The Crucible had turned into an oven. The ambient temperature skyrocketed the moment the Corrupted Furnace Goliath stepped fully into the corridor.

  Commander Vane didn't flinch. The scarred Inquisitor stepped into a low, wide stance, gripping his white-hot hand-and-a-half sword with both hands. "Spread out! Do not let it trap you against the walls! Target the vents!"

  The Goliath let out a sound like a boiler rupturing. Highly pressurized, superheated steam violently vented from the cracked alchemical core in its chest, propelling the twelve-foot monstrosity forward with terrifying, unnatural speed.

  It raised its right arm—the massive, fused mace of slag and bone—and brought it crashing down in a devastating, counter-clockwise arc aimed directly at Vane.

  Vane parried. It was a flawless, textbook block, the glowing edge of his Mark IV steel catching the descending slag-mace.

  But flawless technique couldn't negate raw physics. The sheer kinetic force of the impact buckled the steel floor beneath Vane’s boots. The Inquisitor was thrown backward as if struck by a runaway carriage, slamming into the reinforced corridor wall with a sickening crunch of armor.

  One of the flanking Inquisitors lunged forward to cover his commander, driving his blade toward the Goliath's exposed ribs. The sword bit deep into the blistered red flesh, but the Goliath just swiped its massive left hand, backhanding the armored knight twenty feet down the corridor.

  "Arrows are useless!" Mata yelled from the back, her fingers bleeding as she rapidly nocked and fired at the monster's glowing eyes, only for the shafts to incinerate before they could pierce the cornea. "The heat is a physical shield!"

  Tiny was frantically reloading his scatter-crossbow with specialized bolts. "Its armor is too thick! We have to crack that chest core!"

  Wanhan didn't listen to them. He was watching the Goliath move.

  His eyes locked onto the massive creature's legs. The Goliath was a terrifying engine of destruction, but it was still subject to the laws of motion. It was a massive rigid body. Its right arm, the slag-mace, accounted for an enormous percentage of its overall weight.

  When the Goliath swung that mace in a heavy arc, its center of gravity drastically shifted outward. To keep from toppling over from its own momentum, the monster had to plant its opposite leg—its left leg—violently into the steel floor, turning that fused, iron-plated knee joint into a rigid, load-bearing fulcrum.

  It was a simple matter of moments and rotation. If Wanhan could apply a massive horizontal force to that fulcrum exactly when the Goliath committed its weight to a swing, the monster's own rotational inertia would do the rest of the work.

  The Goliath let out another steam-whistle shriek and raised its slag-mace high above its head, preparing to crush the fallen Inquisitor it had just swiped away.

  [Threat Level: FATAL]

  [System Warning: Evasion Advised]

  Wanhan ignored the blue text flashing in his vision. He gripped Fenrir in his left hand. He didn't lock his arm this time. He let the lopsided, heavy iron pommel hang loose, preparing to use the weapon not as a sword, but as a lever.

  The Goliath brought the mace down. Its massive left boot slammed into the floor, anchoring its weight.

  Now.

  [Skill Activated: Diner Dash]

  Wanhan exploded across the blistering hot floor, moving faster than the lumbering giant could track. He slid under the wide, sweeping arc of the monster's free arm, feeling the radiant heat instantly singe the hairs on his arm and crisp the edges of his wool cloak.

  He didn't aim for the chest core. He didn't aim for flesh. He dropped low, directly beside the Goliath's planted left leg.

  He raised Fenrir horizontally. The blade was useless against the thick iron plates fused around the monster's knee. Instead, Wanhan flipped the sword, exposing the flat of the heavy dark steel and the massive iron counterweight of the pommel.

  He channeled every ounce of his newly acquired [Strength] and the momentum of his dash into his left shoulder. He swung the flat of the blade like a lumberjack swinging a sledgehammer at a stubborn wedge.

  [Skill Activated: Tree Cutter - Level 100]

  CRACK.

  The deafening impact of solid iron striking alchemical steel echoed over the roar of the venting steam.

  Wanhan's Level 100 skill wasn't meant for piercing—it was meant for raw, unadulterated horizontal chopping power. The heavy flat of Fenrir struck the side of the Goliath's locked left knee joint with the force of a falling oak tree.

  Wanhan didn't cut the monster's leg off. He didn't even dent the iron plating.

  He didn't need to.

  The tremendous lateral force hit the exact center of the fulcrum just as the Goliath's upper body weight was fully committed to its downward swing. The sudden, violent disruption of its anchoring point destroyed the creature's structural integrity.

  The knee buckled inward.

  Deprived of its support, the Goliath's own massive moment of inertia betrayed it. The twelve-foot, multi-ton abomination was ripped off its feet by the sheer weight of its descending mace arm.

  With a crash that shook the entire Crucible, the Corrupted Furnace Goliath slammed face-first into the reinforced steel floor.

