Three steel giants rose from the silos beneath the dome.
Each stood fifty feet tall. Dark armor covered their bodies, and red optical sensors glowed behind thick quartz ports. Steam hissed from their shoulder joints.
Their right hands carried thirty-foot plasma lances. Their left hands held five-ton pneumatic fists that opened and closed with heavy thumps.
Tss-CHOP! Tss-CHOP! Tss-CHOP!
Cultivation histories called them the Three Ancient Void Titans. Up close, their purpose was easier to read: mining frames fitted with cutting tools and heavy breakers.
Overseer-04 pointed all eight arms downward.
“T-T-TITANS! CRUSH THIS M-M-MORTAL PEST!”
The three machines stepped onto the central deck.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
One hundred and thirty-five metric tons of walking steel shook the dome. The catwalk cables hummed.
Xiaoyao dropped behind the console. His sword slipped from his hand.
“The slayers of twelve sects. No mortal blade can pierce them.”
Austin pushed up his glasses and scanned the lead machine.
Austin’s mouth fell open.
“An earthmover? They put a welding torch and a rock breaker on mining equipment, painted it black, and called it a Titan of Slaughter?”
He pointed at its legs.
“High-pressure lines on the outside with no guards. Three thousand PSI, and a safety inspector would red-tag it. Knee bolts with no lock wire, no thread locker, not even a cotter pin. Whoever approved these should have lost his license before the First Epoch ended.”
The lead titan lunged.
Its plasma lance shot toward Austin’s chest.
He took two measured steps and dipped his left shoulder. The lance passed three inches above his hard hat and scorched the ceiling.
Before the machine could pull it back, Austin moved behind its left leg. He swung his pipe wrench around and locked the jaws onto the exposed knee bolt.
CLANK!
He planted his boots and turned with the full force of his stellar core.
“Lefty-loosey, rust bucket.”
CREAK—CRUNCH-SNAP!
The bolt sheared off. Its head whistled across the dome and rang against a distant wall.
The hydraulic line burst. Red fluid sprayed into the air.
Without pressure in its knee, the titan’s left leg folded. Armor twisted, bearings screamed, and forty-five tons of steel crashed onto the deck.
The second titan charged through the spray and raised its pneumatic fist.
Austin climbed onto the fallen machine, jumped to its shoulder, and hooked his wrench behind the second titan’s elbow linkage. Instead of loosening another bolt, he used the handle as a pry bar.
CRACK!
The control valve jammed in reverse.
The five-ton fist fired backward and smashed the titan in its own face.
CLANG-DONG!
Its head snapped back. Quartz sensors burst. The machine lost its balance and toppled over the railing into the support frame below.
The third titan stopped and lowered its lance. A charging indicator climbed from thirty to forty-five percent.
Then an eight-hundred-pound black blur crossed the deck.
WOOF!
Pug leaped and closed all three sets of jaws around the titan’s main hydraulic return line.
CHOMP-CRUNCH!
His nether-solar teeth cut through the steel-braided hose. Hot red oil sprayed over his face and chest.
Pug landed, shook all three heads, and licked his chops as if he had discovered a new kind of beef broth.
The titan’s pressure fell to zero. Its brakes locked. It swayed for two seconds, then fell forward.
WHAM.
The fight had lasted forty-two seconds.
Three legendary Void Titans lay in a leaking heap. Austin wiped a spot of oil from his cheek and marked each chest plate with his grease pencil.
SCRAP SALVAGE — 135 TONS
PROPERTY OF SUNSET PEAK FOUNDRY
MOVE TO SECTOR B FREIGHT ELEVATOR
Xiaoyao crawled out from behind the console. He watched the broken bolt head roll across the floor.
“The titans that slaughtered our ancestors were defeated by the Counter-Clockwise Reversal of the Ancient Thread.” He looked up. “Senior, is ‘lefty-loosey’ the supreme secret of unbinding the cosmos?”
“No. Standard right-hand thread. Clockwise tightens, counterclockwise loosens. If you don’t know which way a nut turns, put down the wrench.”
Above them, Overseer-04 flickered violently.
“MY TITANS! MY UNBEATABLE SLAUGHTER GOLEMS! CRIPPLED BY A PIPE WRENCH?”