The air in the Black Iron Pass had turned into lead. It wasn't a metaphor; the atmospheric pressure was so intense that the blood vessels in the eyes of the surviving Alliance disciples were bursting.
Jiang Chen knelt in the snow, his Titan Mark II suit groaning as the servos fought to keep him upright. The truck beside him was a crumpled ball of steel, no larger than a suitcase.
Five miles away, Ancestor Xue of the Blood Soul Sect hovered in the air. He didn't look like a warrior. He looked like a bored scholar. A Nascent Soul cultivator didn't need to shout. His will was law.
"Curious," Xue's voice echoed in Jiang Chen's skull, bypassing his auditory nerves. "You have no Qi. You have no Dantian. You are a hollow shell. Yet you killed forty thousand of my grandchildren."
Xue took a slow step forward in the air. The space around him rippled.
"Your fire weapons are amusing. Your metal birds are fast. But you do not understand the gap, child. Below the Nascent Soul, all are ants. I can pinch the arteries in your brain shut with a thought. I can turn the air in your lungs to stone."
He raised a finger.
"Kneel."
CRUNCH.
Jiang Chen's suit buckled. The HUD flashed red. [Hydraulic Failure. Structural Integrity: 40%.]
Jiang Chen was forced onto one knee. He tasted blood. The pressure wasn't just physical; it was an existential weight. The Ancestor was rewriting the local laws of physics to say 'You are heavy.'
"System," Jiang Chen wheezed, spit dripping onto his faceplate. "Connection... to Sector 01?"
[Connection Stable. Latency: 0.02ms.]
"Drop the grid," Jiang Chen gritted his teeth, fighting the invisible hand crushing his spine. "Blackout the city. Redirect 100% of the Spirit Vein output to Asset: Earth Shaker."
[Warning: This will shut down all city defenses. Beiluo will be defenseless.]
"If I die here, the city is dead anyway," Jiang Chen snarled. "Execute Protocol: Titanfall."
Beiluo City - Sector 01
The lights died. The hum of the factories stopped. The streetlamps faded. The 15,000 citizens looked up in terror as their world went dark.
But deep beneath their feet, the earth screamed.
The blast doors of the main mining shaft—reinforced steel, ten meters thick—didn't open. They were punched out.
BOOM.
A fist made of black Celestial Steel erupted from the ground in the city square. The pavement shattered.
The Earth Shaker Golem climbed out of the earth. Fifty meters of ancient war machine. Its runes were no longer glowing a gentle blue. They were burning a blinding, overloaded white.
It didn't pause. It didn't roar. It locked onto the GPS signal from Jiang Chen's suit.
It began to run.
A fifty-meter giant sprinting is a geological event. Every footfall was a localized earthquake. THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. It cleared the city walls in a single leap, cracking the concrete foundation. It hit the open plains, moving at 200 kilometers per hour, a blur of black metal and white energy.
Black Iron Pass
Ancestor Xue frowned. He felt the vibration in the ground.
"Another toy?" Xue sighed. "You persist in your ignorance."
He looked at the kneeling Jiang Chen.
"Die."
Xue closed his hand.
The space around Jiang Chen collapsed. The Titan suit began to implode. The metal shrieked as it folded inward.
SONIC BOOM.
A black blur smashed into the valley.
It wasn't a missile. It was a shoulder tackle from a god.
The Earth Shaker Golem arrived. It didn't slow down. It slammed into the space occupied by Ancestor Xue with the momentum of a freight train.
The Ancestor's eyes widened. He threw up a Space-Lock Barrier—an absolute defense that froze matter in place.
But the Golem was made of Celestial Steel (Star Iron). It was material from the void, resistant to spatial manipulation.
CLANG.
The Golem smashed through the Space-Lock like a tank driving through glass.
It hit Xue.
The Nascent Soul Ancestor was punted. He flew backward, smashing through three consecutive mountain ridges. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Dust clouds rose miles into the air.
The Golem skidded to a halt, carving a trench half a mile long in the rock. It stood over Jiang Chen, its massive chassis blocking out the sun.
The chest cockpit hissed open. A grapple line dropped.
"Get in," Jiang Chen told himself, scrambling out of his crushed suit. He winched himself up, diving into the Golem's control chair just as the cockpit sealed.
Inside, the interface was alive.
[REACTOR: 120% (OVERCLOCKED).][PILOT SYNC: NEURAL LINK ESTABLISHED.][THREAT ANALYSIS: NASCENT SOUL ENTITY DETECTED.]
Jiang Chen grabbed the controls. He didn't feel like a man anymore. He felt like the mountain.
"Round 2," Jiang Chen whispered.
In the distance, a pillar of blood-red light erupted from the rubble.
