Soul of Searing Steel

Panda Novel

In the afternoon of Starfall Year 841, April fifteenth, as a gap opened on the World Barrier over the skies of West Barnett Highlands, a massive flow of energy surged from the Void into the world.

It was for merely an instant, but clumps of clouds that gathered over a thousand miles hence dispersed. The morning light dimmed, and the once bright skies and sun was instantly reduced to stars of the long night.

As those rivers of stars swirled, a silver metal river descended from the edge of the horizon, enlarging incessantly with thunderous rumble before finally turning into a massive steel hand transcending world itself, urgently pressing over the West Barnett Highlands!

Whoosh—!

A great gale billowed over the northeast side of the West Mountains. In the split second that the metal hand dove down, a super typhoon beyond class-seventeen kicked up, surging with a tempest and shockwaves that could bend steel. Its might could engulf all of the West Mountains and the Northern Empire, destroying ninety percent of surface buildings by the nations’ frontiers.

However, that was when the spell that Barnil had cast over the highlands shone. Runic constructs that resembled combined gears rapidly rose, forming a conical beehive shape and forcefully suppressed all shockwaves at the center of the circular spell that had a fifteen kilometers radius—it was utter chaos within, while all was calm outside.

“Circle overloaded at 116%. Nostradamus, tell Joshua to be careful!”

At present, Barnil, who was standing beside the spell was staring tightly at the data displayed onscreen, crying out before raising his hand and quickly animating the next procedure of the spell. “Commencing energy traction into second phase, ‘ground foundation’!”

With a command from Barnil the chief engineer, the raging energies constrained by the runic formation struck true on the spell circle along with the giant silver palm—but startlingly, the steel hand that descended from beyond the Void did not destroy Barnil’s circle, following the tractor beam instead to flatly press over the circle without any deviation or slanting.

Then, the metal hand crushed the surface of the Barnett Highlands, pushing along the miles-long circle as if a human palm pressing into a pile of snow, directly crushing a huge crater into the continent of the world of Mycroft!

Boom— In a split second, the world moved: stone, dirt or mud were violently chafing and crashing, hence broiled into surging golden magma. Logically speaking, all of the Barnett Highlands should be crumbling under the force of a tremor beyond magnitude ten, but Barnil’s spell worked.

Colorful runic light glinted, with the gears runes firmly blacking the endless shockwaves. It was still binding the profound destructive force of the giant metal hand that could destroy the earth’s crust, binding it within a certain boundary while using the destructive force itself to guide it deeper—right into the earth’s mantle!

“Don’t develop any problems, please.”

Barnil could hear Nostradamus’s voice speaking from the other side of the screen, while the Rune Master whose entire head was filled with liquid nitrogen fully focused on controlling his spell, even managing to reply, “This plan is of my design!”

If that was the case, there would definitely be no issues!

And as he had claimed, in a dozen seconds, when the giant silver hand pressed the entire spell formation down beneath the earth’s crust while itself sink into the magma mantle, the metal beam that stood vertically between heaven and earth hence stabilized, motionless with nary a quiver.

As for the circle that had been pressed deep into the magma, at the instant it touched the searing core energies, its second function activated with the preset procedures its designer put in place!

“Core energy gathering spell—activate!”

With another command, the rune spell that had reached deep into the mantle activated again. This time it would not be stopping the shockwaves and heat, but convert them into cascading energies.

A slow swirl hence appeared deep within the mantle, with parts of the northwest’s magma flow hence shifting direction and gathering towards that swirl. The incandescent power of the earth was absorbed by the spell circle as much as it would, before turning into an activation key connected to the metal hand.

“Joshua, your turn!”

Having confirmed that the core energy gathering spell had started and that the entire Barnett highlands along with a good portion of the continent was not destroyed by a certain warrior’s palm, Barnil wiped away the vaporizing liquid nitrogen from his head and yelled at an empty screen, “Hurry up and stabilize the foundation, or we would have to do it all over again if the Heaven Reaching Tower slopes!”

After an instant, upon the heavens, the deep voice of man rang from outside the world, transcending the Void.

