Chapter 154: The Magma Tides

The grand war room of the Iron Estate had been completely converted into an architectural laboratory.

Dozens of massive, glowing blue blueprints hovered in the air, projected by Nyssa’s arcane devices.

The schematics detailed a colossal, heavily armored locomotive. It was designed to pull thousands of tons of cargo and troops across the continent at terrifying speeds.

I stood at the head of the heavy oak table, crossing my massive brass gauntlets over my chest.

Nyssa paced nervously in front of the primary projection. She had been awake for three days straight, fueled entirely by kinetic mana and pure devotion to the project.

"The structural math is flawless, Sovereign," Nyssa explained, adjusting her thick glasses.

"The steam pressurized boilers combined with the arcane engine will generate enough torque to pull fifty iron cars. But we have hit a critical physical limitation."

Nyssa tapped a glowing rune, zooming in on the undercarriage of the train and the tracks below it. The projection flashed an angry, warning red.

"Friction and magical exhaust," I noted, my glowing red visor scanning the numbers.

"Exactly," Nyssa nodded sharply.

"If we push a thousand tons of metal at three hundred miles an hour, the kinetic friction will completely melt standard iron tracks. Furthermore, the arcane engine will radiate so much ambient heat that the brass chassis will simply detonate."

Prime Minister Hardsteel frowned, leaning over the table.

"Can we enchant the tracks with cooling runes?"

"Too expensive," Silas chimed in from the shadows, blowing a ring of cigar smoke.

"Enchanting thousands of miles of rail would bankrupt our mana crystal reserves in a week."

I tapped my brass finger against the oak table. The loud, rhythmic thuds echoed in the quiet room. I accessed the massive wealth of knowledge I had gained from consuming the Archlich and my own inherent Sovereign intellect.

"We do not use standard iron," I stated, my baritone voice commanding the room.

"And we do not enchant it. We need an alloy that naturally absorbs kinetic heat and magical exhaust."

Nyssa’s green geometrical tattoos flared with sudden realization.

"An alloy... Master, if we use the mana core hardened steel from our heavy infantry armors, and fuse it with a hyper volatile conductor..."

"Mana Steel," I finished, giving the new metal its name.

"A perfect, self sustaining alloy. The harder the train pushes, the more energy the track absorbs, actively cooling the entire system."

"It is brilliant," Nyssa breathed, her eyes wide with sheer awe.

"But to forge Mana Steel, we need a base catalyst. A metal born in absolute, unquenchable heat. We need Pyre Cobalt."

I looked at the architect.

"Where is it?"

"Deep," Nyssa replied, pulling up a subterranean map of the Great Iron Labyrinth.

"Past the fungal nest of Strata 5. It only grows in the absolute extremes of Strata 6."

I rolled my massive, mechanical shoulders. The gears inside my S-Grade Hive Chitin armor hissed smoothly.

I had spent the last two weeks dealing with paperwork, human diplomats, and supply chain logistics. I was absolutely desperate to hit something.

"Silas, Hardsteel," I commanded.

"Keep stabilizing the coastal cities. Draft the labor laws for the human workers. I am going mining."

Rolf stepped forward, his silver symbiotic armor rippling with predatory excitement. "I will prepare the Vanguard, Alpha."

"No Vanguard," I corrected.

"Strata 6 is an extreme environment. The heat will cook the Beastmen alive in their armor. It will just be me, you, and Kaelith."

---

An hour later, the three of us stood inside the heavy iron cage of the central Labyrinth elevator.

The descent was agonizingly long. We plummeted past the ruined stone cities of the upper levels, plunging directly through the dead, rotting fungal stalks of Strata 5.

As the elevator pushed deeper, the ambient temperature violently spiked.

My S-Grade armor perfectly insulated my body, completely nullifying the heat.

Rolf’s silver armor adapted seamlessly, reflecting the thermal energy away from his flesh.

Kaelith simply wrapped herself in a thin layer of the absolute void, erasing the hot air before it could even touch her skin.

CLANG.

