The clash on the narrow dark rock terrace was an ear-splitting loud noise of screeching metal. It snapped high-pressure channels, and bone-shattering impacts.
Cerberus Beta was in mid-air, its two-ton diamond-armored frame hurtling toward Arthur Vance with jaws wide open to crush his torso into paste.
Arthur didn’t flinch, and he didn’t retreat.
He stood his ground on the edge of the fiery rock. His tactical monocle tracked the beast’s speed vector down to the tiny fraction of an inch.
A micro-spatial empty pocket fold snapped the air into razor-thin sight distortions, collapsing the distance between upper and lower stone terraces.
A ripple of warped silver light tore through map point space six inches behind Cerberus Beta’s rear hocks.
Vesper didn’t leap from the upper shelf. She phase-slipped through the spatial boundary, materializing in the dead-zone behind the diamond hound’s hindquarters with zero sound, zero heat signed name, and zero air shifted weight.
Her three-foot segmented whip-tail lashed forward in a faster-than-sound silver crescent:
