Following the discovery of what they now referred to as the 'inner wall', the two remained suspended mid-air above the cloud layer, hovering in silence as they began formulating a new strategy. Unlike their earlier plan—which had been intentionally simple due to their limited information—this one needed to be far more detailed. Back then, they hadn't known what lay beneath the surface of Morndural. Reconnaissance had seemed like the logical first step.
But now, with the 'inner wall' standing in their way like a sealed vault, reconnaissance alone wouldn't suffice. They had to assume the worst and prepare accordingly. Any attempt to breach or bypass that wall would mark them as immediate enemies of the Great Dwarven Empire. And given the sheer level of firepower and technology they'd already witnessed, being careless could easily lead to injuries or maybe even death!
They then took the next thirty minutes to carefully construct multiple scenarios based on what they might encounter. Every possibility was examined—contingency plans built for each. There was no room for guesswork. Every move they made after crossing the threshold would be under scrutiny, and every delay could turn fatal. Whatever lay beyond that wall was likely the true core of the empire, and it would be defended as such.
Once their preparations were finalized, they wasted no more time. Action was inevitable.
Knowing her current position would hinder them during an assault, Kiara shifted. Still clinging to Mikael, she moved from the comfortable princess carry into a more practical position—now draped across his back, her arms securely wrapped around his neck and her legs locked tightly around his waist. It wasn't ideal for long-term travel, but it would allow him full range of motion.
Meanwhile, Mikael summoned his twin swords into his hands. A breath later, he vanished—moving at a speed that shattered even hypersonic limits. In less than a second, he crossed the thousands of meters that separated them from the wall.
Chained Sword Style – 1st Form: Blade Tempest
Blade Tempest was his first—and so far, only—originally crafted sword technique. It was immensely powerful, its core strength lying in its blinding speed and the sheer volume of attacks it could unleash in an instant. However, this overwhelming speed was both its greatest strength and its greatest flaw. The technique relied on countless strikes, but each of them was relatively 'weak' in raw power. Against ordinary opponents or lightly fortified defenses, this wasn't an issue. But when faced with something like the 'inner wall'—a defense of dense, deep blue metal that radiated an almost indestructible presence—it was clear that this method alone wouldn't be enough.
Yet, Mikael hadn't acted recklessly. After all the planning they did he never would have launched this attack if he didn't have a solution in mind.
So, in addition to the standard practice of coating his blades in aura, he introduced a crucial alteration to his approach. Instead of blindly unleashing strikes all across the wall in the hope of overwhelming it through sheer quantity, he did something far more calculated—he concentrated every single attack on a specific point, a tightly constrained area no larger than two meters by two meters.
In doing so, a veritable storm of slashes rained down on that focused section of the 'inner wall'. On their own, each strike—even empowered by aura—only made centimeters deep cuts. But when hundreds of such strikes landed on the same spot, the impossible started to become plausible. The wall, under that focused pressure, began to weaken. The blue metal in that specific zone started to cede, as if being slowly but relentlessly mined.
Naturally, it wasn't an immediate process. And that brief delay was all the wall needed to retaliate.
Just one second after Mikael had begun his assault, the wall's embedded high-grade sensors registered his presence. Instantly, alarms blared to life, echoing throughout the fortified wall. The automated defense systems responded with chilling precision. Cannons embedded along the inner wall whirred to life, locked onto his position, and opened fire without hesitation. The shells they launched tore through the air at breakneck speeds—deadly, unrelenting, and calibrated for annihilation.
But no matter how fast they were, Mikael was faster. He could have dodged them all with ease.
And yet, he didn't.
Instead of evading, he remained exactly where he was, continuing his furious assault as though the incoming projectiles didn't exist. And then, just as expected, the shells collided with him.
They exploded in a furious storm of flame, molten shrapnel, and searing kinetic force. The blast lit up the air around him in a fiery bloom of destruction that would have shredded a normal human being into minced meat—nothing more than scattered flesh and blood.
But, of course, Mikael and Kiara were far more resilient than ordinary humans. Under normal circumstances, they should have emerged from the explosion relatively unscathed—injured, perhaps, but nothing too serious. Even so, they should have been hit. That was the natural outcome. Yet, strangely, the expected impact never came. The shells, despite their destructive power, collided harmlessly against the surface of Mikael's aura cloak, which—unlike usual—had expanded to envelop not just himself but Kiara as well in its protective embrace.
It was strange. Under normal conditions, Mikael's aura cloak didn't behave like that. Typically, the moment he activated it, his body would be enhanced, and a thin protective film of aura would form around him. That film would serve as his primary layer of defense, shielding him from harm—up to a certain threshold. But that threshold wasn't particularly high, because the cloak's main function wasn't pure defense.
In a regular scenario, when multiple powerful shells like these struck him simultaneously, they would have easily overwhelmed the film's limited protection. However, even as the film was pierced, the aura cloak would serve its real purpose: reducing the incoming damage to its lowest possible level before allowing Mikael's reinforced body to absorb the remainder of the impact.
