Chương 170: The Ashen Maw

The journey east was a grim, silent affair. The previous week of leisurely exploration was a distant memory, replaced by the sharp, focused intensity of a hunt. Fengliu, the newly recruited sovereign, flew at the head of their small procession, his iridescent form a brilliant streak against the sky. His entire being was a tightly coiled spring of three hundred years of grief and hatred, his sky-blue eyes fixed on the eastern horizon with a burning, obsessive focus.

Behind him, the colossal, draconic form of Spine carried Li Yu, Kui, and Xylia, his immense power a silent, menacing shadow that trailed the Roc King. They flew at a speed that tore through the sky, the landscape below a blur of green and grey. A journey that would have taken lesser beasts weeks was covered in a single day. As they entered the Blasted Lands, the air became thick with the smell of sulfur and ancient ash.

A great, jagged ring of black mountains appeared on the horizon, a plume of dark, roiling smoke rising from its center.

"We are here," Fengliu's voice was a low, guttural rumble.

"The Ashen Maw. The Colossus's lair." They did not slow. They did not pause to strategize. The plan was already set, a simple, brutal equation of overwhelming force. As they approached the outer slopes of the volcanic mountains, a host of lesser, fire-aspected beasts—enraged fire-lizards and magma-crabs—sensed their approach and swarmed from their caves, roaring challenges. Kui and Xylia acted. They did not leap down to engage in a protracted battle.

As Spine and Fengliu continued their flight, the two sovereigns unleashed their power from above. Kui opened his great, draconic maw and exhaled a colossal torrent of abyssal water, a steam-filled flood that crashed down upon the fiery beasts, extinguishing their flames and sending them into a panicked, confused rout. X ylia, with a roar of her own, summoned a blizzard of razor-sharp ice shards, a storm of frozen death that tore through any creature foolish enough to stand its ground.

Those who did not attack were left alone; those who showed aggression were instantly annihilated. It was a swift, merciless cleansing of the path. With the outer guards eliminated, the four sovereigns flew over the jagged rim of the caldera and looked down into the Ashen Maw. The sight was a vision of a primordial hell. The inside of the volcano was a vast, circular pit, its floor a lake of slowly churning, molten magma.

And in the very center of this lake of fire, on a great, obsidian island, the Molten Heart Colossus lay sleeping. It was a mountain of jagged, black volcanic rock and obsidian, its colossal, quadrupedal form built for nothing but destruction. Its aura, a Peak Core Formation pressure of pure, incinerating heat, was so immense that it made the very air catch fire. Fengliu's body trembled, not with fear, but with a surge of pure, unrestrained hatred.

He let out a single, piercing cry, a sound of pure, heart-rending grief and rage that echoed across the caldera. The Colossus stirred. Its great, rocky head lifted, and two burning embers, its eyes, opened and fixed on the intruders in its sky. It did not roar. It simply rose to its full, hundred-meter height, and the temperature in the caldera instantly doubled. It was at this moment that Li Yu gave the silent command.

A shimmering distortion of pure, starless void, a vertical rip in reality, appeared in the sky directly above the Colossus. From it, the colossal, terrifying form of the Stygian Void-Crusher emerged. Khaos appeared in all his glory, his immense body blotting out the fiery glow of the magma below. The Molten Heart Colossus, a living hurricane of pure, mindless, elemental fury, looked up. And for the first time in its long, destructive existence, it felt a sensation that was utterly alien to it: fear.

The being that had appeared above it was not just a powerful enemy; it was a conceptual opposite, a force of cold, absolute nothingness that its fiery nature instinctively recoiled from. Khaos did not speak. He did not issue a challenge. He simply passed his judgment. His voice, a deep, resonant boom that seemed to press down on the world itself, declared his technique.

"Domain of the Stygian Void: First Edict - Absolute Weight." It was not an attack. It was a declaration of a new, absolute law. The Molten Heart Colossus, which had been rising to its full, terrifying height, suddenly collapsed. An invisible, irresistible, and impossibly heavy pressure slammed down upon it. The very gravity of the space it occupied had been multiplied a thousandfold. Its massive, rock-hard limbs, which could shatter mountains, buckled and broke under its own, newly magnified weight.

The obsidian island it stood on groaned and cracked, beginning to sink into the magma under the horrifying, localized pressure. The Colossus was not just pinned; it was being crushed by its own existence, unable to move, unable to summon its power, its spirit screaming in a prison of unimaginable gravity. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. With the beast utterly immobilized, Khaos began the true, horrifying lesson. He did not descend.

He remained in the sky, a silent, galactic god, and simply pointed one of his colossal, void-black pincers downward. From the tip of the pincer, a thin, black line, a sliver of pure void energy, shot down. It was not an explosive attack. It was a surgical tool. It moved with an unerring, silent grace and sliced off one of the great, horn-like protrusions on the Colossus's head. The chunk of obsidian, the size of a carriage, fell with a heavy, unnatural thud onto the cracking island.

The Colossus, unable to move, could only feel the pain, its mind a silent scream of utter confusion. It had no defense against an attack that did not travel through space, but simply erased the space between two points. Another black line shot out, shearing off one of the great, rock-like plates on the creature's back. And so it began. A death of a thousand cuts. Khaos, with a cold, methodical, and utterly unfeeling precision, began to dismantle the great beast, piece by agonizing piece.

