CHAPTER 275: WAR OF ATTRITION; THE CRUCIAL BREAKTHROUGH

With a thunderous crash, Iron King Bogul brought its twin steel feet down upon the World-Eater's corrupted spectral tree. The titanic force shattered the tree's upper boughs into fragments of translucent matter. A heartbeat later, the iron giant then slammed directly into the World-Eater's body with earth-splitting weight.

The impact tore the World-Eater away from the Tree of Life, halting its process of corruption.

Flesh-laced tendrils and pulsing vascular limbs linking the World-Eater to the Tree of Life erupted in a deluge of gore, cascading down like a storm upon the Iron King and the World-Eater pinned beneath him.

The two titans fell. The World-Eater was crushed beneath its own mass, and Bogul atop it. They landed with a cataclysmic impact that made the very bedrock of Liaheim tremble.

The ground caved inward, and the resulting crater was swiftly filled with the vile ichor seeping from the ruptured husk of the World-Eater's massive frame.

Nevertheless, the World-Eater still had a near-endless supply of life force to draw on. That life force surged through its wrecked body, shearing off the crushed flesh beneath Iron King Bogul's feet. In mere seconds, it had regenerated anew.

The World-Eater reared up, its body hale and whole once more. With mandibles gnashing and limbs flailing, it lunged once more at the towering steel titan.

A heavy grind echoed from deep within Iron King Bogul's chest. Something had just been activated. With a searing flare, the titan's rocket-thrusters ignited in reverse, sending fire belching in the opposite direction and hurling him forward with terrifying speed.

Fire bloomed from his gauntlets. In that instant, the Iron King's fist, a slab of reinforced steel, was accelerated to a speed that defied belief. It struck the World-Eater with all the force of a meteor.

It was as though someone had punched straight through a jar of rotting entrails.

The flaming fist collided with the World-Eater's body in a devastating explosion of force.

No mana, divinity, or void powered the attack—just raw alchemical might and brutal momentum. A full twenty meters of the creature's upper body, including its head, was obliterated in a grotesque fountain of flesh and gore.

And the Iron King's fist didn't stop there. Hidden machinery within its body shifted and locked into place. As the thruster's fire dimmed, a new mechanism unfolded from inside his arm, locking into the outer casing like a giant knuckle-duster forged for war.

At his elbow, purple light flared—gravity magic reversed its pull. The massive arm snapped back into position with startling precision, ready for a follow-up strike.

As if anticipating his foe's next move, the Iron King lashed out the instant the World-Eater finished regenerating.

His modified fist crashed once more into the beast's torso, this time erupting in a blast of fire and shrapnel that swallowed both titan and monster alike.

The device embedded in his fist was no ordinary weapon. It was an alchemical bomb, a gargantuan "blast-knuckle" invented by a mad gnome scientist. That gnome had insisted on outfitting the Iron King with the weapon, and the dwarves had run some calculations to assess its potential damage output before agreeing vigorously.

That weapon worked just as planned. As the firestorm faded, the Iron King emerged unscathed, his red-hot armor glowing like molten metal as he tore through the remaining flame.

With each step, flames coiled around his legs. His already overwhelming presence grew oppressive.

The World-Eater's gargantuan form lay in tatters. Though life force surged frantically around it, the sheer extent of the damage could not be undone in mere seconds. It would take significant time to reconstruct its body.

Iron King Bogul had no intention of giving the World-Eater that time. From the narrow slit of his helm, searing energy began to coalesce between the twin crimson lights that served as his eyes, targeting the twitching, half-healed body of the World-Eater.

But something beat him to it. A scarlet beam screamed from afar. The World-Eater had remotely activated the Blighted Warspike, which had been torn from its grasp after the Iron King's attack.

The blast scorched past Iron King Bogul's last position and struck the already-wounded Tree of Life. Explosions blossomed across the ancient bark, further blackening its outsides. The scarlet ray carved a deadly path all the way up to its canopy.

After the World-Eater had corrupted the Primeval Lance Kasimir into the Blighted Warspike, it had gained innate control of the relic and was able to channel its might even from afar.

But Iron King Bogul wasn't in its path.

His back armor had opened mid-movement, revealing a colossal vent that deployed a blazing jet: a single flaming wing.

The incredible thrust flung the hulking titan sideways in a gliding motion, allowing him to skim across the battlefield and evade the ruinous strike with improbable grace.

The fire ceased. Scorched vents folded back into his armor. The Iron King turned and braced itself in a low stance, its treads carving grooves into the ground.

The twin red glows beneath his helm swelled, then flashed. A beam of crimson brilliance lanced through the battlefield, striking the half-regenerated World-Eater in the heart of its writhing bulk.

