The edge of the cliff did not just overlook the Ward. It hung over a sprawling, vibrant abyss where the air pressure itself felt heavy, thick with the scent of ancient ozone and the deep, humming vibration of a playground built for giants. Below, the glowing tendrils pulsed in a frantic rhythm, casting violent neon violet shadows up the mountain pass. Silarias stood right at the tip of the drop, his boots kicking loose pebbles that plummeted down into the glowing haze. Inside his mind, the numbers were not just rattling; they were a roaring engine, calculating, shifting, and burning through possibilities.
He spun around to face Apollo. The expression on his face was not one of reverence for the ancient temples below. It was a wide, predatory grin, bare teeth catching the sharp light of the valley.
"Apollo!" Silarias bellowed, his voice tearing across the rocky pass, cracking from pure, unadulterated hype. "Let us raise the stakes before we even dip our toes into this goldmine! The first one to set foot on the central temple, on that furthest, largest turtle shell... they get absolute, unconditional control over every single coin of income from the upcoming markets and gambling dens of the Ward! For an entire month!"
The air between them seemed to snap with sudden tension. Nyx froze, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief before her features hardened. She lunged forward, her fingers locking onto Silarias' shoulder like a vice. With a violent, powerful yank, she hauled him several meters away from the edge, her voice dropping into a fierce, low hiss that vibrated with anger.
"Have you completely lost your mind?!" she snapped, her face inches from his. "We have not even conquered those markets yet and you are already betting them away like cheap dice?! The Ward makes up 17.5 percent of the entire map, Sil! Do you have even a fraction of an idea how much gold that translates to?! Can our treasury even support a loss like that?!"
Silarias did not flinch. Instead, a short, dry laugh escaped his throat, a sound fueled entirely by adrenaline and absolute certainty.
"Listen to me, Nyx," he said, his eyes gleaming with a manic spark. "With the Everlasting Forge humming inside the Titan, treasures are going to roll out of that oven on a daily basis. Treasures worth more than the annual income of an entire market district down there. We are not betting crumbs here. We are betting an empire that hasn't even been built yet. It is an investment in our own damn glory!"
He wrenched himself free from her grip, stepping back out toward the rest of the crew with his arms thrown wide. He knew they had caught every single word. In a fraction of a second, the heavy, awe-struck silence of the mountain pass vanished, replaced by a feverish, burning wave of greed.
"STAKES UP!" Silarias screamed to the horizon, his voice echoing off the peaks. "The winner gets a legendary treasure straight from the Forge! To sell, to keep, to do whatever the hell you want! We are talking about generational wealth, people! Who dares?!"
The response was an absolute explosion. A collective roar tore through the group, so loud and sudden that the loose shale beneath their boots began to dance.
"One legendary treasure?!" Ren shrieked, his face turning bright red as he began jumping up and down like a lunatic. He stared at his own hands, feverishly counting on his fingers while his eyes practically shone with a blinding, ridiculous intensity. "If I sell something like that... that is... that is a thousand... no, a MILLION cotton candies! I can build an actual castle made of lollipops! I can lay down a literal river of chocolate milk! I WILL BE THE SUGAR KING!"
Right beside him, Cilla and Miki grabbed each other by the arms, jumping in circles as the hype completely took over.
"Think of the fabrics! The highest quality silks and threads!" Cilla cried out, her voice pitching high. "We can line the entire interior of the Titan with pure velvet!"
Miki was already pacing, muttering frantically about a library massive enough to overshadow the knowledge of the entire world.
Even Nicola, usually the anchor of logic, could not halt the mathematical cascade firing through his brain. The sheer volume of resources he could secure for his laboratory, the rare minerals, the forbidden Ether components that were usually entirely out of reach, made his Ether Anting flare up, burning brighter and hotter against his chest.
"The statistical probability of such wealth is absolute," Nicola muttered to himself, his stoic demeanor cracking. Then, suddenly, he threw all logic into the wind, his face contorting into a wild expression. "LETS GO BOYYYYSS!"
