CHAPTER 163: THE DANCE OF DIVERSION

The Sunken Temple was a breathtaking, terrifying sight. It was a massive, barnacle-encrusted ziggurat of black, volcanic rock, half-submerged in a churning, icy sea. A single, precarious causeway of slick, wet stone was the only path to its entrance.

Hephaestus’s forces were already there. A legion of bronze automatons, their eyes glowing with a dull, red light, stood guard on the causeway, their massive spears and shields forming an impenetrable wall.

Nox’s army watched from a hidden cove a mile down the coast.

"He is truly going to do it," Serian whispered, her heart pounding.

Nox stood at the edge of the cove, alone. He was wearing his full Infernal Monarch armor, the helm’s eyes burning with a cold, purple light. He looked at his companions.

"You all know the plan," he said. "Vexia, you have the timers. Mela, Elisa, you go on her signal. Serian... be ready."

He turned and walked out of the cove, onto the open, windswept beach. He started walking toward the causeway, a single, dark figure against the churning gray sea.

The automatons on the causeway turned as one, their glowing red eyes fixing on him. A deep, resonant horn blast echoed from the temple, a call to arms.

Nox didn’t stop walking. He just raised his scepter, Regulus.

’Liona,’ he thought. ’Let’s make some noise.’

He didn’t fire a beam of energy. He didn’t summon a monster. He just tapped the butt of his scepter on the sand.

A pulse of pure, silent void energy washed over the entire coastline.

And the sea... went still.

The churning, crashing waves just... stopped. The entire ocean for a mile in every direction became a sheet of flat, black, unmoving glass. The silence was more shocking than any explosion.

The automatons on the causeway froze, their programming unable to process what had just happened.

In the silent, windless air, Nox’s voice, amplified by his power, echoed across the still water.

"Hephaestus!" he called out, his voice a calm, clear challenge. "I have come for your toys. Are you going to hide behind your metal dolls, or are you going to face me?"

A new, deeper horn blast answered him from the temple. The ranks of the automatons parted, and a new figure emerged. It was a colossus, thirty feet tall, forged from celestial bronze and burning with an internal fire. It was Talos, the legendary guardian of Crete, Hephaestus’s greatest creation.

Talos raised its massive, bronze sword and pointed it at Nox.

Nox just grinned. "Good. I was hoping you’d send the big guy."

He looked at the watch that Vexia had synchronized with her timers. ’Three minutes until the party starts.’

He raised his scepter. "Let’s dance."

The distraction had begun. And the heist was on.

---

Talos moved, its massive bronze feet striking the stone causeway with enough force to send cracks spiderwebbing through the ancient rock. Its charge was not fast, but it was relentless, an unstoppable avalanche of divine metal.

Nox did not meet the charge. ’Direct confrontation is inefficient,’ he thought, the voice of Liona a calm counterpoint to the thunderous footsteps of the colossus.

He flickered, a stutter of void energy that moved him to the side as Talos’s massive sword came crashing down, shattering the causeway where he had been standing. Chunks of stone the size of cars were thrown into the air.

’Okay, he hits hard. Very hard.’

While Talos was recovering from its swing, Nox was already in motion. He didn’t attack the automaton’s body; its celestial bronze hide was nearly indestructible. He attacked the ground.

He pointed his scepter, Regulus, at the causeway beneath Talos’s feet. A focused beam of pure, corrosive void energy shot out, not with a flash, but with a silent, hungry darkness. The ancient stone didn’t explode; it dissolved, turning to black sand that poured into the now-moving sea.

A huge section of the causeway vanished, and Talos, for all its immense power, was subject to the simple laws of gravity. It stumbled, its left leg plunging into the newly created chasm, its massive body tipping precariously to one side.

From their hidden cove, Elisa let out a low whistle. "Clever bastard. He’s not fighting the robot; he’s fighting the bridge."

Nox didn’t give the colossus a chance to recover. He flickered again, appearing on its now-unbalanced shoulder. He ran up the automaton’s massive arm, his armored boots finding purchase on the intricate metalwork.

Talos roared, a deafening sound of grinding gears and divine fury, and tried to grab him with its other hand.

Nox was faster. He reached the colossus’s head and drove the pointed base of his scepter deep into the glowing red optic that served as its eye.

