Zen stood before the two golems, bracing himself, he gripped the broadblade and swung the moment one of them lunged, expecting weight, resistance—something but instead, the moment it connected, the golem was gone, sent hurtling through the walls, crashing onto one, and another, and another one all the way into the hallway like a cannonball and the impact of the wall along with the speed it was travelling shattered it into pieces. The crash echoed through the halls, dust and debris spilling into the air.
Zen stood still, his hands trembling.
"…Huh?"
The strike had felt… empty. No recoil, no struggle—just raw force. He glanced at the broadblade, its dull, cracked surface hardly resembling a weapon.
A low growl snapped him back. The second golem was already charging. No time to question it now.
Zen swung again, but the golem had already learned. It backed into the hallway, dropping to all fours before scaling the ceiling with unnatural speed.
He tightened his grip, tracking its movements—until its jagged maw split open, energy crackling between its fangs.
"Oh, that's not good."
A sudden flash, then a blast of compressed energy shot straight at him. Instinct took over. Zen flipped the broadblade—or club, whatever it is—to its flat side and braced himself.
The impact rattled his arms, heat searing past his face. A second too slow, and he would've been fried on the spot.
Gritting his teeth, Zen lunged forward, broadblade in hand. If it wanted to play keep-away, he'd just have to close the gap.
But every time he swung, the golem leapt back—dodging with an agility that didn't match its bulky frame. Left, right, up the walls, across the ceiling—it moved like a damn cockroach.
Zen scowled.
"For something made of rock, you sure don't act like it."
The golem kept dodging, and Zen's patience wore thin. He gritted his teeth, exhaling sharply.
"Alright, this is getting old…"
Maybe he could throw the sword? No, bad idea—his aim was ass, and he had the years of embarrassing FPS losses to prove it. That's why he always stuck to shotguns and close-range weapons. No need to aim when all you had to do was get close and pull the trigger.
Then, as if the weapon itself had been listening, the broadblade shifted.
Zen barely had time to react as the dull, rectangular slab morphed before his eyes. The hilt twisted, forming a grip. A trigger clicked into place beneath his fingers. The flat, oversized blade compressed and split into two short barrels—thick, heavy, and unmistakable.
Zen stared, wide-eyed.
"No way… Did this thing just—?"
He glanced down at his hands.
It wasn't a sword anymore.
It was a shotgun.
Zen's grin twisted into something almost feral as he aimed. His fingers tightened around the grip, the weight of the transformed weapon grounding him.
"Dodge this you gravel-faced bastard!"
Then—a deep hum.
It started slow, a vibration in his hands, then a pulse in his chest, like the gun itself had a heartbeat. The air around the barrels warped, heat curling off it in waves. The light in the room dimmed as if the energy it gathered pulled the very glow from the world itself. His breath caught.
Time stretched thin.
The golem's jagged maw widened, its molten core pulsing, charging another shot. But Zen had already pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The shotgun screamed. The world convulsed.
The blast tore through the hallway like a howling beast, vaporizing dust and debris in its wake. The sheer force sent a violent tremor through the building, cracks spiderwebbing across the walls, the floor, even the reinforced steel beams above.
Outside, the shockwave traveled faster than sound. Windows burst in an instant—half a mile away, glass panels shattered, car alarms screeched, and birds scattered in panic.
Zen blinked, ears ringing from the sheer force, his fingers still stiff on the trigger. The thick smoke began to clear, the molten glow of the blast fading, revealing what remained.
The golem stood frozen, its entire form transformed—not into rubble, not into dust—
But glass.
A warped, melted statue of its former self, caught mid-motion, its claws still raised, its open mouth twisted in a silent, eternal wail. The light of the room refracted through its crystallized body, casting eerie rainbow streaks against the ruined walls.
Zen swallowed.
Then exhaled.
"...Holy shit."
Meanwhile...
The battlefield had fallen silent.
The last golem crumbled, its stone husk collapsing into a heap of lifeless rubble. But the Order personnel barely acknowledged their victory—all eyes were locked upward.
A thick plume of smoke curled from the fourth floor, twisting against the dim sky like a signal flare. The aftershock of the blast had rattled the entire foundation, shaking dust loose from the rooftops, leaving lingering vibrations in their bones.
Among them, a woman stood still, her armor gleaming under the fading sunlight.
Her twin Geonite revolvers, still warm from combat, shifted seamlessly in her grasp—metal folding, morphing—until they were no longer guns but sleek twin daggers. She tucked them into her belt without a second thought, her focus solely on the source of that devastating sound.
Her ponytail whipped in the wind as she narrowed her eyes, lips pressing into a thin line.
No way in hell that was just a stray explosion.
She took a step forward—then another, faster. Without hesitation, she leaped, her boots landing with practiced ease onto a second-floor ledge. The metal groaned beneath her weight, but she was already moving again, pushing off, scaling higher.
Her comrades tensed, but before they could follow, she threw up a hand.
"Stay put."
This wasn't their fight.
Not yet.
She climbed through the shattered window, landing lightly on the debris-covered floor. What she saw made her pause.
A high schooler in a jersey, gripping a broadsword—Zen.
Her eyes flicked past him, settling on the lifeless, glassed-over golem stuck to the ceiling. Two golems? That was nothing for her. She could clear ten times that in an hour. But this? this way of extermination? This wasn't normal.
Before she could speak, Zen stumbled, his grip on the weapon slackening. His eyes half-lidded, body swaying—then he collapsed.
Rushing forward, she checked his pulse. Still breathing. She exhaled through her nose, a small smirk tugging at her lips.
"Lucky kid."
She moved to grab the blade, but before her fingers could close around it, the weapon shifted, breaking apart in shimmering fragments before reforming into a wristband, floating over Zen's wrist before snapping into place.
Her smirk widened. Whatever just happened, this was worth reporting.
With ease, she carried Zen into her arms, stepping toward the exit. A final glance at the destruction around her, then—
"This day just keeps getting interesting." she says with a smirk.
However as for Zen, his vision blurred and darkness crept in, though weirdly enough the last thing he registered wasn't the destruction around him, the glass-covered remains of the golem, or even the strange wristband that had just latched onto his arm.
No.
It was… something soft. Two soft things, actually.
His dazed mind struggled to make sense of it, but before he could even process, his consciousness fully slipped away.
The woman carrying him raised an eyebrow as she felt his head unintentionally sink into her chest. A beat of silence passed before she sighed, shifting him up with a bit more force than necessary.
"Tch. Lucky bastard." she muttered under her breath before leaping out of the building, Zen completely unaware of both his unconscious blunder and the mild retribution he'd just received for it.