  The Crucible floor buckled under the multi-ton impact of the Corrupted Furnace Goliath. The shockwave knocked Wanhan off his feet, sending him skidding across the blistering steel plating.

  The abomination didn't just fall; it crashed with the catastrophic violence of a collapsed building. Its massive slag-mace shattered against the corridor wall, embedding chunks of glowing, fused bone deep into the reinforced iron.

  "The core!" Commander Vane roared, his voice cutting through the hiss of venting steam. He scrambled to his feet, blood dripping from his scarred chin. "Strike the furnace core before it recovers its footing!"

  The Goliath let out a deafening, metallic shriek of rage. It planted its massive left hand against the buckled floor, attempting to heave its twelve-foot frame back up. The cracked alchemical furnace in its chest spun violently, glowing with an unstable, blinding white heat that threatened to incinerate anything that got close.

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  "Keep it down!" Tiny bellowed.

  The dwarf dropped to one knee, ignoring the blistering heat radiating through his boots. He leveled his scatter-crossbow and fired a heavy, armor-piercing bolt directly into the Goliath's left shoulder joint. The bolt didn't penetrate the thick iron plating, but the sheer kinetic force of the impact momentarily disrupted the monster's leverage, causing its arm to slip.

  The Goliath crashed back down onto its chest with a metallic groan.

  "The heat shielding is compromised!" Mata yelled over the roar of the steam.

  She stood at the far end of the corridor, her delicate hands a blur of motion. She wasn't aiming for the monster's eyes anymore. She drew two black-fletched arrows and fired them directly into the heavy exhaust vents located on the sides of the Goliath's thick, iron-plated neck.

  The arrows incinerated the moment they entered the vents, but the resulting ash and shattered iron shafts momentarily clogged the exhaust ports.

  The effect was instantaneous. Unable to vent the superheated steam, the pressure inside the cracked alchemical core spiked drastically. The chest furnace began to whine, the protective fused iron plates covering it slowly groaning and bending outward from the internal pressure.

  "The plates are peeling back!" Vane shouted. He charged forward, his white-hot sword raised high. He didn't strike to kill; he drove his glowing blade straight into the expanding gap between the chest plates and violently twisted, acting as a massive pry bar to expose the spinning, unstable core beneath. "Do it now! Pierce the core!"

  Wanhan was already moving.

  He didn't have time to second-guess the heat or the pain in his torn ribs. He scrambled to his feet, sliding his left boot backward to anchor his stance against the buckled floor.

  He looked at the blindingly bright, violently spinning furnace core. It was barely a foot wide, surrounded by razor-sharp jagged iron and venting superheated plasma. A standard chop with Tree Cutter would just bounce off the thick metal casing housing the crystal. He needed absolute, pinpoint linear force.

  He locked his left elbow flush against his ribs. He let the heavy iron pommel of Fenrir rest heavily against his hip bone, turning his entire body into a rigid, singular projectile.

  [Target Identified: Destabilized Alchemical Core]

  [Skill Activated: Piercing Step - Level 5]

  Wanhan pushed off the steel floor with explosive force.

  The multiplied momentum of the dash launched him straight into the suffocating, blistering heat zone of the Goliath. The air was so hot it felt like inhaling liquid fire, instantly crisping the edges of his tunic and singing his hair.

  He didn't flinch. He didn't close his eyes. He kept the tip of the dark steel blade perfectly level.

  Vane saw the blur of the one-handed boy closing the distance. The Inquisitor ripped his sword free from the plates and threw himself out of the way just as Wanhan closed the final gap.

  CRUNCH.

  It wasn't the sound of metal breaking. It was the sickening, crystalline sound of glass shattering under immense pressure.

  Wanhan drove the tip of Fenrir directly into the center of the cracked, violently spinning alchemical core. The sheer kinetic mass of the Piercing Step, backed by his newly enhanced [Strength], pushed the heavy dark steel through the brittle protective casing and deep into the heart of the furnace crystal.

  The Goliath froze.

  The deafening roar of the venting steam instantly died. The blinding white light radiating from its chest flickered, turning a sickly, unstable purple.

  Wanhan hung there for a split second, his boots skidding on the floor, his sword buried to the hilt in the monster's chest.

  "Pull it out!" Tiny screamed, his voice cracking with pure terror. "It's going critical!"

  Wanhan didn't need to be told twice. The heat traveling up the steel blade of Fenrir was already beginning to sear the flesh of his left palm. He planted his boot against the monster's molten collarbone, wrenched his sword free, and threw himself backward just as the purple light inside the shattered core began to rapidly expand.

  [System Warning: Catastrophic Core Failure Imminent]

  [Evasion Mandatory]

  "Brace!" Vane roared, grabbing the wounded Inquisitor and throwing him behind the thickest part of the buckled steel floor.

  Wanhan scrambled frantically across the floor, diving behind a massive chunk of debris that had fallen from the ceiling earlier. He curled into a tight ball, wrapping his single arm around his head and pressing his face into the dirt.

