed and flinched back from her rifle, a vicious burn marring her cheek.

Across the entire southern section of the city wall, the great defensive barrier bent and deformed, moments away from collapsing entirely. Countless people plummeted to their deaths or were consumed by the immolating heat.

All of it happened in an instant.

'Gods...'

Knowing that there was no time to waste, Sunny shuddered as he changed his command slightly and sent it to Saint.

The onyx knight instantly moved.

Taking a single step, she raised the javelin behind her. For a moment, Saint's entire body turned into a graceful arch — from the tip of her foot, to her hip, to her shoulder, to her fist.

Then, her hand whipped forward, and the battlement under her shattered from immense pressure. Even her vambrace cracked, shards of onyx falling down like precious gems.

At the last moment, the four shadows slid from her fingers and wrapped themselves around the Siege Souvenir.

The long, immeasurably heavy javelin shot forward with the speed of lightning. Immediately, there was a deafening boom of sound barriers being pierced, and a powerful shockwave rolled across the battlement, throwing people off their feet.

The artificial Memory streaked across the black sky like a line of pure darkness, creating a whirlpool of hurricane winds in its wake.

A split second later, it hit Goliath's right in the eye.

There was a flash of light, and then a world-shaking thunderclap.

And then, the sound of shattering stone.

The Siege Souvenir plunged right between the titan's three pupils, disappearing into the red molten eye entirely. Then, it burst from the back of the giant's head in an explosion of broken stone.

[Your Memory has been destroyed.]

As Sunny watched in stunned silence, vast cracks snaked through Goliath's head. The colossus froze in a strange pose, its torso leaning slightly back. His eye was completely destroyed, and his head...

His head shattered and fell apart, giant slabs of stone plummeting down from a great height. The walking mountain swayed, twitched, and then slowly started to tilt.

Everyone — both the humans and the Nightmare Creatures — froze, watching the titan fall in utter shock.

Sunny blinked.

'What... what just happened?'

As if responding, the Spell whispered softly into his ear:

[You have slain a Fallen Titan, Minor Shard of the Stone Titan].

[...Your shadow grows stronger.]