Soul of Searing Steel

Leaping out from the World Barrier into the Void, Barnil’s expression changed slightly as he silently surveyed the Void around him. Around the Zeta Ram system, spell rings were spreading rapidly as silver-blue psionic radiance went ablaze upon his arrival. In that single instant, the barrier over Zeta Ram was augmented, leaving the old mage briefly unable to return.

Intangible shadows appeared behind the rings one after the other, revealing High Priests who had crossed the Dimensional Hub’s seals from across galaxies. The cyclops had abandoned their physical form and arrived as pure psionic clones. Encircling the dimensional coordinates locked by Barnil, they were seemingly intent on staying guard there to prevent the old mage from re-sealing it.

“…So, you’ve set a trap for me here… the assassin before was simply numbing my thoughts.”

Watching the vigilant formation, the old white-haired mage’s expression turned calm again. He could tell that the dimensional seal was being released bit by bit—the cyclops’ civilization had some remarkably advanced dimensional technique.

“Underestimated your civilization, huh.”

There was no reply. William the Mind Lord, his old friend, was not there, which was why there had been no one laughing and following it up with a ‘So what if we did?’.

Still, Barnil had never needed a reply in the first place. He simply found it funny.

“Is that it?”

There were four-hundred and seventy-three psionic High Priests bathed with mysterious divine power altogether, each wielding Supreme-tier powers. They were the most elite to escape from the Dimensional Hub’s seal, and with their combined circles, they formed a psionic fortress nonexistent in the physical world, but was certainly impregnable.

The elderly mage raised his hand and closed his eyes in response. Having roamed the continent and worlds over the years, every civilian assumed William and him to be affable and nice people who did not fight much and were not very powerful, most of them forgetting that it was him and his companion’s partnership that was enough to destroy the colossal Dark Tide plaguing a human settlement.

Just because there was no need to fight, did not mean that there would not be one.

A streak of light gathered within the palm of the old man and billowed into the darkness with the radiance of the six major elements jumbled with endless runic particles that illuminated the surrounding planetary system, piercing the Void in a straight shot.

Barnil opened his eyes, one of which was a normal human pupil, while the other was a runic eyeball continuously whirling without rest. Countless specks were peeling off from his body—those were the infinite ‘cells’ that formed his runic body—then turned into light and followed a beam that rose unto the depths of the Void.

And hence forming an army.

“Runic fortress manifesting… Elemental army materializing—runic energy charging… 11… 24… 40… 59… 75… 99%… Charge complete. Combat fortress activated, commencing full-range Void seal…”

“Fort Axis, full armament mode on.”

A flat, unemotional voice echoed in the entire planetary system, just as the radiance that permeated the Void vanished. A great floating city—a fortress of war—appeared in the Void instead.

It was a creation that had seemingly walked out from imagination and oil canvas. Profound and vast, the metal walls of the citadel flickered in dazzling runes, with energy towers standing on every corner of its edge. Meanwhile, an army of elemental spirits encircled the castle like birds, as massive rune cannon barrels gathered golden energy radiance over the ramparts.

It was a fortress and a castle built for war, a sacred palace of elements and runes. And there had not been only one—with a flicker of blinding divine light, another fortress appeared, while elemental creatures donning enchanted armor stepped up to the ramparts, silently assuming formations to conjure massive runic catapults out of thin air.

One fortress materialized after another in the Void, with Barnil withdrawing his left palm that had mostly disintegrated. His body now mostly gone, the elderly watched as the depressurizing light escaped from the binding of his physical form, while the psionic army far away closed ranks in panic and prepared to strengthen their defenses.

His lips curled up coolly.

Fighting me with spells?

“You are about to face a Legend.”

***

Meanwhile, in the Zeta Ram world, Zero One had linked himself to the entire Dimensional hub, conducting rapid processing with his special living form to complete what few connection programs remained.

He could hear the sounds from distant stars, the repeated queries and traction from the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds, an echoing roar over the dimensions. Zero One could feel the voice growing louder and the sensation clearer, while the other side appeared to feel the signal transmitted from Zeta Ram—they were moving closer on their own accord, ready to rendezvous.

