Chapter 40: Ninth Fortress

The molten iron, not yet cooled, sat still in countless channel pools, its fiery red hue fading as a layer of coal-gray slag formed on top.

In the vast factory hall, all machinery had ground to a halt, the workers long evacuated. The air still held the lingering heat from the sintered iron.

Massive steel behemoths—blast furnaces, cooling ovens, scales, crushers—carved out numerous visual blind spots. Asta crouched behind the steel frame of a chunker, the metallic tang stinging her nostrils. She braced her sniper rifle against the iron frame, sighting the far corner. Before Sora could burst in, Asta had led the five Embedded Spirit Bodies originally guarding the main gate, along with a dozen logistics personnel, to seize the Iron Smelting Plant first, intercepting Sora on the first floor in the charging workshop.

In a mere six minutes, they had clashed head-on twice. Bullet craters scarred Asta’s auxiliary Mechanical Legs, one steel ball in the swivel joint shattered.

But it was fine—the other balls still worked. Good thing they weren’t real legs; even with hits, it barely affected her.

She could still fight.

Asta calmly directed the Thorn Lamps, sealing the door to the central control room and yanking the workshop’s power switch.

The entire factory plunged into darkness.

Asta’s movements weren’t as swift as usual, but she held absolute terrain advantage. As Ide’s subordinate, she knew the plant inside out.

At that moment, Sora and her people lurked in some northeast corner.

“Where are the others?” An He and Heidi slipped up beside Asta, whispering.

A logistics runner who met them at the door had guided An He and briefed them: Sora’s remaining forces numbered only seven—four Embedded Spirit Bodies and three regular soldiers.

In those few minutes, Asta had killed three enemies.

To An He’s surprise, Sora hadn’t brought her powerhouse assistant. Big Blade Scar, with his Explosion Talent, and the Golden Monkey had been sent to assault the base. Sora herself had taken a gut wound from Ide earlier. Facing Asta, she held no edge.

Now, they just needed to take out Sora.

“That way.” Asta flashed quick hand signals left and right. An He saw the other Thorn Lamps fanning out, encircling the northeast corner.

The standoff held; Sora’s side stayed silent.

An He’s six surviving Thorn Lamps merged into the main force, tipping them to numerical superiority at last. Battle erupted swiftly.

“Any word from command?” Asta peered through her scope, murmuring.

“None. Their wireless comms must’ve been blown. We’ve lost contact—no response from Professor Su either.”

That side had a walking bomb—tough to handle. Worry crept into An He’s voice.

“Don’t worry,” Asta said. “Before you arrived, Sora lost contact with her subordinates too.”

It meant the First Fortress troops weren’t faring well either.

They didn’t need to overthink—just fulfill their duty, hold this sleeping factory.

An He and Heidi slung rifles off their backs, adjusting range and night-vision scopes. The three took positions, using iron frames for cover, eyes scanning the dark for the slightest stir.

Asta said Sora had last vanished near the blast furnace—a sixty-meter-tall cylindrical giant piercing multiple walkway platforms, breaching the ceiling. It was the plant’s core equipment.

Sora hid behind the furnace’s tap hole at ground level; a bit farther was the steaming iron pool.

The furnace body swallowed everyone in shadow.

An He was thirty meters from it.

“No one summoning Nestsouls?” An He noted the eerie quiet—no animal roars.

Not just the Thorn Lamps; Sora’s side had recalled theirs too.

“Too many blind spots here. If a Nestsoul wanders into view, one enemy sniper shot and it’s done,” Asta instructed An He to adapt fast and not act rashly.

Factory fights differed utterly from open plains. Plains were about raw courage and ferocity against visible foes.

Here, complex internal terrain looped back on itself—they held more advantages, but also faced more cold shots from the shadows.

<i>Clang.

A bullet slammed into the iron frame before An He, sparking off the steel, grazing her hair as it whizzed past.

The enemy moved!

An He snapped her aim toward the shot’s origin. In an instant, Thorn Lamps scattered across the plant pinpointed the foe and struck. A barrage crackled like hot iron quenching— the factory boiled, bullets flying wild.

“Over there, east-northeast forty-five degrees—move!” Asta pinpointed precisely. With a wave, hidden Thorn Lamps advanced on the northeast.

“An He.” Asta kept pace beside her. “Their night-vision and thermal gear outclasses ours—they know our positions. Use the steel frames to shield your head, always.”

“Got it, teacher.”

The three crouched low, darting behind a cutter for cover.

An He slowed her breaths—each one slashed her throat like a blade. The chest wound throbbed worse; she’d held out purely because it wasn’t time to drop yet. She gritted through.

But she still outpaced Asta.

Two more bullets whipped past her cheek from the dark. An He rolled behind a machine.

No one behind. She glanced back—Asta lagged, rifle raised, exposed, unable to roll or sprint like her.

An He’s heart lurched. She lunged to aid Asta. The redhead had just preached head protection—but ignored it herself.

“Don’t come here—get back!” Asta ordered.

