Chapter 261: Destruction from Within

Iron strolled unhurriedly through the newly built wooden houses, carefully inspecting each one. From the outside, everything looked perfect, but as he stepped inside them one by one, he realized they were completely empty.

​Deciding to fix this problem immediately, Iron gathered suitable materials and visualized the future structure.

​When everything was fully prepared, he reached out his hand, about to assemble a bed.

But at that exact moment, precise digital coordinates flashed across his retinas.

​Iron froze, his hand still outstretched. He sighed, glaring at the coordinates, and muttered in annoyance:

​"Lumon... you sure love picking the perfect moment."

​Instead of finishing the bed, Iron snapped his fingers and instantly vanished.

​Meanwhile, in a pitch-black cave, Noah was leaping freely from one wall to another, pushing off the ceiling and maneuvering with ease.

​Noah saw all the monster’s attacks as bright neon white lines, accurately showing the radius, length, and trajectory of every strike. The monster itself was outlined as a sharp silhouette made of the same white lines, with only its dull yellow eyes glowing in the darkness.

​Dodging powerful strikes erupting from the ground, Noah delivered lightning-fast lunges mid-jump. His sword pierced clean through the mud monster's stomach. Slipping past an attack, Noah instantly shifted into a new stance. The first slash was immediately followed by a barrage of dozens of instantaneous cuts—the monster’s body exploded into dozens of chunks that splattered across the cave walls.

​Amidst the scattering remains, Noah instantly spotted a small, bright red line flare up right in the center of the monster.

​Noah reacted in a split second. With a single step, he closed in right in front of the core. Forcing all the blood in his body into his right arm, he drew back deep and unleashed dozens of slashes onto the core one after another.

​But just a fraction of a second before impact, the red line darted downward. The core dove straight into the ground and shot behind Noah at breakneck speed. His flurry of slashes only whistled through empty air.

​The core popped out from underground right behind Noah's back. The moment it surfaced, the liquid mud around it instantly sprang into motion, reassembling the monster's body. Noah paused for a second to catch his breath and turned around. Before him stood the dark silhouette with dull yellow eyes once again, traced in white lines.

​Refusing to give Noah even a second of rest, the monster wound up for a punch while still half-assembled. Mid-swing, its massive fist hardened with a crackle, sprouting dozens of long, sharp spikes in every direction. The long, massive arm crashed down toward Noah with a deafening roar.

​Noah caught the wind-up just in time and made several sharp dashes backward. However, the giant arm practically tracked him, relentlessly catching up. Trying to snap it in half on the fly, Noah delivered a quick slash to the arm, but the blade simply glanced off, dealing no damage. Realizing that mere retreat was pointless, Noah lunged straight at the monster itself.

​In that same split second, a sense of danger washed over him. Threads flashed before his eyes—dozens of thin, razor-sharp spikes were rocketing toward him at blazing speed. Noah tucked in, dodged, and by pushing directly off the incoming spikes, deflected them in different directions. Spotting one more spike hurtling straight for his chest, he raised his sword and batted it right back at the monster. But the moment the spike touched the monster's body, it was instantly absorbed by the liquid mass.

​Instantly, the giant fist came crashing down on Noah from behind again. Noah reacted in a flash, throwing himself into a high backflip. Mid-air, he noticed the white lines in front of him start to twitch wildly. A second later, they shot straight toward him.

​Suspended in the air with no footing, Noah casually tossed his sword slightly up and to the side. Without wasting a moment, he pumped all his blood into both arms and clapped his hands hard right in front of him.

​Sonic blades rippled outward in all directions from the deafening clap. The shockwave instantly shredded all the incoming spikes, reducing them to dust, yet it failed to cause even the slightest damage to the monster’s arm itself.

​Noah’s feet hit the ground in a flash; he rolled backward several times to open up the distance, sprang to his feet, and threw his hand up to catch the falling sword.

​Barely had he settled into a stance when another white line flared in front of him. The monster slammed both of its arms together, merging them into one titanic fist studded with countless sharp spikes. With a roar, the beast brought the fist down on Noah. He began rapidly falling back with continuous backward dashes, his eyes locked on the incoming strike.

​And right at the moment the massive spiked fist was barreling down on Noah, Iron materialized directly in front of him.

​Looking around in the impenetrable gloom of the cave, completely blind in the dark, Iron said aloud:

​"Well, then..."

​However, in that same split second, reflexively sensing the looming danger, he instantly commanded:

​"Maximum output."

​Lumon immediately pushed the skill to its limit. Iron began processing information at a colossal speed, and time slowed down around him. Right before his eyes, the entire structure of the onrushing arm unfolded: it was made up of thousands of fine light blue and dark blue lines, with tiny white dots pulsing at their tips.

​Spotting the weak point, Iron executed a half-flip right over the passing fist. While airborne, he channeled a small pulse of energy into the toes of his right foot and delivered a single, pinpoint strike to the weak spot.

