Chapter 190: Chapter 190: The Void Armory
Chapter 190: The Void Armory
The ground defense was holding, but the Vanguard was running entirely on fumes.
Aegon Logcheville stood in the center of the Stone Gates, his chest heaving violently.
The blistering crimson flames of his [Asura’s Devouring Crucible] had dimmed to a dull, exhausted orange.
Beside him, Reina Frost leaned heavily on her battle axe, her glacial mana reserves completely tapped dry.
"My quiver is empty," Natalie Tokks reported breathlessly, dropping down from the ruined balcony to join them on the street.
The squad had slaughtered thousands of monsters. The cobblestones were buried under three feet of gray ash and dark blood.
But the King Level Beast had one final, cruel trick to block their path to the mountain’s core.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
A terrifying new rhythm echoed through the smoke.
Marching down the main thoroughfare was a phalanx of Corrupted Monster Generals. They were towering, humanoid abominations standing twelve feet tall.
Their bodies were encased in impossibly thick, shifting plates of highly condensed dark matter. They wielded massive executioner swords dripping with black acid.
Aegon let out a tired, reckless laugh. He lunged forward, thrusting his spear directly into the chest plate of the lead General.
CLANG!
The spear completely bounced off. The kinetic impact vibrated painfully up Aegon’s arms, knocking him backward.
"Standard weapons are useless!" Aegon warned, spitting blood onto the ash.
"The dark matter plating is too dense. It’s absorbing the kinetic force!"
"Step aside, meat shields," a cocky, soot-stained voice echoed from behind them.
Cole Rust walked to the front of the Vanguard line. The genius blacksmith wiped a smear of black grease from his forehead.
He didn’t look exhausted. He looked like a kid walking into a candy store.
Cole reached into his heavy canvas sack. He pulled out a massive, rolled-up parchment scroll pulsing with volatile, bright orange runes.
"I spent the entire twenty-four hour of the operation in the Forge-King’s private armory," Cole grinned, looking back at his squad.
"Did you really think Bram and I were just twiddling our thumbs?"
Cole hurled the heavy scroll across the blood-soaked cobblestones.
The scroll violently unrolled. The orange runes flared with blinding intensity.
KRA-KOOM!
The air itself cracked like fragile glass. A massive spatial rift tore open directly above the scroll.
From the dark void of the spatial tear, three towering, heavy iron weapon racks dropped directly onto the battlefield.
The heat of the dwarven forge still radiated off the dark, beautiful metal resting on the stands.
"Christmas came early!" Cole yelled over the roars of the approaching Generals.
Cole grabbed a bundled leather sheath from the first rack and threw it directly at Nyx.
Nyx caught it smoothly. She drew two pitch-black, jagged blades that seemed to absorb the morning light.
"The [Shadow-Rend Daggers]," Cole announced proudly.
"Forged from ultra-dense void-steel. The edges are so molecularly thin they don’t just cut flesh, they literally cut through spatial magic. Don’t drop them on your toes, you’ll lose a foot."
Nyx spun the daggers flawlessly, a genuinely terrifying smile touching her lips.
"I’ll try not to stab you in the back with them, Cole."
Cole tossed a sleek, silver scabbard adorned with sapphire runes to the elegant swordsman.
Lucien caught it gracefully. He drew the thin, humming blade. Sparks of blue electricity instantly danced across the metal.
"[Storm-Caller Rapier]," Cole shouted, grabbing the next item.
"It naturally absorbs ambient lightning and static friction from the air, redirecting it straight into your thrusts. You’re a walking lightning rod now, pretty boy."
Lucien gave the blade an experimental flick. A loud crack of thunder echoed in the street.
"Immaculate craftsmanship, Mr. Rust," Lucien praised smoothly.
Finally, Cole threw a beautifully carved, glowing metallic bow frame to Natalie. It had no string.
"[Whisper-String Bow]," Cole pointed at her.
"Channel your mana directly into the grip. It pulls ambient wind magic to generate infinite, hyper-condensed projectiles. You never have to worry about a quiver again."
Natalie gripped the metal frame. A glowing, bright blue string of pure wind magic instantly materialized between the limbs. She pulled it back, and a lethal wind-arrow formed on the rest.
