CHAPTER 52: Boxing and Volcanic Blood

The morning sun over Oakhaven cut through the grey autumn mist, casting long, sharp shadows across the cobblestones of the central plaza. Outside the Golden Griffin, the air felt heavy, stagnant with an ominous silence. The usual bustling crowd of merchants, mercenaries, and dungeon scavengers had vanished from the main thoroughfare, retreating into narrow alleyways or watching nervously from behind closed wooden shutters and second-story balconies.

Word of Kaelar’s ultimatum had spread like wildfire through every tavern and guildhall in the district. Count Kaelar, the arrogant warlord claiming absolute tax jurisdiction over Oakhaven's outer perimeter and dungeon access, had assembled his full expeditionary force. Two hundred heavily armored guards in crimson-painted plate, flanked by thirty war mages in dark red robes and three elite heavy vanguard units, had formed a steel blockade right across the main avenue leading to the iron dungeon gates.

At the center of the iron-and-hardwood formation stood Commander Vane, Kaelar’s chief enforcer—a hulking brute clad in enchanted plate armor adorned with Kaelar’s crimson wolf crest. Beside him rested a massive two-handed halberd, its six-foot shaft carved from ironwood and its heavy crescent edge humming with pressurized fire mana.

"He won't come out," one of the red-robed war mages muttered, adjusting his brass focus staff with trembling fingers. "Silas said the squad we sent to his manor yesterday was sent back with a threat. The foreigner is a lunatic, but even a lunatic won't face two hundred trained soldiers and thirty mages in broad daylight."

"He will come," Vane growled, his rasping voice echoing behind his steel visor. "He has nowhere else to go. If he wants to enter the dungeon or leave this town, he passes through us. His fortune, his girls, and his head belong to Count Kaelar before sunset. Stand firm!"

Up on the second-story balcony of the merchant hall, Silas stood in the shadows, his hands clutching the cold iron railing as sweat beaded on his forehead. He knew what Dave was capable of inside the dungeon, but open warfare against an army's blockade in the middle of town was a completely different beast.

Before the war mage could reply to Vane, the heavy oak doors of the Golden Griffin swung open with a quiet, deliberate click.

Three figures stepped into the crisp morning sunlight.

In the lead walked Dave. His black leather coat fluttered lightly in the autumn breeze, his hands loosely tucked into his pockets. But the atmosphere surrounding him had fundamentally shifted. The subtle, suppressed mana that usually lingered like a quiet mist had completely vanished. In its place rested a dense, suffocating aura that distorted the air around his shoulders—a golden-sapphire radiance burning deep within his chest where his newly forged Pyrite Core hummed like a high-voltage industrial reactor. His modernized Vessel operated with absolute, zero-loss efficiency.

To his right, Shnee glided with feline grace, her Celestial Silver rapier resting loosely at her hip, her ice-blue eyes scanning the red blockade with cold, detached indifference. To his left, Kaede clung to Dave's shoulder, her small spider legs clicking lightly against his leather collar as her azure eyes sparkled with mischievous excitement.

"Tactical ping active, boss!" Kaede’s cheerful, high-pitched voice chirped in my left ear in our native Polish operational cipher. "Dwieście czerwonych puszkarzy na szlaku! Trzydziestu magów w drugim szeregu, ładowanie płomienia na osiemdziesiąt procent! Ten wielki kloc w środku ma pancerz z pięciocentymetrowej stali z przestarzałymi runami odbicia!"

"I see them," I replied calmly, my voice carrying effortlessly across the silent plaza. "Standard disposal protocol. Keep your energy consumption at zero."

As we crossed the cobblestone square, the crimson blockade stiffened. Soldiers raised their two-hundred-kilogram tower shields, forming an impenetrable wall of steel and spiked oak. War mages stepped forward into the second rank, their staves glowing with fiery crimson circles as they channeled tier-three elemental spells.

"Halt, foreigner!" Commander Vane roared, stepping out from the center of the shield wall and leveling his massive halberd directly at my chest. "By order of Count Kaelar, you are declared an outlaw, a murderer, and a smuggler! Kneel, surrender your dungeon loot and your companions, and you may be granted the mercy of a quick trial!"

I didn't stop. My boots clicked with measured, rhythmic precision against the stone floor, the distance between us closing steadily from fifty meters to thirty.

"You're standing in my way," I said mildly, my golden-sapphire pupils narrowing slightly. "And your Count owes me a tax."

Vane’s eyes widened behind his steel visor in disbelieving, bloodthirsty fury. "Arrogant bastard! Mages, incinerate him where he stands!"

Thirty crimson fireballs, each the size of a carriage wheel, erupted from the war mages' staves simultaneously. The combined heat wave scorched the autumn air, turning the cobblestones beneath them red-hot as thirty concentrated lines of fire converged directly on my position in a blinding arc of destruction.

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The watching merchants and scavengers gasped in horror. It was enough combined firepower to level a stone fortress tower.

I didn't draw a weapon. I didn't even take my hands out of my coat pockets.

Deep within my chest, the Pyrite Core ignited with a low, resonance-rich hum. The gold-sapphire furnace, operating at three hundred percent efficiency compared to my old Jasper Core, channeled a concentrated wave of raw Sapphire Slime straight through my energy pathways. My Vessel absorbed the sudden surge without a single tremor.

Instead of deploying a static shield, I released a four-meter sphere of pressurized Sapphire Slime and kinetic reflection around my body.