​The impulse instantly shot through the entire limb. The structure of the mud fist immediately collapsed—a massive portion of the liquid mass spilled out with a heavy splash right in front of Noah, who had already slowed his pace. The rest of the monster's arm instantly stiffened and went limp.

​Finishing his flip, Iron landed on his feet, turned around, and said quietly:

​"Lumon, deactivate."

​The skill shut off instantly, and a sharp wave of nausea and mild dizziness washed over Iron. Stumbling for a couple of seconds, he pointed his index finger forward. A bright yellow sphere formed at its tip, flooding the entire cavern in golden light in the very next instant.

​Under the light of the spherical source, the monster looked like a vile, shifting sludge. Its eyes were completely black, save for dull yellow glowing pupils, and deep black cracks ran all across its body.

​Noticing Iron, Noah asked:

​"What are you doing here?"

​Iron took a step forward, appearing next to Noah in a flash. Looking at the monster, he calmly replied:

​"Well, I kind of came for you. I need you right now. It's urgent."

​Noah shifted his gaze to the monster, which had already managed to regenerate a new arm—while the remnants of the old one instantly evaporated and sank straight into the ground.

​"First, we need to kill this thing," Noah stated.

​Iron was about to nod, but in that same second, Noah suddenly grabbed him and shouted:

​"Watch out!"

​Noah executed a massively powerful leap upward. Tossing his sword into his left hand and wrapping an arm around Iron to take him along, he pumped all his blood into his right arm and unleashed a single devastating upward swing.

​Cracks instantly spread across the ground above them and the stone ceiling of the cave. A second later, both exploded with a deafening roar, sending chunks of earth and rock blasting high into the air in every direction. The open sky suddenly appeared above them.

​Noah and Iron soared to an impressive height, but right below them—from the very soil where the monster's arm had just seeped in—numerous sharp spikes erupted, shooting straight up after them.

​Noah couldn't manage a second jump mid-air. He was just about to pump blood into his arms again to sever the spikes, but Iron grabbed Noah by the scruff of the neck, shifted him to his left arm, and immediately triggered his teleportation, materializing together with Noah back on the surface, right behind the dense canopy of the forest.

​Noah was still dangling in the air, gripped in Iron's fist. After hanging like that for a second, he asked with a completely unbothered expression:

​"Mind letting me go?"

​"Ah... right, yeah," Iron said, unclenching his fingers.

​Noah landed nimbly on his feet, and Iron touched down on the ground right after him.

​Looking Noah over, Iron inquired:

​"Another mission?"

​Noah didn't say anything, merely giving a silent nod.

​Iron’s gaze slid over his new sword and clothes—dark pants and a very thin red shirt.

​"Oh, so you actually bought it," Iron chuckled.

​"Yep," Noah replied curtly.

​Iron was already taking a step toward the beast, but Noah immediately said in a serious tone:

​"Stay out of this."

​At that, Iron stopped in his tracks and shifted his gaze to him.

​Having climbed out of the underground into the open air, the mud monster had grown several times larger. It began to smash everything around it, effortlessly snapping trees apart with its long spikes, arms, and shoulders.

​With one blistering dash, Noah found himself right on top of the beast's head. Funneling all his blood into his right arm, he forcefully drove his sword straight into the giant's crown. In that very instant, a series of internal slashes rippled through the monster's entire body. Chunks of dark mud blasted in all directions, splattering the leaves, tree trunks, and damp earth.

​However, the bulk of the monster's body immediately altered its structure. The flesh beneath Noah's feet became soft and liquid—the creature instantly caved inward, transforming into a deep funnel, preparing to swallow him whole.

​Iron, who had been watching the fight from the sidelines the whole time, extended his hand in front of him. Closing his left eye, he positioned his palm at the level of his right eye so that it completely eclipsed Noah’s silhouette, and sharply clenched his fingers.

​Noah instantly vanished.

​Iron immediately shifted his hand to the right and opened his palm. In that same second, Noah appeared in mid-air and began to fall, while the monster's mud attack slammed shut on empty air with a heavy splash.

​As he plummeted, Noah spotted a thick tree trunk, instantly grabbed onto it, and pushed forward with all his might. At breakneck speed, he shot clean through the giant's body, flew out the other side, and crashed into the tree standing behind it, shattering right through its trunk. The top of the tree crashed to the ground with a snap, bringing all its leaves with it.

​Noah flew a bit further and landed hard on the ground, his momentum forcing him to take a few rapid steps back to kill his speed, raising his sword once again.

​The monster's shredded body instantaneously reassembled, densifying right before their eyes. The liquid mud hardened, turning into impossibly tough armor with practically no cracks left. A second later, a massive fist formed over Noah again, entirely covered in long, sharp spikes.

​Realizing he wouldn't have time to fall back, Noah jammed his sword into the ground before him and crossed his arms for a block.

