Chapter 41: Elemental Golden Cannon
Each clone was capable of unleashing powerful techniques—perhaps not the full meteor swarm, but close. Fire rains. Lightning storms. Light lances that could pierce through mountains. And if their mana reserves ran low, they could simply reach through the bond and borrow more from the original. The connection between them was seamless, instantaneous, unbreakable.
And through that same bond, they shared senses. Whatever a clone saw, Gabriel would see. Whatever a clone heard, Gabriel would hear. He would witness every kill, every explosion, every moment of carnage as if he were there himself.
Three of me, he thought, his cross-shaped pupils gleaming. Three archangels, spreading death across this dungeon.
He raised his hand to his chin, considering his next move.
Lilith had her shadow army. He had his clones. The competition had just become far more interesting.
"Let’s see who blinks first, my love," he murmured, and then he descended toward the island below—not to rest, but to begin his own hunt.
While his clones were busy—each firing powerful spells on their respective islands, painting the crimson sky with golden explosions—Gabriel turned his attention to the island beneath him. His mana had almost recovered. The vast, ocean-like reserve within him had refilled to near fullness so quickly it was getting absurd, the reason for this was not only because of his race which was closer to mana itself but also because his body siphoned the ambient mana in this place saturated with it.
Time to reduce this island to dust.
But he would not use his previous spell. The meteors had been impressive, yes—a spectacle of fire and earth that had shattered one floating landmass into drifting rubble. He had to experience various things, right now he was an artist, and every canvas demanded a different brush.
Like the previous time, he decided to combine two elements again: Light and Lightning.
Light—the first element, the one from which all other elements were said to derive. In many ancient texts, it was also known as the Life element, for it carried the spark of creation, the warmth of existence, the radiance that pushed back darkness. But light could kill as easily as it could nurture. Gabriel knew this better than anyone.
Lightning—the element of speed, of fury, of raw, untamed power that split the sky and scorched the earth. When lightning met light, the result was not addition. It was multiplication.
Gabriel closed his eyes and reached deep into his imagination.
He had always been a dreamer. Even back on Earth, in that ordinary life that now felt like a fading memory, his mind had been filled with stories—tales of heroes and villains, of gods and monsters, of weapons so powerful they could reshape reality. He had watched countless animations, read endless novels, absorbed every fantastical image like a sponge soaking up water.
And now, those images became fuel here.
He remembered a certain regalia from a certain anime—a golden king who opened portals to a treasury of infinite weapons, unleashing them upon his enemies with a contemptuous sneer. Gabriel had always admired that image. The arrogance. The overwhelming power. The style.
Let me borrow that.
He raised his right hand.
Behind him, the air cracked.
Not with thunder, but with presence. A line of golden light split the empty space, vertical and perfect, as if reality itself had been cut by an invisible blade. The line widened, folding outward like two doors swinging open.
A gate emerged.
It was massive—taller than any tree on the island, wider than any cyclops settlement. Its frame was pure gold, carved with countless intricate runes that seemed to shift and writhe like living serpents. The doors themselves were not solid but translucent, made of woven light so bright it hurt to look upon. Through the gate, one could glimpse an endless expanse of golden radiance—a treasury of pure, condensed power.
From within that radiance, something emerged.
It was gigantic—easily the size of a warship, its barrel long and tapered, its body covered in the same shifting golden runes that adorned the gate. The cannon seemed alive, almost organic, its metal surface pulsing with a warm, breath-like glow. It slid forward from the gate with a deep, resonant hum, as if the universe itself were groaning under the weight of its presence.
Gabriel smiled upon seeing that he had achieved what he desired so easily.
The cannon locked into position, its barrel aimed directly at the island below. The runes along its length flared—first gold, then white, then a blinding blue-white that hurt even Gabriel’s powerful eyes.
The cannon roared.
Not with sound—though there was sound, a deep, throaty bellow like a hungry beast awakening from a thousand-year slumber. But the true roar was felt rather than heard: a vibration that traveled through the air, through the earth, through the very fabric of the dungeon. The floating island trembled. The clouds above churned. Even the distant clones paused for a moment, feeling the pulse of their original’s power.
Golden light began to condense within the cannon’s barrel.
It started as a faint glow at the base—a single spark no larger than a firefly. Then the spark grew, fed by Gabriel’s mana, fed by his will, fed by the combined forces of Light and Lightning. The glow became a beam, the beam became a pillar, the pillar became a sun.
Gabriel could feel the energy building. One hundred thousand volts. Five hundred thousand. One million.
The cannon’s hum rose in pitch, becoming a scream, becoming a howl. The runes along its surface burned so brightly they seemed to melt, reforming, reshaping, optimizing themselves for the coming release. The air around Gabriel crackled with static electricity. His golden hair floated upward. His wings spread wide, the runes on his feathers resonating with the cannon’s song.
One million volts is good start, he thought.
The energy condensed beyond mortal measurement. It was not simply electricity—it was light made lightning, lightning made light, a fusion of two primordial forces into something entirely new. Something terrible.
Gabriel pointed his right hand downward.
"Fire," he ordered like a general on the battlefield.
The cannon obeyed its creator’s order.
The beam that erupted from its barrel was not golden. It was not white. It was the color of absolute—a shade that had no name because no human eye had ever witnessed it and survived. It was the color of a star dying. The color of the Big Bang frozen in time.
The beam descended.
It did not strike the forest. It blazed through it.
Wherever the beam passed, everything disappeared. Not burned. Not vaporized. Disappeared. Trees, rocks, soil, monsters—all of them ceased to exist as if they had never been. There was no ash, no smoke, no debris. There was simply nothing.
The beam carved a line across the island—a trench of absolute emptiness, a wound in the world that would never heal. Then the beam widened. It spread outward from its initial point, expanding like the petals of a flower blooming in reverse. The trench became a chasm. The chasm became a crater. The crater became the entire island.
In the blink of an eye—less than a heartbeat, less than a thought—the floating island was completely destroyed.
Not shattered, like the first island. Not broken into chunks drifting through the void. Destroyed. Erased. The space where it had existed was now empty, filled only with the fading afterimage of the golden beam and a few stray sparks of electricity that crackled in the void.
Gabriel lowered his hand.
Behind him, the golden gate creaked, its doors slowly swinging shut. The massive cannon retreated into the radiance, its hum fading into silence. The gate folded in on itself, the line of golden light shrinking, disappearing, until there was nothing left but empty air.
He hovered in the void, wings gently flapping, and surveyed his work.
Nothing remained.
Not a single rock. Not a single drop of monster blood. Not a single scrap of bone or hide. The island was gone, and everything on it had been returned to the fundamental particles from which it had been made.
Gabriel glanced at his golden bracelet.
The number had climbed again.
112.
Thirty-seven more kills from this island alone. Combined with his clones’ efforts, which he could see through their shared senses—fire raining on one island, lightning storms on another—the total was growing rapidly.
He smiled.
Not bad for a morning’s work.
Then he turned, spread his twelve golden wings, and shot toward the next island.
Behind him, the void whispered with the memory of light. If this dungeon could speak it could be roaring, cursing at the couple shamelessness, they took it as experiment lab, Red level dungeon that should inspire fear, fed on its invader’s despair was now reduced to some couple plaything. Since they walked in, the dungeon had learned countless emotions, currently, after experiencing another fear it was filled with rage, therefore it would make them pay by creating the most dangerous monsters, it would summon some from that place. The dungeon’s spirit vowed to get rid of this couple or buried them alongside it.