“Understood.”

“Shapeshift!”

Deep underground, the five fingers of the metal palm held on to the subterranean reaches steadily like the roots of a giant tree. As the core energy gathering spell kept supplying it with energy while a silver light fell from the edge of the skies, the hand changed its form rapidly and in astonishing fashion.

Dense ranks of metal spikes shot out from the fingers, palm and the entire room like roots, entrenching themselves into the land while stabilizing the stone surface, turning soft mud into the sturdiest of stone. it was as if a tree was blooming and rooting itself down below—in less than ten minutes, the entire underground reach of the Barnett Highlands was permeated with metal roots, even stretching out without stopping towards the West Mountains and the southern deserts northeast to the highlands.

Meanwhile, over the skies, the World Barrier tore apart by a profound power slowly closed itself. Stunningly, however, the expanding metal beam stopped it from sealing: the center of the beam itself which had a radius of fifteen hundred meters and was near solid began to empty itself, with the cavity growing wider until it appeared extraordinarily hollow. Thus, it expanded into an empty tower that connects the sky and ground!

At the bottom of the tower was the massive roots digging into the ground, even the earth’s mantle beneath all of the Barnett Highlands and even the West Mountains. At the middle of that great tower was the metal beam that reaches into the Void threshold over the skies, while its top was a massive Void base which foundation alone was ten kilometers wide, keeping the World Barrier open!

Beyond the Void, the Giant God of Steel severed the mutated arm from himself, allowing the hand which sole purpose was for creating the tower to work independently.

On top of the Steel God’s head, Zero Three’s eyes bulged as she watched the top of the massive tower seal itself and replaced a layer of World Barrier on the gap. Like a bottle cap, that single layer could be opened at any moment, but would usually stay sealed to prevent Void aliens intruding into the world.

It was after a long time that she recovered from the shock, and silently murmured, “Joshua, is this the Heaven Reaching Tower you speak of?

“Yes.”

Joshua nodded in his Giant God form, his body now shrinking into a dense but normal mountain size. He stared at the great beam that appeared to hold the world aloft, calmly saying, “That thing should be called a space escalator, but Mycroft have neither space nor electricity, just as it isn’t actually escalator. On the other hand, it is more a hollow tower, and there is no telling how much more functional it is compared to a space escalator, which is why the others and I simply named it Void Tower.”

“It connects the ground and the Void, and with it, Mycroft civilization can keep sending resources into the Void with a thousandth of the usual costs to build colossal warships or fortresses. By the same reason, minerals and rare resources extracted from beyond could be imported into Mycroft at a hundredth of the usual cost.”

“A radius of fifty-seven hundred meters and built entirely out of living metals, weighing five hundred and fifty trillion tons and molded directly by myself in the Void with Steel Strength. Barnil inscribed the runes on it to clear the path for the energy circuits, Barbarossa enchanted it into a magical building while Vahina set up its core engine. Soon, Nostradamus would teleport that component directly from the Eastern Sea and move it underground.

There was pride in Joshua’s tone. “In truth, what I did was only prepare the raw materials for the tower by finding a dead world and consuming several mountains to mold it. The skill for designing, locating, enchantment, runic inscription, energy circulation and rebuilding an artificial portion of the World Barrier were all done by the other Legends and gods—soon, the Nature Magister and the others would join us by creating a complete ecosystem outside the world, using it as a basis to create a demiplane without gravity connected to the Void.

In response, Zero Three silently watched the massive Heaven Reaching Tower. It was so massive it could be seen from outside the world, and so towering that the fishermen on the edge of Mycroft could catch its shadow. It was such a profound building its materials had to be gathered from another world, with several massive mountains consumed, and yet it was not the tower’s limit—built entirely from living metals, it could easily be expanded if the Mycroft people wanted to do so.

