“This is bad...”
With a sharp crunch of twisting metal, the Stone Troll Emperor actually managed to wrench the giant's mechanical arm into a grotesque angle.
A burst of electrical sparks immediately erupted inside the cockpit. Stark was struck by the sudden current, his facial muscles contorting in agony.
“Nerd! Watch out!”
Maela let out a scream. She wanted to use her magic to push the Stone Troll Emperor back, but the spell she threw out in haste only caused the monster to sway slightly, doing little else.
“Since you’re so persistent, then I won't hold back!”
Stark gritted his teeth and let out a cold sneer.
He slammed a button on the control panel. Dozens of steel cables glinting with a cold light instantly shot out from the metal giant's joints, wrapping around the Stone Troll Emperor's upper body like giant pythons. Then, he pulled a red ring located next to his seat.
Amidst a faint explosion, a hatch suddenly popped open on the metal giant's back, and Stark’s figure was launched high into the air by an emergency ejection system.
Seeing him fall from the sky, the quick-witted Starlight lunged forward, steadily catching him amidst a shower of gears and sparks.
“Run! I’ve initiated the self-destruct program!” Before the other two could even ask a question, Stark was already pulling them along in a frantic sprint.
“What?”
Starlight looked back and saw that the Stone Troll Emperor also seemed to realize the danger. Countless tiny crystal fragments began to emerge on its surface as it started twisting with all its might to break free.
“No, at this rate, it’ll break free before the explosion! You two hide, I’m going back to give it one more hit!” With that, Starlight pushed the two toward the Fire God statue and turned to charge at the struggling Stone Troll Emperor.
“Like hell I'll let you!” This time, Starlight didn't care about the side effects on his body and completely released his suppression of the Power of Destruction.
He leaped onto the metal giant's shattered leg armor, using it as a springboard to vault into the air, white flames of energy surging wildly around him.
As his figure appeared before the Stone Troll Emperor's chest, a white longsword condensed from the Power of Destruction bloomed with a dazzling light in his hand.
Hum—
When the Sword of Destruction pierced toward the Stone Troll Emperor's chest, that familiar sense of resistance struck again. Starlight felt as if his longsword had entered a layer of viscous gel, and the tip of the Sword of Destruction began to dissolve at a visible rate.
But this time, he did not retreat. Instead, he channeled all the mana in his body to synthesize even more Power of Destruction.
Under Starlight’s reckless channeling, the white longsword, which had been reduced to half its length, suddenly surged in size. It successfully broke through the Stone Troll Emperor’s defense and pierced directly into its chest.
“Roar!!!”
The Stone Troll Emperor let out a howl as it saw the crystal carapace on its chest being decomposed at an incredible speed, turning into nothingness along with its hardened skin.
After annihilating all the crystal shell the Stone Troll Emperor had just generated, the magic in Starlight’s hand reached its limit, unable to damage the interior of its chest any further.
“Still not enough? But this will do!”
At that moment, the self-destruct countdown inside the metal giant finally reached zero. In the next second, a massive explosion swallowed both the Stone Troll Emperor and Starlight.
“Mr. Starlight!” Seeing this, Stark shouted in distress from a distance, but Maela grabbed him and shoved him into the opening at the base of the statue, completely sealing the entrance with a thick layer of crystals.
“Maela, what are you doing! Mr. Starlight hasn't come in yet! Let me out!” Stark looked at the towering flames outside and tried to rush back out.
“Nerd, are you insane? Do you have any idea how much explosive you packed into that excavator?! You’ll be walking to your death if you go out now!”
Maela slapped the back of Stark’s head so hard he stumbled.
The aftershocks of the explosion shook the entire underground temple violently, with debris raining down on the crystal barrier like hail. Maela held down the struggling Stark, her voice trembling despite herself: “If Starlight decided to do this... then... he must have a way to survive!”
As the sound of the explosion gradually faded, thick smoke and dust billowed through the temple. The crystal barrier Maela had set up was covered in spiderweb-like cracks, but it had ultimately endured the most dangerous impact.
“Cough, cough...” Stark and Maela crawled out from the opening, immediately coughing from the dust.
The two stumbled forward, each step kicking up a cloud of ash.
Stark suddenly tripped on something and nearly fell. His boot seemed to have kicked an object. Looking down, he saw a twisted, deformed metal finger—the final remains of the metal giant.
Outside the crystal barrier, the spot where the metal giant and the Stone Troll Emperor had been was now a massive, scorched crater.
The terrifying heat had melted the surrounding rock, creating a floor of glass-like crystalline ground. The air was thick with the pungent smell of sulfur and charred metal.
“No way... This is too much. Starlight... he couldn't have been reduced to ash, could he?” Maela said, her voice shaking.
“This is bad, this is bad... I was afraid it wouldn't be powerful enough, so I brought half the warehouse's explosives with me... Did I do something wrong? How am I supposed to explain this to Po Kong and the others?!”
Seeing the devastation before him, Stark’s legs gave out, and he sank heavily to the scorched ground, his face pale as a ghost.
His voice grew smaller and smaller, eventually turning into a whimper.
“So... what exactly were you planning to explain to them?”
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from behind them, startling both of them.
Turning around, they saw Starlight leaning against a piece of smoking debris. Aside from some dust on his clothes, there wasn't a single scratch on him.
Stark remained on his knees, his mouth hanging open wide enough to fit an egg: “This... this isn't scientific! How could you possibly... in an explosion like that...”
“Good luck, I guess.” Starlight shrugged and walked over to them, pulling Stark up from the ground.
Maela narrowed her eyes suspiciously: “Don't give me that! An explosion like that even got the Stone Troll Emperor...”
As she spoke, her gaze suddenly fell on Starlight’s right hand, where the space was warping unnaturally, looking like a layer of flowing water.
Surviving such an explosion obviously couldn't be explained by luck alone. At the final moment, he had transferred his body into a parallel space.
Although the Stone Troll Emperor's power had locked down the entire temple, making conventional spatial movement fail—including Spatial Displacement—the technique Starlight had unintentionally learned to transfer his own body belonged to an entirely different system.
This move didn't rely on the anchors or information of the original space. Instead, it turned his body into space itself, allowing him to enter deeper spatial layers and naturally evade the explosion's aftershocks.
However, Starlight himself wasn't very familiar with this new skill; that move just now had been a gamble.
“I call this skill Superposition Transfer. I'll explain the principles to you when we have time.” Starlight turned to look at the massive crater. “Because our battle isn't over yet.”
“You mean that guy is okay?!” Stark’s expression changed drastically. “That was enough explosive to blow open kilometers of tunnel!”
Their gazes locked onto the center of the explosion. They heard a faint clicking sound coming from the scorched bottom of the pit, as a crack spread across the ground like a living thing.
“Snap, crack...”
Amidst the sound of shattering stone, a sharp claw pierced through the ground. The Stone Troll Emperor’s massive body broke through the newly solidified earth, slowly crawling out of the crater.
The crystal armor that had once covered its entire body was now shattered. Its exposed black-purple flesh was covered in scorch marks. Two of the four crystals on its chest had gone completely dark, and another was flickering erratically.
“Hiss... pain... Insects... die!”
It let out a pained rasp, thick black liquid seeping from its wounds with every movement. However, the wounds on its body were healing at an incredible speed, and new crystal clusters were already beginning to spread across its surface once more.
Rate on N.U.
