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ArabicArknights: Soul Knights of Terra — Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Director, You’re Not Dead!
The flames ceased their chaotic thrashing. Instead, a highly condensed pillar of blazing fire roared forth, striking with the sheer, devastating force of a dragon’s breath.
Saria decisively abandoned her attempt to conjure another crystal cone. She crossed her arms, her Originium Arts flaring as a thick, calcified shield instantly materialized before her.
“Boom!!!”
The deafening blast shattered the air. The brilliant white pillar of fire slammed into the shield, erupting with a staggering kinetic impact. The white crystals vaporized rapidly under the searing heat, only to be instantly replenished by Saria’s relentless Arts.
The ground beneath her boots fractured inch by inch. The violent thrust forced her into a grinding backward slide.
Taking the opening, Boss pivoted and moved to leave without a second of hesitation.
‘He wants to escape.’
Saria’s gaze sharpened. She surged her output, weathering the dying embers of the fire pillar, and charged straight at his back.
But Boss abruptly spun around. His face, twisted like a malevolent demon forged of magma, met Saria’s cold stare head-on.
Saria felt no fear. Calcified crystals rapidly encased her arm, forming a massive, jagged gauntlet. She threw a heavy punch, the sheer velocity tearing a sonic boom through the air.
Lava surged around Boss’s fist. He answered with a strike of his own, the heat distorting the very atmosphere between them.
Saria analyzed the trajectory with mechanical precision. ‘The energy reaction is immense, but I am faster. My fist will connect first. The resulting kinetic transfer will effectively deflect his attack.’
Her crystal gauntlet tore through the space between them, hurtling toward Boss’s face with a piercing shriek of displaced air. Her calculations were flawless—the sheer blunt force of this strike would shatter his offensive stance, allowing her to dictate the pacing of the retreat.
However, the moment her knuckles connected solidly with his molten jaw, Saria’s expression cracked.
The expected heavy recoil never came. Instead, the kinetic force vanished like a stone dropped into a bottomless abyss, instantly devoured by an invisible, alien power.
Worse, the lava pooling around the towering creature’s fist didn’t disperse from the blow. It flared violently, like boiling oil meeting an open flame.
‘Energy absorption?!’
The startling realization flashed through Saria’s mind.
A cruel, distorted smile cracked across Boss’s magma-wrought face. The heavy punch he had been holding back finally erupted.
“Roar—!!!”
The delayed strike, carrying a terrifying payload of kinetic force doubled by devouring her own attack, slammed into Saria like a volcanic eruption. She had no time to fully brace herself.
Saria’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. Her free arm scrambled to guard her chest, the calcified crystals only just beginning to coat her forearm…
“BOOM!!!!!”
The deafening explosion swallowed everything.
A blazing pillar of fire erupted from the point of impact, taking the shape of a furious, roaring flame dragon. The sheer concussive force launched Saria’s lithe body backward in a frantic, uncontrollable flight.
She tried to anchor herself, but the momentum was absolute. In a fraction of a second, she slammed into the reinforced iron wall of the facility. The searing heat radiating from the blow melted the metal paneling directly into glowing red slag.
Her momentum didn’t halt. Under the horrified gazes of the security personnel, she tore through the melting wall like a white meteor, vanishing into the dark, crumbling depths of the ruins.
“Director Saria!?”
“How is this possible!?”
The surrounding Rhine Lab security personnel froze, their blood running cold. They watched in absolute disbelief as the Director of the Defense Department was swatted away, her fate entirely unknown.
“Roar—!!!”
Boss unleashed another earth-shaking bellow, snapping the guards out of their stupor.
Primal terror drove their fingers to the triggers. They unleashed a desperate, deafening hail of gunfire and explosives, pouring munitions into the towering lava demon as if trying to drown out their own fear.
But the scene that followed only dragged them deeper into despair.
Every bullet, every Originium shell, every directed energy blast fired into that crimson, suffocating domain of heat…
…the moment they brushed the edge of the lava demon’s aura, they vanished. Silently. Like snowflakes drifting into an active volcano.
There were no explosions. No ricochets. Not even a ripple in the air. The attacks were simply erased from existence.
“Damn it! What the hell is going on?! This thing is getting stronger!” A squad leader stared at the skyrocketing energy readings on his tactical monitor, his voice cracking with panic.
“Why aren’t the rounds working?! Even if they melted, there should be slag left!” Another operator stared at the completely unscathed figure, nearly breaking down as the creature’s oppressive aura continued to climb.
Just as they feared, their frantic, futile barrage only fed the beast. The absorbed energy visibly coalesced around Boss’s massive frame.
Fueled by the surging torrent of devoured attacks, his magma-composed body began to expand, growing even more monstrous. The dark, obsidian-like shell plating his skin thickened, while the blinding, blazing light bleeding through the cracks threatened to pierce the night itself.
He stood amidst the crossfire like a demon god crawled straight out of the abyss, endlessly gorging on their power to restore his own vitality.
“M-Monster!” someone screamed, the word tearing from their throat.