That familiar command yanked An He to their first meeting, when Asta made her let go.

Heart pounding, An He disobeyed again, diving in front to shield Asta, firing one-handed to repel the shadows.

An He hooked Asta’s left arm: “Move!”

Asta frowned, took two steps with her, then shoved An He toward a steel frame—half her body still exposed. She raised her gun without care and fired.

The exposure made Asta a target. Bullets hammered her iron legs, screeching harshly.

“Enemy spotted, thirty degrees!” Asta seized the moment for orders. As action stirred, she glanced at An He: “No more distractions later. If I can’t teach you more from now on, then listen close now—”

“Use anything you can, even your own body.” Her left arm rose; an ejected casing flew from the chamber, clinking to the floor like a hammer on An He’s heart.

Asta demonstrated—baiting with her iron legs.

An He froze, spine rigid, then nodded.

Gun raised in both hands, she advanced with Heidi fore and aft per Asta’s lead, never glancing back.

Asta’s slowness made her prime bait—the enemy desperately wanted her gone. Sora’s crew knew Asta’s name; she’d joined Thorn Lamps five years before Ide.

Now, she was live cheese.

But bullets didn’t drop her.

The shooters exposed themselves. Frontline Thorn Lamps counterattacked—they were cats on the prowl, Asta the fatal lure. Under her guidance, all moved like clockwork.

They closed on the furnace, skirting the silent iron pool.

“Wait.”

An He barely caught footsteps amid the gunfire—unnoticeable, but overhead.

Hollow steel clangs. She looked up: walkways, platforms, iron scaffolds spiraled the furnace, ladders and catwalks threading floors for internal checks.

Someone vaulted onto a walkway, sprinting upward.

Shadows leaped machines, flipping to the second-floor platform.

Asta clocked it: “They’re splitting up. Pursue separately!”

The enemy aimed to loop the furnace walkways to the fourth-floor control hub—a high-wire detour. Tough path, but unknown gear possible.

Asta, key to holding the hub, took a shortcut. Thorn Lamps scattered like spilled bearings, each to their mark.

An He climbed the spiral stairs to the walkway. But in pursuit, furnace glow revealed the runner wasn’t Sora.

Sora was bulkier; this figure flipping rails was slimmer, nimbler.

An He halted, peered down: a shadow on the ground, unmoving.

Sora.

Sora sent minions high while staying low—a feint or diversion? An He didn’t know. Decision made: stay for Sora.

Asta and Heidi guarded the hub. An He crept the walkway.

The ground shadow rounded the furnace bend, vanishing behind. An He leaped like a soaring bird, landing on nearer scaffolding—pipes meant to brace the furnace. She circled fast, shifting angles.

The idle furnace radiated warmth like winter coals, toasting one cheek. She shed her bloodied jacket, agile in black tank top, threading steel.

A dozen Ravens materialized silently nearby—no enemy left to threaten her Nestsoul. They wheeled through gear gaps, apparatuses, locking the shadow under a hot-air duct.

An He halted, peering through slits: Sora below.

Ducts like giant cables webbed orderly chaos behind the furnace, forming navigable space.

A Raven perched silently above Sora, viewing all.

Sora wasn’t hiding—she scrolled a virtual screen.

Comms gear on her; red dots for allies shifted, each meter revealing scanned terrain maps. Upper left red star: Lola’s intel on the control hub.

An He realized: Sora equipped scouts with scanners. The plant’s labyrinth defied full maps—even Lola’s intel marked the hub but not every fixture. Pinned here by Asta, seizing control spiked in difficulty; Sora went high-tech.

Success or not, the map favored her.

As dots crawled, Sora split-screened a brief report to First Fortress HQ. Two lines, then her usual sign-off: “Saint Lord, rest easy—mission guaranteed.”

An He gripped a pipe one-handed, steadying to aim down at Sora through the gaps.

But ducts clustered thick; angle hit only shoulder—not lethal.

An He hesitated two seconds. Through Raven eyes, a red dot neared the star—past monitoring rooms, but faster than expected.

Sora reloaded; she’d plotted her route, ready to move personally.

An He had to disrupt both sides now.

She hooked the frame, freed hands—left gun ready, right dipping into her work pants pocket.

An He pulled out that block of wood-colored rubber, peeled it apart to reveal the button, and toggled the iron switch inside counterclockwise-clockwise-clockwise-counterclockwise, repeating the sequence three times before unlocking the communicator.

Lola had transmitted the intel without avoiding her, so she remembered it all.

An He entered the string of numbers she recited every night before sleep onto the interface, quickly sending a short message on the virtual screen: “Intel incorrect. Iron Smelting Plant control hub is in the innermost room on the far right of the third floor.” —It wasn’t. Pushing open the locked iron door would only reveal brooms, mops, and other tools.

An He immediately sent the message to “Tina,” whoever this Tina might be. Since Sora could still communicate with the First Fortress, this false intel was bound to reach Sora’s hands quickly, buying Asta some time to defend.

