Chapter 48: Using the Flame Fist

Chapter 48: Using the Flame Fist

Everyone at the lift station was frozen in shock, caught completely off guard by the sudden turn of events. It took the Overseer a long moment to realize the dwarven girl was the one he'd seen yesterday—one of the Governor's guests.

"What are you doing here?!" the Overseer shrieked.

The dwarven girl cast a contemptuous glance at him and swung a fist to her left. The punch's force turned into a stream of flame that shot toward the forgotten line of miners.

The miners, sure the fire was coming for them, screamed in terror and hunkered down at the edge of the lift platform, hands over their heads. But the flames slipped right past them, weaving through the crowd like snakes. With a hiss, the ropes around their waists turned to ash in an instant.

"You're free!" Tove shouted. "Run!"

The miners just stared at her, too stunned to process what she'd said. Most had been in the mines for years—some for decades—and "obedience" had been beaten into their bones by whips and blades long ago. Everyone knew what happened to those who ran or fought back. They didn't want to end up in pieces; they had families...

After a few seconds, the kid at the back of the line shouted in disbelief.

"Mother! Mother!"

He vaulted the railing and took off running out of the lift station.

"Damned vermin! Get back here!"

An overseer yanked out his whip and cracked it across the kid's back. The kid screamed and hit the ground face-first, his back split open, blood flying.

"Let's see who else dares to run!"

The overseer roared, turning to deal with the rest of the miners. But the second he turned, something heavy and metal slammed into his skull!

"Argh!"

The overseer dropped, blood pouring from his head. Through a blur of blood, he saw mud-caked feet, then skinny legs, and finally the face of a native girl with a pickaxe raised over her head.

The other overseers snapped out of it. Used to putting down miner riots, they drew their whips and blades and quickly boxed the native girl in.

They didn't know what the dwarf's deal was, but she was clearly stirring up a rebellion! They were just regular guys—no match for a superhuman—but New Saint Paraso still had Captain Keith and Master Shi Mao.

They'd be back soon enough to gut that dwarf. And if they found out miners had slipped away in the chaos, the overseers would be the ones paying for it!

The native girl clutched her pickaxe with both hands, stumbling back in panic, only to find herself completely surrounded.

Just then, the dwarven girl let out a sharp cry. Twin jets of flame blasted from her hands, launching her into the air. Flames blazed from her body, making her look like a tiny sun hanging over the mine.

In the shadow of the blazing torrent, something blacker than black rose like the night itself. One in the sky, one on the ground—like light and shadow, day and night.

The Shadow flicked his wrist, and a weird pale-purple dagger appeared in his hand.

He dropped to one knee and jammed the blade into the dirt.

The dirt was dark red, gouged with fingernail scratches—the exact spot where Captain Keith had crushed a native miner to death yesterday.

A red glow crept up the blade, spreading like veins, as if the blood soaked into the earth had been pulled out and absorbed, turning the dagger into something unstoppable.

The Shadow blinked out of existence, and in the next blink, he was behind an overseer. A flash of red, blood sprayed from the overseer's throat, and he crumpled silently. The dagger drank in the blood, turning an even more unsettling shade of red.

The other miners stared, dumbstruck. In that moment, something small and hot sparked in their chests—like a flicker of flame landing on ground soaked with years of rage, hate, and bloody tears.

"Kill the overseers! We're free!"

Someone shouted it first. The miners surged forward, grabbing whatever tools they had. Pickaxes and shovels met whips and blades, and furious shouts tore through the air!

The overseers, trained for this, quickly formed up back-to-back, their elite dwarf-forged weapons carving through the miners' wild, clumsy attacks like butter. Someone blew a whistle, the shrill sound cutting through the air to call for backup from the other lift stations.

The dwarven girl flew to another lift station, burning through ropes and shackles the same way. As she moved, the black shadow flickered like a ghost, each appearance marked by a flash of red before another throat burst and another body dropped.

The overseers were scared out of their minds. The flying fire-slinging superhuman was one thing—they'd all seen Captain Keith do his thing, so that was nothing new. But that ghostly shadow? What the hell was that?

Was it a superhuman, or something crawling out of hell? Were the dead from the last few decades, buried in the Maw of the Earth, coming back for revenge?

One overseer threw down his weapon and ran screaming from the Maw of the Earth. "Don't kill me! I was just following orders! Go after the Governor, go after that dwarf!"

Fear spread through the crowd like wildfire. Another overseer bolted, then another, then another... The overseers fell back, their nerve completely gone. The living's punishment was bad, but the dead's vengeance was enough to make their souls leave their bodies.

