Chapter 45: VOID-CRAG COLOSSUS
The ascent through the vertical foundation shaft was a blur of soundless kinetic velocity.
Noah Kurtz executed the advanced sequence of the Ashen Step, his boots tapping against the vertical basalt walls every fifteen meters. He did not leave a single scuff mark on the ancient stone, nor did his physical movement generate air friction. Beneath his dark coat, his newly equipped black ironwood forearm guards hummed continuously, absorbing the kinetic vibrations of his rapid ascent and feeding a steady, refined current of Ki back into his lower meridians.
Behind him, Jiho Park leaped upward in massive, effortless twenty-meter bounds, carrying his oversized canvas duffel bag over one shoulder while letting out another sleepy, jaw-cracking yawn.
Beside Jiho, Chloe Harrington unspooled a high-tensile grappling line, her messy crimson hair whipping wildly in the freezing updraft as her amber eyes tracked Noah’s soundless vector trajectory with breathless fascination. Bringing up the rear was Rin Asakura, her dark blue kimono fluttering as she glided up the shaft like a silent ghost, her ironwood practice sword held loosely in her right hand.
"Breaching the surface foundation," Noah spoke quietly, his steel-gray eyes looking up toward the cracked concrete ceiling twenty meters ahead. "Prepare for atmospheric pressure drops."
BOOM!
A deafening, metallic shockwave detonated directly above them.
The concrete ceiling of the foundation shaft cracked wide open, raining heavy chunks of reinforced alloy and pulverized masonry down into the dark abyss. Noah shifted his weight in mid-air, his right hand drawing a single black steel throwing dagger from his belt.
Circulate.
Noah flicked his wrist.
Puch!
A high-frequency needle of Ki shot from the dagger’s tip, striking the falling three-ton concrete slab directly along its central stress line. The massive slab disintegrated into a harmless shower of fine gray dust, allowing the four of them to shoot cleanly through the breach and land on the rain-slicked surface plaza above.
The moment Noah’s boots touched the ground, the full, terrifying horror of the surface world unfolded before them.
They stood in the central plaza of the Vance Clan’s high corporate sector. What had once been a glittering expanse of pristine white marble, glowing fountains, and golden holographic displays was now a desolate, frozen battlefield shrouded in pitch-black darkness.
High above, the Black Sky hung like a heavy, light-swallowing void. The surrounding hundred-story glass skyscrapers stood dark and lifeless, their structural windows shattered by sonic shockwaves. Sub-zero wind howled through the ruined plaza, carrying thick clouds of toxic, ash-laden smog.
In the center of the ruined plaza, trapped against the collapsed marble steps of the primary clan spire, were the remnants of the Vance Clan’s elite vanguard squad.
Four heavily armored A-Rank knights lay dead on the cracked marble floor, their high-grade elemental plate armor crushed into flat scrap metal. Their custom monomolecular broadswords and plasma shields lay discarded beside them, completely dead and dark in the zero-mana atmosphere.
In the front line, clutching her catalyst rod with white knuckles, stood Evelyn Vance.
She no longer looked like the proud, pristine legacy heiress who had stood on the transit platform hours earlier, throwing a twenty-thousand-credit chip into a dirty puddle and branding Noah an "F-rank dead end."
Her tailored blue silk coat was torn and scorched by dark acid, her pale-blue hair was tangled and damp with rain, and her face was deathly pale. Her body trembled violently from absolute physical exhaustion. Devoid of environmental mana, her signature absolute-zero Cryomancy had failed completely. Every time she tried to channel a basic ice spell, her open-circuit catalyst rod merely sputtered out a cloud of lukewarm steam.
"My Lady! We can’t hold the perimeter!" the last remaining Vance Clan guard shrieked, his voice cracking with sheer, hysterical terror as he held a dented alloy shield. "Our weapons are useless! The barrier core is destroyed!"
"Quiet!" Evelyn commanded, her voice trembling with a mixture of desperate rage and profound, suffocating terror. She pressed her back against the collapsed marble pillar, her glacial blue eyes wide with horror as she looked up at the nightmare towering over them.
Towering thirty feet high in the center of the plaza was an S-Rank Black Sky entity—a Void-Crag Colossus.
[Cataclysmic Entity Identification]
Name: Void-Crag Colossus
Threat Rank: S-Rank (Cataclysmic Void Construct)
Trait: Mana Erasure Core — Radiates a zero-mana suppression field; consumes kinetic impacts and converts them into physical density.
