Kaius widened his eyes, slamming his blade home once more into the ragged hole he’d left in its chest as he unleashed a Bound Maelstrom. He didn’t know what was coming, but whatever it was had to be dangerous. The mana within the automaton was peaking, growing aggressively turbulent and unstable.

  Yet rather than weaken, the Centurion only pulled him in tighter with its spiked lower limbs, drawing its shield in close behind him to seal him in a deadly coffin.

  “Fuck!” Porkchop screamed, abandoning his current target to hammer the Centurion that held Kaius, attempting to rip open its shield and free him from its grasp.

  “Get back!” Kaius screamed as the mana within the construct warbled uncontrollably and a high-pitched whine filled the air.

  Whatever was coming, Porkchop couldn’t save him. He was the one with resistance skills and defensive spells — far better that his brother defended them from the still-active Centurion.

  “Fine! You better not die!” Porkchop replied as understanding crossed their bond in an instant.

  Kaius barely heard the crash as his brother re-engaged the other Centurion — too focused on his current predicament. He slammed his blade home into the construct’s wounded core. Perhaps if he was lucky, he could interrupt whatever was coming.

  As the sword slammed home, the barely controlled energy unleashed. Somehow the Centurion channeled it — a final, defiant death rattle as it vented the arcane energy through its lower limbs and into Kaius, making its suicidal contempt known.

  Kaius gasped as violent mana scorched him from within. It was a touch he knew well from Mystic’s Rend and the destabilisation of his own glyphs during his practice. Unconstrained and raw, this transfusion was not explosive, but it was no less deadly for it. Razor shards slid through his mana conduits and veins, tearing at him from the inside out with burning contagion.

  He gritted his teeth, choking out a scream as every muscle in his body seized. He couldn’t — wouldn’t — allow himself to be consumed in such a fashion. Not him. Not here.

  Reacting on instinct, he reached for Spellblade’s Harmonic Control, the skill that granted him absolute authority over the mana within his body. This was raw expulsion, uncontrolled and uncontested by the now-dead Centurion that had killed itself with its final move. Without a master, he could command it. Rapid Adaptation would be no help here, consumed as it was in sampling the new affinity. If he waited for a resistance to come, it would already be too late. He needed to act.

  Hauling on his budding Authority and every scrap of control he had, Kaius warred against the mana. Iron pooled on his tongue and oozed from his pores. The mana within him burned. It fought him like a wild beast, as if he was trying to corral a typhoon or bend the ocean’s tides to his whim.

  Still he fought. Arcane was his; he had shaped and wielded it from the very first moment he had cast his first spell. It would not kill him — his will and Authority were sovereign, and his body was his domain.

  Relying on experience, he guided the current away from his internals — up the edges of his ribs, down his arm, and into his blade. With its connection to him, it was the only thing easy enough for him to transfer the power into — and the only thing tough enough that he was sure it would survive.

  The crystalline edge of A Father’s Gift glowed, uncontrolled sparks of cobalt blue leaping from its edge as the blade itself shifted from grey, to a deep indigo to the brightest of bluish-whites.

  Kaius could hear the frantic screams of his friends and furious roars of frustrated torment as his brother’s concern flooded their bond.

  He pushed the distraction away, focused utterly on guiding the mana. If he let it reach his heart or brain or his delicate organs… The cost to his health would be too much. Hells, it might just kill him outright.

  Gritting his teeth, Kaius battered the arcane wave into submission. Yet his body decomposed around him — the path that the arcane took through his flesh sloughing and blackening. Health flooded free, fighting against the damage. It recovered him as best it could, but it couldn’t stop the necrotic black lines that arced from where the Centurion had grabbed him, up his ribs and across his shoulders, down into his hands.

  Blackness closed in.

  He roared.

  The centurion's core gave out at the last moment. A warrior of steel and violent conviction collapsed to the ground with a loud clang — dragging the still glowing length of A Father’s Gift from its core.

  The sudden yank of the greatshield that was pressed to his back forced him to the ground. Preoccupied with venting the remnants of the mana still within him, Kaius fell alongside prone on the centurion, gasping as his flesh bubbled and bled.

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  A Father’s Gift brightened a final time — mana vented until only dregs remained.

  Kaius lifted his arms, feeling his weakness as he laughed, manic fury flooding free.

  “Can’t kill me, you bastard!”

  “Kaius!”

  A moment later, the crushing weight of the great shield that pinned him to the Centurion’s torso was flung free as Porkchop ripped it open.

  He was gone again a moment later, diving away to contend with the second Centurion.

  A dozen rents had been torn in Porkchop’s heavy plate, flesh and bone writhing as wounds sealed tight to choke off the streams of blood that flowed free — evidence of the crushing power of the automaton. Yet for all the damage incurred, Porkchop fought like a demon. Orichalcum fangs surrounded his fully plated face as he ravaged armoured limbs and smashed the automaton back.

