The construct cleared the ridge in two strides.
It was wrong. Not alive, not dead, a mass of dark alloy and condensed dimensional energy shaped into something that mocked the source world's apex predators. Limbs that bent in too many directions. A torso that pulsed with the cold mechanical rhythm of a weapon cycling through its power sequence. No head. No face. Only a central aperture in its chest that glowed with the same bruise-coloured light bleeding from the seal below.
Yuna's Pathfinder senses recoiled. The thing had no spatial signature she could read. No pathways to redirect. No momentum to exploit. It moved through the battlefield the way a blade moved through water, the space around it parting without resistance.
'It's not alive,' she thought. 'No paths. No choices. Just progra
