Soul of Searing Steel

A ridge, halfway above a mountain in an unknown world on the other side of the galaxy.

“Heavens…”

Just as everyone was left speechless by the shock of seeing those colossal monsters over the skies, Clark the Rider half-knelt on the ground, murmuring in sincere, quiet wonder at the skies. “Those monsters… so huge, so fearsome… so beautiful…”

“Really, can’t believe that they’re dead…”

Halfway through his sentence, Rider promptly stopped himself. It certainly was not because he was suddenly realized that it was time to shut his stinking mouth, but because four very unfriendly glares were shot at him from four different directions.

‘Say more now, would you?’

Manifested malice surged at him like a surge from the oceanic depths, forcing Rider to shut up. Still, that was why the near-frozen nervous atmosphere was broken.

“Mummy—what’s all ‘dis?”

Alchemist was left so shaken that he dropped to the ground on his buttocks and spoke in his native accent. He looked at his hands covered in armor, and then up towards the huge monster corpses in the skies.

“What is this world?!” He could not help gulping.

Alchemist had encountered countless terrible monsters before, even witnessing once or twice the true forms of Legendary aberrations thanks to You-Know-Who. Even so, those aberrations and monsters that left people astonished and fearful were simply too small compared to the Behemoths that were very much ‘planets’, wafting in the skies of unknown altitude.

It was the difference between heaven and earth.

“At least there are elves in this world—a large tribe at that. That means, these monsters… though frightening, are probably not too threatening.”

Mage, the brains of the team, reasoned. “To be frank, I’m not as worried as I was before after being scared by those ‘moons’… this world is very special, and anyone coming from headquarters would definitely discover them.”

His words would have been persuasive, if his legs were not so soft that he had to lean on his scepter to stand.

“Well, I’m not worried… just scared.”

Clergy said, and murmured ‘Seven Gods above’ before turning to Priest. “Leader,” he asked quietly, “what should we do?”

“What else is there? Keep recovering spare parts from the flying car.”

Priest appeared to have been ruminating before, but annoyedly rolled his eyes at Clergy’s question. “Don’t overthink. Can’t you guys just consider them as moons? We’re still being pursued by some barbaric elves as well, so now is not the time to scare ourselves.”

With that, he was the first to turned to pick out recoverable parts from the car. Most of the vehicle’s components were compatible with their enchanted armor, each of which were priceless treasures in an isolated world where resupply was impossible.

Roused by their leader, the other four looked at each other and sighed. Thus, they simply weathered the sensation of being stared by something from behind, and once again focused on recovering the car components.

In truth, Priest was right. Now was not the time to be panicking over some monster corpses hanging in the skies—being members of the External Exploration Department, they had gone through innumerable, extensive and challenging training, honing the toughness of their will to far beyond that of normal humans. Moreover, no matter how frightening those ‘moons’ appeared to be, it would never outshine the main body of the Black Fog or the time when the gentle Liege was enraged!

There were plants growing on the ridge of the unknown mountain as well. However, the heat and impact from the crash of the flying car had ignited or blown away all of them. It was when Priest and the others recovered all useful components under almost an hour and finally had the time to observe their surroundings that they realized in surprise that the plants on the mountains were clearly larger and more impressive than those beneath.

Whether it was trees, grass, bushes, wildflowers of all colors or even moss, everything was distinctly larger than those they saw in their recent journey into the woods… it was not an issue to be ignored.

Be that as it may, there is still the matter of importance in regards to that issue.

After dividing the components that they had picked out into five portions to be kept by each of the five members, the Elite Party stood silently at the bottom of the crater where the flying car crashed. Together, everyone stared interestedly at the silver-white metal that lay beneath the stone.

“There’s definitely some civilization created buried beneath here… the technology must be advanced from the look of the materials, perhaps even more than we could imagine.”

Priest arched his back, and reached out to touch the metal. “Mage,” he said quietly, “you are much better in material science. Can you see what these materials actually is?”

In response, Mage adjusted his nonexistent glasses and stroke his scepter, casting an observation spell. “It’s quite obvious…” he analyzed calmly, “from the mana signature alone, it’s some mithril alloy that is compounded with approximately five percent of purple crystal grains for blocking spiritual scans. I can’t tell anything apart from that, anything else has to be studied in detail inside a lab.”

Nevertheless, what Mage told them was plenty enough. “Mithril alloy…” Clergy could not help gasping. “Even this little bit that we can see would be worth five thousand gold coins.”

Mage did not even have to mention that the matured recipe of a mithril alloy would be enough to exchange for so much riches from all factions that anyone would leap up to aristocracy with a single bound.