Just then, a giant boulder came crashing down from the sky!

The dwarven girl blasted flames ahead of her, using the recoil to dodge back. The rock barely missed her and slammed into the ground, turning a native and an overseer into pulp on impact.

Captain Keith came galloping in, the ground churning and heaving around him like waves off a ship's bow.

Right behind him was an ironclad giant over three meters tall. He swung a greatsword as tall as a man in one arc, slicing through a native and an overseer locked in combat, cutting both clean in half at the waist!

"Tove Stone Flame!" A furious roar boomed from inside the Adamant Colossus's armor. "You're still alive!"

Tove shot the Colossus a cold look and called down to the shadow: "Shi Mao's mine!"

With that, she blasted her flames and shot forward like a meteor, straight at the Colossus.

Captain Keith watched the fire arc over his head, then turned his attention to the chaos of natives and overseers. The upper levels of the mine were in total chaos—every lift station was up in arms.

In all his years serving the Governor, Captain Keith had seen plenty of uprisings. Each one had been successfully suppressed. His motto had always been: "Kill everyone who resists, and nobody will resist." With a superhuman like him on the field, those natives never stood a chance.

He raised his right hand, and the earth answered, forming a massive palm, each finger as thick as an iron pillar and several zhang long.

Captain Keith figured: the overseers and natives were all mixed up in the fight—might as well crush them all. The natives were expendable anyway, and overseers were easy to replace.

The giant hand rose on a column of earth, blotting out the sky, and came down on the chaotic swarm of ants below.

Suddenly, a shadow materialized right in front of Captain Keith. A weird pale-purple dagger shot out of its sleeve, aimed right at his eye.

Keith gasped and jerked back, throwing up a wall of rock in front of him. The dagger clanged off the hard surface.

He couldn't control that many things at once, so the giant hand in the sky lost its power and broke apart into clumps of dirt and stone, raining down with a clatter.

"Captain, you're fighting me."

The Shadow's voice had a hint of amusement—muffled, neither male nor female, like wind in the dark. He lifted his head, and under the hood there was nothing but black void.

Where the hell did this superhuman come from?! Was there anyone like this in the colony?!

Captain Keith stared at the dark figure and asked coldly, "Who the hell are you?"

Lyman chuckled under his Shadow Play: "Just a nobody. Don't bother remembering me."

"You a mercenary? Someone hire you to cause trouble? Or did some political rival of His Excellency the Governor hire you to kill him?"

That was the only explanation Captain Keith could come up with—otherwise, why would a northern superhuman stick his nose into Holy Nation colony business?

He said, "Name your price! Whatever your employer's paying you, His Excellency the Governor will double it!"

Lyman thought for a moment: "I don't think you can afford it."

"His Excellency the Governor is so lavish and open-handed—he can afford anything! Jewels, gold, pretty women, even church offices—whatever you want, he can give it to you!"

"My employer promised me the Governor's head. So does your Governor have two heads?"

Captain Keith flew into a rage. This punk was messing with him!

He dropped the rock barrier and willed the earth to form ten stone spears, hovering in front of him.

A hail of spears rained down!

Lyman shot forward like an arrow from a bow, charging straight into the hail of stone spears.

A flash of crimson—the stone spears shattered on the spot!

A smug smile curled at the corner of Captain Keith's mouth.

The Shadow took the bait! The spears were just a decoy—the real kill was coming from below!

The ground on either side of Lyman surged upward. He looked up as mud and rock congealed into two towering hands that stretched skyward, bearing down on him with crushing force. He was completely swallowed by their shadow.

Smack! Captain Keith clapped his hands together.

Boom! The two giant hands slammed together with tremendous force.

Dust filled the air, and stone shards flew everywhere.

No superhuman, no mercenary, could survive being ground to paste by that! Keith thought smugly.

He even deliberately rubbed the giant hands together, kneading them like dough, grinding the Shadow into nothing.

He parted the hands, eager to savor the "beautiful sight" of the Shadow's mangled remains. But when they parted, he was stunned to find them empty.

Not a trace of the Shadow's body—not even a single drop of blood!

"Impossible!"

Then, as if appearing out of thin air, the Shadow reappeared beneath the giant hands.

How did he do that? Could he walk through walls?!

The sky, thick with clouds, had darkened to almost night. Rain poured down in sheets, soaking Captain Keith in an instant. He could have shaped the earth above him into a shield from the rain, but he didn't. He needed every ounce of his power focused on attack and defense!