Fear swept through the Rhine Lab security ranks like a virulent plague. Facing an entity they could neither comprehend nor scratch—a nightmare that only grew more terrifying the harder they fought—their will to resist rapidly crumbled.
Inside the towering shell of magma, Boss felt an unmatched, intoxicating fullness of power. The sharp, agonizing pain that had previously pierced his body was entirely drowned out by the rushing torrent of raw energy.
He looked down at his expanding, lava-dripping palms, then slowly raised his head. His burning, molten pupils locked onto the humans still firing their useless weapons.
A searing wave of heat rolled off him, thickening the air with the suffocating, acidic stench of sulfur.
Wherever those burning eyes swept, the security guards froze. The courage to pull their triggers evaporated, replaced by an icy grip around their throats.
He slowly opened his massive, jagged maw. Inside, a churning, blinding light gathered—a heat intense enough to vaporize steel. Destructive energy rapidly coalesced in his throat. In the next breath, he would incinerate everything in his path.
At this critical, razor-thin moment…
[Boss! I’ve tested it!]
Third’s voice—a chaotic mix of tears and sheer excitement—poured like a clear, freezing spring into Boss’s mind, cutting through the all-consuming fire.
[Go home! The command to enter the room is to just say ‘Go home’!]
Boss’s massive frame suddenly stiffened. The apocalyptic energy gathering in his throat faltered, the blinding light dimming a fraction.
[Boss? What’s wrong? Hurry!] Second urged, his tone laced with impatience.
[Boss, are you injured? Can you not move?] Third’s voice shifted into genuine panic.
[Boss, don’t hesitate! Quit while you’re ahead!] Fourth shouted over the mental link.
The sudden influx of concern and frantic urging from his brothers acted like a bucket of ice water, cooling the surging, primal killing intent clouding his mind.
He remained completely silent. Yet, his rigid posture—staring unblinkingly at his prey without making a single move—exerted an even more crushing psychological pressure on the terrified security personnel.
Finally, Boss let out a heavy, barely audible sigh, exhaling a thin stream of white-hot fire.
With that sigh, he took a single half-step forward.
That tiny, deliberate movement was all it took. Several guards in the front row scrambled backward in sheer terror, tripping over their own boots and dropping their weapons to the scorched earth.
“Whoosh—!”
A searing wave of fire swept outward, instantly melting a charred, glowing trench into the ground just inches from the frontline. The scalding updraft forced the operators back, drawing out a chorus of panicked screams.
It was a warning. A silent, terrifying demonstration declaring that their lives belonged to him, to be taken whenever he pleased.
Then, under the horrified, trembling gazes of the entire Rhine Lab detachment, the towering giant raised a massive lava fist and slammed it directly into the earth.
The ground fractured violently. Surging flames erupted from the point of impact, spiraling upward to form a violent, roaring fire tornado that completely swallowed his massive figure.
The searing ambient temperature spiked, making it impossible for anyone to look directly at the phenomenon. The guards shielded their faces with their arms, retreating desperately from the blinding heat.
From deep within the roaring pillar of fire, a low, rumbling voice echoed softly:
“Roar…” ‘Go home…’
The moment the syllable fell, the raging fire tornado abruptly contracted inward, collapsing upon itself before dissipating into thin air.
The flames cleared. The terrifying lava giant had vanished without a single trace.
The surviving Rhine Lab personnel stood frozen in the scorched wasteland, staring at the empty space. They exchanged looks of absolute daze and disbelief.
“He… vanished?”
An eerie, suffocating silence descended upon the battlefield. The only proof that the nightmare had actually happened was the occasional groan of snapping rebar from the distant ruins, and the faint, approaching wail of city sirens.
“Boom—!”
A heavy shifting of debris broke the quiet.
“Director Saria! You’re not dead!”
Ignoring her subordinate’s blunt, tactless exclamation, Saria pulled herself from the rubble. She strode briskly to the edge of the blast crater, her eyes sweeping the scorched earth. She tapped her earpiece, her voice as calm and mechanical as ever.
“Target has vanished. Suspected to possess high intelligence, exhibiting clear signs of learning and rapid growth during combat. Threat level upgraded to ‘High Risk’. Its physical characteristics… are highly consistent with the ‘Flame Demon’.”
A furious roar nearly shattered her eardrum through the comms.
“Vanished?! Where the hell is that massive Flame Demon?! Saria! What happened?!”
Saria stood motionless, carefully sensing the ambient energy in her surroundings. There were absolutely no lingering traces of Originium Arts being activated for a teleportation.
She knelt, her gloved fingers picking up a still-warm fragment of obsidian lava. Her brow furrowed deeply as she felt the strange, searing, alien power lingering within the stone.
“…Target is suspected to possess unknown spatial transfer capabilities and has completely broken contact. Requesting an immediate expansion of the search perimeter, and… a full laboratory analysis of these residues.”
Pulling off the headset to silence the frantic arguments still blaring from command, Saria looked down at her badly charred arm. She slowly exhaled a breath of hot, turbid air.
“Flame Demon…”
Saria turned her back on the crater and began walking toward the medical wing. There was someone she needed to see.
Ifrit…
‘Did it come for you…?’