  For a single, terrifying heartbeat, the Crucible went completely silent.

  Then, the world turned to white fire.

  The explosion didn't sound like fire; it sounded like the world tearing in half.

  A shockwave of pure, concussive kinetic force ripped through the corridor. The buckled steel plating of the floor flattened out under the immense pressure, and the reinforced walls groaned as a tidal wave of superheated purple plasma washed over the debris.

  Behind the chunk of fallen ceiling, Wanhan squeezed his eyes shut. The single point he had put into [Endurance] was working overtime, keeping his eardrums from rupturing and his stitched ribs from tearing open as the heavy air violently compressed around him.

  The heat lasted for three agonizing seconds. Then, the blast wave dissipated, leaving behind a suffocating cloud of white ash and the smell of ozone.

  Wanhan slowly uncurled. His ears were ringing with a high-pitched whine. His left arm was completely numb, and the leather wrapping of Fenrir was practically smoking where he had gripped it.

  "Report!" Commander Vane’s voice echoed through the ash, hoarse and ragged.

  "Alive," one of the flanking Inquisitors coughed, dragging himself up from behind a warped steel pillar. The other knight gave a weak thumbs-up from the floor.

  "I think my eyebrows are gone," Tiny groaned. The dwarf crawled out from beneath a charred piece of the bulkhead door, vigorously rubbing his soot-stained face. He frantically patted his pockets. "Praise the stone, the gold didn't melt."

  Mata dropped lightly from a high maintenance pipe near the ceiling, her green cloak singed at the edges. She had somehow anticipated the blast radius and found the one pocket of cool air in the entire corridor. "Humans make entirely too much noise when they die," she muttered, brushing ash from her shoulder.

  Wanhan pushed himself up, leaning heavily on his lopsided iron sword.

  The Corrupted Furnace Goliath was gone.

  In its place was a massive, blackened crater of molten slag. The thick iron plating that had made up its armor was fused into the floor, and the blistered red flesh had been entirely incinerated by the critical failure of its own core.

  Wanhan stared at the crater. A cascade of glowing blue text flooded his vision, scrolling faster than he could read.

  [FATAL Threat Defeated: Corrupted Furnace Goliath]

  [Massive Level Disparity Detected. Applying x5 Experience Multiplier.]

  [Level Up!]

  [Level Up!]

  [Level Up!]

  [Current Level: 9]

  [Unallocated Stat Points: 9]

  [Emergency System Quest Complete: The Forge's Secret]

  Wanhan let out a breathless, exhausted laugh. Nine stat points. He had jumped three levels from a single, desperate strike.

  "You're a madman, One-Hand," Vane said, walking over to the edge of the crater. The Inquisitor’s dark blue armor was scorched, and his hand-and-a-half sword had cooled back to dull steel. He looked at Wanhan with a mix of disbelief and profound respect. "You didn't have the leverage to pierce the casing. You used the momentum of your dash to turn yourself into a battering ram."

  "It worked," Wanhan rasped, his throat dry from the ash. "Do we get paid now?"

  "Yes," Vane nodded, reaching into his scorched cloak and pulling out a heavy, stamped iron lockbox. He tossed it perfectly into Wanhan's waiting left hand. "Twenty gold pieces, as promised. And when we get back to the surface, you have your pick of the armory."

  "Hold on a second," Tiny interrupted, his greed instantly overriding his near-death experience. The dwarf scurried to the edge of the molten crater, ignoring the blistering heat. He pointed a thick, calloused finger at the very center of the slag pile. "The core exploded, but the housing didn't melt entirely. Look."

  Resting in the center of the cooling crater was a single, fist-sized crystal. It wasn't spinning anymore, but it pulsed with a deep, stable, violent red light.

  [Loot Discovered: Flawless Alchemical Ember]

  Description: The stabilized heart of a corrupted furnace. Radiates intense kinetic heat. A master blacksmith could fold this into steel to create a weapon of devastating explosive power.

  "The Ember," Vane murmured, his eyes widening. "I thought the blast would have shattered it completely."

  Tiny looked at Vane, his eyes narrowing defensively. "The contract was for breaching the door. We killed the monstrosity behind it for free. The loot belongs to the boy."

  Vane looked at the dwarf, then at Wanhan, and finally let out a tired sigh. "Take it. The Forge owes you more than gold today. But I suggest you wrap it in something thick. It will burn straight through a standard leather pouch."

  Wanhan walked to the edge of the crater. The heat was intense, but he reached out with his left hand, grabbing a discarded piece of the Goliath's thick, cooled iron plating to scoop the glowing crystal up.

  He had twenty gold pieces, nine unallocated stat points, and a flawless alchemical crystal that could upgrade his lopsided sword into something truly terrifying.

  "Let's get out of here," Wanhan said, carefully dropping the wrapped Ember into his satchel. "Before whatever else is in that vault decid

  es to come out."

  Vane nodded in agreement. "To the surface. We celebrate, and then we re-forge your iron."