The Heavens Shall Fall

Before anything could be said or done, Titus had already advanced on Siu, one of his heavy arms reaching for Vael’s body. However, thanks to the pressing weight of his partner's ability, it was not quick enough, and Siu caught the moment it would start closing his fingers. Pulling on Vael, Siu was yanking him behind himself, away from Titus's reach.

“Stay put,” he said sharply.

"...?!" Vael’s eyes widened while being flung away. “Are you insane?”

“Probably.” Siu did not look back while answering, “But if you move, I let them take you!" He growled, watching the clearly thinking, analyzing construct, "Arya! Marly!”

“We know!” They answered, jumping over to Vael.

“Watch him,” Siu ordered them nonetheless, “If he runs, break his legs.”

“Gladly!” Arya chortled, somewhat growling at Vael.

At the same time, Titus decided to try again, and just as he began moving, a sharp, musical note rang through the alley. It was coming from Seloryn’s flute as the air in front of Titus rippled all of a sudden, blocking his passage, as if the air became solid in a snap of a finger. Without thinking, Siu used that moment to attack, his hand going forward like a snake's bite, his fingers held as such, hitting the metal wrist of Titus.

The impact rang with another loud note while sharp pain shot back through his bones, making them rattle. In turn, Titus’s wrist moved backward just barely, making Siu inhale deeply, suppressing the pain in his fingers. He knew at once that if not for his cultivation, all the bones in his arm would be either broken or fractured just from that impact.

As they were exchanging moves across the alley, Grael dropped from the roof with a loud bang, the stone beneath him turning to dust from the impact. His wide frame alone blocked any chance of getting back out of the alley into the main street before the rest. Not letting him get a strike away before they could, Joren moved to intercept the man at once. As if they had talked about it, Ruben was beside his half-brother, his umbrella held out like a sword.

“Little brother,” he said with a smile, “try not to get crushed.”

"Hmph," Joren drew a dagger out from his robes just then. “Try not to talk too much and distract me then!”

“I make no promises.”

"I always wondered what disciples of a sect can do against actual experience." Grael rolled his shoulders, watching them come at him. “Two against one? Seems fair, as you are not even half my age.”

“I think you are overestimating yourself, fat one,” Ruben answered, still smiling.

“Unlike you,” Grael smiled, unbothered, "I have faced death more than you sheltered kiddos ever will."

Despite his size, Grael moved faster than either Ruben or Joren had expected. As he did so, his body looked like it weighed nothing, yet the whole alley became heavy around him. Joren’s boots scraped the ground as his running stance sank into the stone, but he did not fall, at least. Standing with him, Ruben simply flicked his umbrella as water spurted from somewhere nearby. It came out of the canal runoffs, puddles, the pipes and gutters running along the buildings, anywhere he could gather it from. Grael expected the water to try to attack him, but instead it turned to vapor, washing over both Joren and Ruben.

The moment Joren stepped through that wet sheen, the heaviness he felt lessened a lot, allowing him to speed up and slide forward as his blade cut low, aiming toward Grael’s knee. However, it had little to no effect as the blade struck and skidded along the clothes and skin, as if Joren had swung at an iron post. Right then, Grael’s fist came down, intending to smash into Joren's back, but before he could, Ruben’s umbrella opened between them, blocking the attack. Even when the water in the air coalesced and got layered across the umbrella's surface in an instant, forming a transparent shield, Grael’s punch struck it without hesitation. It blasted it apart with a sound like shattering glass, sending Ruben stumbling backward as his umbrella creaked and groaned.

At least, Joren was already gone, putting distance between himself and Grael once again.

“Shit... That fatty is tough,” Joren grunted, his breathing technique working in overdrive.

“Yeah,” Ruben said, the water curtain reforming around them, resisting the constant rise in weight on their bodies, "His affinity affects a way too large area... I guess he is already in the Flesh Morphing phase, too. Or very close to it."

On Siu’s side, their battle was not any better, as Titus had not stopped trying to get through them. The construct’s red eyes were still fixed on Vael, only switching when calculating the next optimal pattern to pass them and capture him.

