Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 145: The Death Line

As the last wave of Longwei's explosion faded in sheets of trembling heat, scorched wind swept across the broken and melted field.

Ashes, burnt flesh, and the bitter smell of melted stone lanced through the nostrils and lungs of every pale face.

Rivers of orange light ran down through the cracked rock where the blast had struck deeper. Chunks of basalt stone rained from above, striking the ground with loud, dull sounds.

In an impossible beam of golden light, which began to dissipate as the sparks from the blast flew around, Leon stood there, one boot half-slid back.

His ears rang. For a few seconds, all he could hear was the shrill emptiness and the wild beat of his own heart.

Although he wasn't badly affected like the soldiers who had formed a ring for the reporters, he could feel their pain in his bones.

The world before him moved in fragments of smoke, falling pebbles, and the torn shape of the collapsed ground, giving him the memory of Alchemania.

Zoe's hand reached out for him, then stopped halfway, her eyes opening. "Where is the other Agathan hero?" The words escaped her before she could construct them into proper sentences.

She looked at Hei Yung's body, which remained in the midst of hazy blue lightning that had formed a ring behind his back.

Where Longwei had stood was now a crater of molten rock and white steam. Nobody. Not even a splash of blood on the side of the mountain that hadn't melted completely.

As the steam began to shift, it looked like the heat was only bending the air.

But when the slick remains of the Abyssal Maw Lord emerged slowly from the fog of smoke, the red-black vapor got swallowed in a long, greedy breath.

Leon's heart stopped the second he found the creature still standing. 'HOW THE FUCK IS IT STILL ALIVE?!' he screamed in his head, but his eyes spelled the heat out.

Large patches of the creature's black flesh were burned away, raw surfaces glistening wetly where the blast had carved through.

At the upper jaw, a section of its maw had collapsed inward, exposing pale bone and quivering tissue beneath its skin.

When Hei Yung saw the giant vertical maw stretching from its skull to its chest, he ascended, lightning igniting melting sparks around him.

Black-red vapor poured from the split mountain and rolled toward the creature, followed by pieces of dead Oculus flesh skidding over the ground.

The ring of blazing lightning dashed toward the creature's direction, followed by Hei Yung.

"No…" Leon screamed. His right arm pointed toward the flying man as if wanting to stop time.

The ring of lightning transformed into a drilling wheel as it neared the creature, then struck at the ruined section of its chest where Longwei's sacrifice had burned mercilessly.

Behind the angrily flying man, a soldier standing ten paces to Leon's right broke free from the ring, then lowered his melted rifle.

He gave out a short exhale, then collapsed on one knee, his left fist slamming into the ash-filled ground.

After three sharp breaths, he pushed himself up, then cleared the ash from his face and chest.

"This thing took that and stayed alive…" he whispered, turning to the other soldiers who were strangled in constant coughing of blood.

One Agathan soldier inhaled deeply, forced the cough to a stop, then stood up. His boots scraped hard over the loose gravel as he joined his standing colleague.

He placed a heavy hand on the first soldier's shoulder. "Every civilian needs to evacuate from this place, especially the Qings."

Both of them whipped their heads toward Kira and Darian, who were mysteriously standing inside a green dome that had cracked thoroughly.

Near the convoy, reporters who had been saved by the metal parts of the vehicles shoved at each other in blind panic.

One man abandoned both his camera and microphone and ran with his hands over his head.

Another stumbled over a dead reporter whose body had been burnt beyond recognition and slammed face-first onto the ground.

Screams escaped from him as he tried to crawl away, but the boot of a fleeing cameraman kicked his head as he moved past him without looking back.

Inside the collapsing dome, which wasn't ready to dissipate yet, Kira's breathing turned sharp and ragged. "This is impossible."

She took a step backward, then another, nearly tripping over her own heel.

When Darian's arms lowered, the cracked green dome dissipated into motes and danced in the air.

Kira's eyes remained fixed on the creature and the lightning god, but the arrogance she had worn was gone. "Darian, do something."

Darian didn't answer. He simply crouched down to his knees, gasping harshly for air while sweat traced tiny paths on his face and arms.

Dust clung to his cheek, nearly entering his half-open jaw.

He shifted his gaze from his sword and focused on the creature.

At a short distance, Leon shifted his gaze and saw Darian staring at the Abyssal Maw Lord with his jaw half-open.

For the first time since Leon had known him, Darian looked stripped bare, like a man who knew he had walked into the wrong nightmare.

Zoe moved in front of Leon before he could catch her moving. "Don't stand there," she said with an unsteady voice.

She turned, her eyes searching for her sword.

When she found it, she ran toward it, picked it up, and ran back to Leon.

Zoe swung her sword to her left waist, then reached out for Leon's arm. "Let's help them, Leon."

She pointed at the soldiers whose bodies rejected them when they tried standing on their feet.

Leon drifted his gaze from the soldiers and stopped at the crucial fight between the screaming lightning and the creature that seemed to move back after every lightning strike.

"He…" Leon swallowed, then sighed.

A few meters away from the creature, Hei Yung floated in the air, casting tons of lightning bolts at the creature at the speed of a nanosecond.

After the thousandth bolt landed on the creature, it gave out a striking exhale, then began its inhale descent.

This time, the pull seized more than vapor.

Loose rocks lifted from the ground, broken lenses from smashed cameras scraped over the stones, and the sleeve of a dead Thule soldier jerked violently as the body got dragged six inches forward.

Leon's red cloth whipped from his neck and snapped against his jaw.

Heavy wind pulled Hei Yung toward the maw of the creature, but he dashed through it and descended in front of the Agathan soldiers.

"All Agathan, form the death line. Thule forces, move your civilians out of sight." His scream raked through every soldier's ear.

The reporters had already fled, so there was no one the Thule soldiers could take out, only themselves.

The Agathan soldiers jolted back into motion, only a few joining the Thule soldiers while they fled from sight.

When the soldiers reached the reporters who had fallen and become victims of the stampede, one female soldier stopped at the other side of the convoy.

She hooked an arm around the chest of a cameraman and hauled him while still looking over her shoulder at the creature.

"On my command, CHARGE!"

The soldiers dashed like bees as Hei Yung's scream struck for the second time.

Leon watched Hei Yung move another step forward, blue light sliding over Hei Yung's own cheekbone and throat.

Hei Yung's left arm trembled once at his side.

It was so slight that none of the others noticed.

But Leon did.