According to Eye Orb’s crash course, Mechanical Arms this strong sit behind corporate iron gates, hard to mass-produce, costly to build, priced like mountains. Even a “cheap” one runs tens of millions and up.

But Eye Orb said he’d never seen this model, his certainty burning like a lantern; he swore it had to be tech from the last few years.

Where’d that confidence come from?

Because Eye Orb lives in the body-forge, specializing in human overhauls from cells to genes, praising living vines and mocking old iron.

To topple that creaking, outmoded mechanical lineage, he memorized every edge and flaw, every name, model, and rating like a prayer carved in stone.

“So how do we win? His modifications look on par with Cantata Two.”

Gun up and wary, Lingchen Yao stood near Qianchun, whispering to Eye Orb crouched like a shadow under his hood.

“I haven’t seen it, but by my read, that shoulder and arm use the newest Magic Stone drive,” Eye Orb said, voice steady as a metronome. “It burns Mana as fuel and detonates strength.”

He paused, eyes stealing toward the man’s arm, blue stripes glowing like river veins. The lines climbed and converged beneath his shirt, pooling where the Magic Stone should sit—the power-heart.

“This Mechanical Arm is tough. The old trick of smashing the power node won’t fit. But there’s another way…”

“What way?” Lingchen Yao asked, his voice taut like a bowstring.

“Every new-energy Mechanical Arm suffers endurance issues, a leaky bucket of power, all because of low efficiency.”

Fossil fuel and electricity had the same birth-ache, drips turned to rivers as tech iterated, until they became the mainstream sea.

Lingchen Yao knew that, and Eye Orb’s nudge made understanding break like dawn over a ridge. “Like when I absorb a Magic Stone—without a formation, most Mana bleeds away. With a formation, efficiency jumps several tiers.”

Eye Orb nodded, a small hammer tapping an anvil. “So just make him spend. A Cantata Two Magic Stone in combat mode runs ten-odd minutes before it quits. Even new models add only another ten.”

The man’s arm caught Qianchun’s rounds like a steel hawk snatching sparrows. Her invisible wind Blade etched only a paper-thin scratch.

Seeing the strike fail, Qianchun fell back like a reed in wind, raising a wind barrier to bat away stones he pitched like bullets. Meanwhile, Lingchen Yao fired once and slid deeper into the open wilds.

The man had real chops. That Mechanical Arm shrugged off most First Symphony attacks like rain off slate. Its hardness rivaled a Cantata Two body. Its reaction speed outpaced plenty of Cantata Two.

But he’d only rebuilt his arm; the rest stayed human, flesh and breath. A normal adult’s legs can’t match Qianchun, a wind-element Magic Maiden, nor Lingchen Yao, whose body strengthened in a creeping morph.

Still, that wasn’t a true edge. Do the math: rely on speed, and they’d tie for a while; drag it out, Lingchen Yao’s stamina drains, Qianchun’s Mana runs dry, and the tide turns.

He blocked everything with that Mechanical Arm, feet rooted like a stone stela, barely burning energy. Once their speed dipped, Lingchen Yao would have to gear up with his Magic Armor and face him.

But that would expose him; this is the man’s turf, studded with eyes like cold stars. Lingchen Yao’s transformation is Aklatia’s top secret, a spark that would draw endless hunters.

“Think you can burn me out with speed?” the man called, voice cold as iron.

Night Frost never aimed for an attrition grind; his intent was lightning-fast victory, a blade of frost. That’s why he hurried off, hunting a blind spot with no watching eyes.

The man tailed their stride, reading them like a plain. He saw their gear and strength were middling, so they’d bet on speed by inches.

Two figures sprinted under the moon like twin shadows. A darker shadow followed unhurried, a wolf on a ridge line.

His arm flicked, and pebbles rained down like a hail of lead. Qianchun’s wind barrier parted the stones, and wind Blades chased after, carving long scratches and waking old dust.

When the man swept the smoke aside like a curtain, the pair were gone. The next heartbeat, his Mechanical Arm moved on its own; a spark flashed, a gunshot cracked, and he caught a black bullet in his palm.

Heat came right after, a furnace wind. Two fire-wrapped forearms clamped his arm; flames charred the silver coating, planting coal-black scars.

Night Frost was strong, and the Mechanical Arm was no slouch. They locked in a dead heat, a vise of iron and flame.