Titus’s right arm drew back one moment as frost spread across his metal plates from elbow to knuckles, coating his arm. In turn, his left arm glowed faintly red-orange, steam coming off between the tiny seams, yet before he could attack, Seloryn had already warned Siu, her voice echoing in his ears.

“Thermal splitting... Be careful, I think he can switch between hot and cold faster than it seems!"

Siu did not ask what that meant, because Titus struck him by then. His cold-covered fist came at him first. Reading the movements, surprisingly easily, Siu slipped aside, dodging. Even then, the air around where the metal hand passed seemed to freeze, jump over, and start biting into his cheek and eyelashes. In a flash, a line of frost spread across the wall where the strike landed, right behind Siu; however, he couldn't stop and think because the heated arm followed next. Using the Crane's movements, he had just had enough time to redirect not the attack but himself. After the first time he hit that thing's wrist, he knew better than to try to exchange blows with him. It was too hard for his current level... Or without using an affinity countering its metal body. While thinking about that, the heated fist smashed into the stones beside him, and the moisture trapped within the building's cracks turned to steam at once, whistling like a kettle.

However, that whistle then turned into a weird song, getting shriller and sharper instead of dying down. The reason was simple: it was no longer just noise, but a note that was coming from Seloryn's flute. Like a whirlwind of blades, it struck Titus’s chest and limbs with clanging, loud, rapid impacts. It was strong enough to make Titus pause and force him backward, causing the construct to raise its arms before his chest, protecting his core.

Taking a breather thanks to Seloryn's assist, Siu tried to focus on his own affinity, knowing he had to bring something out in this fight. The issue was that when it reached toward Titus, his affinity found nothing it could copy. There was essence there, yes, but unlike a living cultivator, it didn't really have anything like a natural-born affinity; it was just raw essence and predetermined formations that gave him a function. As if understanding that by itself, Siu's affinity latched onto something else, though.

Seloryn's sounds.

As she kept striking Titus’s body, her music was clearly not random notes being thrown out. Every sound was a test attack, and she was looking for a frequency that would make the metal frame vibrate, getting closer and closer to the sweet spot, disrupting its movements more and more. Both Titus and Siu sensed it, and Siu's affinity naturally began mimicking it, because it was the one that gave him what he needed for victory. That was why his next step landed on the beat of Seloryn's note, and his next strike followed the same rhythm, right when Titus swung at him again.

Siu ducked beneath the heated arm, came right in the middle of the construct’s guard, and struck the side of its torso with two fingers, this time not afraid of the backlash.

CLANG!

Like a bell being slapped, a loud noise echoed out while a strong vibration traveled from Siu’s fingers into the metal plate. Instead of enduring the backlash, his body used it to amplify the resonance and vibration, sending it through Titus as a secondary wave. Without a word, Seloryn’s flute had locked onto what he did, echoing the same note, and the vibration further amplified the next moment. Immediately, the red glow inside the construct's helmet flickered, making the thing stumble and break away, hurrying backward almost as if it was panicking.

“Interference detected,” Titus said, and his voice was strangely noisy, crackling between the vowels. "Adjusting."

"Don't stop now!" Seloryn yelled at Siu through a voice transmission, directly into Siu's ears as she played three short notes.

Siu moved with her 'music,' following it as if it were just another form of the ones he had studied until now. It brought him close to Titus without issue, and his fingers struck the machine's shoulder joint, releasing another echoing vibration as his seam along his shoulder flashed orange, then dimmed, the glowing hotness cooling visibly along the arm.

Sensing the great danger, Titus’s leg came up next, being nothing special, just a metal limb trying to land a hit. Siu crossed his arms and tried to roll with it, but the kick still struck like a gate-crushing siege weapon. With a groan, he flew backward, hit the wall, and nearly lost the air in his lungs. Using the advantage, Titus advanced on him again, but Seloryn stepped in, swinging her flute, making it shriek like a banshee. It made Titus freeze in place before the instrument smacked his face, leaving an actual dent where one's nose would be, before Seloryn struck the middle of its chest, sending it skidding backward.

The moment he was pushed back, Siu flew past Seloryn, shooting out, using the wall as a springboard, amplifying the Snake Form's initial burst. His elbow strike landed where Seloryn had hit its chest, letting out another loud clang, and he saw as the red glow inside the helmet flashed, just like how a human would lose focus for a moment when something really hurt.

