Building Zoids in a World of Titans

The Liger Zero's satisfied rumble still hung in the air as Alex killed the boosters. Smoke curled from scorched scrub pine, and the last of the Tusker herd had vanished over the ridge. But something else lingered in his gut—a wrongness that had nothing to do with the fight.

That earthquake. Too precise. Too targeted.

"Ziya." He keyed his comm, watching Rhian's Arosaurer settle into a careful hover beside them. "How's the Mule holding up?"

"Engine's fine, but the suspension's been acting strange since that tremor," Ziya replied, her voice carrying the edge of someone who'd spent too many hours listening to mechanical problems. "Like something shifted in the chassis itself."

Rhian's head tilted, that particular tilt that meant she was connecting dots adults missed. "The ground moved right before the river disappeared too. And the Tuskers—they weren't just running from us. They were running from something else."

Alex's fingers tightened on the controls. The Liger Zero's servos hummed in agreement, its amber optics scanning the canyon walls with renewed interest.

"They were running from whatever caused that earthquake," Alex said. "Whatever's diverting the river."

Alex killed the boosters and let the Liger Zero settle onto its haunches. The satisfied rumble still echoed in his skull, but his mind was already turning toward the next problem. Whatever had diverted the river was still out there, and the Iron Mule's suspension had been acting up since that tremor.

"Ziya." He keyed his comm, watching her silhouette in the Mule's cockpit below. "Leave the Mule here. We'll stash it in that old quarry—" he gestured toward a depression in the canyon wall "—and you can take the Lanstag. I'll scout ahead with the Liger."

Ziya's voice crackled back, steady despite the morning's chaos. "Agreed. But we're not splitting up. Whatever's diverting rivers doesn't sound like it's playing nice."

Alex nodded, then caught himself—Ziya couldn't see it. "Right. Lanstag's got the heavy lifting anyway."

He watched her climb down from the Mule and make her way to the Lanstag's cockpit. The moose-type Zoid's canopy slid open with practiced efficiency, and Ziya settled into the pilot's seat.

The Lanstag's servos whined to life as Ziya brought its systems online. Alex turned the Liger Zero toward the eastern ridge, where the canyon walls grew steeper and the rock showed signs of recent stress fractures.

"Coming?" he asked.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Ziya replied, but the Lanstag was already following, its heavy footsteps crunching against loose scree.

Alex guided the Liger Zero along the dried riverbed, boots crunching against gravel that hadn't seen water in months. The basin stretched ahead, wider than any natural formation he'd seen, with a wall of debris choking what should have been an outlet. Stone, timber, and earth piled twenty meters high—definitely a landslide.

"Ziya, you seeing this?" he keyed the comm, watching her Lanstag's heavy frame settle into the Mule's cargo bay behind them.

"Yeah. That's not natural erosion." Her voice crackled through the comm. "Looks almost like something tunneled through from the other side."

Rhian's voice came through, small but steady. "Alex, there's something weird about the rocks here. They're warm."

Alex nodded, even though she couldn't see it. Warm rock meant recent activity. His fingers tightened on the controls as the Liger Zero's sensors picked up an enormous heat signature ahead—not the scattered readings of displaced wildlife, but something singular, massive, and deliberately moving.

The basin opened into what should have been a lakebed. Instead, a debris wall choked the outlet, and behind it, the lake stretched still and beautiful, its surface smooth as polished glass, catching the afternoon light in perfect reflections.

That's when the ground began to shake.

Not the tremor from before. This was deliberate. Rhythmic. Like something enormous was walking.

"RRRROOOO—RRRROOOO—RRRRRRROOOOOOOO—!"

The Liger Zero's challenge rolled across the basin like thunder, but Alex barely heard it over the sound building behind him. He turned.

Something emerged from the forest line beyond the blocked lake.

The ground trembled beneath them as Alex spoke into his comm, and something in the Liger Zero's posture shifted. Its amber optics, already scanning the basin ahead, suddenly widened and fixed on a point beyond the blocked outlet.

"What?" Ziya's voice crackled through the comm, but Alex was already turning to follow the Liger's gaze.

They all saw it at once.

The forest line beyond the lakebed shimmered like heat haze, then resolved into something impossibly massive. It stood taller than the old growth trees, its segmented body armored in plates that looked like they'd been carved from the canyon itself. Six legs, each the size of the Iron Mule, carried it forward with deliberate, grinding steps. Where a head should have been, instead rose a cluster of articulated drills and excavation arms, tipped with what looked like molten metal.

"That's..." Ziya's voice died in her throat.

Rhian's Arosaurer recoiled, its servos whining. "Alex, it's huge. Like, really huge."

The creature's grinding steps sent vibrations through the dried riverbed, each footfall cracking stone like dropped anvils. Alex felt the Liger Zero's predatory instincts flare through their neural link—the machine's entire frame coiled with the urge to spring forward and tear into that armored hide.

"RRRRROOOO—RRRROOOOOO—RRRRRRRRRROOOOOO—!"

The Liger's roar was pure challenge, but Alex kept his hands steady on the controls. "Easy. Hold." They couldn't be reckless here. Not when whatever this thing was had already diverted an entire river and displaced a herd of D-rank Tuskers.

He keyed his System's database instead, cross-referencing thermal signatures against the Titan classifications he'd studied in Veridia. The creature's dimensions alone should have classified it as Rank B at minimum, but something about the precision of that river diversion suggested purpose rather than mindless destruction.

The database flickered through matches—Obsidian-Wing Petras variants, Stone-Bulwark Titans, Crag-Crawlers—but none fit quite right. Then the System pinged a match from the restricted archives: a designation that made his stomach tighten despite his best intentions.

The Terra-Colossus

Advance chapters on my p@tR$0n/Najicablitz.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!