Chapter 44: Floor 4
The black-violet fire of the overwritten gate did not just warp his physical position; it violently tore the spatial fabric of the third floor away like old paper.
Leon Graves stepped out of the shimmering vortex of the portal, his leather boots instantly sinking an inch into a cold, dense crust of metallic ash. The dry, white-gold glare of the Golden Desert of Solitude was gone, replaced by a massive, hollow cavern sky that stretched for unmeasured miles above his head. The sky on the fourth floor of the Obsidian Firmament was a solid ceiling of interlocking iron-ore plates, pulsing with a deep, rhythmic amber glow that looked like the cooling underbelly of a colossal industrial engine.
This was the Under-Iron Vaults—the official staging area of the middle vertical layers.
[Transfer Sequence: 100% Complete.]
[You have arrived at Floor 4, Sector 01: The Smelting Plains.]
[The local environmental trait is active across the entire map layout.]
[Warning: Unregistered entities suffer a 30% reduction to all physical movement speeds.]
A row of flashing amber alert icons unrolled across the edge of his vision, but Leon did not slow his pace. He pulled the collar of his Cloak of the End-Game higher, the shadow-dampening fabric absorbing the heavy atmospheric pressure before the gravitational weight could even stress his muscle fibers. With his newly upgraded Constitution stat sitting firmly at one hundred and ninety-eight, his biological density completely ignored the terrain penalty. The dense gravitational force simply melted into harmless gray steam the moment it crossed the perimeter of his Aura of the End-Game.
"Status Menu," Leon commanded silently under his hood.
The translucent black crystal panel manifested smoothly before his face, locking his updated parameters into the grid lines.
[STATUS MENU]
Name: Leon Graves
Class: Sovereign of Finality: Apocalypse Monarch (Rank: SSS)
Level: 23
Health: 3,510 / 3,510
Mana: 2,410 / 2,410
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: 194
Agility: 166
Constitution: 198
Mana: 158
Perception: 71
His numbers were locked into a flawless, unassailable progression line. Thanks to his complete 3/3 Finality Set, the mana cost for his primary skills was permanently slashed by thirty percent, allowing him to operate at a maximum offensive capacity without worrying about his internal core reservoirs running dry.
He extended his right hand, his fingers tightening around the cold, textured grip of the Abyssal Stinger. The matte-black blade hummed with a quiet, lethal frequency, its thin violet runes flaring with a 100% armor-piercing ratio that ready to pass straight through any conceptual armor values. Through his high Perception attribute, his mind instantly picked up a sharp, highly structured vibration coming from a deep stone ravine fifty yards ahead.
It wasn’t a pack of brainless monsters or primitive beasts. It was a synchronized, military-grade defensive line.
The fourth floor was the official boundary line where the system deployed its first intelligent, non-human civilization faction: the Forged Legion.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
A heavy, synchronized metallic thudding broke through the quiet hum of the cavern vaults, shaking the loose iron dust off the stone pillars.
Out of the deep stone ravine stepped five towering humanoids with sleek, charcoal-black metal exoskeletons and multiple glowing amber eye lenses—Iron-Core Phalanx. These were the sentinel units of the sentient legion, their eight-foot frames covered in interlocking plates of high-density unrefined system alloy that radiated a freezing kinetic pressure. They carried heavy, six-foot iron tower shields and long energy spears that continuously buzzed with compressed electrical damage, moving in a rigid defensive wall meant to seal the entry portal.
According to the data tags hovering in his vision, the entities were all Level 35 Elite Classes, their internal processor cores humming with a cold, mechanical bloodlust as they locked onto his position.
"Halt, primitive candidate," the lead phalanx spoke, its voice a hollow, synthesized rasp that echoed directly inside Leon’s mind through a translation pass-through. "This sector’s core entry line has been locked down by the fourth division of the Forged Legion. Your biological data is unclassified. Turn your torso back toward the gate valve, or your lifeforce parameters will be harvested into raw smithing ores."
Leon stopped ten feet from the front line of their iron shields, his hood casting a deep shadow over his pale face. A cold, razor-sharp smile cut across his pale lips.
He knew this military faction well from his past life. In the future timeline, the Forged Legion were the primary blacksmiths used by the cosmic architects to process the raw mineral wealth stripped from conquered worlds into high-tier divine weapons. They treated human survivors as nothing more than low-grade charcoal fuel, herding them into the deep smelting furnaces while they hoarded the legendary blueprints from the floor vaults.
They had seen the golden ledger update after he cleared the third-floor garrison. They had established their defensive wall early, assuming they could block the anomaly before he could secure a foothold in their sector.
"You’re using cheap metal for your walls," Leon Graves whispered beneath his hood.
