The heart of the Alliance fortress was a cavern of steel and shadows. The howling of the sandstorm outside was a distant, muted roar, replaced by the hum of generators and the drip of condensation from overhead pipes. Lin Feng and his team of four elite EAC Awakened moved like ghosts through the chaos, using the storm-induced internal alerts as cover for their infiltration. They had reached their objective: the primary command and control hub.
A set of colossal blast doors, twenty meters high, barred their path.
"Breaching charges set," one of his soldiers, a kinetic-type Awakened named Bao, whispered over their encrypted comms.
Before he could give the order to detonate, a low, hydraulic hiss echoed through the hangar. The blast doors began to retract upwards, not with the slowness of a standard opening, but with the speed and certainty of a deliberate reveal.
Bathed in the harsh, white light of the hangar bay beyond, a shadow fell over them. It was a figure of polished, obsidian-black armor and lethal, elegant geometry. It moved with the terrible grace of a falling guillotine, its single, cyclopean red eye glowing with an unfeeling light. T-01. Titan.
"Engage!" Lin Feng commanded, his voice ice-cold.
The fight was a symphony of futility. Bao hurled shimmering discs of pure kinetic force that shattered against the Titan's leg armor like thrown glass. Another soldier, a pyrokinetic, unleashed a torrent of white-hot fire that washed over the mech's torso, leaving not even a scorch mark on its mirror-like finish.
The Titan did not seem to register their attacks. It took a single, deliberate step forward. Its left arm, a complex housing of micro-missile launchers, snapped up. With a sound like a swarm of angry hornets, a volley of projectiles shot out, not with the wild spray of a Jackal, but with the individual targeting precision of a sniper.
One of Lin Feng's soldiers, a woman who could create shields of hardened air, saw her barrier crack and then disintegrate in a split second before the missiles obliterated her position.
"Fall back! Disperse!" Lin Feng roared, firing a bolt of focused lightning at the Titan's head. The electricity grounded harmlessly across its armor, the energy dissipating without effect.
The battle became a desperate, deadly dance. The Titan was not a brute; it was a master swordsman, and they were clumsy children. Its movements were too fast, its targeting too precise. It countered every attack with mathematical brutality, herding them, splitting them up, eliminating them one by one. Bao was caught by the mech's shockwave stomp, his body thrown against a concrete wall with bone-shattering force.
Lin Feng was the last one standing, taking cover behind a ravaged fuel transporter, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was outmatched. His power, his skills, his entire life of training—it was all meaningless before this perfect engine of war. The Titan's red eye fixed on his position, its main particle cannon beginning to whine as it charged for the final, killing blow.
It was then that his world changed.
A flicker of light on his helmet's HUD. A soundless, instantaneous data burst, appearing from nowhere, routed through the joint task force's command channel but bearing no signature, no origin. It was a phantom. A ghost in the machine.
On his display, a schematic of the Titan appeared. It was a 3D wireframe, annotated with crisp, technical English text he could barely read. But he didn't need to read it all. A single component on the mech's left shoulder was highlighted, a glowing, pulsating red box.
A synthesized voice, calm and clinical, spoke directly into his ear, translating the anonymous data.
"Target analysis complete. Weakness identified. Left shoulder thermal exhaust port. Actuator armor retracts for 1.7 seconds during main cannon charge cycle. High-energy particle vulnerability confirmed."
Lin Feng stared at the data, his mind reeling. Where had this come from? It was impossible. It was a miracle.
He looked at the Titan. Its main cannon was whining, reaching the peak of its charge cycle, its entire chassis glowing with contained energy. The anonymous voice in his head had given him a key, a single, impossible path to victory. But the keyhole would only be open for 1.7 seconds.