The optic shattered, and the colossus let out a shriek of agony, its movements becoming wild and uncoordinated. It thrashed blindly, its sword carving massive, random gouges in the air and the surrounding rock.

Nox just leaped from its head, his void wings carrying him back to the relative safety of the beach.

The distraction was working perfectly. Every automaton on the causeway, every defense system in the temple, was now focused on the single, terrifying threat that had just blinded their greatest guardian.

---

Miles away, at the base of the temple’s sheer cliff face, Vexia looked at her chronometer. "Now."

Elisa grinned and slammed her fists together. Mela drew a single, black-fletched needle from her pouch.

"Let’s go break some stuff," Elisa said.

She charged, her warhammer held high, and slammed it into the base of the cliff. It wasn’t a random strike; it was aimed at a specific point, a structural weakness that Nox’s simulation had identified. The rock cracked, a deep fissure spiderwebbing up the cliff face.

Mela was next. She threw her needle, not at the cliff, but into the crack Elisa had just made. The needle vanished into the darkness, and a moment later, a low, muffled boom echoed from deep within the rock. The alchemical agent on the needle had ignited, a small but potent explosion that widened the crack just enough.

The two of them worked in perfect sync, a brutal but effective demolition team, creating a new, unauthorized entrance into the temple’s underbelly.

---

High above, in a hidden sea cave, Vexia began her own work. She was surrounded by a complex array of glowing runes she had spent the last hour meticulously carving into the cave floor.

"Thirty seconds to activation," she murmured, her eyes closed, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air.

She was not just casting a spell; she was hacking the divine. She was using her knowledge of the World’s Scripture to create a localized ’glitch’, a temporary blind spot in the temple’s security network. It was a feat of magical engineering that would have been impossible for any other mage.

---

Inside the temple, in a high-vaulted chamber, Serian held her breath. She stood before a massive, iron-bound door, the entrance to the forge.

She heard the faint, distant sounds of Nox’s battle with Talos. She felt the subtle tremor as Elisa and Mela began their work on the foundations.

She looked at the small, glowing timer in her hand, a gift from Vexia.

’Ten seconds.’

The door before her was covered in glowing, celestial bronze locks, each one a divine puzzle that would take a master locksmith weeks to solve.

’Five seconds.’

She placed her hand on the cold iron of the door.

’Three... two... one...’

A wave of pure, silent energy washed through the temple. For a single, thirty-second window, every magical ward, every divine lock, every security system within the Sunken Temple went completely dead.

Vexia’s dead zone was active.

Serian pushed.

The massive, iron-bound door, which should have been impossible to move, swung open on silent hinges.

She stepped into the heart of the forge. The room was a cavern of immense size, the air hot and thick with the smell of ozone and molten metal. In the center of the room, a being of pure, incandescent fire, the captured elemental, was bound by glowing bronze chains to a massive, black anvil.

Dozens of half-finished weapons and pieces of armor lay scattered around the room, the legendary works of a god.

And standing before the anvil, his back to her, was a massive, stooped figure, his powerful hands hammering a piece of glowing metal. He was clad in a simple blacksmith’s apron, his muscular body misshapen and lame, his every movement a study in pained, laborious effort.

Hephaestus.

He turned slowly, his face, bearded and scarred, a mask of pure, divine surprise. "Who... who are you? How did you get in here?"

Serian didn’t answer. She just raised her sword, its blade beginning to glow with a soft, golden light.

"I am here," she said, her voice ringing with the quiet authority of a queen, "to set him free."

The thirty-second window was closing. The heist was at its critical point. And the god of the forge had just found an intruder in his most sacred of workshops.

---

Hephaestus stared at her, his massive, calloused hands still holding his hammer. His face, a landscape of ancient scars and divine weariness, was not angry. It was confused.

"Free him?" he said, his voice a deep, rumbling bass, like stones grinding together. "Child, you do not understand. He is not a prisoner. He is power. Raw, untamed creation. Without these chains, he would burn this world to a cinder."

"All living things deserve to be free," Serian replied, her voice unwavering. "Your father’s war is not his."

The thirty-second dead zone created by Vexia had ended. The divine locks on the door behind Serian clicked back into place with a series of loud, metallic chimes. The magical wards of the temple flared back to life. She was trapped.

A deep, resonant alarm began to sound throughout the temple, a clear, ringing bell of divine intrusion.