But An He hadn’t expected the message to transmit this fast.

So fast that she hadn’t even put away the communicator button in her hand when she saw Sora swiftly open her virtual screen and receive the alert—no relay delay at all.

Something’s wrong.

An He’s heart pounded fiercely. She directed her Raven to get a clear view of the text on the screen. The recipient was indeed Tina.

Wait.

She had never imagined that Sora was Tina.

Lola’s contact was the commanding general herself!

An He felt pins and needles on her back, as if doused with a bucket of cold water. The impulse to protect the fortress faded, and she snapped awake from the lingering heat of battle, suddenly realizing her own situation was even worse than the Ninth Fortress’s.

If Sora was Tina, the entire situation changed.

Sora would surely be watching for Lola—maybe Lola was already exposed to the Thorn Lamps.

An He’s plan was completely disrupted.

She had planned to leverage her “survivor” identity after the Ninth Fortress’s victory, persuading Lola to “escape” back to the First Fortress and deal with Tina there. As long as they hadn’t met face-to-face, there would be plenty of room to maneuver.

But that plan hinged on Lola still seeing her as one of the Heroic Spirits’ people, willing to take her back. So An He had deliberately avoided the battlefield where Lola was.

Now, that approach had gone awry. If… if Sora and Lola crossed paths on the battlefield, even for a second, An He would be next to be exposed.

Then, neither the Ninth Fortress nor the First Fortress would have a place for her.

Damn it.

Sora had already seen An He’s Nestsoul and watched her kill No. 1. An He remembered—they had locked eyes in the firelight.

How could the contact be a general? Did people in the First Fortress all moonlight like this?

Hot blood surged through An He, and the wound in her throat itched unbearably. She scratched at it absentmindedly, forcing herself to calm down.

No. Her enemy had shifted from a fortress to a specific person. Regardless of whether the Ninth Fortress could hold, she couldn’t let Sora walk out of this plant alive and aware.

An He pocketed the button, shouldered her gun, and leaped down from the scaffolding.

…

Tina was equally puzzled. She had no idea if this alert was reliable. Given Lola’s current situation, it was impossible for her to send such intel right now.

Some unforeseen event she didn’t know about had occurred.

Tina keenly closed the virtual screen. Out of caution, she still alerted her fastest subordinate: “Check the original location first. If nothing, head to the innermost room on the far right of the third floor.”

Tina shouldered her gun and sidestepped out of the pipe area, intending to join the fray personally.

She had barely taken two steps when a flock of pitch-black birds blocked her path like a wall of thick fog—not just a few, far more than a dozen. They multiplied endlessly, silently clogging the central pipeway and gradually closing in.

Tina remembered—these Ravens belonged to that masked figure!

The gaps in the pipes echoed with the rustle of wings. Soon, a silhouette appeared amid the flock. She seemed to emerge from the mist, gun in one hand, charging at Tina with extreme speed.

In the cramped space, bullets ricocheted wildly, bouncing off pipes in unpredictable directions. Realizing this, both quickly holstered their guns. An He drew her combat knife; Tina unsheathed her rarely used Holy Sword.

They were both injured, fighting one-on-one.

Tina finally saw An He’s eyes up close. She blocked An He’s slash, demanding angrily, “Who the hell are you?”

The Ninth Fortress’s roster made no mention of her at all.

She appeared like a ghost, with an unknown Innate Talent and swarms of Ravens, turning the tide for the Ninth Fortress—if No. 1 were still alive, they would have taken the Iron Smelting Plant long ago!

Confusion flickered in An He’s eyes, but it vanished quickly. She spoke, asking Tina, “You don’t recognize me?”

“How would I recognize you?” Tina looked baffled, but her sword showed no mercy, slashing fiercely toward An He’s abdomen. The sharp blade severed An He’s belt, spilling steel needles chaotically onto the ground.

An He trampled right over the scattered debris, her combat knife swinging in wide arcs.

Tina noticed her opponent seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, but soon that inexplicable killing intent thickened again, as if not recognizing her made her even more determined to silence her.

This killing intent was utterly different from Ide’s in battle. Ide fought with the resolve to protect the fortress, but this young woman’s eyes burned with something far more personal.

The will to survive.

A surging will to survive ignited those previously subdued eyes.

Their blades clashed. An He’s voice rasped, “Aren’t you the best at Nestsoul experiments? Haven’t you researched increasing the number of Nestsouls?”

Her tone was full of probing.

“Are you joking?” Tina snorted coldly, deftly dodging An He’s knife.

Experiments weren’t that simple—massive investments of effort and resources often went to waste. Every project in the First Fortress required comprehensive evaluation before approval.

If a project to increase Nestsoul numbers had been greenlit and succeeded, she’d be charging in now with a mountain of tigers.

Wait—no, hold on. When Tina glimpsed the flock of Ravens behind An He, she froze for a brief moment.

For an instant, fragments buried in the flow of time surfaced—people and things she had once been unable to touch.

She gasped, her voice equally hoarse: “Impossible. That project never even started.”