He did not draw his dagger. He took a single, explosive stride forward, allowing his massive fifty-foot Aura of the End-Game to violently flood the ravine clearing like a localized wave of absolute darkness.
BOOM.
The transition was instantaneous and catastrophic for the mechanical platoon. The ambient amber light within his circle was completely snuffed out, replaced by a freezing, majestic calm that turned the falling iron dust into fine gray ash. The moment the high-density alloy shields of the Phalanx crossed his border wire, the universal laws of Finality took absolute hold.
Their level 35 elite parameters were systematically slashed by forty percent under the passive pressure of his aura. The thick iron plates covering their chest armor didn’t just dent; they turned brown with deep-seated, corrosive rust that flaked off into the ash like dry bark within a millisecond. Their heavy metal joints ground together with a horrific screeching sound as gravity seemed to multiply by five within his circle.
Before the lead automaton could even adjust its footing to raise its energy spear, Leon Graves vanished from its field of vision.
With an Agility stat pushing past one hundred and sixty-six, his physical movement was a dark line that completely bypassed the visual tracking systems of the mechanical soldiers. He materialized directly behind the squad leader’s rusted shoulder plate, his hand blurring as he whipped the Abyssal Stinger out of his duster sleeve. He drove the black blade straight down through the primary neck joint into the center of its glowing amber processor core.
Squilch.
Thanks to his full set bonus, the strike completely ignored one hundred percent of the machine’s internal defense shields. The dark steel pierced smoothly through the metamorphic alloy tissue, discharging his silence trait, Necrotic Injection, to instantly shut down its ability to sound a regional alarm command. The decay effect of his class flared with complete lethality. The eight-foot mechanical titan did not even manage to shriek; its entire armored frame dissolved into a heavy mound of dark gray sand within a heartbeat, leaving behind nothing but an empty suit of rusted scrap metal and a single glowing sapphire stone.
[Target destroyed. You have restored 1% of your maximum Mana.]
[Absolute Extraction Activated...]
Strength: +3
Agility: +3
A cool, liquid stream of blue energy rushed from the sand pile straight back into his silver ring, keeping his energy bar fully charged.
The remaining four Phalanx units froze in mid-strike, their amber lenses widening in pure, unadulterated shock as they looked down at the empty gray sand pile where their commander had been erased in less than two seconds. Their mechanical minds could not compute the data; a level 23 candidate should not possess the physical parameters to crack a level 35 elite shield with a single barehanded thrust.
They let out a synchronized, high-pitched mechanical shriek, their joint pistons hissing with steam as they tried to turn their heavy iron shields to escape his aura’s radius.
"I didn’t give you permission to slide back," Leon said, his flat voice carrying a heavy, metallic vibration that made the surrounding stone pillars rattle with tension.
He raised his left hand, his fingers splayed wide as he unleashed his newly acquired A-rank skill straight toward the center of their defensive line.
"[Activating Skill: Death Wave]"
Thanks to his mythic ring set, the spell consumed a mere fifty-six points of his mana core, but the output was catastrophic. A thirty-foot-wide horizontal blade of highly compressed, dark violet decay energy erupted from his extended hand, cutting through the heavy cavern air with absolute velocity.
The kinetic wave struck all four targets dead center.
The strike did not just deliver massive damage; it triggered an instant, 3-second movement speed reduction of fifty percent. Their high-density alloy shields shattered under the pressure, and before they could reset their power lines, Leon closed the distance, driving his black dagger through their remaining core seals in four precise, lightning-fast movements.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Four fresh mounds of dark gray sand formed over the obsidian floor, the raw energy paths extracted straight into his core via his unique Grave Reclamation passive.
[Four high-tier targets destroyed. You have gained 4,800 Experience Points.]
[Unique Trait Activated...]
Target mana paths extracted: Your maximum Mana pool has permanently increased by +40 points.
Absolute Extraction Activated: Strength +4, Agility +4, Constitution +4.
Leon Graves lowered his palm, the residual violet smoke slowly drifting from his bare knuckles before vanishing into the heavy air of the vault. His maximum mana pool had permanently expanded past 2,450 points, his core buzzing with an unassailable energy that felt completely unstoppable.
He walked past the five mounds of gray sand, his hand sweeping through the ash to gather the dropped stones and resource items into his inventory. Through his expanded Ashen Fog matrix crawling outward for three miles, his mind suddenly registered a massive, highly structured energy signature pulsing near a massive industrial citadel three miles deep into the smelting plains—the location of the floor’s primary vanguard forge.
A slow, cold, and dangerously sharp smile cut across Leon Graves’ face in the shadows of his hood. The architects had changed the stage, the mechanical legion was fully deployed, and he intended to harvest every single line of data before the first floor-wide nightfall could find its end.