​The spiked arm rained down from above. The spikes pierced cleanly through Noah's forearms and palms with a whistle, jutting out the other side of his flesh. Gritting his teeth against the searing pain, Noah held the block, buying precious seconds and gradually killing the momentum of the colossal strike.

​Iron, observing this from the side, noted to himself:

​"So that's his frequency..."

​In that very moment, the engineer materialized right next to the monster's arm. Extending his hand, he touched one of the spikes jutting straight out of the arm and sent a resonance through it.

​Instantly, the monster's entire gigantic limb, along with the spikes lodged in Noah's flesh, evaporated with a hiss.

​Dark blood gushed from the through-and-through wounds on Noah's palms and forearms, splattering his face, his clothes, and the damp grass. Seeing Iron, Noah flew into a rage. Flinging his arms to the sides, his eyes went wide as he forced all the blood in his body to focus on his damaged limbs. The tissues instantly began to knit back together, and the bleeding stopped.

​Iron, meanwhile, immediately vanished again, stepping aside.

​The monster was already stomping its massive foot, trying to crush Noah while simultaneously growing a new arm. Noah snatched his sword from the ground, nimbly dodged the stomping attack, and sprinted up the monster's newly formed limb at max speed, aiming for its head.

​Sprinting up the beast's arm and soaring over its crown, Noah scrutinized every detail:

​Come on, see it, see it... he repeated to himself.

​His eyes scanned the dark flesh, the barely noticeable microcracks, the ground below—but the core was nowhere to be seen.

​By this point, his own arms had completely regenerated.

​At that moment, Iron was watching the scene from above, seeing how the tiny core was darting around inside the monster at frantic speed.

​"The core is too small and moves too fast," he noted to himself, staring intently at the beast's movements. "So how are you going to crack it, Noah?"

​Just then, long, sharp spikes erupted from the monster's body. They filled absolutely everything around them, multiplying at an unreal speed. The space was completely locked down. Noah was forced to make rapid dashes backward. He literally had nowhere left to retreat.

​But he had no intention of falling back any further anyway.

​Gritting his teeth, Noah made a sharp lunge forward. Spikes walled off the entire space ahead of him, but between them remained barely visible gaps of a few centimeters. Noah vaulted through these gaps, stepping on the bases of the spikes and slicing away anything that hindered his movement with his sword.

​Right in the middle of this breakthrough, Noah sensed another threat: new, secondary offshoots began sprouting from the spikes themselves with a grinding screech. One such spike shot out right in front of Noah's eye. With a split-second flick of his blade, he cleaved it from top to bottom, completely splintering that spike and slicing through several neighboring ones.

​Noah kept tearing his way toward the golem's torso, but suddenly, two gigantic fists rained down on him from above. Realizing the monster's attacks were repetitive, Noah executed an instantaneous dash to the right, slashing everything around him on the fly. The blade swept through the beast's legs, chopping them down, but the mass immediately fused back together. Not losing a beat, Noah launched off another spike and rocketed into the air, carving his path upward.

​Another spike erupted instantly from the exact spot he had just been standing on, but Noah was already higher. Bursting into open air, he rained down a flurry of instantaneous strikes from above—the top layers of spikes immediately crumbled into fine dust.

​Noah touched down right on top of the golem's head without missing a beat.

​If I can't see it... flashed through his mind.

​He instantly spotted a small crack on the monster's crown. Delivering a couple of heavy blows with his bare fists, Noah caved it in even deeper. Then, shifting his grip on the sword, he plunged it straight into the crack.

​And in the next second, Noah forced absolutely all of his blood into his right arm.

​For a split second, he completely lost all sensation in his entire body, aside from his right arm. His arm swelled, the veins pulling taut. Noah's vision suddenly darkened, blurring and doubling as he found himself on the verge of losing consciousness.

​Overcoming the agonizing strain, Noah finished his thought:

​"...then I'll just break everything!"

​And with all his might, he twisted the blade to the right.

​In that same split second, thousands of slashes spawned inside the monster's body. They spiraled outward, shredding all of the beast's innards and blowing through its outer shell, leaving deep gashes on the golem's body and carving deep into the ground beneath it.

​The core tried to dart to the side, but there was nowhere to run—the slashes completely engulfed the entire interior space. Several strikes ripped right through the red dot, splintering it into tiny fragments.

​From the monstrous pressure, the veins inside Noah's body bulged and burst. Choking on the tearing agony, he crumpled, completely losing control of his body. In that very instant, the golem's giant torso exploded in all directions in a spray of mud and chunks. But the vast majority of its body instantly vaporized from the thousands of internal slashes.

​Having lost his footing, Noah plummeted downward, his grip on the sword loosening.

​Iron, meanwhile, was gliding smoothly down from above. At the very last moment, just as Noah was about to crash heavily into the ground, Iron abruptly halted his fall in mid-air, gently laying him down on the dirt.

Iron landed nearby, took one hand out of his pocket, and calmly surveyed the decimated clearing.