The ground trembled as a massive creature made of stone walked through the chaotic streets of Middle Town. Men and women were fighting senselessly, accusatory glances leading to life-threatening brawls that could not be mediated. Anyone who possessed an ability to calm the might must've already been enthralled or were now too far away to do anything.
Middle Town was huge, and therefore the chaos on one side of the Prime Settlement may not have been as great somewhere else.
In this case, the chaos was fragmented. Some places were filled with all-out brawls, whereas others were docile, because everyone in that place was in unity, enthralled by the mysterious Lord Edwin. They hadn't been moved to attack others like the rest of the puppets.
At the southern district of Middle Town, that giant golem was matching to approach the center of the city.
There was no one manning it, and yet it was conscious to avoid crushing people beneath its feet. Most knew better than to stay in its way, lest they aspire to become a stain on the floor. Those who didn't were blessed nonetheless, as Freya's creation was moving in search of a specific host.
On top of the southern wall, Worthy was sitting with his legs crossed, index finger directing Freya as she sent subconscious commands to her construct.
He was helping guide the woman toward the puppeteer responsible for the creation of the portal that delivered the previous bomb to them. He partly wanted to send the golem after the person responsible for the bombs, since their last detonation did not do any visible damage to the golem, but that'd be testing their luck.
Rewards were tricky, because they were almost always absolute.
A person with the power to make a person drowsy could essentially use it on anyone who did not have some kind of resistance to it. These resistances were not directly aimed at Rewards, more often than not, but instead a general enhancement that'd prevent them from becoming tired. It was very situational, and if not for the fact that many of these people do not leave the tower, Worthy knew a drastic power imbalance would persist.
War Reaver was a perfect example of how the Towers could make someone unreasonable strong, on top of their base potential.
'Let's see what this big bastard is capable of.' Worthy didn't know what the thralls would do to counteract the approaching titan. Maybe the puppeteer would make a gamble and try to sway the golem to its control, since it was a living being… at least it was something resembling a living being.
Eventually, the thralls did act against the marching golem. Worthy was following the thread connected to The Man Creating the Annoying Portals, tracking his movements to ensure that he would not make an attempt at escaping. However, in the buildings surrounding where he was located, several thralls emerged and started to conjure various weapons and constructs of energy to aim at the golem.
Projectiles flew through the air and crashed into the body of the formidable golem. Swords crashed into its chipped body and energy heated and burned the locations of their impacts. Ordinary people would've been killed or suffered grievous injuries if hit by all these things, but the golem dwarfed even the largest of attacks.
Those offensives bounced futilely off of the golem, and did nothing to slow its assault. However, its persistence did not dissuade the attackers in the slightest.
Rather than backing away or changing their strategy, the Climbers, whose abilities could be used indefinitely, continued unleashing their own respective blasts of energy, weapons, and other questionable constructs at the stone titan.
When it seemed like the golem was going to reach its objective undisturbed, there was an alarming shift.
Up until that point, nothing could possibly damage its body. Chipping away at it was pointless, as its mass was too great and overwhelming to be delayed by the meager destruction of one layer of its body.
Like all things, however, there was always something bigger.
The thing in question was not bigger, though. As a matter of fact, it was not a thing to begin with, but instead a person. This person was not an enemy, either. It was a rather familiar person, whom Worthy and Lady Freya had encountered only ten minutes ago, or maybe less time than that had passed.
Deadman Walkyr was flying through the air, and soon caught himself against the mighty body of the stone titan. Only, the force was carried through the golem, and a wide web of cracks emerged on its back. Mid-step, the golem was interrupted and damaged by an impact of what Worthy could only describe as something greater than the Kingdom's greatest pieces of ordnance. Not even the artillery mounted to the walls, created to fend off larger flesh monsters, could deliver such a detrimental impact without efficient time to charge.
Worthy's eyes moved away from Walkyr and the golem, which was in the middle of tumbling over, crushing anything beneath it to dust.
In the air where Walkyr had come from, there was a woman following him with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. Strangely, that dangerous expression looked to be mixed with nauseated vitriol, as though she'd witnessed something so unbearably repugnant that she wished to do nothing more than bowdlerize it from the world.
Asterie had just thrown Walkyr, and the gunslinger looked all too thrilled to oblige with retaliation of his own.
Worthy was taken aback as he watched the man raise his six-shooter and release multiple projectiles toward Asterie. Even as the gunslinger was being attacked by the woman bending space to her will, he was also mindful of the various portals being opened to allow attacks from outsiders to interfere with the bout.
The Man Creating the Annoying Portals was undeterred by the approaching golem, and made no attempt to retreat. Now that the massive construct was falling to the ground, destroying buildings and sending a horrible sound traveling all-around, he had no reason to delay further interference.
"Ms. Freya," The child looked to the woman standing nearby, arms crossed over her chest as she watched the scene with an unbothered face, even after her mighty construct was damaged and knocked to the ground, caught in the crossfires of a more world-shaking battle. "How long'll it take before it stands up again?"
Freya studied the golem for a moment. "It'll take time. Something is trying to wrap around it now that it's grounded."