“Let’s dig it out and have a look!” Rider suggested very loudly, looking the most excited amongst them. “I have a feeling that this thing…”

“Word of Truth: Still.”

“Order: Silence.”

Clergy and Mage did not hesitate drawing their crystal ball and scepter and acted to vanquish their greatest threat. However, despite being jointly silenced, Rider’s opinion was unexpectedly followed.

“Although Clark is irritating with his alarmist talk, his opinion is quite right.”

Priest was actually nodding in agreement, believing that they should try excavating the curious civilization creation buried beneath the ground. Hence, without sparing time for nonsense, the five Gold-tier expedition members quickly changed roles to diggers and started unearthing their discovery.

Boom!

Mage lifted his scepter to create a rumble, simply creating clusters of flame burning the surface of the ground. In a dozen seconds, the ground reddened just as Mage’s magical powers turned, creating a freezing gale fifty-two degrees below that blow across the surface.

As heat and coldness alternated, the ground split into innumerable cracks. That was when the two combat-class, Priest and Rider unleashed their brute strength to rapidly destroy the ground, pulling apart chunks of stone.

Beside them, Alchemist and Clergy also worked together quickly, one unleashing acid to soften the ground while the other used Holy Light Fists (physical) to shatter it.

In less than a minute, the party managed to dig out dozens squared kilometers of stone and soil. After thirty minutes, half of the mountain ridge had been dug out, leaving a huge crater—the five conservatively refrained from using their full power to prevent being drawn to a fight, since most of the mountain would have collapsed at their full Gold-tier devastation force.

However, all five of them were not feeling pride over their swift operation. They simply stared blankly at the almost thousand-meter squared cavity, their minds not quite comprehending the sight before them.

In truth, the sigh was simple… it was just a sheet of silver-white, and only that.

“…I say.”

Priest stared at the silver-white alloy hidden beneath the stone that existed at a curious arc. “Maybe…” he gulped, his voice shivering slightly, “this metal is all that is beneath the mountain?”

Beside him, Mage, who was becoming rather muddleheaded, touched the metal layer on the ground with his bare hands. “Perhaps—perhaps the mithril in this little part we see is more than what could be dug from a mine for a whole year… this, this truly is a mountain of gold!”

Thud!

A sudden loud sound made everyone turned towards its direction. Priest and Mage both shifted their gazes as Alchemist and Clergy worked together seriously nearby, unleashing magical attacks at the thin layer of metal. They appear intent on breaking that metal layer to determine what was hidden beneath that ancient civilization creation—or more precisely, an ancient ruin.

Their method was simple and crude, but direct and effective. Naturally, it would be the right idea to search for the ‘door’ or ‘entrance’ of that ancient creation… but from what they had seen from its scale, do the five of them not have to dig off the entire mountain just to find the position of the door?

Instead of spending an astronomical number of days to search for an entrance that may or may not exist, it was better to directly make one.

Without a word, Priest and the others followed suit, and stared to bombard the metal layer.

Boom, boom, boom, boom boom!

Incessant explosions and blasting echoed. While all of them had thought of holding back but as their attacks simply proved unable to shake the metal layer, even Mage, the calmest amongst them unleashed his full power. Compared to the truth that lay behind the unusual civilization creation, the forest elves were simply meaningless—it was fine if they were discovered, would they really leave in fear of those elves? They essentially did not desire the hassle of tangling with the natives, and so retreated ‘haggardly then’.

Thus, at a speed visible to the naked eye, the force of their magic and physical attacks increased. At the non-stop assault of the five Gold-tier, the mithril alloy that was made with an unknown craft appeared to be slightly damaged as well. The observant mage was delighted at once, since the damage proved that as long as they are willing to spare the time, they would eventually break the defensive shell and thereby uncover the secrets behind. Indeed, they might even unveil the secret of why they could not return home!

Nonetheless, what occasionally followed delight was nothing good.

“…Energy signature above ‘Glory-class’ detected. Possibility of ‘Hub Accrafa’ being destroyed by external force determined, countermeasures deploying.”

Suddenly, a voice that seemed to reach directly to the depths of one’s spirit sounded in everyone’s ears.

As the voice spoke, countless energy black holes instantly appeared in the atmosphere. The massive energy-draining storm that struck like a typhoon lasted for an instant, but had already sucked dried all energies wafting around the mountain, forming a clear vacuum. Everything, even the exploration team’s enchanted armors were briefly rendered useless—it was the same as how the flying car’s engine had suddenly died and crashed down at once!

Then, the cold spiritual sound reappeared.

“Activating automated defenses and Chaos vanquishing programming—executing comprehensive purge protocols.”