Chapter 173: Threshold
The heavy iron hammers rang loudly across the massive courtyard of Helios as thousands of drafted citizens worked tirelessly to rip the gold from their own sacred temples.
Kai sat comfortably upon his jagged blue ice throne, watching the distant plumes of dark forge smoke rise into the freezing northern sky while he planned the upcoming fortifications.
Yena walked up the frosted dais steps with her spear resting casually on her shoulder, wiping a thick streak of dark soot from her cheek as she approached her king.
"The merchant guilds are dragging their feet on the new decrees, my King," Yena reported, her amber eyes narrowing with deep, seasoned frustration.
"Lord Valerius refused to hand over his private iron reserves, claiming that ancient royal privilege protects his personal storehouses from military seizure."
Kai did not sigh, but he stood up smoothly from the frozen seat and straightened his silver-embroidered black silk robes.
"Bring him to the high balcony overlooking the plaza," Kai ordered softly.
Lord Valerius was a fat, arrogant Northern aristocrat wearing thick green velvet coats, and he sneered at the Southern guards as they dragged him out onto the freezing marble overlook.
"You cannot seize my family’s ancestral iron for your primitive desert weapons," Valerius spat, raising his double chin with stubborn, foolish pride while he glared at Kai.
"I demand to speak with the Imperial Senate regarding this gross violation of provincial law, or I will withhold all grain shipments from the lower rings!"
Kai stepped out onto the balcony, letting the freezing wind whip his silk robes around his scarred legs as he walked calmly toward the shouting noble.
"The Senate is currently shoveling coal in the lower furnaces to earn their daily rations," Kai informed him smoothly, grabbing the heavy velvet collar of the man’s expensive coat.
He dragged the screaming aristocrat to the very edge of the hundred-foot drop, holding the heavy man effortlessly over the frozen paving stones of the plaza below.
"I need that iron to forge heavy weapons because foul monsters from the dark are currently trying to eat this fragile world," Kai whispered, his glowing starlight eyes piercing the terrified man’s soul.
"If you truly love your cold iron more than your own beating heart, you can go dig for it at the bottom of this canyon."
Kai opened his cold hand.
The arrogant lord screamed in pure, unfiltered horror as he fell, crashing heavily onto the frozen plaza below with a sickening, definitive crunch that echoed up the spire.
Kai turned back to a terrified guild scribe who was shaking uncontrollably near the heavy brass balcony doors, dropping his inkwell onto the frost.
"Take all of his hoarded iron, burn his sprawling estate to the ground, and draft his soft sons into the frontline vanguard," Kai commanded smoothly.
Before the terrified scribe could even bow to acknowledge the brutal order, a deep, resonant horn blasted from the deep sub-levels of the palace.
It was the specific, frantic warning signal assigned exclusively to the elite Sand Wyrms guarding the lower stairwell leading to the world-vault.
Zara rushed out onto the balcony a second later, her curved scimitars already drawn and dripping with fresh, highly lethal weapon oil.
"They breached the lower threshold," the warlordess snarled, her husky voice dropping into a dangerous, bloodthirsty register as she looked at Kai.
"My loyal guards are dying down there right now."
Kai did not waste precious time walking back down the endless spiral staircase to reach the deep vaults.
He grabbed both Yena and Zara by their armored shoulders, channeling a massive surge of cold mana through his core to trigger a short-range spatial fold.
They reappeared in a sudden flash of blue light at the bottom of the volcanic rock stairwell, stepping right in front of the heavy iron doors.
The sight inside the cavernous room was genuinely gruesome, smelling heavily of copper and foul sulfur.
Dozens of seasoned desert riders lay scattered across the dark floor, their bodies twisted and broken in horrifying, unnatural angles that made Yena tighten her grip on her spear.
Thick purple blood mixed heavily with human red, freezing into a morbid slush across the uneven volcanic stone.
The massive iron doors leading to the Astral Rift had been ripped off their reinforced hinges and melted into bubbling, toxic slag that hissed in the freezing air.
"Wyrms," Zara whispered, her amber eyes burning with fierce, unyielding grief as she stepped carefully over a fallen, mangled rider.
Standing in the dead center of the cavernous chamber was a towering, nightmarish entity holding a dying desert guard effortlessly by the throat.
The massive monster possessed a jagged, multi-limbed carapace of dark obsidian bone, and its terrifying face was a swirling void of endless, hungry purple light.
Four massive Void-Stalkers flanked the towering beast, chittering aggressively as they tasted the fresh human blood pooling on the floor.
"You are the fragile native who killed my forward scout," the Void-Herald hissed, its foul voice echoing inside their skulls like grinding glass.
It casually crushed the neck of the dying guard with a sickening snap, dropping the broken body carelessly onto the frozen rock.
"This dimension is incredibly weak, and your meager, pathetic resistance only seasons the meat for our coming feast."
Kai did not bother exchanging arrogant, pointless threats with a trespassing monster.
He stepped forward, drawing the Void-Star Fang in a smooth, blinding motion while he simultaneously unleashed the crushing weight of his Absolute Domain.
"Take the hunting hounds," Kai ordered his commanders, his voice a dark, freezing rumble that promised absolute devastation.
