Soul of Searing Steel

Meanwhile, inside the flying car halfway up the skies, Caster huddled up curiously to Alchemist after checking that his scepter was alright.

“I say… those were elves, right?” he asked Alchemist quietly. “I heard you were half-elf—could you tell if those were actual elves?”

“…You’re talking to me about bloodlines? After I changed mine completely, and twice at that?”

Alchemists, a body reformist appeared speechless. “Apart from having a little elfishness in a face,” he said in a little annoyance, pointing at this rather handsome but bestially ferocious face, “I have nothing elven about my body… but you’re right.”

At that, Alchemist himself nodded. “Those were definitely elves—I could even smell it, the pure-bloodedness of those elves.”

“What’s going on? Why would there be purebred elves in another world at the edge of the galaxy?” Clergy, who was seated at the front row of the car had been stroking his chin, having a hard time understanding the situation. “It’s fathomable if it’s an environment similar o Mycroft since there’s no shortage of wonders in the Multiverse—I would not be surprised if there are Demon Paladins. But this is an otherworld, so how could elves be here too? By the Holy Light, it’s unnatural!”

“We’ve shaken them off? That’s good. Let’s look for a vantage point around us—alright, head for that mountain.”

On the other hand, Rider was focusing on his driving just as Priest did not join in the discussion, and helping Rider navigate instead. “That’s weird,” he muttered, “why aren’t the elves giving chase? I could see their energy signatures—the one leading them definitely is Gold-advanced, he could certainly have caught up.”

“Heaven knows. Maybe they just want to chase us off.”

Rider shrugged. The skies have now darkened as he controlled the steering wheel and various instruments. “Or maybe the direction we’re running to is dangerous, and they wouldn’t dare follow us here? Hahahaha… haha?”

Rider, who had been laughing self-indulgingly soon noticed four threatening glares focused on the back of his head, and his laughter at once turned hollow. “What’s up, why the stares?”

“Vile creature, can’t you learn to shut up?!”

“Should really have cast Order: Silence on you…”

“I’ll down a bottom of concentrated acid down your throat later. We’ll see if you can talk without vocal chords!”

Priest, meanwhile, was not as hot-tempered. Even so, the team leader of the expedition party shuddered and hence commanded severely, “Turn, we’re not going to the mountain. Anywhere works—reverse!”

“But, Leader…”

It had to be said that Priest’s instructions came quickly, but there were times when swiftness was futile—Rider, who at first intended to do his best in return, began to murmur awkwardly and helplessly after a brief glance ahead.

“…we’re already there.”

The rest of the team looked below the car. It was as Rider had said—they were already within the boundary of the mountain. Its peak itself was covered in lush greenery from foot to ridge, but everything above the ridge was only craggy, stony cliffs.

At present, Rider was steering to turn the flying car—but it was not as easily maneuverable as a human, and it would make a huge turning circle before it could completely change directions. Still, as the car managed to turn halfway through, everyone relaxed, assuming that there were perhaps occasions where Rider’s Crow Mouth was ineffective.

And suddenly, the magically powered engine of the flying car died.

***

To be precise, the engine did not die, but every iota of mana that moved the engine had been drained dry by an unknown power instantly—in a split second and before anyone could react, the flying car, having lost all momentum thousands of meters in the air dropped in a sharp arc down toward the mountain ridge, just like an iron shard caught by a magnet!

“Brace for impact!”

The five-man team, being of Gold-tier ability were not too nervous about the car going out of control. However, the mysterious force that had forced the flying car’s magical engine out of control was simply too extraordinary, leaving all of them in infinite shock.

Even so, Priest managed to bellow, “Prepare for defensive—”

Before he could finish, the car violently crashed into the mountain ridge.

Boom!

Without mana left in the engine, the expected explosion did not occur. Be that as it may, when all five of them finally crawled out of the scattered wreckage of the flying car, everyone was still at a loss.

“Don’t look at me like that!”

Rider raised both his hands in surrender at the others’ odd gazes, defending himself. “I simply guessed that this place is dangerous—is guessing being a Crow Mouth too? Even if I didn’t say it, we’d still run into the threat!”

None of the others cared for his pleas of innocence. Clergy simply cast Order: Silence on him to ease the nervous atmosphere, before quickly beginning the recovery process of the flying car’s wreckage per their training and without any instructions.

While reducing Rider to menial laboring.