Suddenly, lightning flickered through the churning clouds, painting the land in stark black and white.

In that brief flash, the Shadow vanished!

The lightning died, and thunder rolled right after. In the blink of an eye, the Shadow had crossed dozens of steps, appearing before Keith like a ghost!

Keith sucked in a sharp breath and quickly raised a rock barrier to protect himself.

A flash of crimson—the rocks shattered, scattering into the splashing rain. The Shadow advanced through the downpour, step by step, like Death himself closing in.

Keith backed away, conjuring barrier after barrier of rock in front of him. He couldn't figure out how the Shadow had escaped the giant hands, or how he blinked across distances. He vanished the instant lightning struck—could his power be linked to lightning?

But he still needed that dagger, which meant he couldn't attack through solid barriers. His strategy of constant rock defense was paying off!

Keith raised barriers all around himself, forming a fortress of stone and earth that sealed him in airtight protection, leaving only a narrow slit to see outside. Meanwhile, he hurled clumps of earth at the Shadow like a rainstorm. Seeing the guy flail and dodge, Keith knew his tactic was working!

A superhuman's power has its limits. Wear the bastard down, and victory would be his!

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning split the sky. Pale blue-white light plunged from the clouds like a piercing dagger aimed at the earth's heart. In that instant, all color drained from the world, leaving only black and white.

The Shadow vanished again.

Almost at the same time, a crimson dagger thrust up from the shadow at Keith's feet!

—So it was shadows?!

Keith finally realized that his own defenses had doomed him—in the flash of lightning, the shadows cast by his rocks had become open highways for his enemy!

The dagger stabbed into Keith's heart.

For a fleeting moment, Keith felt his chest become a wide-open door, its panels thrown wide, showing his ribs, his organs, his spine to the enemy...

Keith spat out a mouthful of blood. The last thing he saw was fire and smoke rising in the distance.

***

A single raindrop hit the ground.

The clouds that had gathered for so long finally began to pour their burden on the earth.

Raindrops fell on Tove, and the moment they touched her skin, they hissed into steam.

Tove threw a punch! The force of her fist became a tidal wave of flame, surging toward the towering Adamant Colossus.

Relf Stone Spear stayed calm, making the Colossus detach a piece of armor from its back. It quickly transformed in Stone Spear's hands into a shield over a man's height.

He raised the shield in front of him. The tidal wave of flame struck its surface, splitting apart like a river hitting a boulder in its bed. When the flames died down, the shield's surface was completely unscathed.

From inside the Colossus's chest plate came Stone Spear's muffled laughter: "Little girl, you didn't think I'd never planned for fire attacks, did you?"

Tove was taken aback for a moment. She recognized the shield—it was forged from an alloy of the dwarves' secret metal, adamantite, and mithril. Such an alloy could only be smelted using the volcanic heat of the mountain ranges. Her flames couldn't match the raw power of the earth itself!

She looked at her fist. If her flame's temperature wasn't high enough, then she'd concentrate all her firepower!

She swung her arm again. A fireball, compressed to the size of a fist and blazing like a tiny sun, shot from her hand, tearing through the rain with a searing wave of heat, slamming into the Colossus.

Boom!

The fireball exploded, blinding light illuminating the towering mechanical silhouettes and the cascading rain, leaving a scorched black mark on the alloy shield.

Rain poured down, steam hissing as it rose. The scorch mark cooled and faded before her eyes, leaving only a shallow, insignificant pit.

It did nothing?! Shock pierced the dwarven girl's heart in an instant.

"Is that your full power? Superhuman indeed—nothing more!" Stone Spear's laughter grew more contemptuous. "This old man has already let you have your turn. Now it's my turn to strike!"

The massive metal frame lunged forward, its thick mechanical arm sweeping through the air with a piercing shriek. Tove blasted flames from her palms, launching herself into the air to dodge the strike.

Her flames were nothing but a tickle to the Colossus. How could she beat this monster of metal and machinery? She could ask Mr. Shadow for help, of course, but that would mean giving in to Relf Stone Spear! No way! Since she had started this, she would finish it with her own hands!

The Colossus couldn't fly, so she had some advantage in the air. She hovered in a silent standoff with it, thinking: Stone Spear's shield was alloy, but the rest of the Colossus might not be. If so, she'd attack those parts—she'd melt this mechanical monstrosity down, no matter what!

She circled the Colossus at breakneck speed, unleashing over a dozen punches in rapid succession. A dozen fireballs rained down like a meteor storm on the ground.

