Chapter 159: Chapter 159: The Abyssal Crusade
Chapter 159: The Abyssal Crusade
The Azure Sea was a vast, unforgiving expanse of dark water that bordered the Eastern Seaboard.
Standing on the edge of the jagged coastal cliffs, the freezing wind battered heavily against my black Ironclad armor.
I looked down at the violently crashing waves below.
"Nyssa," I projected my voice over the roar of the ocean.
The Chief Architect stood a few paces behind me, her green tattoos glowing dimly in the overcast light.
"Yes, Sovereign?"
"The Mana Train was just the beginning," I stated, turning my glowing red visor toward her.
"When we return to the capital, I want you to draw up blueprints for the shipyards. We are going to build armored naval cruisers powered by Mana Steel. And I want prototypes for deep water submersibles. If the humans across the ocean decide to sail here, they will find our waters completely choked with iron."
Nyssa bowed deeply, her eyes gleaming with the prospect of a new industrial challenge.
"The shipyards will be drafted by midnight, Master."
"Good," I growled. "But right now, we have a rat to exterminate."
I looked at the rest of my elite War Council. I had not brought the Vanguard fleet.
Bringing thousands of Beastmen to the bottom of the ocean was a tactical nightmare.
This was going to be a purely surgical strike. It was just me, Rolf, Kaelith, Lysandra, Nyssa, and Anise.
"Anise. Lysandra," I commanded. "Seal us."
The Level 100 Hero and the Succubus Queen stepped forward. They stood back to back, raising their hands toward the sky.
Anise channeled her pure, radiant holy magic, creating a massive, translucent golden sphere around the six of us.
Immediately after, Lysandra unleashed her heavy pink Charming Queen mana, weaving the dense vitality magic directly into the golden shell.
The two opposing energies violently fused, creating an absolute, impenetrable pressure bubble.
"The atmospheric seal is locked, Sovereign," Lysandra reported, her maroon wings tucking tightly against her back.
"It will easily withstand the crushing depths of the trench."
I stepped to the edge of the cliff.
"Drop."
The golden pink sphere plummeted off the cliff, plunging directly into the freezing, turbulent waters of the Azure Sea.
The descent was rapid and entirely silent inside the bubble.
The light from the surface quickly faded, replaced by the terrifying, suffocating darkness of the deep ocean.
Massive, bioluminescent leviathans swam past us in the pitch black water, their colossal eyes tracking our descent, but my heavy Domination Aura kept the mindless beasts far away.
After dropping for several miles, the ocean floor finally came into view.
Nestled perfectly inside a deep, volcanic trench was the hidden fortress.
It was a massive, sprawling complex constructed entirely of reinforced white steel and magically hardened glass.
A colossal dome of holy magic kept the crushing water at bay.
We drifted down, landing softly on the ocean floor just outside the holy barrier.
"Their sensory wards are woven with pure divinity," Anise noted, examining the glowing white barrier.
"If we touch it, the entire fortress will instantly alert the Paladin inside."
Kaelith seamlessly stepped out of my shadow.
The Noctharion Empress placed her small, pale hands directly against the golden pink wall of our pressure bubble.
"Then we will not touch it," Kaelith whispered coldly.
She activated her Law of the Absolute Void. A localized sphere of starry, pitch black nothingness expanded from her palms.
The void completely erased a ten foot circular section of the enemy’s holy barrier, deleting the magical alarm before it could even trigger.
"Move," I ordered.
We slipped through the erased gap, stepping out of our pressure bubble and directly onto the dry, polished marble courtyard of the hidden fortress.
The air inside was sterile and smelled heavily of incense and ozone.
We marched silently through the grand corridors, completely bypassing the heavily armored human guards by having Kaelith erase them into the void from the shadows.
We reached the central grand hall.
I kicked the massive white steel doors open. The heavy metal violently buckled under my brass boot, crashing to the floor and echoing like a cannon shot.
Standing at the far end of the opulent hall was the High Paladin. He was clad in blinding white plate armor adorned with golden wings. He stood over the bloody, lifeless corpse of Arutus Bloodfang.
The Paladin slowly turned around. His eyes burned with an intense, fanatical holy light.
DING!
[Target Identified: High Paladin Valerius of the Holy Empire.]
[Threat Level: Extreme. Level 62.]
[Note: Target is heavily saturated in pure, ancient Divine Magic.]
Level 62. He was the highest leveled entity I had ever faced in direct combat, completely eclipsing the Zenith Grandmasters and the Archlich.
"You found my sanctuary, beast," the Paladin spoke, his voice echoing with heavy divine authority. He drew a colossal, glowing golden broadsword.
"But you have walked into your own grave."
The Paladin’s burning eyes shifted away from my massive S-Grade armor. He looked directly at Anise, who stood beside me gripping her wooden staff.