“Our mobility is greatly reduced with the flying car down…’

Priest sighed as he shifted scrap metals and recovered enchanted spare-parts. He then crouched and picked up a rock, studying its composition suspiciously.

“A normal stone… what force was it that caused the magical engine to lose function?”

He was left clueless. He would try to leave the unusual mountain as fast as they could, but was still careful enough to not simply enter the dense woods, where those druids that might have hostile intent were present.

Only lunatics would choose to fight druids in forests—the grass growing over the graves of those who dared to do so are three feet tall by now.

***

Soon, it was nighttime.

It had been almost evening when they were walking through the forest. Before any of them noticed, the sun had already set, while their crash had also cost them much time.

Sparsely arranged stars were slowly shining in the dark blue sky of the night, a typical starry sky of the edge of the galaxy—dazzling rivers of stars could only be seen from the inner reaches of the galaxy. Due to distances, even the regions within frontier worlds that faces the heart of the galaxy directly would not see much starlight.

Magical illumination would simply be painting oneself as a target in such dark nights. Priest’s party could only recover flying car wreckage in the darkness, picking out each of the valuable parts and the core of the magically-powered engine—a small ‘Fusion Star’. That particular part imitates the miniature engine of the Core Furnace inside the body of the Moldavian Liege, that man whose name should not be spoken. It embodies dynamic momentum, but even that vanished without a trace under that mysterious force.

“Eh?”

Just as Priest pondered, Clergy, who had been clearing the wreckage suddenly gasped. “Wait, look!” He called out with a deep voice. “There’s something weird here!”

Everyone turned at once and looked where Clergy’s finger pointed, with Priest being no exception. He stepped forward toward the crater which the car crash had caused—it was seven or eight meters deep, with most of the car having fallen inside. If they were silver, they would not have been spared from injury under such a terrible impact. It was thanks to them having ascended to Gold tier that their body essence changed, allowing them such ease.

Nevertheless, what Clergy was trying to gesture was not the crater itself—he used Holy Light to create a light source inside the crater, the pale sacred radiance illuminating everything within clearly.

Everyone could see clearly at once what Clergy was surprised about: a sheet of metals, or to be precise, a huge sheet of it.

The bottom of the crater was a flat layer of metals. Although the crash of the flying car had shattered the stone surface it did not even scrape the metal, with not even a single scratch seen on the silver-white metal surface.

“What’s buried beneath?”

Stroking his scepter, Caster took one careful step back. “Careful, our flying car seemed to have been ‘suck’ here by that thing…”

As he spoke, he subconsciously looked up and around him—with all of them being on a ridge halfway up the mountain, he could easily see the dark night sky.

Thus, Caster froze.

“What’s up, Wayne? Why the silence?”

Curious as to why Caster left his unfinished sentence in silence, Clergy looked up at the mage, and then followed his gaze toward the sky.

He too, froze.

Soon, the others turned toward the sky as well. Priest curiously followed his teammate’s gazes toward the dark night sky where there were few stars.

Then, he saw the world’s ‘moon’ slowly rising.

***

“Seven Gods above…”

“By the Truth…”

“Heavens!”

“Um-um-um-um?!”

“What the hell…”

Everyone including Priest inhaled sharply and exclaimed unintelligibly in shock. The young warrior gulped, and said dreamily, “I say—didn’t Clark say before our expedition that we might run into some huge monster?”

“I don’t remember… but surely it couldn’t be that huge…”

Clergy, too, appeared to be in reverie. “God… That, that…”

‘What on earth was that?’

None of them could answer the question, not even Alchemist, the most knowledgeable amongst them. Priest simply stared at the dark night sky and the rust-colored ‘moon’ that were slowly rising from the horizon, subconsciously clenching his fist, before relaxing feebly.

It was a moon.

And also, a Behemoth.

Reflecting the brilliance of the sun in an utterly turbid hue, the colossal moon that was probably spherical had thick tentacles that could be seen clearly even from distant star skies, as well as sharp teeth that stretches across the long distance of planets.

There were clear injuries and cavities visible on those tentacles as they slowly swayed. The Behemoth was facing the world with a single, gargantuan eye that appeared to have died with lingering grievance. Was it an eye or an offensive supernatural organ? None could tell, but there is no doubt that it was dead—and yet in death, its massive body still draws tides that could move planets.

Priest could feel that gravitational force. It was unleashed by the corpse of the spherical tentacled beast, the ‘moon’ of that world.

And there were nine of those moons.