BOOM!
With a deafening roar, like the guttural whisper of so ancient demon, a blast of hellish fire exploded behind Diamond Golem Thalrun, shaking the heavens with its fury.
The force was insane—like a nuclear bomb going off.
A tsunami of raw destruction tore through the landscape, the earth itself trembling under the assault. In an instant, a massive crater nearly ten thousand feet wide was blasted into the ground!
At the center of that smoking pit, Thalrun was down on one knee, his diamond body trembling. His back was scorched black, and worse—his entire form was riddled with countless cracks, spiderwebbing across his once-impervious surface in a way that was both terrifying and grotesque.
"Malphas...!" Thalrun growled through gritted teeth, lifting his head.
Not far away, standing atop the highest level of the manufacturing plant, a massive, monstrous figure lood—an Efreet Sultan, his eyes gleaming with cruel amusent.
It was none other than the Infernal Lord Malphas.
And behind him, packed shoulder to shoulder, were hundreds of Efreet warriors—Tier 11s and Tier 12 Sultan-class monsters—filling the sky with a suffocating, searing heat that made the very air shimr.
Seeing this, the Constructs standing behind Thalrun faltered, fear flashing across their faces. Panic set in.
"Karnak, activate the teleportation array!" Thalrun barked under his breath, his voice low and urgent.
"But—!" the Bronze Golem Karnak gasped, his eyes wide with shock.
"Now!" Thalrun roared.
"Y-Yes, Lord Thalrun!" Karnak stamred, his body stiffening before he bolted toward a nearby factory building as fast as his heavy fra could carry him.
Malphas’s eyes narrowed. With a flick of his massive hand, he conjured a molten sphere the size of a boulder, glowing like a miniature sun. In a flash, he hurled it straight at Karnak.
But Thalrun moved.
Whoosh!
He launched himself forward, smashing his fist into the incoming fireball. It shattered instantly, disintegrating into nothing—no debris, no smoke, just gone.
Constructs were notoriously vulnerable to fire magic, but they had their strengths too. As a Diamond Golem, Thalrun boasted 100% resistance to every elental magic except fire—on par with the legendary Black and Gold Dragons.
On top of that, his raw strength was monstrous. Among beings of his tier, he could go toe-to-toe with a Behemoth and not back down.
In short, he was a powerhouse.
But no matter how strong he was, natural counters were natural counters. Against Malphas’s fire magic, Thalrun was like a caged beast—full of power but nowhere to use it.
"Hellfire Circle," Malphas intoned, his voice low and chilling.
BOOM!
A pillar of fire erupted from beneath Thalrun’s feet, roaring into the sky like a volcanic eruption. In seconds, it expanded outward, forming a blazing ring that trapped him inside.
"Shit..." Thalrun’s face twisted in alarm. He gritted his teeth and charged forward, trying to break through the inferno.
But the mont the searing heat engulfed him, his expression contorted in agony. His diamond skin, usually cool and unyielding, began to glow red-hot, the intense temperature warping even his near-indestructible body.
"Heheheh... HAHAHAHA!" Malphas’s laughter echoed across the battlefield, cruel and mocking.
"Thalrun, you’re not going anywhere. Just sit there and burn for ."
Without giving him a second to recover, Malphas struck again.
He unleashed his deadliest single-target spell—Infernal Judgnt.
BOOM!
Another explosion rocked the earth, even more devastating than the last. The blast wave tore through the air like a living thing, flattening everything in its path.
Thalrun took the full brunt of it.
He was hurled like a ragdoll, crashing into the ground with a thunderous impact that carved out another massive crater. The earth shook violently, and for a long mont, Thalrun lay there, motionless, unable to even lift himself up.
Things were looking bad—really bad.
Crack. Crack. Crack...
The diamond armor covering Thalrun’s body—tougher than any known tal—was starting to fracture, layer by layer. Fine cracks spidered across his surface, and with every second, they spread wider.
If this kept up, there was no doubt about it—he was done for.
But just then, from one of the nearby manufacturing plants, a blinding surge of magic erupted!
A brilliant magic barrier exploded outward, rapidly expanding across the ground to form a massive teleportation array.
BOOM!
With a thunderous roar, the entire array lit up, shooting a colossal pillar of light straight into the sky, piercing the clouds.
And when that pillar finally faded, Thalrun—along with all the Constructs trapped inside the Hellfire Circle—had vanished without a trace!
Malphas’s face darkened, his eyes narrowing to slits. His fury boiled over, and with a violent sweep of his arm—
BOOM!
A towering inferno erupted from the ground, a massive column of fire that roared into the heavens, the heat so intense it seed to lt the very air. When the flas finally died down, a charred, smoking crater thousands of feet wide yawned at Malphas’s feet, black smoke billowing into the sky.
It was a scene of utter devastation.
"A Tower faction teleportation array, huh?" Malphas sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. "Doesn’t matter. You’re still trapped in this pocket dinsion. I’ll see how long you rats can keep running... Next ti, you won’t be so lucky."
He let out a cold snort, then turned to his gathered forces, his voice sharp and full of killing intent.
"You lot—tear this place apart! Level everything! Leave nothing standing!"
"And the rest of you, spread out and hunt them down. I don’t care if it’s Thalrun or any of those damn tal Golems—if you find one, kill it. No survivors!"
"Yes, my Lord!" the Efreet roared in unison.
...
anwhile, elsewhere—
Ethan was casually waiting for news from Auremax, half-watching Kyros grind levels, when suddenly—
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Dozens of beams of light flashed into existence right in front of him, and out of nowhere, a whole crowd of tal Golems materialized!
Ethan blinked, stunned for a second.
Then, without hesitation, he instantly cast Holy Armant.
BOOM!
Wings of radiant light burst from his back, whipping up a fierce gust of wind as he hovered slightly off the ground, ready for anything.
He narrowed his eyes and called out, "Who are you?"
Among the group of tal Golems, Ethan imdiately spotted a familiar figure—Bronze Golem Karnak.
Karnak froze for a mont, his gaze locking onto Ethan’s face. His eyes widened, and then, like a dam breaking, pure joy flooded his expression.
He stumbled forward, his voice trembling with excitent. "You... you’re an Angel from the Castle faction?! Th-Thank the heavens!"
He dropped to one knee, practically begging. "Honored Angel, please—you have to help us! An Infernal Lord is hunting us down... I beg you, save us!"
...
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