In short, the aura cloak wasn't meant to completely block an attack—it was meant to lessen it, giving the user a better chance of survival.
But this time, something different had happened.
The aura cloak hadn't just weakened the shells—it had completely nullified them. Not a single fragment or hint of force had passed through. The powerful blasts had been halted in their entirety, unable to breach the aura's surface. That shouldn't have been possible. And yet, it was.
That was because Mikael hadn't deployed the usual version of his aura cloak. Instead, he had activated a different variation: the Total Protection Aura Cloak.
The Total Protection cloak functioned similarly to the standard one in structure and activation, but with one crucial difference—it operated on a binary principle: either it can block an attack completely, or it fails to block it at all. There was no partial absorption, no letting some force slip through. It was all or nothing. If the attack could be blocked, it would be entirely stopped, no matter its power or nature. That was its greatest strength.
In theory, this mode allowed its user to be completely shielded from all harm, regardless of what they faced. But that immense defense came with a severe drawback.
Unlike the regular cloak, whose maintenance cost was manageable, the Total Protection mode directly consumed the user's aura reserves at an extremely rapid rate—draining them with every blow it negated.
And that was the reason why this mode was so rarely used in real combat. In the middle of a fierce battle, exhausting one's aura in mere moments could easily become a death sentence. No matter how perfect the defense, if it couldn't last, it was meaningless. That was why, despite being weaker in raw defense, the standard aura cloak remained the favored choice in most situations—it balanced protection and endurance in a way the Total Protection mode simply couldn't match.
And its extreme energy consumption was now on full display. Barely two seconds had passed since Mikael initiated his attack, yet his aura reserves had already dropped to 93%. Of that total, 5% had been spent maintaining his continuous thirty-minute usage of the Weightless Wind–Explosive Style. However, the remaining 2% had been drained during just those two seconds in which wall-integrated cannons had targeted him—and that was while most of the wall's automated defenses had yet to engage, caught off guard by the sheer speed and unexpected nature of his offensive maneuver. But with every passing second, there was no doubt the intensity of the assault would only grow, and with it, the rate at which his aura reserves would be consumed.
But was Mikael unaware of this glaring weakness? Did he not know the risks involved in using the Total Protection variant of the aura cloak? Of course he did. He was fully aware of the price it demanded. And yet, he had chosen to activate it anyway—because right now, he was carrying Kiara, and he had no concrete idea of the dwarves' current firepower. The potential for a fatal surprise was too high. So, he didn't take any chances. He pushed his defenses to their absolute limit. He would not allow a stray shot to harm her.
And thus, the third second of his assault began.
The dwarves were momentarily dumbfounded. They hadn't expected the wall's automated systems to activate against an enemy who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Caught completely off guard, they failed to react in time.
But that hesitation didn't last.
A second later, one of the dwarf commanders snapped out of his shock and bellowed, "Intruder! Open fire!"
At his command, and within the next two seconds, numerous guards redirected their attention toward the two airborne figures. A barrage of projectiles erupted as dwarven soldiers and turrets alike unleashed a rain of fire upon Mikael and Kiara. Simultaneously, more and more wall-integrated cannons were swiveling into position and opening fire.
Yet, amid the chaos, Mikael's gaze remained composed—unmoved by the scrambling dwarves and the storm of attacks. He ignored them all, his focus fixed solely on carving a breach into the towering wall. Despite five full seconds of concentrated assault on a single narrow section, he had managed to dig barely three meters into the dense blue metal. A lesser structure would have already collapsed under that level of pressure. But this wall… this wall was anything but ordinary. Its sheer density and reinforcement made it monstrously resistant. For now, it held.
As he continued hammering at the wall, a movement caught his eye—just at the edge of his vision.
From the corner of his gaze, he spotted them: enormous white-and-blue cannons with a sleek, futuristic design, seamlessly embedded into the upper levels of the so-called 'inner wall'. They were absolutely massive, their metallic forms partially fused into the very structure of the fortress. Slowly—almost laboriously—they began to stir, shifting their aim ever so gradually, yet unmistakably, toward him.
The rotation was sluggish, taking several seconds to adjust their angle. During that brief window, Mikael took full advantage of the opportunity, continuing to dig deeper into the wall with precision and aggression, even as his aura reserves continued to diminish. He was now down to 82%.
Then, without warning, a faint blue glow began to form inside the barrels of each of the colossal cannons. As the seconds ticked by, the light grew steadily in brightness, its glow becoming sharper, more intense, more dangerous.
'This doesn't look good,' thought Mikael, his eyes narrowing as he tracked the charging cannons that now threatened to unleash their full might upon him.
Two seconds later, every one of those enormous white-and-blue weapons roared to life. In perfect unison, they discharged streams of concentrated energy, each firing a beam that vibrated with raw, humming power. The blue beams tore across the air, crossing the vast distance between them and Mikael in the blink of an eye.
But just before the beams could strike, Mikael acted.
Author Note:
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