"The tall one is mine."
Yena and Zara surged forward together in perfect, lethal synchronization, trusting their king to handle the massive apex predator.
Yena vaulted gracefully off the nearest stone pillar, driving her ice-tipped spear straight through the thick skull of the first charging Void-Stalker before it could even raise its scythe-like claws.
Zara slid aggressively under the second beast, swinging her twin scimitars in a brutal upward cross-slash that disemboweled the monster in a massive spray of dark, freezing ichor.
The Void-Herald ignored the dying foot soldiers, teleporting across the dark cavern in a sudden blur of purple light to appear directly behind Kai.
The beast swung a massive, jagged bone-blade aimed squarely at Kai’s neck, fully intending to decapitate the Winter King in a single, devastating strike.
Kai did not even turn around to block the heavy ambush.
He triggered Glacial Resonance, sending a catastrophic, invisible pulse of zero-degree mana bursting outward from his own spine.
The invisible shockwave caught the massive bone-blade mid-swing, rapidly draining the foul astral energy and freezing the weapon solid before it could touch his skin.
Kai spun gracefully on his heel, grabbing the frozen bone-blade with his bare left hand and shattering it into a million harmless blue fragments.
"You rely on stolen spatial tricks because you lack raw, unyielding power," Kai mocked softly, driving his heavy leather boot fiercely into the creature’s armored abdomen.
The heavy physical impact cracked the dense obsidian carapace, forcing the towering Herald to stumble backward in genuine, uncharacteristic pain.
The beast shrieked in rage, opening its swirling purple face to unleash a concentrated, continuous beam of highly corrosive void-fire aimed at Kai’s chest.
Kai raised his left palm, meeting the foul, burning beam with a steady, punishing torrent of Absolute Zero.
The conflicting energies clashed violently in the center of the dark cavern, shrieking like dying leviathans while they fought desperately for thermal dominance.
"Your mortal cold means nothing to the endless, consuming dark!" the Herald projected into his mind, pushing far more toxic mana into the heavy beam.
"The dark is just an empty room waiting patiently for a storm," Kai whispered back.
Kai stopped holding back and dumped three thousand units of raw mana directly into his winter core, letting his glowing starlight eyes flare with terrifying intensity.
The blue frost aggressively overtook the purple fire, racing rapidly up the beam and slamming directly into the monster’s open, swirling face.
The zero-degree mana forcefully invaded the Herald’s internal pathways, rapidly freezing the dark, toxic blood inside its alien veins.
The creature thrashed in horrific agony, its multi-limbed carapace turning a sickly, frosted blue as the supernatural cold permanently paralyzed its spine.
Kai stepped smoothly through the freezing mist, closing the distance between them in a single, predatory stride.
He drove the Void-Star Fang straight through the frozen obsidian chest plate, sinking the purple glass blade deep into the creature’s pulsing astral core.
"Tell your masters to pack a heavy winter coat," Kai snarled, twisting the dagger viciously to inflict maximum internal damage.
Kai ripped his left hand forward, plunging his bare, freezing fingers into the open wound and forcefully tearing the glowing, spherical astral core right out of the beast’s chest.
The Void-Herald let out a final, silent scream before its massive, frozen body collapsed into a pathetic pile of brittle ash.
[System: Void-Herald (Level 65) Eliminated]
[High-Tier Astral Core Extracted]
[Experience Pool Expanded: Level Up 55 to 57]
[New Class Skill Unlocked: Frost-Void Step]
[Description: You can now bypass local spatial laws, stepping through the frozen spaces between realities to teleport short distances without relying on leylines.]
Kai looked down at the heavy, pulsing purple core resting in his bloody palm, feeling the massive, volatile energy trapped securely inside the sphere.
He wiped his Mythic dagger clean on his dark silk robes and sheathed it, turning around to check on his fiercely loyal commanders.
Yena pulled her spear free from the final dead Void-Stalker, her chest heaving as she wiped a streak of black ichor from her chin.
Zara stood quietly over her fallen desert riders, her broad shoulders tense with heavy, silent mourning as she surveyed the brutal, bloody carnage.
"They died holding the line against living nightmares," Kai said softly, walking over to place a firm, comforting hand on the warlordess’s shoulder.
"They earned a glorious warrior’s pyre in the high courtyard, and their names will be carved into the marble."
"The tear is growing much wider, Kai," Yena warned, pointing her spear toward the bleeding spatial anomaly floating in the center of the room.
The purple rift was now nearly twenty feet across, its jagged edges boiling with dark, aggressive energy as it tried to stabilize a permanent bridge to the void.
"They are actively trying to anchor the doorway from the other side," Kai analyzed, his starlight eyes narrowing in deep, calculating thought as he studied the foul magic.
"If they build a stable bridge, they will pour millions of those towering monsters into the capital before we can even forge enough iron."
"Then how do we seal the damn door before they breach again?" Zara asked, her husky voice thick with fierce, burning vengeance.
Kai tossed the severed Void-Herald core into the air, catching it effortlessly in his cold palm with a dark, terrifying smile curling his lips.
"We do not seal it," Kai replied smoothly, turning his gaze back to the bleeding spatial tear.
"We march our army right through it."
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