The light flayed flesh from its bones, carving through it like a hot knife through butter.

Ten meters, thirty, sixty, a hundred... The World-Eater's serpentine body was being sheared away by the Iron King's unrelenting stream of energy.

The monster writhed and thrashed, trying to evade the attack, but to no avail. Where it moved, the beam followed—like death incarnate, trailing its every move.

Then, something changed. The World-Eater suddenly shook violently. Its life force surged not toward its disintegrating half, but to its rear.

With grotesque speed, the flesh at its tail end swelled and burst. Out grew a new head, crowned with a single massive, tumorous eye. It had reversed itself—swapping head and tail, then regrowing a brain.

At last, the Iron King's beam sputtered and ceased. His helm glowed red-hot, his weapon overheated. Both titans paused, steam rising between them.

One was recovering, the other recharging. Iron King Bogul's body hissed in anticipation of his next attack.

The World-Eater now circled warily, like a snake coiling for a second strike. Its many limbs retrieved the corrupted warspike. That bloated new head turned slowly, eye locked on Iron King Bogul's burning form.

"Why can't I affect this metal giant?" came a voice from beyond the veil.

Within the void, a devil stared at a projection of the battle, its warped claws reaching toward the image. Distortion magic surged from its hands.

"I should have been able to seize control—unless I depleted all my void reserves. That golem would've been an agent of our chaos!"

Another voice chuckled. "No matter. It lacks the destructive power to end things outright. So long as the World-Eater isn't annihilated, its boundless vitality and the corrupted lance will allow it to outlast any opponent."

"Hah! I can't wait to see the look on those nosy dwarves and self-righteous elves when their savior is torn apart!"

"Are you sure that metal giant is safe?" Sieg stood atop a crumbled tower in Liaheim's ruins, frowning. "Alchemical constructs are notoriously easy to hijack. If devils can distort control cores, what's stopping them from turning the Iron King against us?"

Beside him, the dwarf Tobey scoffed.

"You think we dwarves are that careless? We knew devils could tamper with minds—and we're confident our defenses will hold up. We wouldn't have come otherwise."

Tobey shook his head as he stared at the Iron King Bogul, who stood silently and resolute. A thrill of anticipation burned in his chest. Was the Iron King charging up his ultimate technique? It made sense. Perhaps that would be the only method capable of obliterating such an absurdly tenacious worm in a single strike.

"We borrowed the Tree of Life's root network for one purpose alone—to complete the Iron King's control core. That core is rudimentary at best. It doesn't have what you'd consider intellect. It was made solely to control the Iron King.

"It's not so much a control core as it is a mechanical brain, a mechanism engineered to respond to a vast range of battlefield conditions. And yet... it lives.

"It can judge. It can adapt. It will choose the best tactics based on its own analysis. I don't know what it'll do next... but I do know what it's doing now."

Tobey quickly explained the Iron King's peculiarities to Sieg, who listened attentively. The Iron King was far more than a vessel of brute strength. The sheer ingenuity embedded in its design filled him with awe.

Then, as Tobey fell silent, the Iron King made its next move—a decision so monumental it sent a shiver through the dwarf's bones.

Faced with the impossible resilience of the World-Eater, the Iron King chose total annihilation. It would unleash everything in a single, all-consuming barrage.

With a mechanical jolt, the armored plate across its chest dropped away, revealing the intricate engine within—an arcane reactor core encased in countless whirring mechanisms and glowing magical circuits, brimming with unimaginable power.

The World-Eater wasted no time. The moment it saw the exposed reactor, it raised the Blighted Warspike and flooded it with raw life force. Light began to gather at its tip—a blast meant to annihilate the perceived vulnerability in its sights.

But above the creature's head, three rings of violet lightning blinked into existence—concentric arcs of gravitational magic, descending from large to small.

Forged by the very runes etched upon the Iron King's chestplate, these rings brought crushing force down upon the World-Eater. Its body buckled.

Around the Iron King's exposed core, mechanical limbs began sliding complex metal components etched with masterful, compact spellwork into place, forming a protective lattice in lieu of the discarded armor.

The Iron King now seemed leaner, more agile. Then, with the new structure fully assembled and its core charged beyond capacity, the rings of violet lightning blazed to life with renewed fury. Its overwhelming presence grew even more terrifying—divine, almost.

The World-Eater convulsed. Every motion it tried to make was halted by the unrelenting crush of the gravitational rings.

Its limbs burst. Its flesh turned to sludge. Its massive body cracked the earth beneath it as it was ground downward, crushed, forced to devour its own mass in a tangled knot of self-destruction.

