Chapter 292: Freefall

The freefall through the crimson storm was like dropping straight into an erupting furnace.

The wind tore at Nicholas’s dark coat as they plunged through the superheated clouds. Pieces of black volcanic glass struck his goggles with sharp clicks, while crimson lightning flashed around them, bright enough to momentarily blind him.

Beside him, Zero remained completely still, descending headfirst like an iron spear.

Julie, meanwhile, was screaming at the top of her lungs. Her arms and legs flailed wildly until Selena caught her by the chest harness and pulled her close, keeping her from spinning out of control. Julie’s knuckles were white around her heat-resistant camera rig, its red recording light still blinking through the storm.

Three thousand feet above the valley floor, the boiling magma lake filled their entire view.

"Vixen! Angle ninety!" Nicholas shouted through the gale.

"Folding now!" Vixen’s voice came through the comms.

Brilliant emerald energy flared around Vixen’s boots. She swept both arms downward, tearing open a massive horizontal rift beneath the falling team.

The five of them plunged through it, their momentum disappearing instantly.

A split second later, another portal opened a few feet above a black volcanic plateau overlooking the caldera.

The team shot out of the portal and landed on the hardened basalt, skidding across the hot rock.

Julie hit the ground on all fours, gasping for air as if she had just escaped drowning. The rock beneath her palms was scorching, and the soles of her boots began to sizzle.

She ripped off her goggles, her pink hair stuck to her sweaty forehead as she coughed through the dry sulfur-filled air.

"I hate skydiving!" Julie wheezed, rolling onto her back while desperately keeping her camera pointed forward. "I hate volcanoes! I hate thermal updrafts! Chat, if I survive this, I’m charging thirty dollars a month for the exclusive tier! No discounts!"

"Get on your feet," Nicholas said without looking back.

He stood at the edge of the plateau, staring down into the glowing heart of the crater.

The caldera stretched nearly three miles across, filled with churning orange-white magma. Black ash and superheated plasma shot into the air from cracks in the ground, filling the area with a suffocating red heat.

And rising from the center of the molten lake was the disaster itself.

Ignis Goliath.

The S-rank impure stood over ninety feet tall, a walking mountain of molten rock, hardened bone, and crimson plasma. Massive plates of black volcanic basalt covered its body, surrounding a furnace of bright orange magma.

Four thick arms hung from its body, each ending in jagged obsidian claws that dripped molten stone into the lake below.

Its head looked like a giant armored skull, covered in black, horn-like structures. It had no eyes or nose.

Instead, embedded in the center of its forehead was the prize.

The Crimson Fire Stone.

The master power crystal was the size of a carriage, blazing with the light of a trapped star. Crimson plasma Qi pulsed from it, sending waves of heat across the magma lake until the rocks around the plateau began to glow red.

The titan raised its faceless skull.

It had no eyes, but it sensed them immediately.

The energy inside the Crimson Fire Stone reacted violently with the purple gemstone set into the guard of Zero’s longsword.

SKRRRR-BOOM!

The titan threw its massive head back and released a deafening shriek. The force shook the stone beneath their feet.

The creature raised its upper two arms.

The magma lake surged in response.

A sixty-foot wave of molten rock rose from the lake and rushed toward the plateau, spilling over the edge and climbing the canyon walls.

"Incoming wave!" Selena warned, reaching for the magnetic clamps on the containment case. "The heat will kill us before the wave even reaches us!"

"Split the wave," Nicholas commanded.

Nicholas stepped forward, planting his boots firmly against the sizzling basalt.

Gravity Distortion.

He thrust both palms forward.

A powerful force erupted from his hands and struck the crest of the magma wave.

The molten rock was forced apart, splitting to the left and right before pouring over the edges of the plateau in two blazing waterfalls. The magma crashed into the lower trenches instead of reaching them.

"Zero, take the side! Vixen, stop it from pulling more magma up! Selena, take Julie to the high ridge and get ready!"

