Chapter 10: Found Out

As he drew closer, Lu saw a familiar person walking out the gates, tying her short blonde hair into a ponytail in preparation to greet their visitors.

She then adjusted her gloves to tighten their grip, and from the air, gathered red particles that condensed into a sword themed in red and black. She brandished her manablade and assumed a masterful stance against the giants headed her way.

Immediately, Lu cleared her of suspicion from being the hostile scythe-weilding cybelian he suspected she was. However, a tinge of suspiciousnes still eminated, just for the off chance that someone can use two types of manablades.

He spun his feathers faster inside the machine to provide aid as soon as possible.

As the sun weaved its last rays of light into the air, the titans started to run faster. Chrio intercepted them and evaded a swift slam from the first titan and slid between the legs of the next one. She slashes into it and a loud metallic clang was heard. Titans wear extremely durable outer shell but there were gaps in them to allow movement. Chrio attempted to exploit the weakness through this gap but missed.

Taking on one of the beasts head on was not a very rare feat for the ones experienced in fighting them, but two makes it perilous. Chrio must have aimed to disable one of them to make it manageable.

The first golem jumps at her and she rolls aside, but falls prey to the backhand swing of the second one and crashes to a nearby tree.

Lu blasts his last animus charge in hopes of stealing their attention, which he achieved. Their deadly bright stares made Lu ask himself why he did that. His answer was that he did not want to stand by as someone's soul was about to be eaten alive. Still, he admits, that he could have done something smarter.

A green cloud enveloped Chrio and disappeared as quickly as it came before she kicked off the tree to plunge her blade into the leg of the titan closer to her.

Lu was again surprised and confused that the animus had long evolved from simply control one of the four elements like it did back in monitum, but he was relieved to see her be able to cast a powerful healing on herself.

"Quickly! Get inside!" Chrio screamed at him as the enormous entity fell on its knee and turned back to her for a punch.

She evaded it this time and was forced to leave the sword stuck in the hole. It disappeared for a brief moment then it was resummoned to Chrio by her will.

Mist as golden as its eye started leaking out from its wound, and it attempted to stand up, though obviously having difficulties with its shaking leg.

The governess ran the direction opposite to the city, leading the wounded golem away with her.

The one left with Lu pinned its arms to the ground and some of the gaps in its armor started glowingseemingly preparing to fire something at him. Lu was familiar with the attack. It was about to shoot six homing balls of energy that explode in contact.

Obeying Chrio's command to fall back was something he could not agree with because if there were others in the city that could fend off the titanic mechas, they should have already gotten out.

Lu had already seen how the city extends its walls using machines, and it was likely that the city could repair the damages before another raid occurs, but he as himself was not willing to make a gamble with lives at stake, no matter how small the chance was.

Lu drove to the speedwagon to the left side of Elle. Its walls expanded on his right.

There is a large river behind the city, and titans are put in a "deactivated" state equal to death once submerged. At least, it did back in Monitum. It was a gamble with life, but he wasn't feeling too unfortunate because most of the things so far works exactly the same way they did in the game.

The titan released six semi-transparent golden spheres from its eye and they all chased him.

He waited until he was past the front walls, then he used his manablade to block all of the projectiles that didn't miss. Lu reached the downhill area where he no longer needed to drive to keep jts speed thus he redirected all his attention into reacting to attacks.

The titan pulled in the air and a wall made of solid energy appeared just a few meters off the coast. Titans too, are capable of using animus hex as much as humans. It also didn't help that Lu could not predict it because he wasn't expecting an animus to work that way.

On the bright side, their absolute limit of usage is three per day, unlike people who can use another and stronger version of their animus for a cost, because the cost for the 4th usage for titans is deactivation.

The vehicle crashed into the wall, along with the boy who almost broke his back in the impact.

Even as he struggled to breathe, he ran to the side of the barrier to continue on his way, desperate to get to the nearby body of water. But the golem made the same gesture earlier and Lu was obstructed by yet another transparent wall of energy, knocking him away by his chin.

As he fell back to the ground, Esther appaeared with dreamy eyes, but opened them wide after she sees the chaos.

"EEK! A TITAN!" she shouted, seeing the giant getting closer by the second. "AAH! WE'RE TRAPPED!" she shouted, witnessing two walls of energy and one of Elle's blocked their paths. Their only way out now was through the titan, which is a lot less disirable than most other ideas.

