Chapter 21: The Flame of Burning Gold

“Uhhh—”

It shook its head as it stood up, but that simple movement sent a searing pain down its back — pain sharp enough to shred its nerves apart.

It turned its head to look behind itself. The proud, jet-black armor that could once withstand human missile strikes was now shattered like a turtle shell smashed by an iron hammer. Beneath the broken plating lay dark red flesh laced with violet veins — much of it charred beyond recognition, so scorched that not even a drop of blood remained.

The stench of burnt flesh filled its nostrils. Its violet eyes blazed brighter and brighter, while the intelligence they once held was fading. The agony was waking something primal — rage and wild instinct devouring what reason remained, dragging it back into its most savage, bestial state.

It didn’t take minutes — only two breaths — before it roared, ignoring the burning pain, ignoring its mangled back, and charged toward that abominable being.

Its enormous body shook the earth with every stride. Chunks of its shattered armor fell to the ground, each impact like slabs of iron slamming into stone. Each fragment was half a meter thick — a glimpse of its terrifying defense.

And if such armor could be broken… what unimaginable power did that flame hold?

It didn’t care to know. Guided by pure instinct, it locked onto the faint traces of that wretched creature’s presence — buried somewhere amid the clouds of steam. Its massive frame would crush that entire section of the cavern, burying both the land and that damned being under tons of rock and ice!

But before it reached the spot, one part of the steam suddenly ignited with a dazzling golden light.

From within, a radiant field unfurled — the Flame Domain of Jin Wu!

He had given up the advantage of concealment, openly challenging the emperor-class beast head-on.

And the result — the moment he did — was as if a stockpile of explosives had been turned into a focused detonation!

Flames roared through the mist. A humanoid figure burst forth, ascending from the inferno.

He bore the outline of a man — four limbs, two shoulders, a head — yet his body was nothing human. Instead, it was covered in a carapace resembling chitin, gleaming gold like feathers yet sharp like armor. Around his waist, the plating flowed downward like a regal mantle.

From his shoulders spread ornate extensions — a fusion of armor and feathers that unfolded like wings.

His head was encased in a helm shaped like the visage of a great golden crow, with a mask fused to it seamlessly, no separation between flesh and shell.

His hands, though human in form, were wrapped in metallic talons — razor-sharp, forged for killing. His legs too were bound in living armor, his feet ending in hooked claws built to rend and tear.

If before he had seemed an “inhuman anomaly,” now he had become one — body and soul.

A humanoid Honkai beast!

“Let the game resume!”

Jin Wu roared, charging head-on toward the emperor-class beast.

Twin blades of golden flame materialized in his hands. His entire being became a living weapon, cutting through the blizzard summoned by his opponent’s advance.

The colossal beast answered with its own deafening bellow. Its four legs thundered against the ground — air detonating around it, a shockwave of icy blue vapor spiraling behind. It broke the sound barrier, and in an instant, two sonic booms — one crimson, one blue — collided in midair, shattering the cave walls.

The cavern collapsed behind them.

They burst out into the open mountains. The shockwaves leveled forests, turning several kilometers into their battlefield — a space vast enough for titans to fight to the death.

The two forces clashed with the power of avalanches and thunderclaps. Flesh and metal struck with equal fury. The larger beast’s mass and speed gave it an overwhelming edge, pushing Jin Wu backward with brute momentum, though his fiery strength barely yielded ground.

The beast’s claws ripped into the soil, tearing apart bedrock, and like a charging locomotive, it rammed straight into Jin Wu.

But the golden warrior met the blow head-on, bringing down his twin flaming swords, now cracked and blazing white-hot!

The sight resembled a raven throwing itself against a boar — madness against mass.

The beast struck him like a cannonball. Jin Wu was hurled through the air, smashed into the earth, and pinned down beneath the creature’s fangs. It dragged him along the ground for hundreds of meters, grinding him through rock until the cliffside shattered.

But victory was not the beast’s.

A translucent, spherical field bloomed beneath it — the golden flames within turning blood-red, trembling on the verge of implosion!

The ground glowed red-hot, the surrounding stone softening to molten metal. The beast’s claws sank into the liquefying earth as the temperature soared — the bedrock beneath transforming into molten lava!

Jin Wu’s flame domain was collapsing inward, compressing all its power. The heat burned so intensely it turned the mountainside into a furnace.

Even trees hundreds of meters away spontaneously ignited.

The beast screamed — its roar shaking the entire valley. The ground heaved, trees toppled, and the forest erupted in chaos.

It tried to flee, but molten rock clung to its legs. Its hind limbs strained, but from below came a greater force — Jin Wu’s hand, gripping its forelimb from beneath the lava!

The beast howled, releasing a freezing blizzard. White frost spread across hundreds of meters in an instant.

From its jaws, it exhaled a stream of aurora-white gas — an absolute cold that struck the domain directly.

“Too slow!”

Before the frost could hit, Jin Wu contracted his domain — pulling it inward just in time. The cold struck the lava instead, and the clash of extreme heat and cold forged a layer of volcanic glass — obsidian — trapping the beast’s legs in place.

The beast couldn’t move. Jin Wu had planned it.

Then, the domain exploded.

The eruption shook heaven and earth.

Light and heat engulfed everything.

Within a radius of three hundred meters, forest and mountain alike were obliterated — vaporized before the flames even touched them.

The blast changed the landscape itself, leaving nothing but scorched wasteland.

A pillar of fire rose into the sky, piercing the heavens and staining the clouds red.

“That direction…!”

Inside a Valkyrie command post, Himeko Murata stared out the window, watching the crimson sky over the mountains. Within seconds, her communicator flared to life.

“Colonel Himeko! We’ve detected a massive Honkai energy surge 9 kilometers southeast of your location! Estimated output—1500 HW!”
“1500?! That’s equal to the Hyperion’s core reactor! Is there an emperor-class beast there?!”
“Unconfirmed! The area’s too hot — even satellites can’t get a read.”
“Tch. Prep the field gear and contact the Headmistress — Valkyrie Himeko Murata requesting immediate deployment!”

“Ugh…”

The black beast writhed in agony.

That explosion had nearly torn its body apart — nearly.

It wasn’t the only one capable of strategy.

In that instant before detonation, it had wrapped itself in a five-meter-thick shell of ice — pure Honkai-energy crystallization. The first blast shattered the outer layer, but it bought the milliseconds needed to endure the rest.

Its forelimbs were gone, its armor melted, its organs charred, and its core — that faintly violet crystal in its abdomen — cracked and exposed.

A mortal wound for any creature.

But it wasn’t dead. With enough Honkai energy, it could regenerate.

If it could consume that other being’s core — it would fully recover, instantly.

That thing.
That cursed thing.

It turned toward the crater — nothing remained. No obsidian, no trace of the golden aberration.

Had it been vaporized by its own flame?

No… the energy was still here.

It didn’t even need to sense it — the surge erupted above it before the thought finished forming.

It looked up — violet eyes widening in terror.

“OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

From the sky descended not Jin Wu — but Yao Bingling!

He dove like a meteor, his body burned and broken, his left hand empty, his control slipping.

This was his moment.

From within, Yao Bingling — the human will trapped inside — broke free, seized control, and kicked Jin Wu’s consciousness back into the abyss, sealing it away!

In his right hand, a blade of living flame — stolen from Jin Wu’s own core energy.

He aimed it straight at the beast below — at its exposed, glowing heart.