The Heavens Shall Fall

Somewhere along the same route Siu and the others were taking, a small fire crackled between a few stones, burning twigs and small logs, providing light and warmth to the people sitting around it. It was deep into the night, even past midnight, and two figures were visible under the starry, clear sky. One of them was pretty much sitting still, stiff, while the other was moving around, much more active.

The latter's name was Grael, and when illuminated by the fire, he was a large man, not in height but in width. As for what was hiding under his clothes, it was hard to tell. Perhaps muscle, perhaps fat. His body was thick without being soft, giving the impression he could lift anything effortlessly, which made his average face look even more misplaced. He had no hair on his head, no beard, no visible hair anywhere except for the heavy dark eyebrows above his brown eyes, moving them in and out of a frown.

“Tsk... Slimy bastard. You do know that this was avoidable,” he said to the still partner of his, "Don't you?"

"..."

"Oh come on, Titus!" He grunted, "I know you aren't doing maintenance on your vocals! Speak, you hunk of metal! Say something!"

When the fire popped, sending an ember into the air, Titus's metallic body reflected it brightly. He was not someone wearing armor, because he was actually made out of it. Titus was something that many would call a sentient artifact, or, as others did around here, a construct. Or a golem. Even now, sitting beside the fire, he stood taller than most doorways. His body was very much humanoid, but not entirely. Sometimes mortals mistook him for an armored knight or something similar, thanks to the interlocking metal plates that covered him from head to toe. It also helped that his head was shaped more like a knight's helmet than a skull, which was probably a good choice on his original maker's part. Still, his helmeted face, with the two dimly glowing red eye-lights and a narrow seam where a mouth should have been, had many times scared people to death in the dark.

Currently, a panel in his chest was open, and inside it was a complex ring of a dozen or so formations, with a green crystal floating between them, blinking much fainter than it was a week ago. Its glow was steady, but not as full as it should have been, and it was getting dimmer and dimmer by the day.

"Oi! I'm talking to you!" Grael tapped the edge of the open chest socket with two fingers, but Titus did not flinch. “Tsk... it does look less bright... You burned too much of it already. I told you to listen to me; now, even if we cash in, half of it will go to maintain you...!”

“I calculated an acceptable expenditure.”

“You calculated wrong!” Grael snapped at his monotone, calm voice when Titus finally began speaking again.

“I disagree.”

“You always do when your calculation is wrong. You just can't accept that you can be wrong like anyone else, huh?”

"..." After a moment of pause, Titus’s head tilted a little. “That statement is structurally impossible.”

“Fuck off already...”

Shaking his head, Grael leaned closer, squinting at the Verdant Crystal in Titus's chest. Using his own essence to prod it, the green CC blinked as its light washed over his face, catching in his eyes. Tampering with the formations, he adjusted one of the smaller ones around it, then pressed a thumb against a cracked metal line running beneath Titus’s left collar plate where the frame was blackened.

“That fucker is fast; he even got you a few times, huh?”

“He altered direction thirteen times in less than two breaths. Yes. He is quick.”

“Lightning-based bastards are like that, and I warned you about it!”

“He also overloaded my left conduction array.”

“Can you fix that?” He asked, rubbing his bald head. "I can't hammer you back into shape out here."

“Correct. I already rerouted the key signals; I can perform up to 80-85% of my original mobility. I only need a fix for the inner crack; I can't seem to properly detect it.”

"Hopefully that will be enough..." Grael stared at him, while Titus stared back, finally nodding his head.

"It should."

"Next time, you listen to my plan, or he will slip away again. Understood?"

"Affirmative."

Finally, hearing that one word, Grael let out a long sigh.

"Come on, let me take a look at you."

Titus simply further opened his chest, revealing even more of his insides. Grael looked down, running his eyes over what he was seeing. His fingers were too thick for the tiny tools that appeared from a hidden container in Titus's abdomen, but he tried to grab them anyway. He selected a thin silver pin, inserted it into a tiny socket where someone's lungs would be, and twisted until a soft click sounded and a line of red-orange light ran across Titus's body, revealing the crack as a black line, as thin as a single thread of hair.

“There,” Grael spoke. “I see it. I'll also adjust what I can so your thermal cycling should stop stuttering.”

“Analyzing. Analyzing. Confirmed.”

“Still, do not overuse it; this is just a temporary fix.”

“Unlikely to be possible if we engage with the target again.”

"I said try, okay?" Grael’s frown deepened, shaking his head, "Try!"

He couldn't help but feel frustrated, not just with Titus, but with himself too. The fight at the logging site had not gone the way it should have. The trap they had laid down should have been sound. Their position had been good, too. They should have captured their target... that damned Vael... Vael Renwick.

If not for the fact they didn't make contact with anyone in the past few weeks, he would have guessed someone squealed. But that was not the case, because he did walk into the trap, but... he still slipped away. While fighting, Titus had caught him across the ribs, and that should have slowed down any ordinary Blood Resonance cultivator. Especially after Grael had brought the weight down hard enough to crush the man, maybe even kill him.

But he had to acknowledge, even if he wouldn't do so out loud, that Vael Renwick was not an ordinary cultivator.

His damn lightning spell had made it look as if it had turned his whole body into electricity and carried him through the trap, through a solid shed, over the timber stacks, and between the trees. He not only made a run for it, he even had time to counter-attack Titus before he had escaped.

