Chapter 205: Striking the Peak

The dark energy dome was forty feet away and closing.

Holden’s 10,000x processor mapped the shockwave in real time, calculating its expansion rate, energy density, and kill radius. The numbers were absolute. When the dome reached the fortress wall in 1.8 seconds, every soldier on the battlement would die. Emric, Renna and Lyra would die.

He couldn’t block it. A 6-Star body couldn’t absorb a 9-Star area-of-effect detonation.

But he didn’t need to block it.

He needed a hole.

"EMRIC!"

Emric was already moving.

He had heard the shout and seen the dome expanding. The shield wall on the battlement was useless against a ground-level shockwave. The wall itself was useless. The only thing that could stop, or even slow, a 9-Star detonation was a concentrated kinetic barrier placed directly in the blast path.

Emric jumped off the wall. His Rank 2, 2-Star body cleared the fifteen-foot drop and struck the mud with a crunch that sent a small shockwave through the ground. His shield was already on his arm. His legs drove him forward, straight toward the expanding dome of dark energy.

He planted himself directly in its path.

"Shield!" he roared.

He slammed the heavy shield into the mud at a forty-five-degree angle, bracing its bottom edge against the ground, and pressed his entire body weight behind it.

The dome hit.

BOOM!

The collision was apocalyptic. Dark energy met Rank 2 kinetic defense, and Emric’s shield screamed. The metal vibrated so quickly that it blurred, while the enchantments flared blue-white and burned through their charge at a rate that would empty them in seconds.

Emric’s boots skidded backward. His legs bent beneath the pressure, his back arched, and his arms shook so violently that the shield rattled against his armor. His 10x cognitive buff screamed at him, feeding him data he didn’t want. Shield integrity at seventy percent. Sixty. Fifty. The 9-Star energy was eating through his defense like acid through paper.

"LYRA!" Emric shouted. "I need layers! NOW!"

Lyra was already there.

She landed beside him with her frost spear in hand and drove it into the mud at her feet. Both hands wrapped around the shaft as she channeled every ounce of her Rank 2, 4-Star energy into the ground.

Three frost walls erupted from the earth behind Emric’s shield. The ice formed a curved barrier around Emric’s flanks, funneling the dark energy into a narrower and narrower path.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The first frost wall shattered. Dark energy ate through the ice, vaporizing it on contact. But that vaporization consumed energy, and the dome’s expansion slowed. Not by much. Only a fraction of a second.

The second frost wall held for half a second longer. Lyra pumped more energy into it, reinforcing the structure and thickening the ice as she fought the dark energy with everything she had. Her face turned white. Her hands shook. Frost crawled up her arms and across her shoulders as her body temperature dropped from the strain.

Crack. Shatter.

The second wall fell.

The third took the hit.

And within that third wall, in the layer of ice Lyra had poured her strength into, a gap appeared. It wasn’t large or intentional. It was a fracture point where the dark energy had concentrated unevenly, where the ice had been slightly thinner, and where the collision’s stress had created a hole no bigger than a dinner plate.

Holden’s 10,000x processor found it instantly. Three feet off the ground. Inside the third frost wall. It would remain open for 0.4 seconds before the dark energy closed it.

He didn’t hesitate.

Every ounce of Rank 3, 6-Star energy in his body flowed into the Solar-Forged Sword. Every point of cultivation, every reserve of stamina, and every drop of power the Star Core Elixir could help him recover was forced into the blade at once.

The sword didn’t glow.

It detonated.

FWOOOOOSH!

Holden moved.

He triggered Gale-Step and the world froze.

The dark energy dome hung in the air, suspended in mid-expansion. The third frost wall was frozen in the act of shattering, its ice fragments suspended like stars. Emric remained frozen behind his shield, his face twisted in a scream of effort. Lyra stood still with both hands on her spear, frost energy coming out from her fingertips in spirals that no longer moved.

And the small hole in the third frost wall remained open.

In the frozen world, Holden ran. Not toward the hole.

Through it.

His body passed through the gap in the ice, through the thinning dark energy beyond it, and into the space behind the shockwave. The space where the Warmaster stood.

The Warmaster was frozen with his sword above his head, his 9-Star aura forming a visible dome of dark energy around his body. His dark eyes were wide with surprise. The surprise of a man who had just seen something move faster than his 9-Star perception could track.

But he was frozen. He couldn’t react, move, or defend himself.

Holden’s 10,000x processor mapped the Warmaster’s armor in the frozen world. Fourteen scorch marks. Fifteen. Each one marked a place where the Hellfire had burned away a layer of enchantment. Each one was a weak point in the armor’s defense.

And on the chest, directly over the sternum, where the first scorch mark had been placed seconds earlier, the armor was thinnest. The enchantment was weakest. The metal was most brittle.

Holden placed the tip of his blazing sword against that point.

He pushed.

Gale-Step ended.

The world resumed.

Time crashed back into reality like a wave striking a seawall. The dark energy dome completed its expansion. The third frost wall shattered. Emric’s shield broke, and Lyra was thrown backward.

But Holden was already inside.

The Solar-Forged blade punched through the Warmaster’s chest plate at the weakened point. The Perfect-tier Hellfire, compressed to its absolute maximum density and driven by every ounce of Rank 3, 6-Star energy Holden possessed, met the Warmaster’s 9-Star defense.

The armor didn’t stand a chance.

The fire went through the chest plate, through the underlayer, through flesh and bone, and into the core.

The Warmaster’s 9-Star core was a sphere of condensed energy at the center of his chest. It was the most durable object in his body, harder than bone and denser than steel. It had been built to withstand anything below Rank 4.

