When Titus took his second step, forty-five metric tons of tightly packed land-wide dark rock shifted with the terrifying inevitability of a world-size crash.
The ancient titan didn’t walk around the yawning fissure. He walked directly into it.
His massive front right limb, thick as a town water main and clad in linked plates of fiery iron, dropped squarely onto the eastern rim of the fracture. His front left limb planted itself with equal force upon the western rim.
THOOM.
The impact was so huge that the bubbling magma fifteen feet below was tightly packed flat, its orange surface dimpling under an invisible gravity metal tube.
Titus lowered his massive belly shell directly across the forty-foot gap, straddling the earth-shaking tear like a living, four-legged land-wide bridge. His four pillar-like legs dug their black glass claws deep into the solid mountain stone on either side of the rift, anchoring six feet into the solid crust.
Arthur tapped his collar radio, raising his voice to total command.
“Titus! Unleash the World-Anchor!”