"Oh, I am going to have fun with this," Natalie whispered.
The Corrupted Generals roared, breaking into a heavy, earth-shaking sprint to crush the squad.
"Alright, playtime is over!" Cole yelled, turning back to the final weapon rack.
"Keep those ugly bastards off me for exactly thirty seconds! I brought a toy for myself!"
With a heavy groan, Cole lifted a massive, unwieldy weapon off the rack. It was a prototype siege cannon, nearly as big as Cole himself.
The barrel was thick, dark iron lined with glowing red thermal runes. The core of the weapon pulsed with a localized, volatile heat engine.
"Protect the blacksmith!" Aegon roared, stepping in front of Cole.
The Monster Generals crashed into their line. But the squad was no longer fighting with standard gear.
A massive General swung its executioner sword at Nyx. She didn’t dodge. She stepped directly into the strike and swiped her [Shadow-Rend Dagger] upward.
SHNK.
The dagger didn’t just cut the dark matter armor. It severed the spatial fabric holding the armor together.
The General’s massive arm and sword simply fell to the ground, cleanly detached from reality.
Nyx vanished into the shadows, reappearing behind it to slide the second dagger straight through its thick skull.
Lucien danced gracefully between two towering monsters. He didn’t use massive spells. He parried a heavy blow, letting the friction build, and thrust the [Storm-Caller Rapier] forward.
CRACK!
A blinding bolt of blue lightning ripped from the tip of the blade, instantly frying the monster’s nervous system inside its impenetrable armor.
"Are you going to shoot that thing or just cuddle with it, Rust?!" Reina yelled, using the last of her ice magic to freeze the boots of a charging General to the floor.
"Perfection takes time, Frost!" Cole screamed back. He wrenched a heavy iron lever on the side of the cannon. The thermal core whined with a terrifying, high-pitched hum.
"Do you want to blow up the city or just the monsters?!"
"I am highly indifferent at this point!" Aegon roared, bashing a monster back with his shield.
Natalie stood on a pile of rubble. Her fingers were a blur. The [Whisper-String Bow] fired a relentless, endless stream of glowing blue artillery.
The hyper-condensed wind arrows slammed into the remaining Generals, pushing the heavy monsters backward with sheer, concussive force.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The thermal runes on Cole’s prototype cannon turned blindingly white.
"Clear the line!" Cole screamed at the top of his lungs.
Aegon, Reina, Nyx, Lucien, and Natalie scattered instantly, diving behind the thick stone walls of the bottleneck.
Cole braced his boots against the cobblestones, leaned his shoulder into the heavy stock, and pulled the massive iron trigger.
KABOOOOOM!
The recoil was so violent it pushed Cole backward, tearing deep trenches into the stone street with his boots. A deafening, blinding beam of concentrated thermal-kinetic energy erupted from the barrel.
The blast wave shattered every remaining glass window in the sector.
The beam hit the phalanx of Corrupted Monster Generals. It didn’t just pierce their armor. It completely vaporized them.
The sheer heat and kinetic force wiped the towering abominations from existence, turning them into a cloud of rapidly dissipating ash.
The massive beam continued down the main thoroughfare, violently carving a deep, smoking trench straight through the lower mountain defenses.
It blew open a massive set of iron doors at the far end of the street, revealing the dark, winding tunnel leading down into the mountain’s core.
Silence fell over the plaza.
Cole dropped the smoking prototype cannon onto the ground. He blew a stray lock of soot-covered hair out of his eyes.
"Now that," Cole breathed heavily, "is a gun."
The rest of the squad stepped out from cover. They looked at the massive, smoking crater carved straight through the city, and then down at the gleaming, legendary weapons in their hands.
Draven stepped forward. His human host body was internally screaming. He wiped a fresh line of black blood from his upper lip, hiding the gesture behind his iron gauntlet.
He looked at the open tunnel leading into the dark abyss. The King Level Beast was down there, hiding at the roots of the World Tree.
"The Vanguard holds the surface," Draven ordered, his voice cold and absolute.
"Do not let a single monster past this gate."
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