Chapter 30: Encounter

Himeko gritted her teeth.

Running through the forest, she was as swift as a lithe she-wolf. The darkness around her and the treacherous terrain beneath her feet seemed unable to truly slow her down.

But she was in a sorry state. The relentless sprinting was draining every last drop of strength from her body.

Her hair, soaked with sweat, clung together in damp strands, spreading around her like wet seaweed whenever she moved.

Every breath she took was like squeezing the air from her lungs. Even though a Valkyrie’s stamina far exceeded that of a normal person, they were not superhuman. And even if they were—no one could last long under such conditions.

But she could not stop.
Behind her, the metallic pursuers advanced at a steady pace. Though the distance remained constant, their speed clearly surpassed that of Himeko Murata. Unlike her, they showed no sign of exhaustion, maintaining a perfect rhythm from start to finish.

Naturally—machines of steel never tired.

Anti-Entropy’s Titan mechs followed just over a hundred meters behind, closing in bit by bit. The underbrush and uneven terrain that hindered large creatures posed no obstacle to these ten-meter-tall giants.

Trees? They simply crashed through them.
Hills and slopes? They rolled right over.

Before this army of steel, the primal forest was as soft as a mat of sponges—the first step might sink in slightly, but once adapted, they never slowed down.

This filled Himeko with anxiety—anxiety that quickly turned to desperation.

Not only was she limited by her own physical strength, but she was also carrying an extra 190-pound “burden” on her shoulder. Every step she took cost her three times the usual effort.

It had only been eleven minutes, and her stamina was already failing.

The Titans behind her seemed to sense it. Their steady march abruptly broke—each mech’s reactor flared to full power. The sudden acceleration gave the illusion of marathoners bursting into a sprint at the sight of the finish line.

“They’re like a pack of wolves!”

Amid the thunderous mechanical footsteps came the sharp crack of splintering trees. Even without turning around, Himeko knew exactly what was happening.

Their behavior—the slow, steady pursuit followed by a sudden, savage rush once the prey faltered—wasn’t like wolves, but like hyenas.

“Ahh, I’m sick of this! Blow her up already!”

Perched atop the leading Titan’s head, a girl looked down at the desperate, wounded Himeko running like a mother deer protecting her young. The expression on Anya’s face shifted from excitement to irritation. Her tone turned bored as she gave the order.

“But, Lady Cocolia wanted her alive.”

“Use your brain, will you? Don’t just ignore what I said!”

Annoyed, Anya smacked the Titan’s armored head. Though her motion was like a child’s petulant slap, the sound that rang out was that of a battering ram hitting a fortress gate.

“Think about it! That annoying old woman’s been protecting that target all along. If we open fire, she’ll definitely shield her. The target won’t die—but the nuisance will. Two birds, one stone. Perfect, isn’t it?”

The petite girl spoke such a cruel, venomous plan with an angelic smile, a feverish crimson tinting her cheeks.

“Understood. All units, form a perimeter—bring her down.”

The Titans halted. Following the lead unit, they spread out in a wide horizontal line. Their frontal weapon ports opened thirty percent. Mist began to settle in the forest. Moonlight no longer reached through the canopy, and in the pitch-dark, the alternating red and white missile tips gleamed eerily.

“Fire!”

There was no need to describe the sound—it was the sound of the event itself: missile launch!

Not heat-seekers, but simple fixed-point bombardment missiles. After all, trying to use heat-seekers in terrain like this would only waste ammo and money. Still, there was no doubt—the Titan pilots were experts at predicting their target’s movement.

Himeko froze.
A wave of killing intent struck her like a blow. She leapt like a fish, hitting the ground hard. Pain shot through her chest and face—but a split second later, deafening explosions erupted all around her.

She didn’t have time to think—her only thought was to reach out, to grab the figure flung from her shoulder by the blast.

But another explosion struck nearby, the shockwave rupturing her eardrums. Himeko screamed and clutched her head—her grip slipped, and the hand she was holding was torn from hers and blown away.

“Cease fire!”