Hephaestus just sighed, a sound of profound disappointment. He set his hammer down on the anvil. "Zeus warned me of you. The Feselian heir. He said you were a naive idealist." He looked at her, and his eyes were not the eyes of a warrior, but of a sad, old artist. "It seems he was right."

He did not raise a weapon. He just clapped his hands together once.

The half-finished weapons and pieces of armor scattered around the forge began to stir. Metal plates flew together, assembling themselves into the forms of gleaming, multi-limbed automatons. Swords and spears lifted into the air, animated by an unseen force. The forge itself came to life, a legion of metal born from a god’s will.

"I do not wish to harm you, child," Hephaestus said. "But you have trespassed in my workshop. And you have threatened my work. You will not be leaving."

The army of constructs advanced on her, their metal feet scraping on the stone floor.

---

Outside, Nox felt the temple’s security systems roar back to life. He saw a dozen new, smaller automatons emerge from the temple entrance, their forms sleek and canine, like a pack of metal wolves.

"So much for the easy part," he grunted.

Talos, still half-stuck in the ruined causeway, had finally managed to pull itself free. Its shattered eye was now a mess of sparking wires, but it was back on its feet, its rage absolute.

The new pack of wolf-automatons charged, their movements fast and coordinated. Nox was now caught between the enraged colossus and a pack of relentless, metal predators.

’This is going to be a long fight,’ he thought.

---

Deep in the foundations of the temple, Elisa and Mela also felt the alarms.

"That’s our cue," Elisa said, a savage grin on her face. "Time to bring the house down."

She hefted her warhammer and slammed it into the main support pillar they had been weakening. The pillar groaned, a massive crack running up its length.

But before she could strike again, the wall beside them exploded inward. Two of Hephaestus’s forge-constructs, hulking brutes of iron and brass, smashed their way into the chamber.

"Looks like the welcoming committee is here," Mela said, her needles already a silver storm in the air.

"Good," Elisa replied, turning to face the new threat. "I was getting tired of hitting rocks."

The battle for the Sunken Temple had just become a three-front war.

---

In the forge, Serian was a whirlwind of golden light. She moved with a dancer’s grace, her glowing sword a blur as she cut through the advancing constructs. But for every one she struck down, two more took its place. They were an endless, unfeeling tide of metal.

She was not just a warrior; she was a beacon. She poured her pure, divine energy into every strike, her holy light the only thing that could truly damage the god-forged metal. But it was costing her. She could feel her own energy draining away, a candle burning against a hurricane.

Hephaestus just watched from his anvil, his expression unreadable. He did not interfere. This was a test. A test of her strength, of her will.

"You cannot win, child," his voice rumbled. "Your light is finite. My creations are not."

"My will is not!" she shot back, parrying the strike of a four-armed iron golem and severing one of its limbs at the joint.

She needed to get to the elemental. She needed to break the chains. But the army of constructs was a wall between her and her objective.

She took a deep breath, her golden aura flaring. ’I cannot do this alone.’

She closed her eyes, not in defeat, but in focus. She reached out with her mind, not to her sisters, but to the boy who was fighting for his life on the causeway outside.

’Nox,’ she thought, her voice a silent, desperate prayer. ’I need you.’

---

Nox was not having a good time.

He was a phantom, flickering and weaving between the clumsy but devastating blows of Talos and the fast, snapping jaws of the wolf-automatons. It was a chaotic, exhausting dance of survival. He was not losing, but he was not winning either. He was just... holding on.

Then he felt it.

A faint, warm touch in the back of his mind. A whisper of golden light in the cold darkness of his own void.

’Serian.’

He did not hear her words, but he felt her intent. She was in trouble. She needed him.

He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t leave his own fight. He couldn’t get to her.

’But maybe...’ a reckless, insane idea sparked in his mind, ’maybe I don’t have to.’

He had felt their connection before, during the fight with the Guardian. He had drawn on her power. What if... what if he could send his own power to her?

He flickered, creating a precious second of breathing room as Talos’s sword smashed into the ground. He focused his will, not on a weapon, not on a shield, but on a concept. He gathered a piece of his own void, the essence of his Monarch’s Dominion, and pushed it out, a silent, invisible thread of black energy aimed for the heart of the temple, guided by the faint warmth of her call.