Utio's counterattack came faster than the assassins had expected.
The instant those Phase Sword blades rose again, the metal beneath Utio's five-meter-tall mechanical body suddenly began to move.
The armor plates across his breastplate flowed aside like liquid mercury, exposing the writhing layer of nanometal beneath. The metallic particles churned, gathered, and wove themselves together in the air like living tissue.
His pauldrons automatically rearranged themselves, and the machinery at his waist gave off a low rumble of reconfiguration. The assassins preparing their next attack paused almost instinctively. Their experience told them that the body before them was entering an entirely new state.
Then a staff formed from nanometal abruptly appeared on Utio's arm.
The staff extended from his elbow, solidifying at a visible rate. Its surface gradually cooled from blazing white to a subdued silver sheen, and a crystal emitting red light was set into its tip.
As one Callidus Assassin prepared to strike again, her shadowlike figure had just swept past the remains of a fallen Skitarii soldier. The Phase Sword in her hand was already raised high, its green blade tracing another arc through the hall's air.
But Utio reacted faster than she did.
The staff lashed out, the mechanical arm's hydraulic systems driving it through a perfect arc with virtually no delay. The crystal at its tip flashed at the end of that arc, then released a visible ring of force.
Like a transparent wall, the shock wave burst outward from the staff's tip, moving faster than sound itself.
The terrifying shock wave struck the Callidus Assassin in an instant, crushing over the Phase Sword she was swinging, over the body beneath her black bodysuit, and over her limbs as she tried to evade.
A second later, the concussion shattered the assassin.
Her equipment and the