Chapter 78: Battle at the Star-Iron Gate

The divine seals binding the burial gateway of the Golden Requiem King fractured into sparkling dust, fading into the damp earth as the colossal obsidian doors slid back with a hollow, subterranean groan. A draft of ancient air, saturated with the faint scent of oxidized metal and primordial mana, rushed past Lady Sera and her vanguard unit.

Adjusting her starlight monocle, Sera led her six elite Rank 3 retainers into the darkness beyond the threshold.

Rather than opening immediately into a grand burial hall, the passage revealed a long, sprawling gallery constructed from polished basalt blocks. The high arched walls were fully covered in dense, ancient inscriptions—intricate runic scripts interwoven with vivid, weathered bas-relief carvings.

Sera halted her steps, her glowing golden Secret-Seeking Eyes scanning the walls. The carvings depicted ancient, forgotten wars: monstrous skeletal beasts soaring across burning skies, divine monarchs wielding radiant scepter artifacts, and complex, unfamiliar arrays of celestial stars. The accompanying script was written in an archaic dialect that predated the current imperial era.

"Lady Sera, do these murals contain the activation keys for the inner chamber?" Vane asked, holding his heavy obsidian-steel tower shield firmly at the front.

"The language structure is highly complex and fragmented," Sera replied, her crisp voice echoing softly down the corridor. "They describe the life and cosmic accomplishments of the Requiem King, as well as warnings regarding the vault’s core defenses. Decoding them completely by hand right now would delay us for hours."

She reached into her silver-embroidered pouch and withdrew a small, sleek metallic cube inscribed with precise spatial arrays—a high-grade imperial recording artifact.

"We will document everything first," she instructed.

Activating the device, a brilliant fan of blue scanning light erupted from the cube, sweeping systematically across the left and right walls. The device captured every line of ancient text, every runic detail, and every carved image, storing high-density visual records directly into its internal crystal core. The rest of the team followed suit, drawing their own optical recording gadgets to capture close-up details of the murals and obscure floor glyphs from multiple angles.

"Recordings complete, Mistress," Lyra reported, stowing her device back into her mithril armor sheath.

"Good. Maintain Alpha defensive formation," Sera commanded, her icy-blue gaze turning toward the end of the gallery. "The true trial lies just ahead."

At the far end of the gallery stood the massive inner gate of the central chamber—a double door carved from deep blue star-iron. Standing motionless before this threshold was a terrifying sentinel.

It was a colossal, twelve-foot-tall **Silver Guardian**.

The construct was encased in heavy, gleaming silver plate armor etched with glowing runic circuits. It wore a winged helmet that completely obscured its face, leaving only two burning crimson optical lights shining from the dark visor slit. In its gauntleted hands, the giant held a massive, double-headed silver warhammer that rested heavily against the stone floor.

As Sera’s group crossed an invisible spatial line twenty paces from the gate, the runic circuits across the silver armor flared with blinding, brilliant light.

*CLANG—!*

The giant shifted its weight, lifting the colossal silver warhammer as a deafening, metallic roar resonated from its chest plate. The spatial air pressure inside the corridor instantly compressed, forcing the air out of the lungs of the retainers.

> **[WARNING: RANK 4 CONSTRUCT GUARDIAN ACTIVATED]**

> **[DEFENSE SYSTEM: HYPER-DENSE SILVER RUNIC ALLOY]**

> **[CORE OVERDRIVE: ANCIENT MANA RESERVES AT 100%]**

"Rank 4 mechanical sentinel in full combat overdrive!" Vane bellowed, his boots grinding into the stone floor as he slammed his massive tower shield down. A thick, fortress-like barrier of dark brown earth mana erupted around the squad. "Hold the line! Brace for impact!"

The Silver Guardian didn’t hesitate. Despite its massive size, it moved with explosive, terrifying speed that defied its weight.

*BOOM!*

The titan lunged forward, bringing its massive warhammer down in a terrifying overhead smash. The weapon cut through the air with a screeching sonic boom, slamming violently into Vane’s earth barrier.

*CRACK-SHATTER—!*

Sparks flew like fireworks across the gallery. The sheer kinetic force of the impact shattered the earth barrier instantly, sending a terrifying shockwave rippling through the stone floor. Vane groaned in agony as the vibrations travelled up his arms, his boots skidding back fifteen feet and tearing deep grooves into the solid basalt floor.

"Vane!" Lyra shouted, her dual wind daggers flashing as she dissolved into a silver blur. She zipped past the giant’s right side, aiming a pair of lightning-fast thrusts straight at the exposed joint behind the giant’s knee.

*CLANG! CLANG!*

Her mithril blades struck the silver joint, but instead of piercing through, the attack merely kicked up a useless spray of sparks. The runic alloy on the guardian’s armor absorbed and dispersed the kinetic energy effortlessly.

Without missing a beat, the Silver Guardian spun its upper torso with terrifying fluidity, sweeping its massive left iron elbow backward to crush Lyra.

