The edges of the shattered hole in the wall still radiated a searing red glow. A metal construct over twelve feet tall slowly stepped through the breach, wreathed in steam and waves of heat.
Each step sent a dull boom through the floor. The steel plates buckled beneath the golem's feet, leaving shallow footprints.
Renato looked up. The first thing he saw was the pale blue adamantine plating covering its entire body, its surface etched with constantly flickering magic runes. Multicolored magical auras flowed across the plates like living things, brightening and fading in turn.
Beneath the heavy armor, cables, gears, and intricate pump mechanisms were faintly visible through the gaps between the plates. They worked in rhythm with its movements, producing a low, steady rumble and soft hisses of escaping steam.
The golem's right arm merged into an enormous adamantine longsword. Striking blue-white light flowed along the blade, clearly imbued with a powerful magical field, and it gave off a continuous hum.
A Shock Hammer was mounted on the golem's left hand, likewise cast from adamantine. Its head was densely inscribed with runes and vibrated continuously.
The entire construct resembled a knight clad in superheavy plate armor. Though neither muscle nor bone powered this enormous killing machine, pure magic and precisely operating machinery made its limbs just as coordinated and agile, utterly unlike ordinary, slow, lumbering iron golems.
The pump in its chest expelled a cloud of scalding steam. The milky vapor quickly spread through the cold corridor.
Two narrow sensor slits in the golem's head emitted cold red light, locking firmly onto the intruders before it.
A clear mechanical voice emerged from beneath the armor plates, quiet but loud enough to drown out the lingering noise in the corridor:
"Targets for elimination confirmed. Combat code..."
Klauthsura did not