Chapter 92 – Do Not Imagine This Is Enough to Defeat Me!

The dark-violet Arden and the heavy frame Yera -- two Makina collided in the black of space.

Against Arden's charge, the Yera answered with an acceleration that seemed impossible for a machine of its armored mass, meeting the attack head-on.

In the instant of contact: Arden drove the Photon Saber forward in a straight thrust at the Yera. The Yera did not move. It caught the blade on its left shoulder armor -- anti-photon coating held under the burning light, throwing off fierce sparks, and managed to deflect the tip outward just enough.

And in that opening -- the Yera activated its own Photon Saber in the other arm and swung it through the blind angle toward Arden.

"That will not touch me!"

Letaria had read the preparatory motion completely. A forced maneuver, perfectly timed -- she pulled Arden clear without a graze. She fired the back-boosters to create distance--

"-- Again! You are relentless!"

Her magic felt the threat waiting at exactly that position. A dull silver gleam came arrowing in -- Twoin's boomerang. He had kept a second one hidden in the shadow of a debris cluster since the opening of the engagement, held until this moment.

Letaria wrenched the frame sideways with everything she had. Barely. The Yera's Photon Saber and the ambush boomerang -- two killing blows converging from two angles. She came through both without a scratch.

"...To remain unhit even so... Extraordinary combat instinct."

The genuine astonishment in Twoin's voice carried through the comm with no attempt to conceal it.

"Do not imagine this is enough to defeat me!"

Letaria shouted it and brought the Photon Saber through in a clean intercept as the boomerang swung back at her -- split it in two, detonated it.

She pushed Arden's main thrusters to maximum and swept into a curved trajectory around the Yera's heavily armored front face, working toward its rear. The dark-violet arc carved through the void.

The Yera tracked the movement and turned to match -- but for all the machine's impressive mobility given its armored bulk, against the sheer explosive acceleration of the reborn Arden from the special unit project, it was still far, far behind.

"And now -- I end this!"

Arden slipped fully inside the Yera's guard, victory certain. The Photon Saber swung horizontal -- the blade was about to rake across the Yera's unprotected flank.

Or so it seemed.

"...Magnificent, Lady Letaria. Ability of this caliber..."

Twoin's voice came through -- calm, and strangely quiet.

An instant later, the light of the Yera's Photon Saber went out.

"This--!"

In the same moment, Letaria's magic sounded every nerve in her body like a struck bell.

What it showed her: an inescapable killing ground. No room to move.

In the fraction of a second her magic took to register it -- the Yera erupted from every surface at once, unleashing a simultaneous volley of uncountable unguided projectiles in a total-coverage sweep.