The entire group roared in unison, a unified wall of sound that shattered any remaining caution. It was no longer a tactical descent. It was an uncontrolled, vertical plunge of greed, speed, and glory.
Nicola was the first to move, leaping over the precipice like a madman, his heavy cloak snapping behind him like a flag of pure science. Right on his heels, Silarias and Apollo threw themselves into the void. They dropped side by side, looking less like invaders entering a sacred dreamworld and more like two burning meteors locked in a deadly race toward a casino floor.
The air pressure generated by their downward trajectory was immense. As they neared the bottom, the sheer displacement of wind caused the massive, glowing tendrils below to whip and blow away like simple blades of grass caught in a hurricane.
Down below, spread across the immense, weathered shell of the first Grandfather Turtle, the Menehurions looked up toward the sky. They did not see an organized army descending upon them. They saw a screaming, laughing gang of Nobodies, completely defying gravity for a dream of mountains of gold and oceans of sugar.
Silarias slammed his Battle Gauntlets together in mid-air, the metal screeching against the wind as it rushed past his ears.
"I hope you like gambling, Apollo!" he screamed through the roaring air as they tore through the low-hanging clouds of the Ward. "Because today, the Forge wins it all!"
With a deafening crash that made the ancient foundations of the temples sizzle, the group hit the carapace of the first giant turtle. A crater of dust, basalt fragments, and sparks erupted outward from the impact zone. Silarias rose immediately from the smoke, his Battle Gauntlets crackling with intense heat, his muscles coiled to drive the very first guard he saw straight through a stone wall.
But the moment the dust cleared, he froze.
The Menehurions, these massive, towering constructs of solid stone and Gleaming copper, did not draw swords. They did not raise shields. The moment Silarias locked eyes with the closest giant, the massive creature let out a thundering whinny of pure, unadulterated pleasure. Atop its neck, a tiny Mene spirit clutched a thick copper braid with one hand, waving wildly at the newcomers with its free arm, acting as if a group of old friends had finally dropped by for a brawl.
What the fuck, Silarias thought, his fist still raised, smoke rising from his knuckles.
Before he could even process the sight, the Menehurion made a playful, bucking leap, moving with an explosive agility that defied its massive basalt frame. The Centurion lunged forward, slamming its massive stone shoulder right into Silarias' chest. It was not an attack meant to crush bone; it carried the brute, heavy force of a defiant shove on a playground.
The impact sent Silarias flying three meters backward through the air. He hit the ground, rolled cleanly over his shoulder, and popped right back up onto his feet, a massive, wild grin spreading across his face.
"Now that was a solid hit!" he roared, shaking out his arms.
Apollo, who had been preparing to rein in his glowing steeds for a blinding, incinerating counterattack, lowered his hands in surprise. Another massive Menehurion had approached his horses, leaning its heavy copper snout down to gently sniff them. The Sun God's steeds, usually dead serious and fierce, actually began snorting back, matching the rhythmic breathing of the stone giant.
"They do not want to fight a war," Nicola noted, the glow of his Ether Anting finally subsiding into a calm hum. He watched closely as a small cluster of tiny Mene spirits danced frantically around the floating form of Blitz, trying to catch the blue sparks spinning off its frame. "This is a greeting, Sil. To a culture like theirs, our aggressive drop from the sky is the ultimate form of respect. In their world, a hard blow simply means 'I see you'."
Lyn, already stepping through the clearing dust with her measuring tape slung over her shoulder, let out a loud, ringing laugh. "They are nothing but playful bastards, look at them go!"
Ren, his mind still entirely trapped in his fantasy of sugar wealth, saw a tiny Mene spirit toss a glittering piece of raw rock crystal straight toward him. Ren caught it out of the air, his eyes sparkling as he hurled it right back with a massive smile. "Catch, little man!"
In an instant, the entire atmosphere on the turtle shifted from a high stakes invasion into a sensational festival of raw physical strength.