The thirty fireballs hit the golden-sapphire barrier at full speed.

BOOM!

A deafening thermal explosion rocked the plaza, sending a wave of blinding smoke, shockwaves, and superheated air rushing outward. But the moment the flames touched the kinetic boundary of the Pyrite Core's field, their thermal energy was instantly absorbed, converted, and redirected along the curve of the sphere.

When the smoke cleared, the cobblestones beneath my boots were untouched. Not a single thread of my black coat had been singed.

"Is that the entire budget of Kaelar's artillery?" I asked, taking another unhurried step forward.

The thirty war mages stared in absolute, paralyzing terror. "Impossible... He swallowed thirty tier-three fire spells without casting a counter-barrier?!"

"Szefie! Puszkarze mają pełne gacie!" Kaede giggled softly on my shoulder. "Prawy skrzydłowy próbuje ładować kuszę z przerażenia, aż mu ręce latają!"

"My turn," I murmured.

I accelerated.

I didn't use flashy movement techniques or wasteful leaps. Fueled by the unyielding, high-density output of the Pyrite Core, I bridged the twenty-meter gap in a fraction of a millisecond, my body blurring into a streak of black and golden-sapphire light.

I appeared directly in front of the center of the heavy shield wall.

The lead vanguard soldier panicked, thrusting his heavy iron spear at my throat. I didn't dodge. I simply raised my right hand—still inside my coat pocket—and flexed a fraction of my Pyrite Core's kinetic compression outward.

CRACK!

The iron spearhead shattered into a dozen metallic splinters before it even reached my chest. Before the soldier could recover from the recoil, I drove my right palm—coated in the dense, light-absorbing black shell of my Gōtai—straight into the center of his two-hundred-kilogram tower shield.

The Pyrite Core unleashed a localized, high-voltage impulse of Sapphire Lightning through the steel plate.

BOOM!

The tower shield didn't just dent; it exploded inward, the kinetic shockwave traveling through the vanguard's arm, shattering his shoulder, and throwing him backward into the ranks behind him like a cannonball. Ten heavily armored soldiers were swept off their feet, crashing into the cobblestones in a tangled heap of dented steel, broken weapons, and groaning bodies.

"Form ranks! Kill him!" Vane screamed, swinging his massive two-handed halberd in a horizontal arc aimed directly at my neck.

The fire-infused blade whistled through the air, carrying the full weight and momentum of a seasoned level-forty warrior.

I casually stepped inside his reach. My left hand remained in my pocket. My right hand caught the glowing halberd blade mid-swing.

CLANG!

The massive, flame-wreathed axe head stopped dead in mid-air, gripped securely between my Gōtai-reinforced fingers. The fire mana infused in the steel sputtered out instantly, snuffed out by the overwhelming pressure of my golden-sapphire aura.

Vane pulled with all his strength, his boots skidding across the stones, but the halberd didn't budge an inch. It was as if he had swung his weapon into a solid mountain of adamantine.

"Your weapon is poorly balanced," I noted coldly. "And your posture is terrible."

I tightened my grip.

CRUNCH!

The enchanted halberd blade crumpled like thin tin foil under my fingers, the enchanted steel fracturing into useless scrap metal.

Before Vane could process the destruction of his primary weapon, I drove a short, linear front kick into his chest plate. My boot, reinforced with a micro-charge of Pyrite-empowered kinetic compression, struck the crimson wolf crest adorning his chest armor.

BOOM!

The two-inch-thick steel chest plate caved inward with a sickening crunch. Vane launched backward like a missile, flying thirty meters through the air before crashing through Kaelar's command tent and smashing into the heavy stone wall of the plaza, where he collapsed into an unconscious, broken heap of bent plate armor.

Silence descended over the square—absolute, suffocating, and total.

The remaining one hundred and ninety soldiers and war mages stood frozen, their weapons trembling in their hands, their eyes wide with unadulterated horror. In less than twenty seconds, their elite commander and heavy vanguard had been completely dismantled by a man who hadn't even drawn a sword or taken his hands out of his coat pockets.

Up on the balcony, Silas let out a breathless laugh, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "He didn't even draw a blade... Two hundred men defeated in twenty seconds."

Shnee stepped forward, her Celestial Silver rapier drawn, its tip resting lightly against the throat of the chief war mage.

"Drop your weapons," she said, her voice smooth, cold, and quiet as mountain ice. "Or my Sovereign will decide to clean this plaza properly."

The sound of iron hitting cobblestones echoed across the square like falling hail.

One by one, staves, swords, spears, and heavy shields clattered onto the stone floor as two hundred soldiers threw their hands into the air, backing away in absolute panic.

Kaede dropped down from my shoulder, scuttling over to the shattered remains of Vane's chest plate. With a sharp click of her mandibles, she retrieved Kaelar's crimson wolf crest—now cracked, dented, and covered in soot—and tossed it carelessly into the dust at my feet.

"Szefie! Herb przetrącony!" Kaede reported with a mischievous grin. "Kaelar będzie musiał sobie kupić nową klamrę do paska!"

I looked down at the broken crest, then stepped over it without a second glance.

"Clean up this trash," I told the surviving officers as I walked past the surrendered blockade toward the open gates of the dungeon. "And tell Kaelar that the next time he sends a bill, I'll deliver my payment directly to his manor."

We passed through the iron gates, leaving behind a broken crest, trembling soldiers, and a town that would never look at us the same way again.