Chapter 13 #3
As the second elemental lunged, Drystan swung the heavy, runic-steel plated duster like a massive flail.
The reinforced leather slammed into the creature's molten torso, the sheer kinetic impact momentarily disrupting its physical form.
Before the elemental could reform, Drystan stepped inside its guard and delivered a devastating, brutal right hook directly into its chest cavity, shattering its glowing core with his bare, bleeding knuckles.
The third and fourth elementals attacked simultaneously.
Drystan was moving purely on the newly forged instincts of the Doomed Mid-Boss.
He ducked under a sweeping whip of liquid glass, feeling the intense heat singe his hair.
He kicked the third elemental squarely in the chest, sending it tumbling backward off the pumice slab and into the boiling river, where it dissolved back into the sludge.
The final Slag-Stalker managed to graze Drystan’s shoulder with its molten arm. The heat instantly blistered his skin through his thin tunic. Drystan grunted, pivoting sharply on his heel. He threw the heavy leather duster over the elemental's head, temporarily blinding and smothering it.
He tackled the creature to the ground, driving his knee into its chest, and hammered his right fist into its glass skull over and over until the rock shattered and the glowing aether inside went entirely dark.
Silence fell over the small pumice slab, broken only by the bubbling of the river.
Drystan knelt in the center of the stone, surrounded by shattered black glass and dissipating steam.
His thin linen tunic was scorched and torn.
His right hand was a ruined, bloody mess of blisters and lacerations.
His left arm hung completely useless at his side, the brass gauntlet still smoking faintly.
He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving, but his icy gray eyes were calm.
He picked up his heavy, scorched leather duster from the shattered remains of the elemental and shrugged it back onto his shoulders, hiding the worst of his burns.
Nymeria stared at him. She was trembling, her amber eyes wide with absolute awe.
She had just watched a man without magic systematically beat four superheated elementals to death with his bare hands and a coat. He wasn't relying on the glitch anymore. He wasn't relying on meta-knowledge. He was relying on pure, unadulterated grit.
"The river is clear," Drystan stated quietly, not looking back at her. "Let's finish the crossing."
They jumped the remaining stones in silence, the brutal display of physical dominance lingering heavily in the superheated air.
They reached the far shore. The ground sloped upward, leading toward the dead center of the Caldera. The terrain here was entirely smooth, polished black basalt, entirely devoid of the jagged crystals of the outer rim.
In the center of the vast, open plain stood the objective.
The Precursor Vault.
It was a monolithic, terrifying structure.
It did not look like a building; it looked like a massive, geometric block of solid black iron dropped from the sky.
It was easily fifty feet tall and perfectly square.
The surface of the iron was etched with dormant, colossal lines of Eldritch-Cant that pulsed with a very faint, ominous purple light.
There were no handles. There was no visible locking mechanism, save for a massive, circular indentation in the exact center of the iron doors.
Drystan and Nymeria walked toward the monolithic structure. The heat radiating from the vault was different from the river. It wasn't just hot; it was heavy. It felt like standing at the bottom of the ocean, the gravitational pressure pushing down on their shoulders.
They stopped ten feet from the massive doors.
The execution countdown on Drystan's wrist strobed vividly in the shadow of the vault. Sixty-five hours.
"This is it," Nymeria whispered, her raspy voice barely audible over the distant roar of the mana vents. She crossed her arms tightly under her large bust, staring up at the terrifying iron slab. "The absolute kinetic lock. Are you sure you can do this, Moros?"
Drystan looked at his ruined left arm.
He remembered the warning on the obelisk.
To shatter this lock, he had to push the Glitched Weave-Gauntlet far beyond its physical breaking point.
The required kinetic output would be astronomical.
The backlash was mathematically guaranteed to destroy the machinery, and highly likely to destroy the flesh attached to it.
The terrified accountant would have turned around. The corporate ghost would have begged for another way.
Drystan Harrow felt the freezing ache in his marrow. He felt the grinding agony in his ribs. He felt the terrifying, unstoppable ticking of the runes on his wrist.
He looked at the massive iron doors standing between him and the artifact that would blind the gods.
He didn't feel fear. He felt an absolute, cold certainty. The mirror stage was complete. He had looked into the abyss of Kaelen-D?r, and he had learned how to bite back.
"I have no choice," Drystan said, his voice echoing with the icy, sociopathic resonance of the Villain's Valedictorian. "Evander Cross wants my arm. I think I'll leave it at the door."
He stepped forward, raising his dead, brass-plated limb toward the center of the iron vault, and prepared to pull the trigger on his own flesh.