Fire climbed his clothes like ivy. The hot wave left pink islands where new skin showed through burn.

He wanted to break free. His left hand lifted, then flinched, his body recoiling from heat like a stag from a torch.

“Who… who are you!” he gasped, voice cracking like thin ice.

The earlier calm and mockery vanished from his eyes, panic spreading like ink in water. He struggled, but Night Frost pinned him like a nail in hardwood.

The temperature kept climbing. Gravel baked black and glassy, a kiln on open ground. The arm’s shell burned away, leaving a silver skeleton, while an alarm went beep-beep-beep.

Qianchun peeked from behind Night Frost, a cold wind Blade pinched in her palm like a shard of moon.

“So… what do we say?” she whispered, breath a feather.

Night Frost locked the restless arm, lifted his gaze to the Silver River and the star-flooded sky, and sank into thought like a stone in a lake.

Then, in a low, odd register, off-key and theatrical, he tossed out, “You have no right to know my name!”

In that instant, something clicked in the man’s mind; his pupils blew wide like storm clouds. He began to speak—then flame ate him, and a wind Blade opened his throat.

Flesh around the metal arm turned to charcoal, flaking like burnt paper, and fell in silent snow.

“Tsk, tsk. This thing’s high-end,” Night Frost said, voice cool as frost. “Shame I can’t wear it. And it sounds busted. It was beeping nonstop.”

“Be careful,” Eye Orb began, words sharp as a scalpel. “Big-brand Mechanical Arms usually pack explosives—”

A crisp latch clicked, like a trap snapping. Night Frost ripped the arm, shoulder and all, free from bone like pulling a nail from wet wood.

“Very dangerous?” he asked, eyes curious as a cat. He gave the Mechanical Arm a shake, and Eye Orb snapped, “Don’t!”

“Fast hands, huh…” Eye Orb hissed, a kettle about to boil. “They use self-destructs to stop tech leaks. Won’t level a block, but it isn’t gentle. You’d shrug it off, though.”

Warned, Night Frost set his guard and sent Qianchun and Eye Orb far back, like birds to a safe branch under night wind.

“We could skip that Magic Stone,” Qianchun said, worry falling like rain. “Your safety matters more.”

Night Frost didn’t hear it. He insisted on the prize. A Cantata Two Magic Stone is worth over ten First Symphony stones.

He poked the arm under moonlight, metal still silver and cold after long flame, gleaming with mechanical beauty like ice over steel.

After a search, Night Frost found an unspent Magic Stone, plus two more on the man—a windfall placed on the path like coins from heaven.

He’d spent four hundred thousand and made over a million—a pure profit, clean as new snow.

Night Frost carefully removed the Magic Stone from the shoulder’s center. At that instant, the silent countdown hit zero like a bell at midnight.

Crisp compressions snapped inside the arm. Sparks pricked like stars. Heat and blast bloomed from Night Frost as center, a flower of fire.

The ground shivered, a drum underfoot. Firelight speared the sky, while the blast kicked up a sandstorm that swallowed the flames and left a smoldering glow.

A Magic Stone trailed a smoky tail, flew from the blast, and embedded in the rubble like a fallen meteor. Qianchun watched the dust cloud, her hand rising without thought.

A dull ember drifted into her palm and died the moment it touched her skin, like a moth meeting water.

“You okay?” she called, voice a wire pulled tight.

When the dust fell, a crater yawned like a dark bowl, but Night Frost was nowhere in sight.

“I’m fine—” cough, cough. “That bomb packed a punch. Good thing I tossed it in time.”

A soot-black arm thrust from the charred earth. Night Frost, in tattered Magic Armor, hauled himself out, brushed off grime, and poured Mana back into the suit like fuel into a furnace.

In a heartbeat, the damaged Magic Armor stitched itself whole, ice sealing over a crack.

He walked to the crater’s edge. The bright silver arm was now ocher scraps, ruined by an inside-out bloom of fire, a wreck no shop would touch.

“We should leave, now,” Eye Orb said, voice low as an owl in the rafters.

Night Frost agreed with a nod sharp as a knife. This was the Twelfth District’s border, a fence of shadows and quiet.

Not under the Order Keeper’s hand, but the blast had surely drawn their eyes and the border crews’ like moths to a lantern.

If every gaze turned here, getting back to the Twelfth District would come late, and they’d be forced onto a long, thorny road.