These Menehurions were formidable figures, loud, stubborn, and physically overwhelming. Standing fully upright, the creatures easily cleared nearly four meters in height. Their bodies were a bizarre, powerful fusion of a heavily muscled human torso and the explosive, dense rear mass of a stallion. Their skin was entirely devoid of flesh, consisting instead of an interlocking armor of raw, dark basalt that glistened like polished obsidian under the deep violet sky of the Ward.
Their limbs were their most striking feature. The arms were unnaturally, monstrously long, ending in massive stone knuckles that they used to propel themselves forward across the terrain as easily as they used their legs. And those legs were the true powerhouses of the constructs, curved sharply like a horse’s hindquarters, terminating in enormous, heavy cloven hooves that struck deep craters into the ancient stone shell with every single pace. Their knees jutted out incredibly high, so high that with every stride, they looked as if they were going to strike their own chests.
Then came the head. It was an elongated, brutal horse skull crafted from pure, weathered copper and heavy basalt. They possessed no soft eyes; instead, burning blue lenses flared to life within the dark sockets the exact moment they felt the rush of hype. When they whinnied, the sound was a terrifying, mechanical roar of metal grinding against metal that pierced right through bone and marrow. Their thick manes were made of heavy, braided copper wires where the tiny Mene spirits nested, braiding themselves into the metal to help guide the massive constructs' movements.
As Silarias stepped further out of his landing crater, he watched those bizarre, high knees of the nearest Menehurion shoot violently upward. The creature executed a sharp, sideways leap, its long arms slapping the ground to amplify its momentum in a jagged, angular motion that looked incredibly dangerous, yet remained entirely playful.
The Menehurion bowed its long, heavy neck forward until its copper snout stopped mere centimeters from Silarias’ face. The burning blue lenses flashed with an intense light. Then, without warning, the creature threw its head back toward the sky, its basalt chest vibrating as a thundering rumble of laughter echoed from deep within its frame.
Before Silarias could move, the giant swung a massive, flat stone hand. The slap connected with Silarias’ shoulder with the sheer force of a small wrecking ball. It was nothing more than a playful tap to the Menehurion, but the impact swept Silarias completely off his feet, sending him skidding across the dirt.
"Look at him go!" the tiny Mene spirit on the monster’s back roared, kicking its small legs against the copper flanks of the construct. "Are you made of fragile glass, little Nobody, or did you actually come down here to play?!"
The Menehurion sank down low on its massive horse legs, extending one long stone finger to tap the ground right in front of Silarias' face. It was an open, undeniable challenge. The creature scraped its heavy cloven hoof hard against the basalt shell, sending a brilliant rain of sparks flying into the air. It was an invitation for a race, a pure test of velocity and strength that would decide who truly ruled the plateau.
Silarias scrambled back to his feet, wiping the grey dust from his Battle Gauntlets as he felt his adrenaline boil over. This was no enemy. This was the ultimate sparring partner.
"So you want to dance with the sun?!" Silarias shouted, baring his teeth in a wild laugh.
The Menehurion answered immediately, raising its massive stone fists and drumming them frantically against its own basalt chest in a deafening rhythm.
Silarias looked around the plateau, seeing the entire crew completely absorbed in the chaotic, high energy madness of pushing, pulling, and laughing with the giants. The hype had not faded; it had simply evolved.
"Okay then!" Silarias roared, turning to challenge a massive Menehurion to an immediate game of arm wrestling right against a collapsing temple wall. "If this is how we win your respect, then we are going to show you exactly who deals the hardest blows in this valley! The race to the central temple is still on! THE STAKES REMAIN!"
The Menehurions seemed to understand perfectly. They began to hammer their massive hooves into the turtle shell in perfect synchronization, creating a heavy, rhythmic thudding that filled the entire Ward with a primordial music.
The sky above the Ward deepened further, bleeding into a thick, liquid amethyst as the jagged shadows of the stone giants stretched out like inkblots across the ancient temples. Massive muscles of polished basalt slid over one another with every vibration, moving like tectonic plates. Their knees pulled dangerously high with every step, nearly clipping the copper jaws of their own stone skulls in a mechanical and organic ballet that completely defied the laws of gravity.