Yelling through her soundproof communicator, Anya jumped down from the ten-meter Titan, landing with a heavy thud and shouting, “Small arms only! Eliminate the woman—I’ll retrieve the target myself!”

Even as she spoke, she was already sprinting down the slope toward the figure flung from the blast zone, moving faster than the cannons could fire.

“Understood.”

The bombardment stopped.
The launch ports sealed shut—but the mechanical clicks and clanks that followed signaled transformation. Each Titan’s forearm unfolded into twin, multi-barreled autocannons.

The forest ahead was torn apart by the earlier bombardment—trees shattered, flames rising, black smoke thick in the air. But that didn’t matter.

If they couldn’t see the enemy, they’d simply erase the entire area.

Gunfire erupted. Muzzle flashes burst like wildfire, illuminating the woods.

Spent casings the size of a grown man’s thumb rained down like metallic popcorn, clinking off the ground in a sound so rapid it could’ve been a school bell.

There was no doubt—after this barrage, even solid rock would be reduced to dust. As for a human body? It would be scattered across a thirty-meter radius.

“Yaaaaah! Take this!”

But there’s always someone who just refuses to stand by and watch.

A deafening sound split the air—though it was quickly drowned out by gunfire, the sudden intruder had already drawn every Titan’s attention.

“KC1, KC1—this is KC1! Unknown enemy attack! Left arm armor breached! Repeat, left arm armor breached—weapon disabled!”

“Copy that, KC1! This is KC3—I see your attacker! It’s a Valkyrie of Schicksal!”

“This is KC4! I see her too! The weapon she’s using—wait, is it just me, or does the point of impact on your armor look like… a footprint?!”

“Where are you looking, tin cans?!”

A high, fierce voice echoed from above. A sudden gust tore the mist apart, and the bright moonlight poured through the canopy. The Titans’ blue-violet armor reflected the light in a way that almost seemed—holy.

And there she was: a silver-haired girl in a black coat, arms spread wide in the air. Her sapphire-blue eyes shone like twin gemstones, fixed on the mechanical giants below with not a trace of fear.

Her coat billowed.
In each hand, she held a black weapon—

Desert Eagle, modified.
Colt Python, modified.

Both were heavily reengineered by Schicksal’s tech division from a retired colonel’s weapon cache.
Guns in name—but cannons in power.

Three Titans looked up just in time to see the silver-haired girl aiming both guns downward, her expression fierce, her eyes ablaze. The black barrels of her guns gaped like the maws of beasts—

—and the beasts roared flame.

It was like detonating a string of explosives in midair!

Thunderous blasts erupted. Kiana’s arms absorbed the recoil with impossible strength. Sixteen bullets were fired in under three seconds. Without any solid footing in the air, the recoil sent her spinning, flipping several times mid-flight.

Below, the explosions chained together—not dull impacts of bullets on armor, but true detonations.

Each shot struck the Titans’ sensor heads—the weakest points in their armor, barely fist-sized, but nearly impossible to hit.

Yet every single bullet landed—each explosion spaced less than 0.03 seconds apart. Perfect precision.

It was breathtaking—and terrifying. Even as she spun through the air, Kiana’s bullets traced perfectly parallel lines, her aim uncompromised by her own movement.

“KC1—visuals lost!”
“KC3—visuals lost!”
“KC4—visuals lost! …Auto-control down. Switching to manual override.”

No hesitation.
Seeing their screens fill with static, the Titan pilots immediately switched modes.

From the back of each cockpit, neural connectors extended like steel needles, stabbing into the pilots’ necks. Their vision burned white, their bodies went numb from the neck down—cold, unyielding power flooded their minds.

The chest armor of each Titan opened, leaving only skeletal frames around their torsos, exposing the pilots to the night air.

They were young—shockingly so. Beneath their tactical helmets, the bare lower halves of their faces revealed the smooth skin and faint down of teenage boys.

Now directly linked to the Titans’ systems, the machines became extensions of their own bodies.

A single thought to lift an arm—and the Titan moved. The helmets’ HUDs calculated Kiana’s falling trajectory in advance.

The Titans raised their massive mechanical fists—switching from gun mode to melee—
and swung upward to crush the descending Valkyrie.