But the Colossus, despite its bulk, moved with surprising agility. It held its alloy shield firm, its lower body rooted, while its upper torso pivoted at the waist, the shield catching each fireball as they came in a fan-shaped barrage.

"Why do you keep targeting me?!" Relf Stone Spear's voice dripped with venom. "It was the Holy Nation that built this colony, the Governor who gave the orders—even the Overseers came willingly from human nations! I'm just helping them out, yet you hold more hostility toward me than toward humans! Do you hate your own kind that much?"

"Precisely because we're kin that I must cleanse our ranks!" Tove snarled. "You should be grateful it's me coming after you. If those you've wronged were to judge you, you'd end up far worse off!"

"Ha! What if you kill me? What if you kill the Governor? The Holy Nation will send a new Governor, even an army to crush this rebellion! Can you alone stand against the knights who once swept the northern continent? You'll be crushed beneath their swords and warhorses' hooves, burned to ashes by the Church's superhuman warriors! Your fate will be far worse than mine!"

"That's still better than playing deaf and dumb, or even helping the tyrant!"

"Then take your precious justice and go die with those native monkeys!"

He swung his sword at the crane arm of the lift platform. With a harsh screech of tearing metal, the arm came crashing down toward the natives and Overseers locked in chaotic combat.

Tove's heart sank. She flew swiftly toward them, descending to unleash a punch with everything she had. The arm was knocked off course under the immense impact, barely missing the crowd, and slammed into the ground with a heavy thud.

Just then, the Adamant Colossus came charging in, swinging its sword at Tove. The dwarven girl immediately fired a jet of flame to the side to evade the blow. As she began to ascend, she saw the Colossus take a swing at another crane arm, intending to lure her down again!

This stalemate couldn't go on forever—Relf Stone Spear wouldn't hesitate to hurt the natives, even using them as hostages. Perhaps she could stall until the Colossus ran out of energy, but she had no idea what powered it or how much longer it could keep going. What if the Governor came back with reinforcements first?

She had to finish this fast!

But the Colossus wielded an alloy shield, moved so nimbly, and was impervious to her flames—what could she do?

As Tove blasted apart the fallen crane arm with fireballs, she sized up the Colossus. Suddenly, she noticed the gaps at the joints of the mechanical monstrosity.

That's it! Right there! Tove knew that with human plate armor, the joints were left uncovered for mobility, making them the weakest points of an armored knight. Same went for the Colossus!

But the Colossus had a shield and a heavy sword, while she was unarmed—up close, he had the advantage...

The rain grew heavier, engulfing the entire Mouth of the Earth in a torrential downpour. The ground quickly turned to mud mixed with blood.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, and in that instant, a sudden flash of insight hit Tove.

She flew toward the severed half of the crane arm, turned to face the Colossus, then kicked off the broken steel with all her might, hurling herself forward.

Relf Stone Spear watched the humanoid fireball hurtling toward him, a flicker of doubt crossing his mind. Was Tove planning to fight him up close? Wasn't that walking into a trap? Hmph, fine—he wouldn't lose to some brat in a close fight!

Just as they were about to clash, Tove channeled all her power and slammed both palms into the murky water beneath her feet.

Hssss—

The water instantly boiled, searing steam shooting skyward; scalding white vapor filled the air, shrieking piercingly.

For a moment, Relf Stone Spear's vision was consumed by a milky-white steam, like thick, curdled milk. He knew something was wrong, realizing what Tove intended, and lunged forward to escape the thick fog. But just then, a small figure erupted from the scorching steam, appearing at his feet.

Tove looked up, rain and steam blurring her vision, but the fire burning in her eyes blazed with a fierce, unquenchable light.

She channeled every ounce of scorching power, every shred of her will, into her right arm.

In an instant, her entire arm was engulfed in searing flames. The fire seemed to be fury made tangible, radiating heat that could melt metal and reduce everything to ash!

She drove that fist, cloaked in blazing fire, into the gap at the Colossus's leg joint!

The blazing fire surged like a torrent, flooding in with savage force into the Colossus's interior. Wherever the flames touched, hard metal visibly glowed and melted. The intricate bearings, gears, and hydraulic rods—far too complex for any dwarven apprentice to understand—twisted and deformed under the extreme heat, even liquefying into molten iron.

A piercing metallic shriek rang out, drowning out the storm, the battle cries of natives and Overseers, and even Relf Stone Spear's own screams.

Smoke billowed from every joint of the Colossus. Its massive frame gave way, toppling like a felled giant tree, crashing heavily to the ground and kicking up a huge splash.