Chapter 260: Iron Bastion (Part 1)
Kai sat at Abyssal Headquarters reviewing reports with Mayor Ko when every phone in the room buzzed at once.
[B-Rank Dungeon Found.]
[B-Rank Dungeon: Iron Bastion.]
[Location: Central District.]
Silence.
Mayor Ko stood immediately. "Central District?"
Kai was already moving toward the door. "So it’s inside the city."
Raze grinned, joining him. "Finally."
Mira sighed. "You’re smiling."
"Of course I am. I’ve been wanting another real fight."
Elden closed his notebook calmly. "Let’s go."
The four of them arrived to find Association hunters already clearing civilians from the surrounding blocks. The crimson Gate stood wedged between two buildings, unlike anything they’d seen before, shaped like an enormous iron fortress gate, rusted banners hanging from its frame. Even from outside, distant war horns echoed faintly through the tear in reality.
Kai studied it. "That’s different."
An Association hunter jogged over. "We’ve kept everyone back. No monsters have emerged yet."
Kai nodded. "Good."
He turned to the others. "Ready?"
Everyone nodded, and the four of them stepped through.
A deafening horn sounded the instant they crossed the threshold. The scenery shifted around them into an endless battlefield, broken siege towers scattered across scorched ground, collapsed walls, fields still burning in patches, thousands of abandoned weapons littering the mud. In the distance, a gigantic fortress rose against the horizon, walls stacked high enough to blot out part of the sky.
Kai smiled slowly. "Well." He looked at the fortress. "Guess we’re attacking a castle."
Raze laughed loudly. "Now THIS is a dungeon."
Arrows rained down before anyone could take another step, hundreds of them darkening the sky.
Elden raised barriers instantly, three layers snapping into place in quick succession. Mira stepped forward at the same time, Iron Fortress spreading across her body in overlapping plates. The arrows slammed into her armor by the dozen.
None of them penetrated.
Kai whistled. "Useful."
Mira smirked. "I know."
The ground shook next, and hundreds of armored monsters marched out of the smoke ahead: shield soldiers locked shoulder to shoulder, halberd units bristling in tight ranks, crossbow lines forming up behind them, heavy cavalry thundering into position on the flanks.
Unlike anything they’d fought before, they held formation perfectly.
Kai’s eyes narrowed. "They’re organized."
"They’re trained," Elden said quietly.
Raze cracked his neck, already grinning. "Good." And then he disappeared first, not because he was the fastest, but because he didn’t hesitate, his first step shattering the scorched earth beneath him.
BOOOOOOM!!
A crater exploded outward as his body became a crimson blur racing straight toward the advancing army, and the soldiers reacted instantly. "Shields!" Hundreds of tower shields slammed together.
CLANG!
An iron wall stretched across the battlefield, and behind it halberds lowered while crossbows rose, the entire formation moving as one.
Kai smiled. "They’re good."
Raze only laughed louder. "THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!"
Battle Roar erupted, a crimson shockwave bursting from his body and flattening burning grass for hundreds of meters, and several front-line soldiers staggered, that tiny opening enough for Raze to crash into the shield wall like a falling meteor.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The first twenty soldiers disappeared, not knocked back, gone, their shields exploding into splinters while armored bodies flew high into the air, and before they landed his greatsword came back around.
Blood Wave.
A mountain-sized crescent of crimson energy carved across the battlefield, and rows vanished. Then another swing, another Blood Wave, and another hundred monsters disappeared.
Kai laughed. "He’s clearing lanes. Not enemies."
Elden nodded. "He already understands sieges."
The army answered immediately, crossbow bolts darkening the sky by the thousands, but Raze didn’t dodge. He accelerated, and bolts buried themselves in his shoulders, his arms, his chest, blood splashing across his armor. Instead of slowing, he grinned wider as Blood Armor spread over his body, crimson plates growing thicker with every wound, his muscles visibly swelling.
[Blood Tyrant.] [Stack 14.]
"HAHAHAHA!"
He spun, and the greatsword became a crimson tornado, everything within thirty meters exploding away from him, shield soldiers, halberdiers, even cavalry, nothing surviving the spin.
...
While Raze tore through the center—
The right flank moved.
Heavy cavalry.
Hundreds of armored war beasts lowered their lances.
The earth began shaking.
Kai glanced sideways. "Mira."
She had already stepped forward.
Guardian Mantle fluttered behind her. Iron Fortress crawled across both arms before spreading over her shoulders and chest. She rested Blast Maul against one shoulder.
"Mine."
The cavalry charged.
Dust exploded.
The distance disappeared almost instantly as the lead knight thrust his lance. But then Mira caught it.
Barehanded.
CRACK!!
The lance shattered against her gauntlet. The impact echoed through her armor. Golden runes inside the Ironheart Harness flared.
Stored.
A second lance struck.
Stored.
A third.
A fourth.
She didn’t move an inch.
Kai noticed. "She’s charging it."
Mira smiled. "Exactly."
The fifth rider reached her.
She swung.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
Blast Maul struck the ground.
The resulting shockwave ripped through the charging formation.
War beasts flipped end over end.
Knights spun through the air.
Armor folded inward.
The ground split open beneath them.
A trench over fifty meters long appeared across the battlefield.