"Understood!"

Selena grabbed Julie by the back of her vest and dragged her up the jagged rocks toward a high basalt arch overlooking the crater.

"I’m filming! I’m filming!" Julie yelped as she scrambled after her, her camera swinging wildly between Nicholas and the towering titan. "Chat, look at the size of that thing! It’s an actual mountain made of lava! Phantom is going head-to-head with an erupting volcano!"

Nicholas blurred into motion.

Instead of taking the longer path down the plateau, he jumped straight off the three-hundred-foot cliff.

Spatial Fold.

As he fell, Nicholas bent space around himself and shifted sixty yards forward.

He appeared on top of a massive piece of black basalt floating in the magma lake. His boots skidded across the smoking rock, but he never lost his balance.

The heat was intense, hot enough to destroy ordinary lungs, but Nicholas’s body was strong enough to endure it. He took a steady breath of the sulfur-filled air, his dark blue eyes fixed on the creature ahead.

The S-rank impure noticed him.

The titan shifted its enormous body and swept its four arms through the magma.

Its lower right fist shot forward.

A massive spiral of red plasma, nearly ten feet thick, launched toward Nicholas.

Nicholas didn’t try to block it.

Plague Touch.

Black Void energy spread across his arms and formed a heavy throwing spear made entirely of dark matter.

Nicholas launched himself from the floating basalt and folded space just before the plasma struck.

BOOM!

The rock beneath him exploded into a shower of white-hot fragments.

Nicholas reappeared thirty feet above the titan’s right shoulder.

He pulled his arm back and hurled the black spear downward.

SHIK-CRACK!

The Void spear pierced the titan’s armored shoulder and buried itself deep into the hardened bone beneath.

Void energy exploded inside the wound, destroying a large section of the basalt armor as molten material poured into the lake below.

The titan shrieked and swung its upper left fist toward Nicholas.

"Not today!" Vixen shouted from across the lake.

She appeared on top of a stone spire fifty yards away and spread her hands.

A large spatial portal opened between Nicholas and the incoming fist.

The titan’s arm disappeared into the rift.

A second portal opened beside the creature.

Its own fist came flying out of the second portal and slammed into its armored ribs.

The impact shattered several layers of basalt plating.

The titan staggered sideways into the magma, sending waves of fire across the crater.

"Now, Zero!"

Nicholas landed on another floating stone shelf and watched the exposed joints beneath the titan’s armor.

Zero moved.

He sprinted across the thin crust covering the magma lake, his boots barely touching the rock before he launched himself eighty feet into the air.

His longsword erupted with silver-white light as the purple gemstone in its guard reacted to the volcanic storm.

Zero drew the sword across his chest, gathering his Qi into a single powerful strike.

SHIIIING!

A massive seventy-foot crescent of silver Qi tore through the air.

It sliced through the titan’s lower left forearm, severing the huge obsidian limb at the elbow.

The arm crashed into the magma lake with a thunderous splash, sending molten rock high into the air.

The titan staggered.

Then the Crimson Fire Stone in its forehead suddenly blazed with light.

The stump of its severed arm began glowing orange.

From beneath the magma, streams of liquid fire rose and wrapped around the missing limb.

The molten rock hardened.

Bone and basalt quickly formed around it.

In less than three seconds, the severed arm had completely regenerated.

The S-rank titan raised all four arms toward the storm.

Its magma-filled mouth opened as it drew in the plasma hanging in the air.

The entire caldera began to shake.

The magma lake twisted into a massive vortex, while dozens of magma geysers erupted around the crater.

The valley floor became a boiling cage of fire.

"It’s pulling energy directly from the magma chamber!" Selena shouted from the high ridge. "It can keep regenerating as long as it’s standing in the lake!"

Nicholas wiped a speck of black ash from his jaw and stared at the glowing crimson crystal embedded in the titan’s skull.

"Then we cut off the ground," Nicholas said coldly.