Lu started digging using his feathers hoping to get underneath the barriers.

"You gotta hurry!" Esther cried. The titan was only a few of its steps away.

"Thanks, Sherlock! That was very helpful!" Lu screamed back.

Small energy particles of different colors started converging into the beast's eye while planting its hands down once more.

Lu's heart raced as he saw the unmistakably familiar stance. The titan was about to use what Monitum players called "Unmaker". A thick laser beam that vaporizes anything unfortunate enough to come into contact. It was one of the things that made him wish videogames weren't real. He started swiping the ground faster than he already was, knowing what comes next.

After just a few more seconds the unmaker was discharged, but Lu was able to run around and avoid the extent of its duration. Titans move slow whenever they do these kinds of attacks, including the speed at which they turn their heads.

The mecha stood up again after unleshing the beam, then started toward them.

Esther squeaked. "Hey! That thing's coming for us! You better get us outta here or we'll have to face another of those point blank! Of course, you could always take your time if you think you could dodge it like earlier" .

Lu shoving the soil where the beam hit to start off deeper. "As if!" he said.

The titan was only about a meter away when it charged up its particle canon once more.

Lu gave up the digging and resolved to using another method to deactivate titans -- by crushing its core behind the eye. The gap between them was shrinking after all, and it only takes one little throw to execute. Not making use of the circumstances you're given is one of the biggest mistakes for survival.

He threw a feather his hardest but the titan pulled at its side and a third barrier covered its eye. However, it merely cancelled the titan's charging. The tiny blade hit its mark, but only scattered into the wind like dust, deflected by the transparent wall mounted on the mechanic beast's eye.

As if it couldn't get any worse for Lu, it then started charging up again.

"That's cheating!" Esther exclaimed. To Lu, however, it was merely like using his manablade to thwart its missles. Though he does wish that the titan didn't do the same.

Lu had no choice but to ditch his current plan, and return to the first plan, which he also ditched earlier. He could only hope that there was an opening underneath the invisible walls, so he kept excavating on the damp and deep area, whose depth was thanks to the previous unmaker.

"We don't have much time! We have a better chance if we run through it to the wider exit!" Esther yelled. Lu ignored the idea and proceeded with his own.

The little fox girl ran in circles, panicking as much as Lu had calmed "What are you doing! We can't stay any longer!"

Lu smirked and shielded her right as another heat ray was drawn on them. The blinding brightness of the surroundings forced them to close their eyes and hope for the best.

For a millisecond the shield evaporated and Lu instantly formed another one, sustaining a burn on his arm and face. He cried out in pain but still held on. On the bright side, Esther can phase through the boy, so space isn't an issue.

After only a mere few seconds it happened again and his burns worsened. Esther was getting worried as she felt Lu's mana drop to its lowest, and even more when Lu grinned.

"Why are you smiling!" Esther screeched.

A gush of water then rose from the soil around them and erupted upward as the beam came into contact with it. The titan was forced to go back, but it was too late before it could stop the laser. The liquids got into its eye and dazed it. The energy walls around the eye dissipated and Lu took the momentary opportunity to throw as many feathers as he could conjure to the titan's core. The giant instantly shut down and fell in a loud crash.

The boy fell on his back as well, and looked up to the same dark sky he did when he first met Esther. The same feeling of helplessness and weakness.

Esther realized Lu had planned to get underground water and use the laser beam's impact to get the titan drenched, and the next parts was easy.

"Don't you EVER do that again!" Said Esther to boy a few inches from collapsing.

Lu smiled at her "Hey, I lived, didn't I?".

"You almost didn't! We could have ran away!" she said.

"And leave it to the people in the walls who don't know the first thing about fighting a titan? I'd rather not. Anyway, did you really need to be with me? I mean, you look like you're just made of energy, wouldn't the unmaker just pass through?" he asked.

"I'm maybe made of energy, that's exactly why the unmaker will probably affect me five times more than you ever will! What sort of logic is that!?" She screamed.

Suddenly, Esther's ears twitched and turned away from him. In the direction she looked, Lu could make out a figure of a person. He couldn't tell how they looked like due to his blurring vision. He was only able to hear a few muffled words through his fading consciousness.

"I didn't expect that" it said. "What a problem this is indeed".

Then everything went black and Lu was put deep in slumber of fatigue.