Having Joshua’s ability and Zero Three’s divine legacy, both of them could see a powerful thunder boundary gathering upon the lower edge of the tower. Designed by Barbarossa and Pope Igor, the thunder slingshot formation could ensure that the catapulted object would be accelerated instantly to almost twenty times the speed of sound on a stable foundation. That speed would even rise without stopping, while the Holy Light power created with the accelerated field would stabilize the constitution of the catapulted object, protecting them from the momentum.

With Extraordinary power, repulsive force, momentum, and acceleration could all be easily alleviated conveniently. In truth, the Void Tower itself was an unbelievably colossal thunder rail cannon—with its five hundred-thousand-meter-long acceleration barrel, any missile shot out would unleash unbelievable destructive force.

“Mycroftians… truly venerable.”

Zero Three could not repress a sigh as something crossed her mind. Joshua, however, simply shook his head and grinned. “What is there to be venerable about? Zero Three, you are one of the creators of this wonder as well!”

“Without the vital information and data which you had quickly gathered from the Unified Archives which granted us a strong technological foundation. Even if the Void Tower could be built, it would be much later… That aside, look: The Dreadnaught-class Void Battleship is activating. It will be the first warship to pass through the Void Tower, rising from ground to Void.”

Even as Joshua spoke, a fourteen-hundred-meter-long warship slowly wafted into the air with the support of repulsor magic. Streaks of silver blue magical radiance permeated the hull, a sign that its core engine was in a preheat activation process.

Four hundred meters wide and three hundred meters tall, the warship would resemble a spear tip on first glance, while its hull was rhombus, coupled with thick living metal armor which provides a defense surpassing even compound adamantite alloy. Its momentum core was a psionic hedge engine which originates from Stellaris, improved by Vahina the Sage of the Oceans and given AI modifications by Barnil the Rune Master, allowing the vessel to run with less than five thousand people crewing it.

Now, the Void Battleship christened ‘Dreadnaught’ had left its production base, slowly wafting to the activation grounds… then, with a rumble louder than thunder, the exhaust nozzles both sides and the aft of the vessel burst with psionic fluorescence that extended over ten thousand meters. That dazzling silver-blue light created terrible momentum, pushing the massive warship toward the nearby tower that pillared heaven and earth.

At the moment, there was no one controlling the Dreadnaught from the inside. Instead, it was thousands of elemental lifeforms that Barnil which were now steering it— having bodies as strong as humans, they were the perfect subject for trials.

Joshua, Zero Three, Barnil, William, Nostradamus, Vahina, Barbarossa, Igor… all Legendary champions were watching the Void Tower and Dreadnaught-class Battleship sight solemnly as it repelled the cumbersome gravity and air pressure to slowly rise, passing through the massive valve seat that was five thousand meters wide and formally entering within.

“Electromagnetic slingshot, energize!”

“Casting Holy Light defense systems… nullifying impact force!”

“Countdown to lift off… 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Lift off!”

Boom!!!

Amidst green-blue magical bolts, massive thunder boundaries promptly shrouded the Dreadnaught, the massive creation of steel instantly accelerating to six thousand meters per second and hence darted to the edge of the skies beyond the world.

A silver streak of light could be soon shooting towards the Void, with passing flashes of light visible from its translucent surface.

Then, a minute passed.

On top of the Void Tower, the artificial World Barrier slowly energized, while a colossal warship ejecting a stream of silver blue light hence leaped out gracefully in the Void.

“Commencing post-slingshot assessment… crew alive pre-catapulting: 5135, now assessing…”

“All 5135 crew members confirmed alive, uninjured and without signs of anomalies. Assessment: perfect!”

Inside the central control hub deep within the Void warship production line in the West Barnett Highlands, a synthetic voice spoke twice without emotion.

There was only silence at the start.

Then, a clapping thunderously resounded over the entire manufacturing line!

Outside the world, Joshua and Zero Three could not hear the applause and cheers from the Legendary champions’ who completed the design and the normal beings who had carried out and built the miraculous project. Still, as they witnessed that sight alongside Legendary champions who were watching from various corners of the world, all of them lifted their hands in the warship rising to the Void, clapping solemnly.

For what they had seen was the beginning where a civilization truly strode into the Void Age.

And its childhood hence ended.

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