Chapter 170: The Shattered Halo

Elias walked onto the pristine white sand. The parted ocean loomed on either side of his army like towering walls of blue glass.

His pristine boots did not even sink into the mud. He floated an inch above it. Behind him, fifty thousand Paladins marched in perfect unison.

’This is not even going to be a fight! We are going for a slaughtering operation. Ohhhh! How fun would it be to take the insignificant lives of those parasites! I am so excited for this hunt!’

He looked up at the towering cliffs. He expected to see terrified beasts cowering in fear. Instead, the cliffs were entirely silent.

’Hmm... Did they run away in fear? Are they so scared that they have abandoned the hope and ran away?’

---

Down in the hidden trenches, Rolf gripped a heavy brass detonator. The Silver Colossus held his breath.

His golden amber eyes tracked the holy army. He waited until the absolute center of their formation crossed the buried fault line.

"For the Forge," Rolf growled. He slammed his silver fist directly onto the detonator.

The Eastern Seaboard violently erupted.

Thousands of tons of hyper-pressurized Mana Steel detonated simultaneously beneath the sand. It was not a conventional explosion.

It was an apocalyptic release of concentrated kinetic and thermal energy. The pristine white beach instantly liquefied into glowing orange glass.

"WHAT! A TRAP?!"

The shockwave shattered the eardrums of every Paladin within a mile. The front lines of the Crusade did not even have time to scream.

Ten thousand heavily armored holy warriors were instantly vaporized into gray ash.

The towering walls of the parted ocean violently collapsed under the concussive force, crashing down and swallowing the rear guard in a massive, churning tidal wave.

But Elias did not die.

The Level 80 Lightbringer possessed reflexes forged in years of brutal dungeon grinding.

In the fraction of a second before the blast wave hit him, his survival instincts hijacked his arrogant mind. He raised his hands and unleashed his absolute core power.

A colossal, multi-layered dome of blinding holy light expanded around him and his top commanders.

The Mana Steel explosion slammed into the barrier, cracking the first three layers of divine magic like fragile glass.

’I was arrogant! I never expected them to deploy landmines of this caliber! This is completely out of the calculations. How dare they use such cheap tricks against me?!’

Elias gritted his teeth, blood dripping from his nose as he forcefully pumped his Level 80 mana into the shield to keep it from collapsing.

The ash and steam finally cleared.

Elias stood in the center of a mile wide crater of liquid glass.

His army was decimated.

His pristine white armor was covered in soot. He looked up at the cliffs, his glowing golden eyes wide with absolute, furious shock.

They were not beasts. They were an industrialized war machine.

I did not give him time to recover.

I stepped off the edge of the eighty foot cliff. I ignited my heavy boot thrusters to maximum capacity, turning my massive, armored body into a falling meteor.

I plummeted directly toward the center of the crater. Elias looked up and frantically raised his golden broadsword, channeling a pillar of holy fire to intercept me.

I ignored the magic. My S-Grade Hive Chitin armor perfectly deflected the holy flames. I crashed directly into the top of his divine shield.

CRACK.

The sheer kinetic weight of my 4,100 Aegis Rating slamming into the barrier from eighty feet in the air was terrifying.

The holy dome violently buckled. My heavy brass boots carved deep fissures into the magical shield, forcing Elias to drop to one knee under the crushing physical pressure.

"You are standing on my beach," I rumbled, my voice projecting through the cracking barrier.

The pitch black and molten gold Flame of Death ignited in my right palm.

"I did not invite you here, Hero? Why are attacking us peace-loving species?" I asked mockingly.

" A peace-loving species? Are you mad? You just killed thousands of humans using cheap tricks! You massacred people that can fit in a city! And you dare call yourselves a peace-loving species?!" he roared back as he defended himself.

"I mean that is called Self-defense! You cannot just expect us to wait and get killed by your swords as you ravage on my lands. What an hypocrite you are, Hero! From what world are you?" I said as I moved.

Before I could punch through the glass, a second figure dropped from the sky.

Ramona landed perfectly beside me. The sand beneath her bare feet hissed and boiled. She did not wear her fur cloak.

Her elegant obsidian horns pulsed with terrifying heat, and her molten gold eyes locked onto the Lightbringer.

Elias gasped. He recognized the sheer density of her aura.

"A Calamity core. You... you are a demon of the old world!"

Elias panicked. He thrust his left hand forward, casting his signature binding spell.

Thick, glowing chains of pure holy light erupted from the ground and wrapped violently around Ramona’s wrists and waist.

It was the exact same divine magic his ancestors had used to lock her in the Labyrinth.

Ramona did not flinch. She simply looked at the chains with absolute disgust.

"Your ancestors needed a thousand mages to hold me," Ramona whispered, her voice vibrating with ancient, draconic rage.

"You are just a boy with a stolen spark. How dare you underestimate me!"

Ramona flexed her arms. The heavy crimson scales along her waist flared. She did not cast a counter spell. She simply used her raw, Level 90 physical strength.

DING!

[System Alert: Absolute Physical Override.]

[The Calamity has rejected the divine binding.]

The holy chains violently shattered into millions of harmless golden particles.

Elias stumbled backward, true terror finally breaking his god complex.

He was staring at an ancient Dragon, and a Sovereign who commanded iron and death.

"I am going to melt your halo," Ramona promised, stepping forward.