Chapter 232: Kinetic Payback Time

The hatch gave way.

The Eclipse-Sun Sword didn’t simply cut through the lock. It destroyed it. The blade punched through the Rank 3 warded steel, its dual-element fire eating through the enchantment before the metal could even resist. The lock mechanism vanished, and the seals broke apart. The steel hatch dropped a few inches before catching on its guide rails, hanging loosely over the opening.

Holden kicked it.

CLANG!

The hatch dropped fully and crashed against the floor of the engine car.

The interior was dark.

Not completely dark. The lighting was sparse, meant for workers and machines rather than comfort. Amber emergency strips ran along the walls and ceiling, casting lines of light across the space.

The engine car was a massive chamber filled with machinery. The ceiling stretched nearly twenty feet overhead, while conduits, pipes, and thick energy cables covered the walls. Blue-white energy pulsed through them, powering the Rank 4 propulsion system. Beneath the grated floor, gears turned, pistons fired, and massive driveshafts churned in a steady rhythm, pushing the Behemoth forward at three hundred miles per hour.

Holden dropped through the opening and landed on the grated floor.

Lyra landed beside him a moment later. Frost spread from her boots across the grating, locking her footing in place. Her spear was already in both hands as she looked around the chamber.

The room stretched forty feet ahead and thirty feet across. Machinery lined both sides, narrowing toward a corridor that ended at a heavy steel door. Beyond that door was the conductor’s cabin, and somewhere inside waited Warlord Drask.

But something else stood between them and that door.

The Abyssal Cannon.

Mounted on a flatbed platform in the center of the engine car, the weapon was held down by enchanted steel cables. It was enormous, nearly twenty feet long, with a barrel five feet wide at its thickest point.

The barrel pointed toward the ceiling, aimed at a sealed loading hatch. Once the Behemoth reached the Abyssal Epicenter, that hatch would open, allowing the cannon to rise and fire its concentrated Miasma beam.

A fifty-mile range.

One shot could be enough to destroy a city.

Holden took a quick look at the weapon. Its energy signature matched Maeve’s report. Rank 4. Fully charged. The corruption inside it was dense enough that even standing nearby made the air feel wrong.

Then he noticed what was standing directly in front of it.

The Iron Juggernaut.

Calling it a person would have been generous. Whatever human being had once been inside was long gone, buried beneath layers of metal and machinery.

It stood twelve feet tall, its body covered in thick iron plates that overlapped from head to foot. There were almost no exposed gaps, and even its joints were heavily protected.

Its legs had been replaced with tank-like treads. Two huge steel tracks ran beneath its body. Energy from the Behemoth’s engine fed directly into the drive system, allowing the massive weapon to move despite its weight.

One arm ended in a huge hydraulic hammer. The other ended in a heavy clamp, built to grab an enemy and hold them in place.

Its head was nothing more than a steel dome.

Two narrow red lights burned where its eyes should have been.

Rank 3, 8-Star.

The same rank and star level as Holden.

But the Juggernaut had been built for one purpose. It did not need Void-Step, Hellfire Cleave, or the Eclipse-Sun Sword. It had fifteen tons of armor, a massive hydraulic hammer, and enough raw power to crush anything that stood in its way.

More importantly, it stood between Holden and Drask.

The red lights locked onto them.

Clank. Clank.

The treads started moving.

The Juggernaut advanced slowly. The weight of the it made the entire engine car tremble.

“Lyra,” Holden said. “Freeze the floor.”

She was already moving.

The tip of her spear struck the grating, and ice spread across the floor in every direction. A thick layer of frost quickly covered the metal, reaching the Juggernaut’s tracks and climbing over the steel cleats.

The treads spun but found no grip.

The Juggernaut tried to push forward, grinding deep lines into the ice, but Lyra continued feeding frost energy into the floor. Every groove created by the tracks froze over almost instantly.

The construct stopped moving.

Its red eyes shifted toward Holden.

The targeting system recalculated.

If the treads couldn’t reach him, the hammer could.

The Juggernaut’s left arm pulled back.

The hydraulic piston extended, drawing the massive hammer into position. Pressure built inside the arm until the machinery screamed.

Then it swung.

The hammer came down toward Holden with enough weight to crush him into the floor.

Holden stepped forward into the strike.

He raised his left arm.

BAM!

The Kinetic-Nova Bracer caught the hammer.

The impact shook the entire engine car. The sound rolled through the chamber like an explosion, rattling the walls and knocking loose bolts from nearby machinery. The floor beneath Holden buckled, and cracks spread through the ice.

Lyra was thrown backward by the shockwave. Her boots left the floor, and she slid across the ice before driving her spear into the grating to stop herself.

Holden didn’t move.

The hammer was pressed against his bracer, two tons of steel pushing down with tremendous force. The impact had driven him into the floor instead of pushing him backward. The grating bent beneath him, but his arm remained steady.

Then the bracer began to glow.

The dark metal turned bright red, and the runes across its surface burned with crimson light.

