At the same time, countless translucent chains instantly appeared throughout the hall. Like spirit snakes, they rapidly spread out, tightly sealing the walls and gates.
"A military sealing technique created from the principle of irreversibility and mixed with the strongest civilian sealing formulas? I've never seen this before. Killing the caster would work best, but the caster is... implanted into the golems? These golems are supplying the magic power?"
The moment Ash crouched down, he let the spiked club scrape past the top of his head, bringing a chilling sound of rushing wind. But he only calmly watched those chains and carefully examined the structure of the spell.
It was also at this moment that he heard a series of mechanical vibrations and sensed a huge amount of magic-nullifiying crystals filling the surroundings, directly sealing off the magic in the area.
But just like warriors powered by magic could still fight normally even with magic-nullifiying crystals present, any magic that needed to manifest externally could not be used.
These two golems had clearly been specially sealed off. They belonged to the same category as sealing magic, sealing formulas, curses, and similar things, not something magic-nullifiying crystals could completely shut down.
But even though he could still move freely, before the second strike of the spiked club came down, he vanished from the spot like a ghost and instantly appeared behind the two golems.
Ash's face turned cold as he slightly bent his knees into a stance. His muscles tightened, power gathering at the tip of his blade.
Before the two golems could even turn around, he swung his sword.
The blade carried a sonic boom together with the abnormal gravity placed upon it, cutting across like a silver streak.
The speed was so fast the naked eye could not follow it.
But, as the blade flashed past, the sound of metal colliding rang through the hall. Sparks burst from the armor, yet the golems' armor had been specially reinforced and was unbelievably hard.
Even though the golems staggered back several steps, the strike only left a shallow white mark.
While sealing magic, they had also prepared golems with extremely high physical resistance and combat abilities on the level of top warriors. In a sense, it could even be called a perfect strategy for killing mages.
———
Besides the barrier, the building itself had countless formulas cast upon it. Not only could it isolate aura, it could also block most magic, and its toughness was absurdly high.
On the path leading to the emperor's bedroom were multiple isolation walls and sealing formulas. Combined with the anti-air barrier in the core area, it was like an unbreakable fortress.
As for the imperial family, aside from princes, princesses, and a few women, the others did not live in this palace.
The harem was in the imperial city, within the rear section of the castle. Under normal circumstances, safety was guaranteed there, but at a moment like this, safety was no longer guaranteed. Still, those people were not important anyway. They could simply be replaced.
"He's finished! That monster... finally entered the trap! This time, he absolutely won't come out alive!", Inside the emperor's bedroom, as a mage knelt to report the situation, the emperor could not stop himself from showing a pleased smile, "The masterpiece Grand Mage Flamme poured her heart into. No one in this era could possibly overcome it! Even ordinary great demons wouldn't survive inside!"
"Yes, absolutely no one can win. Even Flamme's adoptive mother, Serie herself, would never make it out alive!", The empire's chancellor from last night immediately knelt and congratulated him, "This man must be the kingdom's trump card! Congratulations, Your Majesty, for removing this major threat! Once the kingdom is destroyed, the empire unifying the world is only a matter of time!"
"Of course! When that time comes, I'll slaughter the royal capital for three days and three nights! Then wipe out the entire bloodlines of everyone in the Continental Magic Association! Only then can I calm my hatred! Only then can I show the empire's might! Let them understand the price of resisting and rejecting the empire!"
The "Anti-Magic Hall," which had never been activated before yet carried the reputation of certain death, had trapped the intruder exactly as planned. Although the emperor spoke proudly and was truly happy, he still felt a bit troubled and regretful.
This trap, hidden for a thousand years and used for the first time, would definitely make others wary of it in the future.
They could silence people, but there was no guarantee secrets would never leak. If their assassination of Serie failed and Serie came personally while prepared for this trap, things would become troublesome.
But for now, there seemed to be no need to care too much. After all, Serie was a mage, so it should not be too much of a problem, and besides, they still had other trump cards.
———
Meanwhile, compared to the joy of the emperor and chancellor, Ash's situation was...
Under the combined attack of the two golems, he was still not fully used to suddenly losing access to magic. Since he usually fought using magic alongside his physical abilities, he was slightly slower for a moment and accidentally got hit on the head by a spiked club during the brief exchange.