The elevator slammed into the floor of Strata 6. The heavy metal doors slowly ground open.

A blinding, violent orange light flooded the cage.

I stepped out of the elevator and looked upon the sixth layer of the Labyrinth.

It was not a cavern. It was a sprawling, subterranean ocean of boiling magma. Massive waves of molten rock crashed heavily against the jagged shoreline.

The ceiling was thousands of feet high, completely obscured by thick clouds of toxic black ash.

Floating lazily across the magma ocean were colossal, jagged islands made of pure, cooling obsidian. And jutting out of those dark islands were massive clusters of glowing, bright blue crystals.

"Pyre Cobalt," I rumbled, my red eyes locking onto the closest floating island.

"There are millions of tons of it down here."

"The air is incredibly toxic," Kaelith noted, her twilight eyes scanning the horizon.

"And the magma is magically dense. Falling in would dissolve even A-Grade metals."

"Then do not fall in," Rolf grinned, cracking his silver knuckles.

I ignited my heavy boot thrusters. I launched myself off the shoreline, rocketing over the boiling ocean.

The sheer heat radiating from the magma below tried to cook my thrusters, but the progenitor armor held perfectly.

I landed heavily on the nearest obsidian island. The black glass cracked under the sheer kinetic weight of my landing. Rolf and Kaelith touched down a second later.

We stood directly in front of a massive, ten foot tall spire of glowing blue Pyre Cobalt. The raw energy radiating from the metal was staggering.

"Harvest it," I ordered.

Before Rolf could swing his silver axe to shatter the crystal, the obsidian island violently violently shuddered.

The magma ocean around us erupted.

A colossal, terrifying beast burst from the molten rock. It was easily a hundred feet long, possessing the segmented body of a serpentine leviathan. Its entire body was plated in thick, jagged volcanic rock, and glowing magma dripped from its massive, razor sharp jaws.

DING!

[Target Identified: Obsidian Magma Leviathan (Level 58).]

[Threat Level: Extreme. The beast naturally absorbs kinetic impacts and regenerates in extreme heat.]

"Sovereign!" Rolf barked, raising his double bladed axe.

"Its armor is too thick!"

The Leviathan let out a deafening roar, rearing its massive head back to swallow us whole.

I did not draw my combat knife. I did not unleash my steam pistons.

I wanted to test the true limits of my newly evolved Law.

I stepped forward, raising my right hand. I completely bypassed my Fire of Rage.

I reached deep into my core, pulling upon the pitch black and crimson energy that had devoured the Archlich.

"Burn," I whispered.

The Flame of Death ignited in my palm. It did not explode in a massive wave. It shot forward as a single, concentrated streak of absolute black fire.

The black flame struck the Leviathan directly in its gaping, magma filled maw.

The reaction was instantaneous and horrifying. The Flame of Death did not care about thermal resistance.

It did not care about thick obsidian armor. It fed directly on the concept of life.

The black fire violently spread across the colossal beast.

The glowing red magma inside its body instantly turned gray. The beast did not even have time to shriek.

In less than three seconds, the entire hundred foot Leviathan was completely consumed. Its soul was deleted. Its life force was erased.

The massive volcanic shell turned to lifeless, brittle ash and crumbled into the ocean, sending up a massive cloud of dust.

Rolf slowly lowered his axe, his golden amber eyes wide in absolute shock.

Even Kaelith, the Empress of the Void, stared at my hand with deep, instinctual reverence.

"By the ancestors," Rolf muttered.

"You deleted a Level 58 apex predator with a single spark."

I clenched my fist, extinguishing the black fire. The power drain on my core was massive, but the sheer lethality was unmatched.

If I wanted to reach Level 100 and face the True Rulers, I needed to master this fire completely.

"Fill your spatial rings with the Cobalt," I commanded, turning back to the glowing blue spire.

"We have enough raw materials here to build a dozen railways."

I looked out over the sprawling, violent magma ocean.

The Velkrath Imperium was about to enter the industrial age. And I was going to pave the world in Mana Steel.