He sliced off armor plates, severed the claws from its feet, and sheared away the jagged spines on its tail. Each cut was clean, precise, and calculated to cause maximum pain and terror without delivering a fatal blow. The Colossus, driven mad with a pain and a helplessness it had never known, could only lie there, being crushed into its own island, a titan being dismembered by a silent, invisible god. It focused its will, projecting a raw, primal wave of pure, agonized thought.

'WHY? WHAT ARE YOU? WHY THIS PAIN?' Khaos did not bother to answer, this might have been Fengliu's revenge, what he had lived his life for, but to Khaos it was just another enemy to be slaughtered. He did however make it as painful as he could ever since seeing Fengliu's tribute to him. He simply continued his work, another void-blade slicing a deep, non-fatal gash across the creature's flank. For a full hour, the torture continued as Fengliu watched, never taking his eyes off of it.

This was what he was waiting for, as cruel as it might be to an outsider, this was a feast for his eyes.. The once-mighty Molten Heart Colossus was reduced to a mutilated, bleeding ruin. Its obsidian hide was scarred and broken, its limbs were shattered under its own weight, and its spirit was broken. It was now nothing more than a broken, terrified mass of flesh and rock, its great heart-core still pulsing weakly in its chest.

It was finally at this moment, with the Colossus completely and utterly broken, that Khaos paused. He turned his immense, nebular gaze to the silent, trembling form of Fengliu, his own soul a raging storm of grief and a terrible, exultant joy.

"He is yours now, little bird," Khaos's voice rumbled, a sound of finality.

"Finish it." Fengliu did not need to be told twice. He let out a single, soul-shaking cry, a sound that was three hundred years of pain, of grief, of shame, and of rage given voice. He folded his magnificent wings and dove. He descended upon the helpless, mutilated Colossus like a bolt of iridescent lightning. But he did not deliver a clean, killing blow. That would have been too merciful. All that was left was the raw, cathartic release of a debt of blood finally being paid.

"AIEEEEEEE!" A wordless shriek of pure, agonized grief tore from his throat as he slammed into the monster's side. His great, storm-cloud talons, which could shred mountains, tore into the Colossus's broken hide, ripping away huge chunks of obsidian flesh. He screamed and tore, again and again, his movements a frenzy of unrestrained violence. He rose into the air, his sky-blue eyes streaming crystalline tears of sorrow and rage.

"YOU TOOK HER FROM ME!" he shrieked, his voice cracking with the pain of centuries. He dove again, his sharp, powerful beak, which could shatter steel, pecking and hammering at the all over the beast's body, the sound like a mad blacksmith on a demonic anvil. He was a storm, an avenging angel, a physical manifestation of three centuries of rage. He vented all of it, all his pain, all his shame, all his hatred, onto the helpless form of his sister's murderer.

He clawed, he pecked, he shrieked, his magnificent iridescent feathers becoming spattered with the black, oily blood of the beast. He unleashed vortexes of his own wind-based techniques, not to kill, but to flay, a storm of razors that peeled the beast's rocky skin from its body, revealing the molten muscle beneath.

The Colossus, now only able to feel physical pain, could only lie, crushed and broken, enduring the onslaught, its desperate, agonized cries echoing in the silent, ashen caldera as this screaming, crying demon of the sky tore it apart. Fengliu was lost in his grief, a being of pure, primal emotion. He attacked and attacked, again and again, until his own body was heaving with exhaustion, until his cries became hoarse, broken sobs.

Finally, as the Colossus's life force began to fade, its silent screams weakening to a pathetic flicker, Fengliu rose into the air one last time. He was no longer screaming. He was silent. He gathered his power, a swirling vortex of wind and sky, and then, with a final, piercing cry that held all the love he had ever felt for his lost sister, he dove, his entire body a living javelin, aimed directly at the now-exposed, weakly pulsing magma heart in the center of the monster's chest. He struck.

There was a final, brilliant flash of light, a silent, internal detonation, and the Molten Heart Colossus, the terror of the Blasted Lands, the source of Fengliu's eternal torment, finally, mercifully, went still. Its great, burning eyes flickered and died, and the last vestiges of its power faded from the world.

Fengliu stood upon the corpse of his enemy, his iridescent feathers spattered with the black, oily blood of the beast, his great body heaving not from exertion, but from the sheer, overwhelming, emotional release of a vengeance partially claimed. The inferno of rage in his soul had been banked, but it was not extinguished. The grief was still there, a cold, heavy stone in his heart but there was relief today.

A huge burden had been lifted from his soul, the suffocating weight of his own perceived cowardice, but he was not free. Not yet. He lifted his head to the ashen sky and let out a long, sorrowful cry. It was a sound of victory, yes, but it was also a sound of profound mourning. It was a funeral dirge for his sister, a promise that while one of her murderers had fallen, the other monster, still possibly walking the world.

'One is dead,' his thought was a cold, hard vow that solidified in his heart.

'But the human still lives. The hunt is not over. It has just begun.'