The black tide hit the rubble ramp like a storm surge smashing against a breakwater.
The first rank of Acid-Spitters surged forward on hundreds of jointed, yellow-banded legs, their semi-clear chest sacs pulsing with bilious green soft glow as they built deep water pressure. From seventy yards away, a volley of high-pressure acid jets arched through the gray smoke. It hissed as they cut through the cold air like poisoned javelins.
“Citadel formation! Drop!” Arthur commanded through the Tri-Sync Tactical Mesh.
Titus reacted with the speed of an iron vault door snapping shut.
His massive dark rock back shell flared. His front limbs folding was tight beneath his belly shell as he swelled his heavy local gravity barrier.
CLANG-SHHHH.
The volley of boiling acid struck the angled armor scales of Titus’s dorsal shell. He splashed harmlessly into the rubble where it ate into the crushed lime with violent clouds of white, skin-burning foam. The two-ton tortoise didn’t flinch. The earth-heat within his core stopped the acid’s chemical bonds before it could penetrate his stone glaze.
Behind Titus’s living shield, the commoner militia stood fully unharmed.