As the massive carcass stones of the Grandfather Turtle groaned under the sudden, brute effort, the entire plateau transformed into a theater of raw power.
A few hundred meters away, Aurelius stood like an unshakable anchor in the middle of the storm. His boots were dug deep into the ancient, weathered grooves of the shell, the veins on his forehead swelling like rivers on the verge of bursting their banks. He was locked in a literal clash of titans. Right opposite him, one of the massive stone colossi leaned heavily on one fist, their free hands locked tightly together in mid-air. The air radiating between them was thick with friction and heat, and the sharp sound of breaking rock echoed through the valley every single time their arms shifted for balance in a brutal arm wrestling match that made the ground beneath them tremble.
Further down the line, where the glowing tendrils hung down from the sky like vibrant, fluorescent vines, the air was thick with an electric restlessness. Nicola and Apollo stood like two immovable pillars of power on either side of little Ren. The massive stone creatures in their sights scraped their cloven hooves back and forth over the ground, a rhythmic, impatient thudding that dictated the very heartbeat of the Ward. The blue lenses in their copper heads burned with a feverish flame, their gazes fixed entirely on the distant horizon where the central temple beckoned.
Ren clutched his fists tightly into the fabrics of Nicola and Apollo's cloaks. His small stature was almost entirely swallowed by the towering shadows of the giants the others were already preparing to mount and tame as living vehicles. His eyes were wide, reflecting the neon light, filled with a childlike fear of the immense, terrifying scale surrounding him.
Nicola placed a steady hand on the boy’s head. His fingers were cool and unshaking, while the Ether Anting in his chest emitted a soft, reassuring azure light that kept the surrounding darkness at bay. At the same time, Apollo placed a firm, heavy hand on Ren’s other shoulder. The radiant warmth of the Sun God flowed directly through the fabric of the boy's clothes like a heavy blanket on a bitter winter night. There they stood, the architect and the warrior, united in a silent, unspoken promise to let the entire world stand completely still for this child, if only for a single moment.
"Look into their eyes, little man," Apollo spoke, his voice resonating with the low, calm crackle of a deep hearth fire. "There is no poison hidden in their hearts. There is no shadow of the cold, cruel metal spirit we saw in Steam City. They are exactly like the wind blowing over the high peaks, powerful and wild, but entirely without malice."
Nicola nodded slowly, his analytical gaze remaining fixed on the tiny Mene spirits balancing frantically along the creatures’ copper manes.
"See it more as an ancient longing finally finding its outlet," Nicola added, giving Blitz a playful nudge forward toward the dancing spirits. "These creatures have waited for thousands of years in the stifling, heavy silence of this valley. They have waited for someone who can strike back hard enough. Someone who does not break into pieces at the very first touch. They have finally found someone to play with, Ren. We are the first spark in a house that has remained cold for far too long."
The lingering fear in the boy’s eyes melted away in an instant, replaced by a sensational, glittering spark. The pure hype began to flow through his small veins, ignited by the absolute calm of his older comrades. He looked up at the giants who stood before them like tightly coiled springs, completely ready to run reality to shreds the moment the Nobodies mounted their backs.
The air began to sing, a high pitched, sharp whistling sound that announced the true beginning of the race. The tendrils trembled in anticipation of the enormous displacement of air that was about to turn the entire Ward into a blur of speed, color, and brute force.
"Who is ready to lose to the smallest Nobody of the gang?!" Ren suddenly shrieked, his voice cutting through the solemn, heavy atmosphere of the ancient temples like a sudden strike of lightning.
Nicola and Apollo exchanged a swift, knowing look of perfect understanding. The brief tenderness of the moment was immediately swallowed by the sensational, burning necessity of the struggle.
With a collective thunder of hooves that actually sank the Grandfather Turtle a full meter into the mud of the valley, the entire group exploded forward to claim their own victory. The hunt for the rescources at the central temple had officially become a fever, and not a single soul on that shell wanted to be cured.