Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

He roared in rage as his enemy was once again shattered but quickly reformed itself. The great demon had quickly realized that he was actually fighting a golem, but it didn’t help soothe his anger. Again and again, he crushed the moving amor, again and again, it started rebuilding itself!

Porco had unleashed his full power to deal with the weird warrior quickly and to take revenge on Minas Mar for the loss he suffered. Instead, he felt like he was being whittled away, despite his efforts. His opponent simply kept coming back, while the cuts on his arms still burned with excruciating pain and refused to heal.

He was a mountain, hard and strong. He was able to crush anything in his path, but the golem was like the ocean. Unrelenting, unforgiving, constantly eroding his base using the Flame of the Burning Skies.

His heart quivered at the time it would take to recover to his former strength. Decades? Centuries? That was if he ever even managed to climb his way back up. He couldn’t even flee at this point. Bragmomal didn’t accept cowards and much less weaklings. Porco would die here or by his hands.

The frustration, the sorrows, everything fueled his rage and madness, as he poured it into his attacks. Laced with curses and dark magic, his fists kept pounding the little bastard into the ground. There was no way out, other than winning and surviving here.

He would- “Urgh!” Survive?

A sudden strike filled with tremendous power hit his back, catapulting him deep into the cliffs he raised himself. The attack was unlike anything the little golem had done so far and it lacked the searing pain of demonic flames.

However, the physical force behind it actually cracked his spine. The damage was healed by the time he was able to stop his flight, but it had left a lasting impact. The thing he was proudest of, was his physical strength and defense. His body was a fortress.

Despite that, his back was shattered. The thought of a purely physical force able to do so ran shivers down his healed spine. Not even Bragmomal was able of an attack of this extent, and he had long become a Demon King, a legend by system standards.

Crush rock in his hands, he pulled himself out from the hole he created on the way and finally saw his attacker. A tall, lean woman wearing golden armor in the style of the Olympian Pantheon. In her hands a shield, dripping with his blood, and a spear.

“I’m Lyca, Amazon of Solene I’m on my journey into the System Worlds. Would you care for a bout?” she asked with a confident smile as if she was simply introducing herself to a simple stranger.

He knew her, but he almost failed to recognize her. The power she radiated was on a completely different level from what he witnessed during the tournament. The little golem was annoying, but this wench seemed like a serious problem...

…

“How are things going?” Seth asked the moment he entered the VIP-lounge that had become their base of operations for the moment. When he looked around the room, he found that most of his friends had their eyes glued to their screens.

“The fights across the city have calmed down and the members we sent out are now gathering at the center to deal with the remaining swarm and the deserters,” Luf gave a short summary of the current situation.

Without the immortal to back them, the alliance had lost its cohesion. Fearing a monumental loss, they were all trying their best to get out of the city, now that the barrier was gone. The people and allies of Minas Mar on the other hand had fought with minimal losses so far and were now pushing inward to surround the remaining enemy forces. They had come to murder and pillage and nobody was ready to just let them leave without paying the price.

“What about Mina? Did Lyca get there in time?” the blacksmith asked the more pressing question. He didn't feel the need to hide, that he cared for her the most, especially since she was the one in the danger zone. Luf couldn't suppress a small cheeky smile.

“What do you think they are watching?” she asked, pointing at the crowd in the lounge watching a broadcast with rapt attention. “Since Lyca brought a few live-broadcast golem eyes with her, we were able to get a live feed from the battle. Mina is fine. The golem bought enough time, now it and Lyca are fighting the beast.” she explained the situation and showed him the broadcast on the tablet.

It was a massive hog walking on two legs, being pummeled by super-saiyan Lyca and the half-molten Bazilith. The northwestern part of the Pythian Village was completely fucked. The plane where the city was built had turned into a landscape resembling a miniature version of the guild's Holy Land.

In the air above the jagged battlefield floated people wearing crowns of dark energy, seemingly unconscious. Mina was not involved in the fight, but Seth could see the shadows move at the fringes of the scenes, taking away these victims.

Like the others, his attention was drawn to the battle, once his worries for his fiance were appeased

It didn't take much for the demonic bard to recognize the opponent as a demon, and a strong one at that.

Secretly, the blacksmith had thought of Bazilith as one of the golems with the greatest growth potential. Its power right after creation probably only fell behind Al'Zalsar and the Colossus of Rhodes. That it could keep up with a great demon without having much chance to grow, just showed that he was correct.

Seeing Lyca able to pummel the great demon just confirmed his opinion of her. She may not be a legend, but she was probably around the power level of Al'Zalsar, albeit with a different specialization.

“Did you decide not to broadcast this?” Seth asked Luf. The scenes currently shown in the arena and to the world, were the triumphal advance of Minas Mar's forces against the chaotic army of cultivators.

“We discussed it, but decided to keep this footage back,” Mary intervened. “Good. Well done,” Seth praised with a nod. After all, they were not a TV station that had to chase quotes at any price. Bazilith was the secret bodyguard he prepared for Mina and Fin. Revealing his existence to the world would just made its job harder.

“Wait, what is going on there?” Duhu suddenly mentioned, looking at his screen.

...

Mina was high above in the air, collecting the last floaters, when she noticed a dim orange glow in the devastated city below. It wasn’t the fire of Bazilith, who turned into a beast of semi-liquid metal. It also wasn’t Lyca’s golden radiance, but a much dimmer and much wider glow. The light crept up through the holes, the cracks, and the canyons created by Porco Bello’s rampage.

“Aww, shit…” Mina mumbled pulling away the remaining floater and getting away from the battle. She had stayed long enough in Delta to know that a glow from the deep was nothing good. After all, the biggest threat to the central district was that the highest peak of the central mountains range, not too far away from it, was a massive volcano.

As such, her first thought when seeing this kind of glow was that magma was trapped below the surface of the mountains. Porco had ripped and trenched into the bedrock, hundreds of meters deep. The conclusion was only logical.

Looking back from a safer distance, Mina's heart dropped. Porco had stopped fighting the two and ignored their attacks, instead, he was once again lifting his fists in the air. He was surrounded by an aura of darkness, that stopped Bazilith and Lyca from interrupting his final move.

The power was channeled into his raised fist, just before they struck down at a speed, Mina couldn't perceive. It was as if a massive hammer strike had pounded the ground as Porco hit it for the third time. The whole area in a radius of hundreds of meters sank down by tens of meters.

The next moment, fountains of molten rock rose into the night sky, illuminating the ragged landscape with their orange hue. A truly apocalyptic scene. Where the Pig, Lyca, and Bazilith had been fighting just moments ago, a lake of lava was quickly taking shape as the liquid rock filled the crater.