Then, a radiant sphere began to form at the edge of the Iron King's reactor. It was so bright it threatened to swallow the around it. It slowly grew larger and larger as it was drawn into position by the Iron King's guiding limbs.

"Final Requiem," Tobey exhaled, naming the attack. Gravity continued to crush the World-Eater as the Iron King prepared the final movement in its symphony of annihilation.

The sphere swelled to the size of the core itself—a miniature sun hovering at the Iron King's chest. Sieg and Tobey squinted, shielding their eyes. Even the core's own glow seemed dim in comparison: after all, it had supplied all the energy now in the sphere.

The sphere pulsed. It floated forward. What it lacked in speed, it made up for in raw power. As it splashed against the immobilized World-Eater, its wrath exploded. Judgment descended.

A blazing column of destruction erupted skyward, incinerating everything—rubble, stone, air, and stray magic alike. All was obliterated without a trace.

Then, just as swiftly, it was gone. In the wake of the blast remained only a vast crater of melted rock. Magma bubbled. Radiant crystalline debris lay scattered for kilometers around. Of the World-Eater, nothing was left.

"Did we... do it?" Wang Yu muttered from afar, stunned. "That iron giant was incredible."

"No," Avia replied grimly, eyes locked on the feedback flashing through her fractal lens. "It's not over. I'm getting signals from beneath the surface—right where the Tree of Life's root system runs."

"Damn it. The corrupted earth..."

Wang Yu swore. He understood at once.

The World-Eater had not died. The corruption unleashed in the destruction of the World Tree and Liaheim had long since penetrated the depths of the underground. The roots below had been tainted—and that meant the World-Eater could use them to regenerate.

As if summoned by this dreadful realization, the Blighted Warspike erupted from the molten pit. A crimson beam slashed toward the Iron King, now slowed from its massive energy expenditure.

Strong though its ultimate attack had been, it wasn't sufficient to finish off the underground network of corruption that gave the World-Eater one final chance.

From deep underground, the World-Eater channeled a surge of life force into the Blighted Warspike.

It fired a beam that struck Iron King Bogul's helmet. A brutal detonation ripped through the Iron King's neck. The iron helm—his noble crown—was torn clean off, along with the head it covered.

The Iron King's massive body shuddered as his head hit the ground.

In the void between worlds, the devil of distortion burst into manic laughter.

"Hah! Pathetic! Glorious—wait... what?!"

His laughter halted. His eyes widened in disbelief.

The headless Iron King reached down calmly and picked up its fallen helm.

Then it hurled it. The helmet smashed into the World-Eater, toppling the writhing worm with crushing force.

"They don't get it!" Tobey shouted in Sieg's direction. "That head's decorative! Who the hell puts their core in their head? That's the dumbest place imaginable!"

Then, he shook his head. "Dammit! That worm's still alive even after Final Requiem—how the hell do you kill a thing like that?!"

Indeed, the Iron King's helm contained only a beam weapon—nothing vital.

The real control core was hidden in its heel.

And so, the headless Iron King remained locked in stalemate with the World-Eater. It had suffered only minor damage: thirty percent of its energy reserves had been consumed, and it had lost one weapon. It still had many more in reserve.

But the situation was worsening. While the Iron King could not destroy the World-Eater utterly, the World-Eater could hurt the Iron King.

If this dragged on, Tobey's masterwork would fall. And Liaheim, along with the Tree of Life, would be lost to corruption.

"No... wait," Avia murmured, thinking furiously. "The World-Eater's body was completely destroyed. If it still exists, it must have become a construct of pure life force. All its organs are gone, but its source of life... must have been untouched.

"And if it can still draw on all that vitality even without any physical organs, then its source of life must not be physical in nature."

She recalled Sieg's draconic body, kept in a separate spatial fold. Then, all at once, it clicked.

Of course the World-Eater's reservoir of life force wasn't in its body. It had to exist in another dimension entirely. And only by destroying that reservoir could the beast truly die.

Avia's hands flew over the Perfect Fractal lens by her eye as she reconfigured it. She fed it the spatial data she had once used to observe Sieg's draconic essence.

Then she activated the lens and scrutinized the World-Eater carefully. In her enhanced vision, she could see a shimmering bubble orbiting the World-Eater's massive bulk—moving erratically, difficult to pin down.

Within surged a roiling sea of green—a boundless tide of life force. That was it. That had to be the World-Eater's reservoir containing decades of stolen life force.

Avia smiled. She tapped the lens and shared the data with Wang Yu, who stood beside her. The key to victory had just revealed itself.