The silence that followed the core blast was heavy, choking, and total.
Then came the load-bearing groan.
GROOOOOAN.
Without the huge magnetic field generated by the Core Formation battery, the ancient Precursor steadying gyroscopes inside the titan’s belly seized. The three-foot high-pressure rams, empty of pressure by the burst channels, lost their water-pressure lock.
The eighteen-ton clockwork giant statue began to tilt forward.
Slowly at first—a tiny fraction of an inch, an inch—then with terrifying, speeding up mass.
CRASH-BOOM-ROAAAAR!
The fifteen-foot titan toppled like a cut bronze mountain, its star-bronze shoulder plates slamming onto the raised marble dais with an earth-shattering impact that sent blast waves through the entire nine-story foundation of the Thousand Treasures Pavilion.