"Anise Lightbringer," the Paladin called out, genuine shock breaking his stoic facade.
"The lost Hero of the old world. What madness is this? You are a champion of the divine. Why do you stand with a primitive Goblin and these monsters? Return to the light, Hero, and help me purge this filth!"
Anise did not flinch. She did not lower her eyes.
She looked at the golden Paladin, her hazel eyes completely cold.
"The humans of the old world betrayed me," Anise stated, her voice echoing clearly through the hall.
"They locked me inside a crystal for a century to preserve their own power. The humans took my life. The Sovereign gave me a home."
Anise raised her holy staff and slammed the base of it against the marble floor.
She did not unseal her Level 100 powers, but she channeled every ounce of her available holy magic directly into my heavy Ironclad suit.
"My loyalty belongs to the Forge," Anise declared.
A massive, radiant buff of golden energy washed over my muscles, amplifying my physical strength and reaction speed.
The Paladin’s face twisted in absolute disgust.
"Then you will die as a heretic!"
The Paladin vanished in a blinding flash of golden light.
He was impossibly fast. He crossed the massive hall in a fraction of a second, appearing directly in the air above me.
He swung his colossal golden broadsword down, channeling his Level 62 divine magic into a single, apocalyptic strike.
I raised both of my heavy brass gauntlets, crossing them over my chest plate.
CLANG!
The kinetic impact was completely terrifying.
The shockwave instantly atomized the marble floor in a fifty yard radius, creating a massive crater beneath my boots.
The sheer force of the blow actually pushed my massive frame backward. My boot thrusters screamed as they dug into the stone to halt my momentum.
My S-Grade Hive Chitin armor perfectly reflected the magical portion of the attack, completely nullifying the holy damage.
But the raw, physical kinetic force of a Level 62 warrior was staggering. My mechanical gears hissed in protest.
"Your shell deflects magic!" the Paladin roared, landing gracefully and immediately swinging again in a devastating horizontal arc.
"But your bones will shatter from the impact!"
I ducked beneath the glowing blade, feeling the heavy wind shear violently across my helmet.
He was right. I could not just stand there and absorb physical hits from a Level 60+ divine entity. Pure mechanical force was not enough to put him down quickly. I needed conceptual destruction.
I stepped fully into his guard, completely ignoring his heavy shield.
"I have melted gods," I growled, my red eyes flaring beneath my dark visor.
I ignited my core. I bypassed my physical strength and unleashed the absolute apex of my power.
FWOOSH!
The pitch black and crimson Flame of Death erupted from my right gauntlet. The unquenchable fire violently illuminated the grand hall, swallowing the golden light of the Paladin’s aura entirely.
The High Paladin swung his broadsword down to sever my arm, but the golden blade struck the black fire and instantly evaporated. The divine metal simply ceased to exist.
"What is that?!" the Paladin screamed, absolute terror finally breaking his divine composure.
I did not answer him. I lunged forward and drove my flaming black fist directly into the center of his pristine white chest plate.
The Tier 2 Flame of Death did not just burn. It erased.
The black fire washed completely over the Level 62 Paladin. His heavy holy armor liquefied into white hot slag instantly.
He shrieked in unadulterated agony as the conceptual flames bypassed his physical body and bit deeply into his soul.
He tried to cast a massive healing ward, but the Flame of Death actively devoured the holy magic, using his own divine energy as fuel to burn hotter.
In a matter of seconds, the screaming stopped.
The blinding golden light vanished. The heavy white armor crumbled into dust.
The High Paladin was completely erased from the cycle of reincarnation, leaving nothing behind but a scorch mark on the shattered marble floor.
I closed my fist, pulling the black fire back into my core. My massive chest heaved heavily as I deactivated my boot thrusters.
Using the Tier 2 Law was incredibly draining, but the results were absolute.
Rolf and Kaelith immediately fanned out, securing the perimeter of the grand hall.
Silas and Nyssa walked forward to examine the ashes.
The Chief Architect picked up a heavily enchanted lockbox that had survived the heat by sitting on a pedestal near the back of the room.
"The Paladin was guarding this," Nyssa reported, easily breaking the runic lock with a spark of kinetic magic.
I looked inside the box.
It was completely filled with detailed naval maps, invasion plans, and architectural blueprints for massive holy siege weapons.
The Holy Empire was not just funding small rebellions. They were actively planning a full scale, continental invasion.
"The humans across the sea," I rumbled, staring at the maps.
"They are preparing for a Crusade."
I closed the iron lid of the box, turning my red visor toward my War Council.
The deep sea fortress was completely silent. We had severed the head of the snake, but the hive was still out there.
"Let them prepare," I stated coldly, walking back toward our pressure bubble.
"By the time their wooden ships reach our shores, I will have a navy of iron waiting to drown them."