  The Centurion itself was battered — metal plating shattered and twisted, broken in parts from Porkchop’s own assault. Three of its legs had been utterly disabled, the shattered remnants of arrows jutting from armoured joints, while others carried slag marks from solar projectiles.

  In a display of agility, the Centurion pounced — tons of metal flying through the air like a cat. Its blade lanced down.

  Porkchop froze, The Stone That Weathered Time surrounding him with an aegis of protection.

  There was a clang as the Centurion’s blade deflected, taking a chip of Orichalcum ore with it.

  Kaius staggered to his feet, feeling his wounds. It would be unwise to engage in melee, but they needed to take down this Centurion quickly. He was injured, needed time to recover, and where two Centurions had come, he’d bet good money there were more.

  Hells, even another wave of worker drones would be a dangerous gamble to manage in his current state, with the final Centurion still active. It was only by Ellyntyr’s grace that they hadn’t been attacked already.

  He still had a Starfall, but best keep it in reserve — gods knew what it would do in confines this tight.

  But Stormlash… he remembered the way it had arced through the entire body of his first target. Were the automata weak to lightning and storm magic?

  Reaching for the power trapped inside Drakthar, Kaius grunted in agony as he unleashed the spell. The expulsion of mana aggravated the wounds that raw and unbridled arcane had left within him. The traces were still there. His health worked to prevent further damage — it was no matter to him. Rapid Adaptation would get the measure of the affinity soon. Until then, he could deal with a bit of pain.

  As lightning screamed in his palm, Kaius unleashed the spell. It landed, arcing across the entirety of the Centurion’s body. He released another and another, burning charges like water as iron flooded his tongue.

  Under his furious assault, the Centurion seized, its internals overwhelmed by the storming energy that coursed through it. Porkchop used the opportunity to dig his claws into a hair-fine gap in an armour plate, titanic might heaving open a gap in the creature’s armour — right where its core lay.

  It took Kenva barely a heartbeat to react. A ballista-sized arrow cut through the air, landing with pinpoint accuracy. Horizon’s Lance carried a second skill with it — Kaius recognised the familiar swirl of Shattering Rain. Bursting inside the creature’s chest, its core was eviscerated, shredded utterly. A cacophonous bang followed as a sudden wave of mana discharged. The Centurion fell to the ground, disabled.

  Kaius gasped, planting his blade in the ground as he leaned on its pommel.

  “Hells, Kaius, are you okay?” Porkchop said, bounding over.

  “I’m… I’m fine. Just a little scorched.”

  A moment later, he heard a ding in the back of his mind.

  **Ding! Rapid Adaptation has added a new Resistance: Arcane!**

  The relief was immediate but not total. It would take time for his skill to eat away at the remnant energy, and more still for his scorched conduits and molten flesh to heal. Hells, his chest was still bloody raw from the first shot he’d taken.

  Ianmus and Kenva rushed over.

  “We need a place to hide,” Kenva said, taking a single look at him. “The Centurion’s left you half-dead.”

  Ianmus said nothing, focused instead on the healing spell he was weaving between his hands.

  Kaius coughed, shaking his head. “They weren’t so bad. The next ones will be a lot better, now that we know their weaknesses. Besides, how are we going to hide? They seem to know where we are at any given time — it’s like they’re all communicating. Almost like the installation itself is watching us.”

  Kenva shook her head. “Fool. You’re half dead and you’ve spent half of your spells. We need to recover. Then we can think about taking more on. Besides, I’ve been watching the automata. They’re in a state of alert, and are patrolling, but they don’t know where we are. I’ve seen it. Half of them will be racing down a corridor only to stop and turn as they are about to pass us. We can lose them.”

  Kaius blinked. He’d been sure that he’d been right — hells, it felt like they’d been tracked the entire time. But if Kenva had seen otherwise, he trusted her. Besides, he wouldn’t turn down a break. She was right. He’d burnt through an awful lot of his spells. His mind raced, thinking through their options. The defences had grown heavier as they pressed close to the mainframe.

  An idea came to him.

  The redoubts. They’d passed several as they’d followed the signage that had led them deeper into the ruins. Sure, plenty of worker drones had attacked them from those corridors, but far fewer than had come at them from their current path.

  He voiced his idea, posing it to his team.

  “They sound like some sort of safe room or bunker. We’ve cleared most of the threats between here and D4, which we’ve already passed. If we double back, maybe we can clear it out and barricade it. If it’s somewhere defensible, that should be enough. I won’t need more than an hour or two to recover my resources and re-inscribe.”

  “Well, it’s not like we have many better options available. Let’s go,” Porkchop said, nosing him forwards.

  Kaius nodded, and they set off at a run, stumbling their way back the way they had come. He sincerely hoped that one of the redoubts would give him the reprieve he sorely needed after the severe beating he’d gotten at the hands of the Centurions. Somehow, he had his doubts that it would be so easy.

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