Five flashes were seen overhead once more, now much closer, so close they were discernible as coins. Each of them was struck by one comet in turn, the arcane glyph upon its surface focusing the energy of the supercritical core at the heart of the comet, and reflecting it directly into Ubul’s own core as a singular lance of five elongated twin-tailed comets wound together into a ten-tailed spiral drill. The hardened shield of his own limb would have held up, had the blood-red tank not exploited this moment to, as it appeared, focus its entire output into a single inexorable forward movement, throwing down its shotgun to zip sideways at a speed unbecoming of such a machine and charge into his side. The sheer force exerted in the movement carved a whole new trench into the ground and manifested gusts of wind, the impact of metal against stone so forceful it knocked Ubul’s arm out of place and allowed the nearly-faded energetic spear to pierce straight into his core, drilling out a relatively small cone-shaped chunk before its energies were gone, but even a small piece was a problem. The core wasn’t as vital as these easterners likely thought, but it was an important tool for focusing and proliferating Ubul’s earthen magick, a combination receiver and transmitter in a manner of speaking, and the more it was damaged, the more demanding it became for him to manipulate Terra, the difficulty increasing geometrically with distance. Losing its secondary function as a store of essentia was, by comparison, a minor setback, for he had spent a great deal of time enriching this environment, hijacking the subterranean mycelial network to distribute Terra instead.

Honor though he had, the great general, the Walking Mountain, was forced into increasingly desperate and, even in his mind, underhanded tricks.

Anything to keep up.

Anything to compensate for what he was now.

This faded reflection of his former self.

The machine struck him again and again, even as he smashed its metal and ripped apart its exposed joints. The spears on its arms buried themselves into his body once, twice, and then no more, for the cold-iron composing them simply wore away, the method in which it had been made left it particularly vulnerable to wear and tear from these specific conditions. It was an issue not faced by production First-models, the pilebunkers used on prototype units had been made from an industrial cold-iron stock as a cost-saving measure. Despite the havoc he wrought upon what must’ve been important parts, they just… Came back together. The machine just twisted itself back into shape, even caving in the frontal plate was undone in a few seconds of terrible metal screeching.

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It was a terrible, abominable thing, but it ran out of steam long before he did, its grasp weakening just enough for Ubul to marshal his geomancy and send the damned machine flying right into the wall he’d summoned to keep those not willing to die out, albeit the true purpose of it had been a petty gesture.

The blood-red steel monstrosity clipped the top of the wall, smashing through it and falling into the trees just beyond.

Though out of sight and out of mind, Strake was a stubborn man, and even exhausted, he struggled on, first looking around to make sure he didn’t crush anyone, then getting his machine upright as confused soldiers panickedly evacuated his immediate vicinity, instinctively fleeing from the deafening music blasting out of Zero’s speakers. With the effects of Victory Wash wearing off and the painful consequences of its consumption settling in, he took this as the best time of any to use his Vitae elixir ration, mixing the volatile concoction and downing the full dosage, the warm, blood-adjacent taste washing away his aches and allowing him to pull the power cable out of his side without having to bite down on something. The hole didn’t bleed and closed up nearly instantly, so scarred was the tissue.

A feeling of cold had set into his feet and hands from the blood which he’d fed to the machine, but that was a problem for later - a problem that would solve itself soon enough, given what he’d just drunk. Strake plugged the cable back where it belonged, closing up the access hatch, keeping the engine running at second gear. Since Zero had made good use of his blood in repairing the deformation to its engine, Strake now enjoyed the small comfort of being inside a fully functional tank… But one that was dangerously low on fuel due to the energy-intensive nature of self-repair.

So, he let out a sigh, reaching for his cigarette box with one hand and silencing the music with his other. He flicked one into the corner of his mouth, lit it off his still-smoldering five o’clock shadow, retrieved one of two spare power cells from a secure compartment behind his seat, and opened the cockpit hatch. The tankman was met by a few scared-looking soldiers who, after a few barked orders, helped him with the physically demanding job of replacing a fulgur-igneic cell in a still-running engine.

Once the job was done, he wordlessly climbed back in, barked at the soldiers to get away from the tank, and made it leap a dozen meters upwards, anchoring into the stone wall using Zero’s pilebunkers. Bit by bit, he began scaling the wall, turning the music back on, this time for himself.

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With each shot she fired the recoil pushed Zefaris backwards, and yet she felt none of the pain associated with such a powerful load. As she holstered Pentacle inside the blackstone cylinder to let it reload and picked Tempesta back up, the gaze of her left eye was inexorably drawn to the place where Ubul had dropped Zel’s body, the artifact seemingly acting out in counter to her intentions. The Philosopher’s Eye was an object with no will of its own, and merely acted as it was commanded; the command merely came from a place far deeper down than the conscious mind, the place of emotion that she had worked so hard to dam up for the sake of her own mental health.