Blazing Sun Furnace
The clanging and clattering of hammering iron rang without end.
The rolling waves of heat could not drive away the sweat, only making the air feel even more muggy and oppressive.
Even after shedding most of their clothes and baring their upper bodies, the craftsmen responsible for the casting kept wiping their brows.
At the center of the underground cavern, a pool of dazzling orange-red molten iron hissed with white steam.
The foundry workers methodically drove their magic, drawing up the liquid metal, pulling it into shape in midair, then forging it into form.
The entire process was precise and swift.
Suddenly, the molten iron surged.
The Sun Pool at the center let out a strange gurgling sound.
This phenomenon immediately alerted the foundry workers present.
They quickly notified the Foundry Overseer.
No sooner had the Overseer arrived than the surroundings began to shake, the entire cavern rumbling and trembling.
The molten iron was knocked over, unfinished weapons scattering across the floor.
A foundry worker accidentally slipped and fell into the liquid metal.
Before he could even let out a cry of agony, he dissolved into smoke in an instant.
A massive, overwhelming energy, like a mountain flood or a tsunami, was about to burst forth from deep underground.
As if following some kind of signal, the molten iron in the central casting pool rose up as one, swelling into a huge bulge hundreds of meters high.
The blazing, incandescent metal cascaded down like a waterfall, and the towering giant finally revealed its true appearance.
A body of leaping flames, ghostly blue eyes, and deep within, an Undying Flame Lava Heart—it was an enormous, unimaginably large, ancient Flame Demon.
Seeing this, the Foundry Overseer swallowed deeply.
He quickly forced himself to calm down, gestured to his side, and ordered his trusted subordinate who hurried over:
“Emergency Situation No. 17, Emergency Situation No. 17! The Flame Demon King has awakened.”
His eyes were fixed tightly on the Flame Demon.
“You go first. Find the nearest Prince Kaisa to the foundry zone. Have him bring the Sacred Artifacts and elites. I’ll negotiate with this thing first to buy some time.”
The subordinate acknowledged, turned back with fear and trembling to glance at the towering monster, hastily threw on a cloak of concealment, and left through the emergency passage.
The temperature in the Furnace Cavern continued to rise.
The Frost Magic Circle was operating beyond its limits.
The Foundry Overseer still felt it harder and harder to breathe.
Every inhalation burned and stung his throat.
Even so, thinking of his gentle and beautiful wife at home, and his adorable 3-year-old daughter, he mustered his courage and walked toward the colossal being.
He spread his arms, trying hard to attract the Flame Demon Emperor’s attention.
“Lord Lageluonasi!”
The Flame Demon Emperor’s pupils, made of ghostly blue flames, slowly fell upon the Foundry Overseer.
The Overseer felt as if his very soul were withering and burning, gradually fading away.
“Why have you torn up our agreement and left your habitat impulsively? Have we been remiss in our treatment of you?”
The Foundry Overseer shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice carried through the scorching air to the monster that occupied the Sun Pool.
The Flame Demon Emperor merely glanced at him and let out a contemptuous laugh.
It was not a human voice produced by wind rattling the throat bones, but an evil, grating sound caused by flames leaping, releasing waves of heat, vibrating the air and rock walls.
It was harsh and jarring, like the death knell of the apocalypse.
“Insect, you are not worthy to ask.”
“Lord Lageluonasi, I come bearing the sincerity of the Empire and the Royal Family. Please—”
Before the words were finished, the Foundry Overseer suddenly found he could no longer make a sound.
He looked down in shock to see only charred blackness on his chest.
The Undying Flame, born from his heart, had burned through his chest cavity and was still spreading to the rest of his remains.
The Foundry Overseer died with his eyes open, crashing to the ground.
The foundry workers trapped in the Furnace Cavern, who had been huddling and trying to avoid the chaos, finally erupted into panic.
They scattered like headless flies, desperately seeking an escape route.
But as an underground foundry producing military weapons for the Empire, its exits were controlled from the outside.
The Undying Flame continued to spread.
The Flame Demon Emperor reaped lives wantonly.
The charred ashes mixed with molten iron, rose again, and became armored Slaughter Fire Spirits.
The number of foundry workers in the Furnace Cavern shrank rapidly, soon leaving only half.
Just then, the exit door finally opened.
A man with a muscular build and a cold, stern face strode in quickly.
His hair was jet-black, and his amber golden pupils were as sharp as swords.
On his right hand, he wore a rugged silver-white armlet emblazoned with the Arenix family crest, made of the same material as the Silver Cup Sacred Artifact Joen had seen in the past.
A sharp bone spur was deeply embedded in the blood vessels of his right arm, with blood continuously transmitting onto the armlet, forming crimson and intricate patterns.