The monstrosity was built from overlapping, jagged plates of petrified obsidian bedrock and dark, mutated muscle fibers that pulsed with an unstable, void-purple light. It possessed no organic eyes—only a giant, gaping chest cavity lined with hundreds of razor-sharp iron teeth that roared with the sound of grinding tectonic plates.
Its massive, wall-like right arm was raised high into the air, its obsidian fist glowing with thousands of pounds of compressed, zero-mana kinetic pressure as it prepared to smash Evelyn Vance and her last guard into flat paste!
"Move!" Evelyn gasped, trying to dodge, but her legs buckled beneath her. Her physical body, built entirely on System-supported mana enhancements, was completely exhausted.
She closed her eyes, tears of sheer humiliation and despair leaking past her lashes as she braced for the end.
In her final microsecond, her mind flashed back to the dark transit tunnel, the quiet black-market lounge, and the rain-slicked platform where she had thrown her pride at a slouching commoner. She had believed her legacy status and A-Rank title made her invincible—and now, she was dying in the mud because her expensive magic had turned to dust.
BOOM!
A deafening, atmospheric explosion detonated across the marble plaza!
The expected crushing blow never landed.
Evelyn slowly opened her glacial eyes, her breath catching in her throat as the cloud of dust and pulverized marble gradually cleared.
Standing directly between her trembling frame and the thirty-foot S-Rank Colossus was a massive, broad-shouldered figure clad in an oversized yellow t-shirt and faded slide sandals.
Jiho Park stood loosely on the cracked marble floor, his left arm raised horizontally above his head.
The Colossus’s colossal thirty-foot obsidian fist had slammed directly onto Jiho’s unarmored forearm.
Yet Jiho Park had not bent his knees. His slide sandals had not slid back by even a single millimeter. His yellow t-shirt didn’t even tear.
[Absolute Inertia Activated]
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The immense kinetic rebound of striking an immovable physical boundary traveled violently back up the S-Rank monster’s arm. The Colossus’s giant obsidian fist shattered instantly, exploding into dozens of sharp stone fragments that rained down onto the marble steps.
The Void-Crag Colossus let out a high-pitched, metallic screech, its giant frame stumbling backward as its logic core failed completely.
"Man," Jiho mumbled sleepily, casually scratching his cheek with his free hand while holding his canvas duffel bag over his shoulder. "This big tin can has even less kick than the four-armed one down in the basement."
Evelyn Vance’s jaw dropped in utter, unbelievable shock. She stared at the unarmored man in slide sandals who had just blocked an S-Rank cataclysmic blow with a single arm.
"J-Jiho Park...?" Evelyn stammered, her voice shaking. She recognized him—the unranked, off-grid S-Rank Tank who had disappeared from Association registries two years ago.
"Hey, gunslinger," Chloe Harrington called out, stepping out from the shadow of a collapsed pillar, her leather duster flapping in the freezing wind as her amber eyes flashed with rebellious amusement. "Told you corporate magic was useless when the sky goes dark."
Evelyn’s head whipped toward Chloe. "Chloe Harrington?! What are you... why are you here?!"
"I came with the Boss," Chloe smirked, pointing her thumb toward the shadow behind Jiho.
A quiet, soundless figure stepped out from the dark fog, his boots making zero noise against the rain-slicked marble.
Noah Kurtz walked forward, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark coat. His ash-black hair whipped softly in the freezing wind, and his steel-gray eyes looked at the thirty-foot S-Rank Colossus with an absolute, terrifying pool of calm.
Evelyn Vance completely froze.
The blood drained from her face, leaving her more pale than the surrounding snow. Her breathing hitched, her mind short-circuiting as her glacial eyes locked onto the slouching twenty-two-year-old commoner.
"N-Noah...?" Evelyn whispered, her pristine voice cracking into a fragile, trembling sob. "How... why are you here...?"
Noah Kurtz didn’t look at her. He didn’t offer a dramatic speech, nor did he acknowledge her tear-stained face. He didn’t even glance down at the wet marble where she lay broken.
He simply pulled his hands from his coat pockets, the black ironwood forearm guards gleaming dully in the dark, and drew his twin obsidian-alloy daggers from their sheath.
Deep within his spine, the Bronze-Tier Ki circulation ignited into a terrifying, silent roar.
"Jiho," Noah spoke softly, his voice an unflinching anchor amidst the apocalypse. "Hold its balance."
"Got it, Master," Jiho grinned, taking a lazy step forward.
The ghost of Sentinel City had stepped onto the main stage, and the False Female Lead was forced to watch from the mud.