“We injured him,” Titus said suddenly, as if reading his thoughts.

“Yes, and he doesn't have the luxury to stay put and start healing. So, we have to catch him before he disappears again.” Grael muttered as he exhaled through his nose. “How much fuel you got in you? I will have to know to plan our next move.”

"Calculating." Titus lowered his head slightly, and the formation lines around his chest socket brightened, their rotation speeding up. “Verdant Crystal remaining output: sixty-two percent of stable capacity. Combat expenditure above standard expectation. Left conduction array reduced by eleven percent efficiency. Camouflage array intact. Thermal transfer at seventy-eight percent efficiency after your adjustment. Self-restoration limited.”

“That means fuck all to me, pal. What's your speed?”

“Acceptable.”

“So, slower than the lightning fucker... What about your full sprint?”

“Short.”

“How short?”

“I won't be able to pursue him for longer than five breaths.”

“Tsk...”

“Yes.”

Grael rubbed his forehead, biting his lips, because their expenditure was getting way too expensive to his liking. The Verdant Crystal alone had been more expensive than he would have liked, but he thought it would be a great investment. It should have kept Titus moving, fighting, without devouring a pouch of smaller crystals every hour. In a way, it was true; it kept him functioning, but now it was burning it away faster than planned, and for Grael it only meant losing money by the hour.

"God damn Vael... That bastard has a gift for ruining things! I will crush his skull..."

“He is wounded,” Titus said, "Next time, we will succeed."

“Better be true, or I'm not refueling you again!”

“He cannot continue at full speed.”

“Neither can you, but fuck it.” Grael waved a hand, not wanting to continue arguing about spilled mead.

Instead, he reached for a small strip of dark metal 'bandage' and pressed it against the crack where Titus's ribs should be. The moment he did, the strip softened under his thumb as his affinity activated, deforming it. In his hand, the metal acted like clay, fitting itself over and into the crack. It was then that he noticed that Titus’s fingers twitched once.

"Hm?" Grael paused. “What is it? Pain?”

“Simple signal disruption. Continue.”

“You golems are something else, you know that?”

“Yes. We are not flesh-made, so we are something else indeed.”

"Fucker." Grael grunted, suppressing a laugh and continued fixing him up a little.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The repairs he was doing now were not delicate by construct-maker standards, and Grael was no artisan. He could mend battlefield damage, maybe realign casing plates, and force a bent joint back into place. He was a blacksmith's apprentice as a mortal after all. But that was more than sixty years ago, and anything complex would require a proper workshop, tools that fit his fingers, and someone who could read and write formations adequately. For now, his fixes had to do, and... He saw in the past how Titus had survived worse.

“Can you track him?” Grael asked at last, putting the tools back into Titus and closing up his chest.

"Checking." Titus’s head turned slowly, and his eye-lights dimmed until they were almost gone.

Suddenly, around them, the temperature dipped, making the fire flicker for a moment, while Titus lifted his right hand and held it palm upward. A thin sheen of frost formed across his metal fingers, then melted at once, turning to vapor that pointed eastward.

“My frost is still within him,” Titus said in a monotone voice. “He suppressed most of it, but he had no time to try and expel all of it.”

“Finally, good news!”

“I can't pinpoint him still. But I can track the general area.”

“Good enough. We will rest for a few hours, you run some final diagnostics, then we follow your nose. Any guesses where he is heading?”

“Likely toward Mirebell. He will want to shake us off within a crowded space where we can't attack him openly.”

"That was what I was afraid of..." Grael closed his eyes, shrugging.

Of all the places Vael could run towards, he would choose the nearest city. He wasn't even surprised; he would do the same. People, walls, noise, officials, noble houses, merchants, inns, tunnels, cellars, hidden rooms, old contacts, a thousand more options to disappear from view. Worst of it all, it was a Hollow Song city... Tsk.

“Can you keep your nose on the trail?”

“Until he expels it, yes,” Titus answered, nodding. "Even if he uses some kind of illusion spell and changes his appearance, my frost is in his marrows. I will recognize him when I get close enough."

"Hopefully, we will catch him in time..."

“He is going to seek help,” Titus said, stating the obvious.

“If he has any friends there, which is doubtful. He isn't from this region.”

“He can still contact the Hollow Song Sect.”

"..." Grael suddenly flinched, glancing at the fire for a moment, “Maybe.”

"If that happens," Titus was silent for a moment before speaking. “That complicates the retrieval.”

“Not that much....” Grael argued, "But it would be a bit trickier, yes. Sect issues and their interference are not my favorite thing to deal with, and this is their territory."

"Core region." Titus looked down at him, his head tilting. “Do you wish to abandon pursuit?”

"After what we already spent on this fuckface?" Grael gave him a flat look. “No. Let's not worry about it! You do your diagnostics or whatever; I am going to meditate. We will be gone before sunrise, and reach Mirebell before he can melt into the crowd. Understood?"

"Affirmative."

"Good." Grael moaned, sitting cross-legged before the fire, closing his eyes and regulating his breathing, "We should do everything as usual before he contacts anyone. And even if he does get some help, that may mean nothing. Politics are politics, and Vael is not a politician, or he wouldn't be running for his life. Hmph... Those fuckers can get away with everything, even more so than us, cultivators..."

"Let me remind you that I'm not a cultivator." Titus suddenly said, making Grael reopen his eyes, smirking.

"That's why we have a good chance of catching the fucker."