The Immortal Heir; The Absolute Cheat

Chapter 13

High Priestess Ilya stared at the pile of steaming junk that had just been a Tier 6 elite golem, her starlight eyes widening a fraction of a millimeter. For the first time, her ancient, composed demeanor cracked, replaced by a dark, fascinated curiosity.

"Runic iron, shattered by a mortal fist," Ilya murmured, stepping over the debris. "You don't just bypass the laws of cultivation, Kai. You rewrite them."

"I told you," Kai said, his voice grating like shifting tectonic plates as the newly acquired Runic Iron Body trait settled deep into his cellular structure. His skin took on a faint, almost imperceptible metallic sheen under the magma’s glow. "The rules don't apply to me. Now, open the vault. My time is ticking."

Ilya didn't argue. She led them past the shattered guardian toward the end of the obsidian balcony, where a massive, circular vault door stood embedded in the volcanic rock. The door was forged from a pitch-black metal that seemed to absorb the ambient light, its surface carved with thousands of intricate, interlocking geometric runes that pulsed with a faint, deep-red heartbeat.

"This is the Vault of the First Smith," Ilya explained, placing her slender, pale hand against the cold metal. "Locked since the era of the Great Calamity. To turn the key, you must feed the mechanism pure, unfiltered earth energy. If your core isn't dense enough, the door will reject you and violently invert your meridians, turning your blood to magma."

"Step back," Kai commanded.

He placed both of his palms flat against the dark metal. Deep within his core, his Earth Root Aptitude flared. The ground beneath his boots groaned as he channeled the massive defensive and physical stats he had devoured from Deacon Fang and the Iron-Spined Behemoth.

Hummmmmm.

The black vault door violently vibrated. The geometric runes instantly stopped pulsing red, turning a fierce, blinding gold as Kai’s perfected draconic energy flooded the circuits. The sheer density of his power forced the ancient locking pins to snap one by one inside the rock wall.

With a deafening CLANG that echoed across the entire subterranean canyon, the massive circular door slowly rolled outward, splitting down the middle to reveal a hidden, cavernous chamber.

Inside, the air was dead and completely still, frozen in time for a thousand years. Resting upon a central pedestal of pure, unrefined spirit stone was a singular, massive blueprint scroll glowing with a faint blue light, alongside a pool of liquid, iridescent liquid metal that defied gravity, floating in mid-air.

[Ding! Landmark discovered: The Sovereign Vault.]

[Detecting Ancient Legacy Item: The Dragon-Sovereign Forging Blueprints.]

[Detecting Ancient Material: Sovereign Primordial Mercury.]

"This is it," Ilya whispered, her eyes fixed on the floating liquid metal. "The blueprints to forge armor that can withstand conceptual attacks, and the catalyst needed to awaken a dead legion."

Kai stepped into the room, his Draconic Sight instantly scanning the blueprint scroll. But before his hand could even touch the ancient parchment, a violent, piercing pain shot through his temples.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Red, glitching error boxes suddenly erupted in his vision, completely overriding his standard blue status interface.

[Warning! System Malfunction detected!]

[Anomalous high-tier scanning spike intercepted from the Northern Sky!]

[The Iron-Blood Sect has activated a forbidden conceptual relic: The Heaven-Searching Mirror!]

[Host's location has been forcefully broadcasted to the Upper Realm protocol!]

Kai staggered back half a step, his vertical slit pupils narrowing to pinpricks as he gripped his head. "Tsk... the insects found a bigger flashlight."

"Kai? What's wrong?" Meiling cried out, rushing to his side, her face twisting with panic as she saw the chaotic blue and red light reflecting violently in his eyes.

"The sect," Kai growled, his voice dripping with an icy, lethal bloodlust. "They didn't just follow us. They used an ancestral relic to bypass your spatial concealment, Ilya. They’re right above the volcano. And they brought the whole family."

BOOM!

As if on cue, the entire ceiling of the subterranean canyon violently fractured. A massive, terrifying beam of concentrated, white-hot fire mana blasted through the volcanic rock above, sending millions of tons of debris raining down into the magma rivers below.

Through the massive, smoking hole in the ceiling, Kai could see the sky. The clouds had turned completely blood-red, and floating amidst the smoke were dozens of floating war-carriages bearing the Iron-Blood Sect crest. At the front of the vanguard stood three ancient men whose auras were so immense they literally warped the falling ash around them.

The Grand Elders had arrived. And they hadn't come to capture him—they had come to erase the mountain.