The survivors tried surrounding her.
Exactly what she wanted.
Weapons crashed against Iron Fortress from every direction.
Axes.
Spears.
Swords.
Every impact vanished into the spreading armor.
Stored.
Stored.
Stored.
Iron Pulse.
A circular shockwave erupted directly from her armor.
BOOOOOOOM!!
Every monster surrounding her launched backward simultaneously. Some smashed through siege towers. Others disappeared beneath collapsed walls.
Mira calmly adjusted her grip. "Not enough."
Then she walked forward. Every step cracked the battlefield.
...
Kai became the knife between them.
Wherever Raze smashed open a formation—
Kai slipped through it.
Fractured Blade flashed.
An officer lost his head.
Another turned but it was too late. Three precise strikes and entire formations immediately collapsed into confusion.
"They lost command!"
"Push!"
Kai Air Stepped over a collapsing wagon.
Spectral Shift carried him through a spear thrust.
His sword flashed once.
Another captain fell.
Blue light appeared.
[Distortion Applied.]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
An Iron Command Sigil bounced across the mud.
Kai caught it without even slowing down.
Above the battlefield—
Magic circles appeared.
They weren’t attacking but shaping the battlefield.
Gravity doubled beneath enemy reinforcements.
Entire shield formations slowed to a crawl. Stone walls erupted beneath charging cavalry, throwing them sideways. Collapsed siege towers floated briefly before crashing down across narrow choke points.
Kai immediately changed direction.
The opening appeared exactly where Elden predicted.
Raze burst through it like an avalanche.
Blood Wave.
Another formation disappeared.
Elden quietly smiled. "Momentum."
Within minutes—
The battlefield looked completely different.
Behind them—
Thousands of defeated soldiers.
Broken siege engines.
Collapsed towers.
Burning banners.
Ahead—
Only one thing remained.
The gigantic fortress.
Its gates slowly began opening.
A far deeper horn echoed across Iron Bastion.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—
Kai’s smile widened. "Looks like the real defenders are finally coming."
Raze rolled his shoulders, Blood Tyrant still climbing. "Good."
Mira rested Blast Maul on one shoulder. "I was getting bored."
Elden looked toward the opening gates. "Formation change."
Four enormous armored silhouettes began walking out of the fortress.
Each one radiated far more pressure than the entire army they’d just defeated.
Kai tightened his grip on the Fractured Blade. "Now we’re getting somewhere."
Kai carved through enemy commanders on the opposite flank, Fractured Blade flashing between targets, while Elden studied the battlefield with a more measured eye.
"Don’t destroy everything," Elden called over.
Kai blinked, mid-swing. "Why not?"
Elden pointed toward the distant fortress. "That’s the objective."
Kai understood immediately. "They want to slow us down with all this."
Instead of engaging every monster in his path, Kai started opening lanes instead, breaking choke points and formations wherever they blocked the straightest route forward, ignoring anything that wasn’t directly in the way.
Elden smiled faintly. "Much better."
Just as the first army began to visibly collapse, war horns sounded again from somewhere deeper in the field. Another gate opened along the horizon. Then another. Then a third, fresh formations marching out of each one in perfect step.
Kai stopped mid-strike. "Seriously?"
Raze laughed, already turning toward the new wave. "This dungeon gets me."
Mira sighed, resetting her stance. "It never ends."
Elden looked past all of it, toward the fortress still standing untouched in the distance. "That’s the point."
Silence held for a moment.
"We’re not supposed to defeat the army," he said quietly.
Kai’s eyes tracked the fortress walls. "We’re supposed to break through them."
The four of them shifted strategy immediately. Mira planted herself as the shield, holding the center of the battlefield against wave after wave. Raze became the spear, tearing through anything directly ahead without slowing. Kai turned into the blade, hunting down commanders and officers wherever they appeared, cutting the head off every fresh formation before it could organize. Elden handled battlefield control, opening routes through collapsing walls, redirecting entire enemy formations away from their path with well-placed gravity fields and terrain manipulation.
Instead of trying to win every individual fight, they forced a single path straight through the endless army, cutting deeper toward the fortress with every passing minute.
An elite commander went down under Raze’s blade, crimson armor cracking apart.
[Distortion Applied.]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
Kai scooped up an Iron Command Sigil without breaking stride. Another commander fell to Kai’s own blade a few minutes later, and a Fortress Core Fragment landed in the mud beside the body, gathered up just as fast. Mira crushed a third commander beneath her maul, and Warsteel Ore scattered from the wreckage. Elden collapsed an entire choke point on a fourth, an Ancient Commander Crest settling in the rubble.
None of them lingered over any of it. Kai swept each drop into his pack in passing, never breaking stride toward the fortress looming larger with every step forward.
Another wave of horns sounded in the distance, and Raze grinned wider, already charging toward the sound.
"There’s more coming!"
"There’s always more coming," Mira called back, resetting her stance for the next wave. "Keep moving."
Kai cut down the next commander in his path without slowing, eyes fixed on the fortress gates ahead, close enough now that individual banners were visible along its walls.
"We’re close," he said, voice carrying over the din.
Elden collapsed one final wall of stone between them and the outer gate, dust rolling across the battlefield.
"Then let’s finish opening the door."