CHAPTER 275: THE HELLFIRE FORGE

Deep beneath the etched basalt of the second pyramid, three thousand heavy legionnaires stepped directly into a subterranean caldera of roaring, pitch-black hellfire. Known throughout the sovereign seat as the second most grueling trial within the star-node system, the Pyramid of the Black Flame Demon offered no middle ground: warriors were either tempered into indestructible infernal steel or melted down by the forge.

Hovering over the lake of magma was the colossal manifestation of the Black Flame Demon, a towering entity of living darkness laced with white-hot, blinding solar heat.

The three trials struck like a hammer upon an anvil.

First came the Purge of Mortal Flesh, where black hellfire stripped away their heavy iron armor and burned through their skin, testing whether their physical vessel could contain demonic heat. Next came the Solar Tempering, forcing their mana cores to absorb raw, compressed solar radiation without exploding. Finally came the Communion of the Mask, where the demon deity demanded total surrender of their mortal identities in exchange for infernal authority.

One hundred heavy infantrymen could not sustain the extreme furnace pressure. As their cores reached their absolute threshold, the infernal heat threatened to incinerate their souls.

Before they were reduced to ash, the pyramid’s runic matrix intervened, siphoning the excess heat and locking their cores into the bedrock. Strengthened yet permanently bound to the structure, the hundred fell to their knees as the Flame Serfs of the Pyramid.

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Though denied the frontlines, their bodies were coated in flame-resistant obsidian scales, entrusting them with stoking the demonic hearths, maintaining the runic furnaces, and guarding the subterranean forge gates for eternity.

For the remaining two thousand nine hundred warriors, the crucible yielded glory.

As they weathered the final surge of solar-infernal heat, divine rewards descended from the vault. Black demon masks, carved from high-density spatial obsidian and inscribed with glowing solar-infernal runes, materialized out of thin air, snapping onto their faces and fusing seamlessly with their flesh and battle helmets.

Then came the physical ascension.

Dark, metallic scales crept up their limbs, and small, razor-sharp obsidian horns burst through the brows and helmets of every squad captain.

At the front of the cohort, the red-haired general threw back his head and let out an earth-shattering roar. His mana core violently expanded, absorbing the lion's share of the demon's divine flame. From beneath his red hair, a colossal pair of curved, black-and-gold demon horns sprouted from his skull, burning with white solar fire at their tips.

Reborn as the Demon General, he drew his broadsword, now dripping with dark solar hellfire, and raised it toward the vault. Behind him, two thousand nine hundred masked, horn-crowned juggernauts slammed their fists against their breastplates in terrifying unison, and the Black Flame Demon Cohort was born.

When the massive obsidian doors of the second pyramid finally ground open, a tide of suffocating heat rolled into the central court, announcing the exit of an unstoppable demonic vanguard.