The Flame Demon Emperor recognized him and laughed as he called out his name:
“Kaisa… you humans have broken the covenant.”
The Undying Flame that filled the cavern suddenly surged, all of it rushing toward the First Prince Kaisa.
But Kaisa simply extended his right hand toward those flames.
The five fingers covered by the silver armlet clenched gently, and as if erased from a painting, all of the Undying Flame vanished in an instant.
Without waiting for a reaction from his opponent, Kaisa turned his right hand, now aiming at the Flame Demon Emperor, but he did not clench his fist.
Even so, the flames that made up the Flame Demon Emperor’s body were subjected to a powerful suppression.
The fire weakened, the flame body shrank, until only a solid, charred skeleton remained, looking like a blackened human corpse.
“Haha, it’s been a long time since I felt this. I almost miss it.”
The Flame Skeleton raised its right arm and remarked in a rather relaxed tone.
The “Silver Hand” on Kaisa’s hand was one of the seven Sacred Artifacts left by the Great Hero.
But Lageluonasi was not afraid like ordinary Demons.
Long years had allowed him to cultivate an immense amount of Magic Power.
Even when suppressed by the Sacred Artifact, he still retained power equivalent to an ordinary Fire Spirit.
Although weak, under the Forbidden Magic Field, it would be all too easy to slaughter these mortals.
Only the Arenix family’s Word Spirit, which ignored the Forbidden Magic, required a little caution.
However, he did not intend to make things too hostile.
Kaisa understood this as well.
Hundreds of years ago, the Empire had reached an agreement with this ancient Flame Demon.
The Empire built him a special fire ground deep underground where the Fire Magic Power was extremely active, and was responsible for maintaining the elemental concentration of that ground.
In turn, the Empire used the high heat radiated by the Flame Demon and its boundless, burning Undying Flame to establish several underground forging factories.
This mutually beneficial relationship had lasted for many, many years, so long that both sides had grown accustomed to it.
Many foundry workers even thought that the Furnace Heart was some kind of special natural phenomenon.
The Flame Demon Emperor’s naturally emitted heat could sustain continuous production across four foundries, each housing tens of thousands of workers.
His power was beyond doubt.
But on Kaisa’s face, there was no trace of fear, only a soldierly coldness that had long since discarded life and death.
“Lageluonasi, because of your riot, the Blazing Sun Furnace has lost nearly half of its foundry workers. Over four thousand families will lose their pillar because of you.”
Kaisa said slowly:
“I have sent someone to request the King’s decree. If he agrees, I will sentence you… to death.”
Lageluonasi did not take these words seriously at all.
He once again let out that half-sarcastic, half-contemptuous laugh.
“Haha, with what? With you? Four hundred years ago, there were princes stronger and more arrogant than you who tried. And now, you bring those Sacred Artifacts that disturb the souls of your ancestors? Four hundred years later, I am stronger than I was four hundred years ago.”
“I have heard that story.”
Kaisa said with an expressionless face:
“He failed because he was a politician. The biggest flaw of a politician is that they are always calculating, always compromising. They do not know the meaning of blood and fire. They have no conviction, no resolve.”
“Do you think some vague and intangible resolve can help a fragile human body resist the power of flame?”
“Since the day I was born, my conviction has been stronger than that of anyone else in the world.”
That voice echoed through the cavern, and also echoed above the Imperial City of the Arenix family.
Kaisa waved to his deputy behind him, then continued:
“That conviction is—I am willing to give everything for my country and my people, including my honor and my life.”
The passage door opened completely.
A huge, pitch-black, massive bore was extended inward, aiming at the Flame Demon, and also at Kaisa.
Lageluonasi recognized what was deep inside that opening.
Finally, his expression changed.
He began to shed his arrogance, instead softening his attitude and scolding Kaisa:
“What are you doing? Are you insane? If this thing fires, you won’t survive either.”
Having spent enough time in the Empire Capital, Lageluonasi knew many secrets better than the princes themselves.
Magic-Guided Ultimate Weapon.
No one knew how the Great Hero Xinmeier made it.
After the Great Hero died, no one in the world had ever succeeded in replicating it.
Its effect was to turn a radius of a hundred meters to ash in an instant, and the effects of the explosion could spread for tens of kilometers, turning an entire city into a barren wasteland where nothing grew.
Of course, such destructive power was fairly average among Forbidden Spells.
But the greatest characteristic of the Magic-Guided Ultimate Weapon was that it was completely unaffected by Sacred Artifact suppression.
It seemed like a completely different existence independent of magic.
And because of this property of being unaffected by Anti-Magic, the Empire had always had a “Final Battle Plan” that only the Emperor could order to be activated.
However, what puzzled Lageluonasi was that the hypothetical enemy of the “Final Battle Plan”… was actually the Heroes of past generations.
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