The Kinetic-Nova Bracer was absorbing the impact.

[Kinetic-Nova Bracer: Kinetic Absorption Active]

[Incoming Force: 2,400,000 Newtons]

[Force Absorbed: 100%]

[Stored Energy: 2,400,000 Newtons]

[Impact Negation: Complete]

The force disappeared into the bracer, stored inside its internal matrix.

The Juggernaut pulled the hammer away.

For a moment, it simply stared at Holden.

Then it attacked again.

The hammer swung sideways this time, sweeping toward Holden’s torso.

He raised his left arm.

BAM!

The bracer caught it again.

The floor cracked beneath him. Ice shattered around his boots, and the walls shook from the impact.

Still, Holden didn’t move.

[Force Absorbed: 100%]

[Stored Energy: 4,800,000 Newtons]

The red glow grew brighter.

The Juggernaut pulled back once more.

Its targeting system had expected the first attack to crush the target. The second should have done the same.

Instead, Holden was still standing.

The construct attacked a third time.

This one came from above, the hammer reaching its highest point before dropping with the full weight of the machine behind it.

BAM!

[Force Absorbed: 100%]

[Stored Energy: 7,200,000 Newtons]

The entire engine car was now lit by the bracer’s crimson glow. The amber emergency lights were barely visible, and the ice around Holden’s feet had begun to melt from the energy being held inside the artifact.

The Juggernaut stopped.

Its red eyes moved from the hammer to Holden’s bracer.

Then back to the hammer.

It had hit him three times.

Holden hadn’t taken a step.

Worse, every attack had only made the strange artifact on his arm glow brighter.

The machine raised the hammer again, but this time it hesitated.

Holden looked down at the bracer.

Seven point two million newtons.

All of it was waiting to be released.

He slowly looked back at the Juggernaut.

A small, sarcastic smile appeared on his face.

“You dropped something,” Holden said. “Let me give it back.”

The bracer was already aimed at the Juggernaut’s chest.

Holden clenched his fist.

Then he released the stored energy.

[Nova Release Activated]

[Discharging: 7,200,000 Newtons]

[Direction: Forward]

[Target: Iron Juggernaut, Center Mass]

The energy exploded from the bracer in a single concentrated burst.

BOOOOOOM!

The shockwave tore through the engine car.

Air exploded outward from Holden’s fist, striking the walls, ceiling, floor, and Juggernaut at the same time. The construct’s chest armor took the full force of the attack.

The metal didn’t crack.

It collapsed inward.

The thick plates folded and crushed against one another, driving deep into the machinery beneath. The force continued through the armor and reached the Rank 3 energy core buried inside the construct.

The first protective layer shattered.

The second crumpled.

The third broke apart.

Then the core was exposed.

CRACK!

A violent burst of energy erupted from inside the Juggernaut.

BOOM!

The construct exploded from within.

Its armor tore apart, sending pieces of steel and broken machinery across the engine car. Hydraulic lines snapped. Track sections were ripped from their mounts. The mechanical frame collapsed under the force of its own destroyed core.

A single red eye lens rolled across the floor before coming to a stop.

Tink. Tink. Tink.

The fragments settled.

The engine car fell quiet again, leaving only the steady thud of the Behemoth’s propulsion system beneath their feet.

[Iron Juggernaut (Rank 3, 8-Star) Defeated!]

[Mini-Boss Eliminated!]

[+2,500 KP! 2x Booster Active! KP Doubled!]

[+5,000 KP!]

[Multiplier: 10,000x]

[KP Booster: 2x Active]

[Fighter Rank: Rank 3 (8-Star, Hidden)]

Holden lowered his arm.

The Kinetic-Nova Bracer had returned to its normal dark color. The stored energy was gone, leaving the artifact empty and ready to absorb more.

He flexed his left hand.

The bracer moved perfectly with it.

“Good bracer,” Holden said.

Lyra was already back on her feet. She had been thrown toward the far end of the engine car by the blast, but her frost-spear had kept her anchored. Pulling it free, she walked through the wreckage and looked around.

The Abyssal Cannon was still intact.

The blast had been directed away from it, leaving the weapon untouched on its platform. Dark energy continued to pulse through its corrupted metal while the enchanted restraints held it firmly in place.

Lyra’s eyes lingered on the cannon.

“The cannon is still active.”

Holden looked toward it.

“Can you disable it?”

“I can freeze the barrel and the firing mechanism,” Lyra said. “If the Miasma inside reacts with the frost, it should stop the weapon from firing. It may damage the cannon as well.”

“Do it once I’m through that door. We can’t let Drask trigger it.”

Lyra nodded. “Understood.”

Holden turned toward the conductor’s door.

The Eclipse-Sun Sword rested in his right hand. The Kinetic-Nova Bracer covered his left forearm, empty but ready.

The heavy steel door stood only a few steps away.

Holden started walking.

He never reached it.

The door opened from the inside.

Someone was waiting on the other side.