"Shadow-Step!" Lyra gasped, instantly activating her armor’s emergency skill to teleport three feet into the air, barely dodging the blow as the wind pressure alone ripped a tear in her leather armor.

"Elemental Strikers, full support!" the lead caster shouted.

The four brothers planted their staffs and unleashed a synchronized volley of **Gale-Blade Projectiles** and **Flame-Spears**. Dozens of blazing spells slammed directly into the guardian’s chest plate. Explosions of fire and pressurized air echoed through the high-arched hall, filling the gallery with dense smoke.

However, as the smoke cleared, the Silver Guardian stepped forward entirely unscathed. The runic circuits on its silver armor glowed brighter, absorbing the elemental spells and converting them into pure kinetic energy!

*BZZZZT—!*

The giant raised its warhammer into the air. A blinding ring of silver lightning condensed around the hammer’s head.

"Scatter!" Sera yelled, her golden Secret-Seeking Eyes tracking the sudden surge of destructive energy inside the weapon.

*BOOOM!*

The guardian slammed its charged hammer into the floor, unleashing a shockwave of silver lightning and shattered stone that swept across thirty meters. Two of the elemental strikers were caught in the outer edge of the blast, sent flying through the air and crashing violently into the basalt walls with blood spurting from their mouths.

"Casters down!" Lyra screamed, darting through the dust to pull her allies back while dodging continuous arcs of residual electricity.

The Silver Guardian turned its crimson optical gaze toward Sera, identifying her as the primary leader. It raised its colossal foot and took a thunderous step toward her, raising its hammer for a crushing execution strike.

Sera stood her ground, her icy-blue eyes unwavering behind her monocle. She didn’t retreat an inch.

"Its outer alloy converts raw elemental attacks into kinetic shields," Sera declared, her voice calm and absolute amidst the chaos. "Standard magic is useless. But its internal core cannot process sudden, conflicting temperature shifts!"

She thrust her silver staff into the ground. A wave of absolute zero ice mana erupted from her feet, turning the floor into a mirror of pure, blue frost.

"Four-Elemental Strikers! Concentrate pure thermal fire on its right leg! Lyra, prime your wind daggers for maximum piercing pressure!" Sera commanded.

"Understood!" the two standing casters yelled, pulling their injured brothers up. They pointed their staffs and unleashed a roaring stream of **Concentrated Magma Flames** directly at the guardian’s right knee joint.

The intense heat made the silver runic alloy glow cherry-red, softening the dense metal under extreme temperatures.

"Now! Freeze it!" Sera shouted, unleashing her **Absolute Zero Frost Wave**.

*FZZZZZZ—!*

The sudden transition from extreme heat to sub-zero frost caused the silver alloy to crack violently at a molecular level. Steam erupted in thick clouds as hairline fractures instantly spread across the guardian’s right leg.

"Vane! Pin the weapon!"

"GRAAAAH!" Vane roared with feral fury, ignoring his broken ribs and blood-soaked gauntlets. He surged forward with all his strength, driving his heavy obsidian tower shield under the handle of the giant’s warhammer as it descended, locking the colossal weapon against the stone floor with his entire body weight.

The Silver Guardian struggled to lift its weapon, its crimson eyes flickering as its right knee joint ground to a agonizing halt, metal grinding against shattered metal.

"Lyra, the neck seam! Target the primary mana conduit!" Sera ordered, her golden eyes marking the precise coordinate with a beam of faint light.

"Die, you pile of junk!" Lyra roared, leaping onto Vane’s broad shoulders and vaulting high into the air.

Channeling every drop of her remaining wind mana into her daggers, the twin blades spun like drill-heads, wrapped in a vortex of razor-sharp spatial pressure.

*THUST—!*

With pinpoint accuracy guided by Sera’s ocular callout, Lyra drove both daggers deep into the narrow seam beneath the guardian’s silver helmet, plunging the blades directly into the central mana core!

*SPARK—! BZZZZT!*

Erratic surges of blue electricity and blinding white mana erupted from the neck joint as the internal runic circuits violently overloaded. The giant let out a dying, metallic groan that echoed through the entire cavern, its red optical lights flickering wildly before turning completely dark.

*THUD!*

The colossal twelve-foot Silver Guardian collapsed onto its knees, then fell forward onto the hard basalt floor, crashing down as a dead pile of inert silver metal.

Silence returned to the gallery, broken only by the heavy, ragged breathing of the retainers.

Vane collapsed onto one knee, coughing up blood while Lyra slid down from the guardian’s back, her hands trembling from mana exhaustion. The four elemental strikers quickly administered healing potions to their wounded brothers, patching up their burns and broken bones.

"Target... successfully neutralized," Lyra panted, pulling her smoking, bent daggers from the construct’s neck. "That... was almost a nightmare."

Sera walked past the fallen guardian without breaking her stride, her icy-blue eyes fixed on the massive star-iron doors of the main chamber as they began to slowly, solemnly slide open.

"Rest for five minutes and drink your recovery elixirs," Sera said softly, her voice cool and commanding. "The inner vault is open."