Chapter 21 · Titan Online

"Get your ass back! Now!"

I didn't listen. I lunged forward, my boots skidding on the rusted catwalk of the Lower Ward. Above us, the sky didn't exist anymore. There was only the Titan. It was a mountain of blackened steel and screaming hydraulics, a god-machine that made the surrounding tenements look like cardboard boxes.

One of its massive, piston-driven legs slammed down three blocks away. The shockwave hit me like a physical punch, throwing me flat on my back. The metal grating beneath me shrieked, bending under the pressure.

"Darek, you idiot, move!" Lyra's voice sliced through the roar of grinding gears.

I rolled over, coughing up gray soot. She was already there, grabbing the collar of my grease-stained jacket and hauling me backward just as a second foot crashed down. This time, it didn't miss. The entire section of the catwalk we'd been standing on vanished, crushed into a pancake of twisted iron.

"I can see the joint!" I yelled, pointing toward the Titan's ankle. "If I can get a runic spike into that hydraulic seal, the whole leg will lock!"

Lyra shoved me against a soot-covered wall, her forearm pressing hard against my chest.