Starlight gritted his teeth against the dizziness caused by the intense heat, carefully identifying the surrounding landmarks.
Suddenly, behind the base of the Great Furnace, a half-melted remnant of a statue caught his attention.
It depicted a sturdy man holding a war hammer, with outlines symbolizing flames carved behind him.
Ignis, the God of Fire and Forge...
A passage he had read in an ancient text flashed through Starlight’s mind. This main god of the Age of Gods was a contemporary of Freya, the Goddess of Nature, whom the elves worshipped.
Such statues were typically only enshrined in temples or other significant locations. Looking closely, he noticed a strange depression in the ground beside the statue, revealing a tunnel entrance partially obscured by crystals.
“There it is!” Starlight’s eyes flashed with a sharp light, and he immediately activated instant movement.
The moment the soles of his boots landed firmly on the scorching steps of the temple entrance, the sensation from his spatial mark intensified.
“As I thought, Maela is inside!”
Looking at the mostly blocked underground passage, Starlight decisively condensed a Shadow of Annihilation and hurled it at the crystal at his feet.
Judging by the mana structure, this crystal wall was a defensive measure Maela had set at the entrance as a precaution.
While magic crystals were by no means weak in terms of durability, it quickly developed a gap large enough for a person to pass through under the erosion of Ultimate Power.
Starlight nimbly slipped through the crack in the crystal and entered the underground passage.
In stark contrast to the hellish scene outside, the tunnel leading to the temple was perfectly intact, reinforced by layers of magic. Ancient dwarven runes shimmered with a faint light on the walls, without a single crack in sight.
It seemed that even the shock of the Great Furnace’s explosion had failed to shake this holy site dedicated to the Fire God.
Seeing that the tunnel had not collapsed, Starlight breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that Maela’s life should not be in danger.
The temple tunnel was not long; after just a dozen seconds, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
Looking up, he saw a statue of Ignis, dozens of meters tall, standing majestically in the center of the main hall.
The forge hammer held high by the statue pressed directly against the dome, as if it were supporting the entire subterranean space. At the base of the statue, a small door emitting a faint glow was particularly conspicuous.
“Maela! Are you there?”
Starlight’s call echoed through the empty temple. Just as he bent down to crawl into the small door, a soot-covered figure scrambled out from inside.
“Ouch!”
The moment Maela looked up, her head slammed into Starlight’s chin with a loud thud.
This sudden headbutt nearly knocked the wind out of Starlight, and he stumbled back several steps before coming to a halt.
“Huh!? Starlight, why are you here? What was that shaking just now? My magic was broken—was that you?” Maela rubbed her reddened forehead, feeling a wave of dizziness.
“Ugh...”
Starlight shook his head, clearing the stars from his vision, and quickly began telling Maela what had happened.
“You mean the mountainside is at risk of collapsing? Dammit!” Maela stomped her foot heavily.
“It shouldn't crumble immediately, but what about you? Didn't you say there were special defensive measures here? Did you find them?” Starlight hurriedly pressed.
Maela’s expression turned awkward. She scratched her cheek, which was stained black with coal dust, and her blood unconsciously traced circles on the ground. “I found them... but... the thing is covered in Ancient Dwarven, and I... I can't really read it...”
She ruffled her hair in frustration and continued, “If I’d known, I would’ve brought that bookworm Stark! That guy is definitely way better at researching this stuff than I am...”
As they spoke, the earth beneath their feet began to vibrate violently once more.
Suddenly, the stone wall at the side of the temple cracked without warning, forming a spiderweb of fissures. Those ancient stone bricks, reinforced by dwarven secret arts and claimed to be capable of withstanding Saint Rank attacks, disintegrated like brittle crackers!
A sharp claw the size of a carriage burst through the wall, its deep red tips glowing with an eerie light. The stones covered in defensive runes were easily crushed into fragments like tofu before this claw.
“Roar...”
With a bone-chilling low growl, a behemoth composed entirely of crystals forced its way through the crack and into the temple!
“What... what on earth is that?!”
Maela instinctively backed away two steps. The monster slowly straightened its body, standing seven or eight meters tall, its black-and-red frame covered in the same patterns as the Stone Troll King.
Unlike the deformed and bulky appearance of the Stone Troll King, this monster’s physique possessed a bizarre sense of grace. Its slender limbs were covered in black-and-red crystal armor, and even its face bore lines that almost resembled a human profile.
Most terrifying of all were the four pulsing, blood-colored crystals embedded in its chest.
Those crystals throbbed like living hearts, and each contraction caused the surrounding air to ripple and distort. The patterns flowing on the surface of the crystals were identical to the designs on the foreheads of the Stone Troll King’s clones!
“Could this be the Stone Troll King’s original body...?” Starlight swallowed hard, feeling a terrifying pressure radiating from the monster.
The monster slowly turned its head. The moment its crimson eyes locked onto the two of them, Starlight felt the temperature inside the temple plummet.
“Little bugs... what a... coincidence.”
Before the sound of its voice even faded, the crystals on the monster’s chest erupted with a blinding blood-red light. Its massive crystalline body launched an assault at a terrifying speed that completely belied its size!
“Maela! Watch out! Cyclone Spell! Ice Wall!”
Having fought many top-tier powerhouses, Starlight’s reactions were incredibly fast. He threw out two spells while shouting the warning.
However, the cyclone that should have been able to momentarily stall the Stone Troll King was casually torn apart as if it were useless. The monster then slammed into the ice wall that appeared out of thin air.
The solid ice wall held the monster for less than half a second before being completely shattered. The monster’s momentum was barely slowed as it threw a punch toward Maela’s small frame.
Boom—!
In the explosive roar of the heavy fist breaking the air, Maela was sent flying like a broken kite. After soaring over a hundred meters, she slammed violently into the wall on the other side.
Embedded in the wall, Maela coughed up a large mouthful of blood. If she hadn't covered herself in a thick layer of crystal in time, and if her dwarven constitution weren't so sturdy, that strike would have been enough to shatter every bone in her body.
“You bastard!”
Cold light flashed in Starlight’s eyes. A strong sense of crisis made him decide not to hold back anymore. A ghastly white Spear of Destruction immediately condensed in his palm, and he hurled it directly at the monster’s chest.
To his surprise, the Power of Destruction—which had been nearly unstoppable until now—suddenly stopped in mid-air. It could not advance a single inch further, remaining a meter away from the monster’s body.
Buzz!
One of the crystals on the monster’s chest hummed, and a rose-red light flashed within the temple, as if something had suddenly blinked.
In an instant, the spear containing the Power of Destruction disintegrated like grains of sand, vanishing into nothingness!
“How is this possible?!”
Starlight was shocked. Although the Power of Destruction he used was still a crude prototype, even beings of the Dragon King’s level could not completely ignore such an attack. Why was the monster in front of him unharmed?!
Just how strong was it? Peak Saint Rank? Half-God? No way!
But before he could clear the doubts from his mind, the monster’s other fist swung toward him from the side like a small mountain.
“Explosive Flames! Wind Feather!”
In the nick of time, Starlight threw a massive fireball in front of him. The fireball exploded the moment it made contact with the attack.
Using the recoil from the explosion and the lightening effect of the wind element, Starlight narrowly dodged the monster’s fist. However, he was still sent tumbling over ten meters by the terrifying pressure of the punch, his back slamming heavily against the base of the divine statue.
“Pfft... cough, cough!!” A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of Starlight’s mouth as he stared fixedly at the monster.
Could it be that the enemy was also capable of using the Power of Destruction, or something similar?
Rate on N.U.
