Chapter 292 - 286: Steel Tomb
Chapter 292: Chapter 286: Steel Tomb
The explosion lasted for a full two hours.
The magma from deep underground spewed forth for an entire day and night before its violent surge finally began to recede.
The sky was completely choked by thick volcanic ash, blocking out the sun. Daytime became a dim, crimson twilight.
The landscape for two hundred kilometers around was completely reshaped.
The once-towering mountain range of volcanoes was gone. In its place were dozens of enormous, circular craters belching black smoke, like horrific pimples on the face of the earth.
Scalding magma pooled at the bottom of the craters, forming a new sea of fire. Crimson bubbles roiled and burst on the surface, releasing deadly toxic gases.
The air was thick with the acrid stench of sulfur, and the temperature was high enough to set clothes ablaze.
Deep within the main workshop, the Meditation Room was perfectly quiet.
"Damage assessment complete." Jarvis began the post-battle report.
"First Golem Legion: less than 10% of Golems are combat-ready."
"Second through Fifth Legions: all Golems have been destroyed."
"Sixth Legion: production was interrupted due to a damaged production line. It is at 80% of its normal complement, but its combat power is the most well-preserved."
"Seventh Defense Legion, including the withdrawn garrison units from the various mines: survival rate is 11%."
"High-tier forces: five Freedom Gundams survived, one is heavily damaged, and most have sustained armor damage. Two Flame Demons are at full combat capacity."
"Overall loss rate: eighty-seven percent."
Allen’s seventh mental thread was processing this data. Its emotional threshold was locked by absolute reason, showing no fluctuation in the face of these devastating losses.
’High losses aren’t the end of the world. As long as the workshop’s core remains, as long as I survive, churning out more troops is just a matter of time.’
Another sub-thread opened a communication channel with Victor.
The screen lit up.
Victor was covered in soot. His meticulously styled blond hair was matted with black ash, and his fine Wizard Robe was scorched with several large holes.
The background behind him was a scene of chaos.
Inside the workshop, half the dome had collapsed. Precision Alchemy Equipment lay toppled over, and expensive materials were scattered across the floor.
The Quasi-Fourth Level Golem outside, the "Tieyan Judicator," which had been used as a door, was now mangled beyond recognition.
"Allen Wesren."
Victor gritted his teeth, squeezing each word out. "You call this ’should be able to withstand it’?"
Allen’s sub-thread replied in a monotone voice, "The calculation model had variables. Before detonation, it was impossible to accurately detect the total reserves of the fire-element ore veins beneath the volcanic range. Based on the results, the main structure of your workshop is still standing. My calculations were not significantly flawed."
"Variables?"
Victor furiously kicked a piece of metal scrap at his feet. The heavy chunk slammed against the wall with a dull THUD. "It wasn’t destroyed, but it might as well have been!"
"This was the optimal solution. If we hadn’t detonated it, you wouldn’t be standing here alive. At the very least, you’ve retained some of your core facilities."
Victor felt incredibly frustrated, but he was speechless in the face of Allen’s sub-thread.
"How is your main body’s advancement coming along?"
"I’m at a critical juncture."
"Good. Keep it up."
The communication ended. Allen’s sub-thread had cursorily confirmed his ally’s survival.
Arguing was pointless. A far more lethal problem already had them by the throat.
"All external Magic Furnace links have been severed."
"The main workshop’s power output cannot sustain the operation of existing units."
Bad news arrived one after another. Allen’s sub-thread immediately issued an order: "Cut power to all non-essential facilities. Halt production line repairs. Concentrate all energy on maintaining power for the Peacekeepers."
Outside the workshop, the surviving Golems stood in a few miserable rows.
They had just endured a battle that pushed them beyond their limits, and their internal Magic Power reserves were already depleted.
Now, the main artery of their power supply had been destroyed by their own hands.
A Demon Eye Mk. II’s red light flickered twice before it slowly landed on the ground.
"BEEP—"
Then a spider-like assassin model’s red light went out completely, its joints automatically locking in place.
Immediately after, a second one followed, then a third.
In less than ten minutes, aside from the five Freedom Gundams and three Flame Demons with their own internal Magic Engines, most of the conventional Golems shut down, becoming a field of immobile metal husks.
Misfortunes never come singly.
Jarvis relentlessly announced more bad news, "The main workshop has been severely affected by the shockwaves. Some precision equipment is damaged. The Golem production and assembly lines are malfunctioning and have all ceased operation."
Some equipment inside the workshop was already destroyed. If even one link in the production line failed, the entire assembly process would grind to a halt.
Victor’s situation was even worse.
The entrance to his workshop was blocked by the wreckage of the "Tieyan Judicator." Inside, his high-tech, precision equipment had been almost completely destroyed by the violent tremors, with no possibility of repair.
At that moment, the war machines of both zones fell completely silent.
No troop reinforcements, no ammunition production, no energy to power the Golems.
If that Second-level Black Wizard hadn’t died in the explosion, if he were to return now with even just a few hundred Magical Beasts... he wouldn’t even need high-tier forces to finish them off completely.
"Allen."
Victor’s communication channel opened again, his voice laced with deep helplessness. "I’m... I’m out of ammo and supplies. Didn’t you say you could advance to Level 2?"
「Meanwhile, in the Meditation Room of Zone 18.」
Allen’s primary consciousness was completely unaware of the situation outside.
A storm was raging within his Sea of Spirit.
The thirty-sixth Will Rune of the fifth Core Matrix was in the final moments of being inscribed.
The extreme mental strain caused him to bleed from all seven orifices. Blood trickled down his pale cheeks and dripped onto the Array.
The light from the Deep Sea Echo Conch had dimmed to its absolute limit, and a hairline crack had even appeared on its surface. The last dregs of the Astral Spring potion’s medicinal power coursed frantically through his veins, trying to mend his collapsing Spiritual Power.
’Just a little more.’
’Just one last bit.’
It was an incredibly complex composite circuit. The slightest mistake would cause the entire matrix to collapse, and his Sea of Spirit would shatter along with it.
To concentrate all his processing power on this single step, Allen’s consciousness began to proactively sever all connections to the outside world. He had to achieve absolute focus.
In the control room, the sub-thread communicating with Victor suddenly stuttered.
"Allen? Allen!" Victor grew anxious. He desperately needed to hear even the slightest bit of good news.
"Reclaiming processing power... concentrating on breakthrough..." The sub-thread hastily relayed its final words before cutting the connection.
The light screen went dark.
Throughout the entire underground workshop of Zone 18, besides the low hum of the Magic Furnace, there was no other sound. All of Allen’s sub-threads had gone silent, no longer responding to any commands.
On the ruins of the volcanic range, a hot wind stirred up clouds of ash.
Victor stood alone in his ruined workshop.
A dead silence surrounded him.
There was no roar from the production lines, no hum from the Magic Furnaces, only the occasional "GLUG" of a bursting bubble from the distant, still-molten magma.
He didn’t know if that terrifying Black Wizard was lurking in the shadows, watching this graveyard of steel with a cold gaze.
Nor did he know if Allen’s mind had collapsed at the critical moment of his advancement, leaving him dead in the Meditation Room.
He had bet his life and everything he owned on a madman.
Victor clenched his fists tightly.
"You’d better... not die in there."