That very moment was the precursor to success. As long as Zero One continued and completed the connection program, the dimensional portal would have opened and the reinforcements from the Mycroft world would have directly reach the other side of the stars. It was, however, also the moment Zero One was most vulnerable—if anyone destroyed the connection program, all effort until then would have been in vain.

And it was clear that it was known not only to Mycroftians.

On the purple-black seas of the Zeta Ram world, a colossal creature rose slowly from the waters, breaking through the surface and letting out an air-splitting roar. More than seven hundred meters long, it resembled an ancient wyvern with three heads and two tails. Fearsome metal spikes contracted and protruded over its chest, while absolute energy ripples emanated out of its golden crystal scales.

It was a behemoth ambusher from the Court of Amos. Most of the Amos fleet had retreated to their home after the Imperator had left to avoid being attacked by the Takurians, while some, following secret instructions from the Imperator, had warped directly into the Zeta Ram world. There had not been a lack of Amos attackers amongst the Void Fiends whom Barnil had been destroying before, but those were merely diversions, as the old mage had gathered.

And it was what the Amos Court intended to use to destroy the Dimensional Hub.

Discarding cells from the Void into the deep sea and growing by absorbing geothermal heat and undersea minerals, the behemoth’s embryo fed and strengthened rapidly—in hours, the monster had gained the power to level a metropolis. Even if it had less than seven days to live, it was able to wipe out most nations over a planet—when its three heads fired the threefold beams of magic, elements, and ether at once, they would pierce the planet’s crust and form a great rift valley directed deep into the magma layer.

At present, the three-headed wyvern parted the seas and advanced towards the nearby Dimensional Hub. Its genetic vault held all knowledge about destruction, which was why the creature was perfectly aware that a delicate building such as the Dimensional Hub could develop an irrecoverable error with little destruction to its construct.

But the biologically-modified beast, which purpose in life was to complete its mission, suddenly paused. Two figures had appeared before it.

***

A Drakonid girl stood upon the skies, her arms folded across her chest while her tail flickering with the thunder swayed gently. Beside her, Syndicate was grinning—though the former archdemon had changed to the Drakonid bloodline, her two head horns were as fearsome as a demon’s.

The pair, who was escorting Zero One, coldly watched the monster before them. The Zeta Ram world was shrouded in clouds of gloom that surged darkly over the skies, and thunder rumbled among the clouds, with green bolts winding between their layers like a dragon hovering over the world.

Lisa and Syndicate simply floated in the air without having used any power, gravity appearing to have no effect upon them. The pair was silent in the face of the roaring wyvern that was charging and prepared to unleashed its breath from all three heads. Raising their hands at once, a twofold magnetic boundary swirled, causing blinding lightning to eject from every pore and scale of theirs.

It was also the moment when the three-headed wyvern’s breath was unleashed. The lethal main battery of a warship had fused into its living form and, conjuring three massive rays, a surging blast that could instantly split the air apart, ionizing all things while its supreme heat ignited even rainwater, turning the world into a realm of steam, was released.

But against the breath that could destroy a city and flatten a mountain, the pair were unsurprised.

In fact, they were delighted.

It was the touchstone they had been waiting for after their Ascension. They were irrepressibly thrilled, and simply had to attack with their full power, spirit and focus!

“Lisa!”

“Syndicate!”

“—magnetic field rotation, seven hundred thousand horsepower!”

“—Stone! Breaker! Sky! Jolt! Fist!”

Yelling each other’s name at once, the air around the Drakonid girl and the balrog exploded. Within the seemingly soft body, augmented muscles tougher than diamonds burst with the violent force that could stop a volcanic eruption, a slight physical twitch quaking everything around into vacuum. Right after, the pair accelerated simultaneously and whirled from stillness, turning into two streaks of surging thunder that shot directly at the three-headed dragon’s breath!

Boom!

In the very next second, the rumble of the Stone Breaking Sky Jolt Fist echoed throughout the world. Following an extremely bright white light was a great darkness, and a terrible rumble resembling a crumbling mountain right after. A burning tidal wave several hundreds of meters tall abruptly ejected from the center of the collision and spread across all directions, while clouds of gloom that covered the sky parted, revealing the dazzling stars behind!