As Lukas watched the Turtle work, he understood something he hadn't fully appreciated when he'd been on the receiving end of its attacks back in the desert.
The fact that even among C-ranks, there was still a chasm of strength.
The Spiked Turtle wasn't simply a powerful beast. It was the pinnacle of offense and defense unified in a single system, with its shell serving both purposes simultaneously.
Every spike it fired was both an attack and a replenishment of its armor, with new growth replacing what was spent in real time.
But even with its rapid fire attacks, the six remaining Automatons were not slow.
They moved through the street with a fluid, scrambling agility that the D-ranks had never shown, bouncing from wall to pavement and back again, their long arms absorbing the impact and redirecting momentum in ways that looked too acrobatic to come from machines.