The Perfect-tier Hellfire struck it.

The core cracked.

CRACK!

It didn’t shatter immediately. A single fracture line ran from the top of the sphere to the bottom. The fire pushed through the crack, expanding it, forcing it open, and pouring white-hot energy into the most vulnerable point in the Warmaster’s body.

The Warmaster looked down at the sword in his chest, the fire pouring through his armor, and the crack spreading through his core.

His dark eyes went wide.

"How?" he whispered.

The core shattered.

BOOM!

The detonation was contained. It wasn’t a massive, expanding blast, but a focused internal implosion. The Warmaster’s 9-Star core broke apart inside his body, and the released energy had nowhere to go but inward. It collapsed, folding in on itself and crushing the Warmaster’s body from the inside out.

His armor cracked. The spiked shoulder plates fell away. The chest plate split. The dark metal that had absorbed light, repelled rain, and radiated 9-Star power crumbled like chalk.

The Warmaster remained standing for one second. His dark eyes stared at Holden, and his mouth opened, but no words came out. Only air. Only the last breath of a man who had never lost, who had conquered nine kingdoms, who had stood at the absolute peak of mortal power, and who had just been killed by a boy six stars below him.

Then he fell.

Thud.

His body struck the mud. The rain, no longer repelled by his aura, fell on him freely. Water ran over his crumbled armor, washing the dust away and filling the cracks in his broken body.

The dark energy dome collapsed. Without the Warmaster’s will sustaining it, the shockwave dissipated into harmless wisps of dark mist that dissolved in the rain. The battlefield fell silent.

The Imperial soldiers stared.

Ninety thousand troops stood in formation on both sides of the valley, watching their invincible commander, their 9-Star Warmaster, the man who had never lost, lying face down in the mud with a hole in his chest.

Nobody moved.

Then somebody screamed.

It wasn’t a war cry or a shout of defiance. It was a scream of pure, animal terror. The sound started at the back of the Imperial formation and spread forward like a disease. Soldiers broke rank. Weapons hit the ground. Men ran.

The rout was total.

The Imperial Army, ninety thousand strong, broke apart like a dam collapsing. Soldiers scattered in every direction, dropping weapons, abandoning equipment, and trampling supply lines in their desperate rush to escape the burning figure standing over their dead commander.

The siege beasts, riderless and leaderless, followed. The massive creatures turned and lumbered back toward the eastern ridge, their iron armor clanking and their empty howdahs swinging with every step.

The warships pulled back. Forty-six vessels reversed thrust as their captains watched the Warmaster fall. Their cannon batteries fell silent, their running lights dimmed, and the fleet began a slow, careful withdrawal toward the eastern horizon.

In three minutes, the valley was empty.

Holden stood over the body of a 9-Star Warmaster, his sword still blazing, its fire reflecting in the puddles at his feet.

The System chimed.

DING!

[Imperial Warmaster Kael Drassen (Rank 3, 9-Star) Defeated!]

[Peak Rank 3 Boss Kill! Bonus KP Awarded!]

[+50,000 KP!]

[2x KP Booster Active! KP Doubled!]

[+100,000 KP!]

[Current KP: 1,116,290]

[Multiplier: 10,000x]

[KP Booster: 2x Active]

[Fighter Rank: Rank 3 (6-Star)]

One hundred thousand points for a single kill. It was the largest single target KP reward he had ever received. His balance jumped from 1,016,290 to 1,116,290 in one notification.

He stared at the number. Then at the dead Warmaster. Then at the retreating army disappearing into the darkness, fleeing toward the eastern border and the Iron-Blood Empire beyond.

His 10,000x processor ran the math. The same math it had been running since the bedroom. The same impossible, grinding, frustrating math.

Total cost to reach Rank 4: 4,580,000 KP.

Current balance: 1,116,290 KP.

Deficit: 3,463,710 KP.

Three point four six million points.

He had just killed the strongest enemy he had ever faced. A 9-Star Warmaster. The peak of mortal cultivation. And the reward had been 100,000 KP. A massive haul by any standard. A drop in the ocean by his.

The Imperial Army had retreated, but it hadn’t been destroyed. Ninety thousand soldiers had fled. They would regroup. They would return with more ships, more beasts, and more commanders. The Iron-Blood Empire had millions of citizens, thousands of cultivators, and hundreds of Rank 3 combatants.

This battle was the first wave.

Not the war.

Holden looked at the retreating army, at the eastern horizon, and at the vast, sprawling territory of the Iron-Blood Empire that stretched beyond the mountains, beyond the forests, and beyond the range of his vision.

Three point four six million points.

The System needed that much more to reach Rank 4.

The army had provided 100,000 points from a single commander. The soldiers on the flagship had provided 360,000 points. The siege beasts had provided 32,000 points. The warship had provided 30,000 points. The earlier rewards had already brought him to 1,016,290 KP before this battle.

Each battle was a deposit. Each kill was a credit. But the balance still wasn’t climbing fast enough against the overwhelming scale of his goal.

He needed to engage himself in more battles. Bigger battles. He needed to walk into the Iron-Blood Empire and take everything it had.

He looked at his sword. The fire was already dying. The blade cooled from white to orange, then red, until only the dull silver of cold steel remained. Rain washed the ash from the metal, running clean lines down its surface.

He looked at the sky, at the dark clouds and at the distant shapes of forty-six warships pulling back toward the empire that had sent them.

This invasion was only the beginning.

If he was going to reach Rank 4, he was going to have to slaughter the entire Empire.