On the other side of the alley, Ruben and Joren had found their rhythm too, so to speak. For all their bickering, they fought like actual brothers. Although neither party could actually hurt the other, it also put them into a stalemate, gaining a step, losing it the next exchange, rinse and repeat.

Grael laughed for the first time just then, and he didn't sound happy at all.

“You two fight like an old married couple!”

"Hmph!" Joren’s blade sparked off Grael’s forearm, sneering at him. “He wishes.”

"Totally agreed, Little Brother." Ruben’s water coalesced into a spear and struck Grael’s shoulder from behind, but couldn't penetrate deep, even if it did draw a little bit of blood, like a mosquito's needle. “He lacks my standards.”

“You both talk too much!” Grael growled as he slammed one foot down, apparently having had enough chit-chat.

A brutal-feeling downward command swept across everyone, with such force that if any mortals would have been there, their insides most likely would have burst through all the holes they had down below. Even Siu and Seloryn felt it across the alley, interrupting both of their attacks. Next, the alley's floor cracked from wall to wall, Ruben’s water shield burst into droplets of water, while Joren got flung backward. It had such an impact that parts of the buildings surrounding them began to collapse, while workers screamed and scattered from within, realizing the fight unfolding in the city. As Grael's shockwave spread out of the alley like an airburst, a cart passing by got overturned and the barrels it carried rolled across the road, hitting and knocking down people.

Knowing something was happening, the local guards were already gathering, but they had to stop themselves from interfering when they saw the silver sashes and Hollow Song robes. None of them dared to charge into the fight; instead, officers began shouting for civilians to clear the street immediately, while a pair of local cultivators hurried along to try and keep debris from striking the fleeing mortals. At the same time, hidden formation posts along the district road flickered to life, coming up from underground, just as warning bells began ringing from nearby towers.

“Hurry, hurry!” someone shouted. “Clear the road! Clear the road!”

Siu heard none of it clearly, as their exchange by now spilled out into the main road. He was now being weighed down by Grael's ability, while the injured construct prioritized him. There was a kind of relentless flurry of punches and kicks going for him, ignoring even Seloryn. Grael wasn't done either, taking advantage of the sudden flip; he also struck at Joren, but once again, Ruben managed to intervene and block him.

“Enough!” Grael barked, even angrier now, as his essence exploded once more.

Windows cracked along the nearest warehouses, while roof tiles were raised into the air before being thrown down, shattering. Even the roads got to tremble, as if there was an earthquake coming, splitting here and there. The local workers screamed again, and that finally alerted Siu to the fact that they were in a city... Full of people who had nothing to do with Vael, Stormglass, Wolfsong, or Hollow Song, or whatever else was going on with this damned contract. Seloryn seemed to realize the same thing as her music changed and the sound waves clashed against the nearby buildings, steadying cracked walls and windows, redirecting the debris from the fleeing people.

It was impressive, but it had also cost her focus, and Titus saw the opening. He moved past Siu, switching targets the first moment... heading towards Vael. Naturally, Siu’s body moved before he thought about it once again. His affinity surged with Seloryn’s own, and his next breath came out as a vibration that made his own teeth rattle. He appeared in front of Titus and struck both palms against the construct’s chest. When it landed, there was an instant, very heavy thrum that froze the construct in place.

“Critical interference.” It droned, barely audible, the light in its 'face' blinking in and out of existence, its body trembling and whining.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

A voice had cut through the noise and cries, reverberating like thunder, snuffing out even the vibrations Siu made or the gravity-amplifying effects of Grael's affinity. Siu gulped at once, raising his head, looking towards the voice, coming from the blue sky above them. He caught the black robe first, whipping loudly in the wind... Then the arms that were folded within his sleeves, as the strict eyes swept across the damage, then the culprits behind it... When it happened, Siu couldn't help but hiccup as his breath got caught in his throat because he knew that face.

“Elder Thane...” He whispered, watching him float in the air as if standing on a solid floor.

“I very much hope that someone,” Elder Thane said, sweeping them all with a type of gaze that nobody could escape from, “is going to explain why our disciples are fighting people inside in the middle of Mirebell.”