Chapter 46: Smelting Citadel Infiltration
The ambient temperature skyrocketed by over a hundred degrees as Leon Graves closed the three-mile distance to the perimeter of the Forged Citadel.
The howling draft of the smelting plains carried a heavy, toxic mixture of sulfur gas and molten iron vapor that would have melted the lungs of a standard level 15 vanguard party within seconds. Leon moved through the choking black columns with complete, cold indifference. His updated Aura of the End-Game projected a five-foot boundary of absolute, starlight-swallowing darkness around his frame, forcing the ambient heat wave to dissipate into harmless white steam before it could even warm the leather surface of his Cloak of the End-Game.
He stopped at the edge of a massive, fifty-foot-wide moat that circled the entire perimeter of the bone-iron fortress walls.
Instead of water, the trench was filled with a roaring, bubbling river of liquid white-hot iron that ran straight out of the volcanic ridges. The surface of the liquid metal hissed violently, throwing up large bubbles of kinetic plasma that popped with loud, deafening cracks. The only entrance to the inner yard was a massive drawbridge made of interlocking meteoric iron plates, currently raised tight against the upper ramparts.
Leon did not check his inventory for climbing scrolls. His twin rings of deep violet pupils flared in the shadows of his hood as his Perception stat tracked the automated defenses guarding the moat.
Line-defenses were fully active.
Mounted along the upper stone battlements were six heavy, gold-plated mechanical turrets—Solar Flakers. These were tier-2 defensive cannons designed by the system architects to secure high-density manufacturing sectors. Their core lenses burned with a constant, blinding orange light, ready to discharge concentrated kinetic light bolts at a rate of sixty rounds per minute if any unauthorized biological target attempted to scale the walls or cross the trench line.
’The turret sensors operate on a thermal tracking loop,’ Leon calculated, his fingers lightly brushing the cold, textured grip of the Abyssal Stinger inside his sleeve. ’If I use common physical sprint skills, the friction against the atmospheric dust will trigger an immediate regional locking command across all six batteries.’
He didn’t waste seconds formulating a complex siege strategy. He took a single stride forward, stepping directly off the edge of the stone bank over the roaring river of molten iron.
BZZZZT—
The moment his silhouette broke the open space above the moat, the six gold-plated cannons on the wall snapped downward in absolute unison, their lenses contracting violently as they detected the sudden influx of his massive, SSS-rank mana density. Before the automated line-defense script could fire a single kinetic bolt into the air, Leon unlocked his primary mobility matrix.
"[Activating Skill: Void Intercept]"
The entire world lost its sound and color in less than a fraction of a millisecond. Reality grayed out into an absolute, frozen landscape of static mist. The massive, blinding plasma bolts discharged by the six turrets passed straight through his chest cavity as if he were nothing more than a trick of the light, the physical and magical matter of the attacks finding zero resistance inside his phase-shifted form.
For three short seconds, Leon Graves existed completely outside the operational boundaries of the fourth floor’s physical laws.
He walked smoothly through the air above the boiling liquid iron, his boots skimmed across the empty vacuum before he reached the base of the massive meteoric iron drawbridge. The moment his initial three-second timer hit zero, his physical mass materialized back into the dimension—and he immediately chained his secondary movement trait before the turret sensors could re-calibrate their tracking parameters.
"[Activating Skill: Abyssal Step]"
His form instantly dissolved into a pitch-black, weightless shadow line. Slipped directly into the dark parallel fold of the dimension, his movement speed was multiplied by fifty percent, his active tracking tags entirely erased from the outpost’s central ledger.
He ran straight up the vertical forty-foot face of the bone-iron wall, his shadow-line passing cleanly between the blind spots of the gold-plated turrets. He crossed the upper parapet ledge, dropping silently onto the metallic ash floor of the inner courtyard just as his four-second phase timer expired.
[Void-Intercept and Abyssal Step chained successfully.]
[Outpost Line-Defenses: Bypassed.][Notice: You have officially entered the Inner Yard of the Forged Citadel.]
Leon stood perfectly still behind the shadow of a massive obsidian fuel silo, his charcoal duster coat settling around his leather boots without making a single sound. He checked his internal core reservoir; thanks to the 30% mana cost reduction from his full 3/3 Finality Set, the double-layered phase shift had consumed a mere ninety-eight points of his mana, leaving his energy pool virtually untouched.
A heavy, synchronized iron scraping sound broke through the roaring wind of the courtyard.
Emerging from the dark mouth of the primary smelting hall were four heavy elite guards—Iron-Core Centurions. These were Level 36 mechanical soldiers, their massive nine-foot frames covered in interlocking plates of blackened steel armor that hummed with a cold, mechanical malice. They carried six-foot serrated iron executioner blades that vibrated with a high-frequency kinetic hum, their multiple amber eye lenses flaring to life in the dark as they caught the scent of an intruder stepping across their assembly yard.
Leon Graves pulled the Abyssal Stinger out of his sleeve, the violet runes etched along the matte-black blade flaring with a 100% armor-piercing ratio. A slow, cold, and dangerously sharp smile cut across his pale lips in the shadows. The moat was crossed, the turrets were broken, and the primary harvest of the smelting hall was sitting wide open within his reach. He walked forward into the orange glare of the courtyard, his footsteps silent, ready to turn their grand industrial forge into an absolute, systematic slaughterhouse.