Chapter 65: The Colossus Falls

The explosion was not fire. Not heat. Not physical force. It was spatial. A wave of raw spatial energy blasted outward from the Colossus’s chest in every direction. The crystal body around Alvian blew apart. Pieces of crystal, each carrying melting energy from his Coating, flew through the air like sharp metal from a bomb.

The blast threw him away. He flew backward out of the Colossus’s chest, spinning through the air, his Clearwater Coating protecting him from the worst of the spatial energy. He hit the courtyard floor thirty meters away, bounced twice, rolled five more meters through grey mud, and stopped against a broken stone bench.

[HP: 1,710 → 1,580. Spatial shockwave damage absorbed by Coating and VIT 855.]

The Colossus stood for three more seconds.

Without its Core, the spatial crystal that made its body lost its form. The bonds holding the crystal together snapped. The creature’s body did not melt. It just stopped holding together. The thirty-meter body fell inward like a sandcastle hit by a wave, crystal pieces falling in piles, losing their glow as the energy inside them drained away into nothing.

The six eyes went dark one by one. The last thing the Colossus did was raise its half-healed left fist toward the sky in a final move of anger.

Then the fist fell. The arms fell. The chest broke apart. The legs gave out.

The Obsidian Colossus, Rank 5 Calamity Boss, Level 75, died standing and fell into pieces.

BOOM.

The hit shook the courtyard one last time. Dust and crystal pieces settled over everything. The grey mud from four thousand dead beasts mixed with crystal dust from the dead boss. The courtyard looked like a rock quarry after a landslide.

[DING!]

[Kill: Obsidian Colossus. Rank 5. Level 75.]

[Base EXP: 50,000.]

[Roll: 3,200x (Epic).]

[Total EXP: 160,000,000.]

[Level up! Level 68 → 69.]

[Level up! Level 69 → 70.]

╔══════════════════════════════╗

║ LEVEL: 68 → 70

║ STR: 320 → 530

║ AGI: 285 → 290

║ VIT: 650 → 855

║ INT: 140 → 142

║ Essence: 140 → 280 (regenerated)

║ EXP Bank: ~235,000,000

║ HP: 1,710/1,710

╚══════════════════════════════╝

[CRITICAL WARNING.]

[World Will monitoring has passed CRITICAL limit.]

[Epic roll detected on Rank 5 boss kill.]

[Fate Enforcer deployment limit reached.]

[Estimated deployment time: 72 hours.]

[The System wants to remind the Host that reality itself is now actively preparing to erase you from existence.]

[The System suggests the Host use these 72 hours carefully.]

[The System also suggests the Host buy a new sword. The current one is broken.]

Alvian looked at his sword. The chipped blade that had carried him through beetles, rats, mercenaries, a Duke, and four thousand spatial beasts had finally given everything it had. The metal was split down the middle. The blue lines were dark. The handle was the only thing holding the pieces together.

He set it on the ground beside him. Carefully. Like placing an old friend down to rest.

’72 hours. Three days before reality sends its guards to erase me.’

He stood up. His body hurt everywhere. The spatial wave had shaken him despite his VIT 855. His Essence was regenerating slowly. His HP was climbing back to full.

He looked at the Rift.

The spatial tear was closing. Without the Colossus’s Core to hold it, the Rift had nothing keeping it open. The edges were folding inward, the glowing light growing dim. The tear in reality was healing itself.

[Calamity Rift status: collapsing.]

[Estimated full closure: 4 minutes.]

[Spatial anchor destroyed.]

[Rift will seal permanently upon full closure.]

He watched the Rift shrink. The hum died down. The air pressure became normal. The spatial energy that had been leaking into the courtyard for hours faded into the air.

Three minutes later, the Rift sealed with a soft sound like glass snapping in reverse. The tear was gone. The sky was whole again.

The courtyard was quiet.

No beasts. No Rift. No Colossus. Just destruction, grey mud, crystal dust, and a boy standing in the middle of it all with a broken sword at his feet and 72 hours left.

Helen Croft crawled out from behind her pillar. Her rib wound was bleeding through her simple bandage. Her war-hammer lay where she had dropped it. She looked at the empty space where the Rift had been. She looked at the scattered crystal remains of the Colossus. She looked at Alvian.

"Vance," she said.

He turned.

"Thank you," she said. The words were quiet, almost lost in the noise of falling dust. But his INT 142 heard them clearly.

He nodded once, barely moving, and started walking toward the Undercity.

The silence lasted exactly forty-seven seconds.

Then the first camera drone came down from the sky.

The Academy’s security drones were damaged but still working. Their glass lenses were cracked and their engines sputtered, but they flew anyway. They buzzed into the courtyard like metal birds, drawn to the damage, their red lights blinking.

Alvian stood in the center of the ruins. His shirt was gone, dissolved by spatial energy during the fight. His pants were torn. His skin was covered in grey melting powder that steamed slightly in the cooling air. His broken sword lay at his feet. He looked like a survivor of a natural disaster, which was mostly true.

The first drone hovered three meters away, its red recording light blinking steadily. Its lens focused on his face, on the cracked ground around him, on the scattered remains of the Colossus.

Then the news drones arrived.

They came from the Upper Ward in a large group. Every news network in the city had picked up the emergency signal. Every reporter with a drone had sent it toward Ironclad Academy the moment the Calamity alert went out. Twelve drones. Twenty. Thirty. They filled the sky above the ruined courtyard like a cloud of machines, cameras recording, sending live video to every screen in Vaeloria.

[DING!]

[External recording detected.]

[Host’s combat video is now being broadcast across 14 major news channels.]

[Estimated viewers: 2.3 million and rising.]

[The System suggests the Host consider smiling for the camera. Or at least putting on a shirt.]