The first golem didn't walk through the barricade. It replaced it.
Steel screamed, glass went airborne, and half a tram folded in on itself like paper under a fist. The shockwave shoved me back three steps even through Darkharness. Heat rolled out of the crater—thick, metallic, alive.
The thing climbing out looked like someone had sculpted a building and decided to make it angry. Rebar ribs. Furnace heart. Molten seams that bled orange instead of red. Each breath was a hiss of vapor, like a foundry exhaling.
"Positions!" Raene barked, voice cutting through the sirens.
Hana's threads snapped into a web across the street, blue light running between pylons as fast as she could think. Jax braced, Grav-Edge cleaver resting on his shoulder, gravity already starting to drool off the blade.
I moved without thinking. Both daggers free—Fangpiercer in my right, Fogbite in my left. The twin hum in my hands felt like a heartbeat split in half.