Ancestor Xue rose into the sky. He was no longer calm. His hemp robes were torn. He was bleeding from the mouth.
"You..." Xue's voice was no longer in their heads. It was a scream that shattered the nearby rocks. "YOU DARE TOUCH THIS VENERABLE ONE WITH FILTHY IRON?!"
The sky turned red. The clouds formed a giant, spectral skull the size of a city.
"Soul Flaying Art: Ten Thousand Screams!"
The spectral skull opened its mouth. A sonic scream of pure spiritual energy blasted toward the Golem. This attack didn't damage matter; it shredded souls. It would liquidate the brain of any pilot inside.
"System!" Jiang Chen yelled. "Psychic Shielding!"
[Deploying Faraday Cage + Rune Scrambler.]
The Golem's runes flared. A bubble of white static noise expanded around it.
The Soul Scream hit the bubble.
SCREEEEEEEEEE!
The sound was unbearable. Inside the cockpit, Jiang Chen's nose started bleeding. The Golem had no soul to flay, but the sheer intensity was rattling his biological brain through the neural link.
"It's leaking through!" Jiang Chen gritted his teeth. "I need to close the distance!"
He slammed the throttles forward.
The Golem engaged its thrusters—massive ion vents on its back. It launched into the air, flying at the floating Ancestor.
Xue sneered. "Physical attacks are useless!"
He turned his body into mist—Blood Escape Technique. The Golem's fist passed harmlessly through the red fog.
Xue rematerialized behind the Golem. He formed a blade of pure void energy. "Void Cut!"
He slashed at the Golem's neck.
SCRAAAAPE.
Sparks the size of cars showered down. The Void Blade cut three inches deep into the Celestial Steel... but it stopped. The armor was too dense.
"What?!" Xue was stunned. "This metal... it rejects the Void?"
"It's Star Iron, you fossil!" Jiang Chen shouted.
The Golem spun, its elbow rocket-boosted.
WHAM.
The elbow connected with Xue's energy shield. The shield cracked. Xue was sent tumbling again, but he corrected himself in mid-air.
"Enough!" Xue roared. He clasped his hands. "I will unmake you! Nascent Domain Expansion: Sea of Blood!"
The reality of the valley was overwritten. The snow vanished. The sky vanished.
Jiang Chen and the Golem were suddenly standing in an infinite ocean of boiling blood. Skeletons rose from the waves, clutching at the Golem's legs, dragging it down.
[WARNING: REALITY SHIFT DETECTED.][ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: CORROSIVE FLUID.][MOBILITY: COMPROMISED.]
The Golem sank knee-deep. The blood was acidic, eating at the joints.
Ancestor Xue floated above the red sea, looking like a giant. In his Domain, he was God.
"Here," Xue thundered, "physics does not exist. Only my will."
He pointed. The blood ocean rose up, forming a tsunami to drown the machine.
Jiang Chen looked at the incoming wave. He looked at his readings. The Golem's reactor was hot.
"Physics exists everywhere," Jiang Chen growled. "Even in your delusions."
"System. Release the Safety Locks on the Spirit Reactor. Initiate Vent Protocol."
[Warning: Core Dump will irradiate the area.]
"Do it!"
The Golem's chest plates opened.
Inside, the concentrated heart of the Spirit Vein—compressed to the density of a star—was exposed.
"Eat this," Jiang Chen slammed the command.
A beam of pure, concentrated Radiation and Thermal Energy shot out of the Golem's chest. It wasn't Qi. It was raw, unadulterated entropy.
The beam hit the blood tsunami.
The blood didn't just evaporate; it ionized. The heat was so intense it broke the spiritual bonds holding the Domain together.
CRACK.
The sky of the Blood Domain shattered like a mirror.
Xue screamed as his Domain was forcibly broken by the energy overload. He vomited a fountain of blood, his Nascent Soul spirit severely damaged by the feedback.
The reality of the Black Iron Pass snapped back. The snow returned.
Xue fell from the sky, crashing into the dirt, his aura flickering weakly. He tried to crawl, but his body was convulsing.
The Golem landed heavily beside him.
Jiang Chen didn't get out this time. He raised the Golem's foot.
"You are right, Ancestor," Jiang Chen's amplified voice boomed. "There is a gap between us."
He looked down at the broken demigod.
"I have a bigger battery."
STOMP.
The Golem's foot came down.
It didn't kill him. Jiang Chen stopped the stomp inches from Xue's head. The shockwave alone knocked the Ancestor unconscious.
Jiang Chen exhaled, slumping in his seat. The Golem's power was at 2%. The reactor was cooling down.
"System," Jiang Chen whispered. "Capture him. I want to know how a Nascent Soul works. Vivisection... optional."