The momentum and shock brought by the Beast Titan's transformation were enormous and terrifying. The ones who felt it most were Koris and the Cart Titan right beside Zeke.
"Damn it! You bastard, are you trying to get us killed!?" Koris covered his eyes to block the blinding light and the searing heat.
"We're leaving!" The Cart Titan made a snap decision, ditched Zeke, grabbed Koris, and turned to flee.
The seventeen-meter-tall Beast Titan stepped out of the steam, arcs of electricity still flickering across its body.
At the same time, five figures had already tightly surrounded the Beast Titan and the Cart Titan.
"A-One, take the long-mouthed Titan. A-Two, A-Three, A-Four—follow me and deal with this long-haired Titan." A-Five, the most naturally gifted leader among the five Ackermans, gave the orders. The others hesitated not at all; as if of one mind, they instantly moved in perfect coordination.
"Bastards!!" The Beast Titan let out an enraged roar, scooping up shattered wagon debris from the ground with both hands and flinging it in all directions like a shower of petals.
But the Ackermans, moving at astonishing speed with agile bodies, dodged every lethal attack.
Watching the soldiers draw closer and closer, Zeke in the Beast Titan's nape snorted in anger.
"What, are all the soldiers on this island that Levi? Even underestimating me has its limits!"
...
On the other side, a nimble figure flipped and darted through the air, the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment firing at full output, quickly catching up to the fleeing Cart Titan.
Koris's face was grim as he pulled the bolt, chambered a round, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. What shocked him was that the airborne figure dodged his bullets again and again.
Once, from beyond the Mauser rifle's effective maximum range of eight hundred meters, Koris had precisely hit a drifting soda can on the sea five times in a row.
But now his magazine was empty and the opponent remained completely unscathed. Koris felt his composure starting to crumble.
A-One accelerated once more in midair, sprinting straight to the front of the Cart Titan. As the Cart Titan ran, a person suddenly appeared before its eyes. Pieck, in the nape, was badly startled and instinctively opened her mouth to bite at A-One.
The grappling anchor fired, plunging deep into the Cart Titan's face. Pulling the trigger, A-One rapidly closed in, raising both blades horizontally. Using the momentum of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment's sprint, A-One began to spin in midair. If Levi were here, he would recognize it immediately—this rotating slash was Levi's signature technique.
The razor-sharp blades pierced through the corner of the Cart Titan's mouth and, spinning like a top, carved straight downward along the mouth, slicing open the Cart Titan's body.
"Raaah!!" The Cart Titan let out a mournful cry as a deep wound ran from the corner of its mouth all the way down to its belly.
Slice! Slice! In one fluid motion, A-One cleanly severed the Cart Titan's heels, instantly throwing it off balance and sending it crashing to the ground.
Koris slid off the Cart Titan's back. Before hitting the ground, he adjusted his posture in time, curling his body; after landing, he rolled several times to shed the force, hugged his rifle, and immediately darted behind a rock for cover.
While gasping for breath, Koris cautiously peeked out to observe the situation.
On the Cart Titan's nape, A-One stared down, then raised both blades and slashed down with full force.
Pieck felt a sudden chill on her back and instinctively sat up. The air was fresh; the sinews clinging to her face swayed slightly in the breeze, making her face itch a little.
But when Pieck turned around, her heart plunged into an icy abyss. Before her stood a black-haired girl in the Survey Corps uniform, delicate-featured and young, seemingly even younger than Pieck herself. The twin blades in her hands were still smeared with the fresh blood of Pieck's Cart Titan.
Seeing Pieck's stunned expression, A-One recalled Yago's earlier instructions and immediately raised her blades high.
Startled, Pieck quickly raised both hands and shouted, "Wait! Don't do it! I surrender!"
Rip! "Ah!!" Blood sprayed everywhere as the arms that had been raised moments ago fell to the ground with a thud.
Pieck let out a scream of agony. Both her arms, from the forearms down, had been cleanly severed by A-One in a single decisive strike.
"It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!" The intense pain assaulted Pieck's brain, forcing her to hunch over as her body began to spasm.
"After pulling them out from the nape, don't hesitate—immediately sever their arms or legs. Otherwise, if they still have strength, they can transform into Titans again." Yago's voice replayed in A-One's mind. She then sheathed her blades, grabbed the continuously screaming Pieck, and dragged her out of the Cart Titan's nape.
Watching Pieck being captured, Koris's gaze grew heavy as he unconsciously tightened his grip on his rifle.
If Zeke's earlier reaction had been angered laughter, his expression now was sheer terror.
"Impossible, impossible!! How is this possible!"
The Beast Titan's hands had already been chopped to pieces. Several figures moved so fast that Zeke couldn't see them clearly at all. Deadly flashes of blades flickered nonstop, and scalding Titan blood sprayed from wound after wound across the Beast Titan's body.
"Impossible!" Before Zeke's horrified eyes, two figures severed the Beast Titan's heels and rushed straight along them toward the nape.
The Beast Titan collapsed to the ground. Under the Ackermans' onslaught, it was hacked into a bloody pulp, completely stripped of any ability to move. At the Beast Titan's nape, that patch of hardened crystal might have been its final stubborn resistance.
Four Ackermans stood atop the Beast Titan's nape, exchanged glances, and all raised their twin blades.
...
Yago propelled himself toward the Beast Titan with the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, two Thunder Spears looped over his hands. He had absolute confidence in the Ackermans' combat power, but when it came to tough hardening, Hange's Thunder Spears were still needed.
"How's the operation! I brought—uh—Thunder Spears..." Flying to the Beast Titan's back, Yago's eyes went wide.
The Ackermans were soaked head to toe in blood. The Beast Titan's nape was a mangled mess of flesh, the connected tissue completely minced, leaving only a large chunk of nape meat encased in hardening.
Yago's arrival made the Ackermans pause for a moment. But A-Five, blades raised, instinctively delivered the final cut, shaving away the remaining flesh and revealing Zeke's bitter, twisted face.
"You all..."
Before Zeke could say more than a few words, the Ackermans yanked him straight out of that mass of nape meat. Blades flashed, and Zeke let out a scream.
Watching this scene, Yago's eyelids twitched violently.