The swarm of attacks had lessened now that Deadman Walkyr had arrived. His battle with Asterie was reshaping the town for the worse—buildings and landmarks being eviscerated and thrown around carelessly as the two tried to kill each other.
The teleporter was too skilled for Asterie to overwhelm with her control over space like she'd done against the group previously.
The space-bender had the upper-hand, even though her opponent was undoubtedly superior in all other facets in the battle. Each time Walkyr shot in her direction, the attack was just a little off course. It would've reached her, if only it were not for the margin of error in the man's aim. Sadly, the reality was that none of the blame lay in the man's aim, but the warped space the woman had implemented around herself to act like a barrier. It wasn't omnipresent, but Walkyr needed to work hard to catch her at a point without it, and whenever that happened…
The portalsmith intervened, opening a rift in space that allowed a problematic enemy to join the fray briefly, or simply deliver another disastrous explosion.
Fortunately, the bomber had lessened the delivery of explosions. As more thralls swarmed to attack Walkyr and the golem now that he'd found their way deeper into the city for two completely different reasons, pointlessly sacrificing thralls would be moronic. The Lord Edwin had given a careful display in strategy throughout the battle, so it was no surprise to the child that the golem was not bombarded with dozens of black spheres at a time.
'Wait. I don't think I've seen multiple of those things at the same time. That's strangely balanced for an ability on this floor, isn't it?' Shrugging, the child looked back to the problem at hand, which he had no solution for, and neither did Freya.
The world.
Creeping around the golem as it was slowly but surely returning to its feet, the ground was rising to engulf the limbs of the stone titan. Based on the way Freya responded to the question, Worthy deduced she didn't know who was controlling the earth to ensnare her golem, but it was not going to work. It would only serve to slow her down.
Sadly, slowing the golem down also meant that Walkyr's fight would only get more challenging as time went on.
He'd spent his life fighting Knights, who were comparable to Climbers even without any Rewards. Nevertheless, being assaulted by so many different Rewards while being restricted to the speed at which he could snap his finger was a devilish hindrance.
His runic tattoos sharpened his physical capabilities, yet he couldn't fight at his fullest in his current situation.
Had the gunslinger had it his way, he'd holster his weapon and battle with his bare hands. That alone was enough to dismantle the bodies of hundreds of Climbers, rapidly depleting the number of thralls by a large quantity.
Asterie was the equalizer, in that regard. Walkyr was trying his best to maintain distance with the woman, as getting too close when she prepared her spatial rending attacks could get him killed. That'd be too embarrassing for him to live with… which he wouldn't need to fret, since he'd be dead. Still, not an ideal outcome.
Somehow, he still found himself getting caught whenever the women committed to melees, however. Worthy noted that Asterie's physicality had been enhanced even further than it was compared to before. Naturally, this also meant that he noticed how the other thralls were becoming weaker the deeper Walkyr and the Stone Golem made it towards the city center.
The free-folk looked to be on the backfoot, but slowly, that was changing.
The thralls were moving back inward, disengaging with their enemies, even while injured, and hurrying toward the center of the city, where The Man Creating the Annoying Portals was located. However, this redirection of assets to give Asterie a greater boost to physically challenge Walkyr was curious.
"If Walkyr keeps getting thrown deeper, I think you won't need to worry about your golem getting trapped," he said. Worthy was right, too.
Between the Stone Golem and Deadman, the thralls saw Deadman as a more immediate threat. Asterie had thrown Walkyr with enough force to damage the golem, therefore she could do so herself if left to her own devices. Frustratingly for the thralls, Walkyr was not leaving her to her devices.
He'd intercepted her while she was hunting someone, and that put one of the most valuable thralls in The Lord Edwin's collection in an occupied state.
His skills at fighting multiple enemies at once, and his continued disposal of the weaker thralls was leaving them with fewer options. Walkyr did not care about who he killed. If he could lessen the load on his shoulder, he'd gladly blast holes through his enemies… which he did, a great many times.
Soon, the person controlling the earth would have to divert their attention to the closer of the two, and stop slowing the Stone Golem.
Worthy had a theory he hoped to be true. As he watched the Stone Golem finally rise to its feet after several minutes, he had a feeling he'd see whether his guess was accurate or not soon.
'If they're recalling thralls this desperately to help put down Walkyr… Then, I doubt all of this is just for a guy who can create portals. Asterie can cross an indefinite sum of distance in seconds. It has to be something else… No, I couldn't be, could it? Who am I kidding? It'd be my left heart that I'm right—though I don't have a right heart to keep me standing if I'm wrong. It only makes sense for that Lord Edwin character to be in the middle of the chaos too!'
Then, Walkyr and the Stone Golem were not merely moving deeper into the city. No, they were converging upon enemy territory, and would soon be unleashing a direct assault upon the enemy general!
"This… This is war! War is effin' awesome!"
Lady Freya looked at him with a scathing expression. Then, her expression softened. It looked like she wanted to say something against his comment. Then, she remembered that it was a mere 12-year-old boy in her presence.
Instead of dissecting his words, Lady Freya spoke evenly, "Continue updating me on the location of the portal user."
The slum-rat gave the woman a salute, "Sir Yes Sir!"