For forty-five relentless minutes, the breach at Wall Section 8 became the most packed meat-grinder on the northern frontier.
The Beast Tide threw its full, unbridled fury against the narrow gap. But the gap was no longer an open roadway into the heart of the city. It was a tuned killing funnel anchored by two tons of living black glass, an aerial solar lancing battery, a shadow-stalking apex assassin. A frontline trauma marksman who treated incoming waves of monsters like diseased tissue to be systematically excised with high-speed lead and heavy dark metal.
Titus stood in the center of the sixty-yard breach like a granite island in a raging sea of thrashing black hard shell. The massive tortoise had anchored his front claws four feet into the foundation slate. His shell plates were locked together into an unbroken, domed vault.
Wave after wave of Mantis Drones leaped upon his back shell. Their six-foot serrated fore-scythes struck the black glass armor scales with the ear-splitting, clattering roar of a thousand forge-hammers against an anvil. Sparks showered into the cold morning air. Chips of stone-hard lichen flew like hail, but Titus didn’t budge an inch. A cluster of drones tried to swarm over his dorsal crest to reach the plaza behind him. Each time, Titus activated his Seismic Resonance Stomp.