"Mm. It's kind of similar after all. This finally feels a bit proper, but I don't like getting hit. So now I'll just directly tear all of you apart."
A streak of blood flowed from his head, but Ash slowly stood up while supporting himself against the wall. Not only was there no fear, the smile on his face became even fiercer than before.
He no longer planned to use tactics, nor slowly adapt to fighting without support magic. Facing the incoming spiked club, he suddenly crushed the stone floor beneath his feet. His body rapidly swelled as if inflated, instantly growing over two meters tall.
Two pairs of demonic horns extended from his head, and his already frightening aura surged dramatically like rising waves.
With one hand, he raised the blade and steadily blocked the descending spiked club.
The club pressed downward against the blade, sparks violently flying from the friction, but the blade held before him did not move even slightly, like a mountain.
The previous difference in strength reversed instantly, as though a strong adult was casually handling a child's play.
The other golem seized the moment when his other hand was empty and swung its spiked club toward his head with a howling wind.
Even though gravity kept changing midway, the golem somehow remained completely unaffected. A terrifying smile appeared on Ash's face.
"Interesting, but... not enough."
Before the second club, powerful enough to split mountains and destroy cities, could land, the golem itself suddenly flew backward at a speed even faster than the club's downward strike.
The golem slammed heavily into the wall. Before its autonomous core could understand what happened, it discovered a clear footprint on its chest armor. Then it "saw" the miserable state of its companion.
The demon's physical strength completely overturned common sense. He forcibly pushed back the massive spiked club with his blade.
At the moment the golem lost balance and leaned backward slightly, the blade wrapped in black lightning flashed.
The arm holding the spiked club was directly severed.
The metal arm and spiked club hit the ground together with a heavy sound.
The moment the golem stabilized itself again, it swung a fist the size of a basin toward Ash.
However, Ash's free hand directly caught the fist like iron clamps.
Bang!
He firmly stopped it.
The violent punch created a powerful shockwave the instant it was blocked, blowing dust all around them into the air.
"So this is the empire's trump card? The stuff Flamme left behind isn't that impressive."
Ash curled his lips into a savage smile and suddenly tightened his grip. The golem's metal fist began twisting and deforming in his hand. The golem even lost control of itself and dropped to one knee as its wrist snapped.
The screeching sound of twisting metal echoed sharply through the silent space, enough to make people's scalps tingle.
The golem tried to break free, but discovered that before Ash, its strength was like trying to shake a tree with a tiny insect.
Using even more brute force than the golem itself, he bent the golem's arm backward, then kicked its abdomen.
The enormous body flew away like a cannonball and crashed heavily into the wall, making the entire castle shake violently once again.
———
Even though this was the first activation in a thousand years, before activation the two golems had already undergone many tests and been filled with corresponding common knowledge.
They had also repeatedly undergone practical battlefield tests.
So when they were both sent flying and smashed into the wall, the autonomous cores even began wondering whether they had malfunctioned.
Even if he was a demon... Could a demon really overpower them in close combat?
Before they could understand it, the demon wrapped in black lightning, Ash, instantly appeared before them like a ghost.
The one-armed golem had only just stood up when the blade stabbed into its chest armor like lightning.
BOOM!
With a deafening sound, Ash used the blade tip against the golem's chest to force it backward in place, slamming the heavy body against the wall once more.
The lightning-covered blade pierced more than half a meter into the chest armor. The once indestructible armor rapidly tore apart under the destruction of the lightning and shattered space.
The golem slammed against the wall again and felt unbearable humiliation. It raised its bent arm and tried to smash Ash apart, but the rapidly growing lightning caused cracks to spread through the surrounding space.
Its hand could not break through at all.
Not only was the space crushed, it was as though the blackness of space itself had locked it down, preventing it from using its brute force, suppressing it completely like an insect trapped in a spider web.
Before the other golem could charge over with earth-shaking steps to rescue it...
BANG!
With a not-too-loud sound, the golem pinned against the wall exploded together with the shattered space.
Its supposedly indestructible body was broken down into countless fragments, scattering metal debris throughout the enormous hall.
Ash stood amid the wreckage with his blade in hand. The black lightning around him twisted wildly like crazed snakes, still not fully faded.
He looked up at the remaining golem. Provocation and killing intent mixed in his eyes as if they could pierce through anything.
The golem possessed the ability to think. After feeling Ash's frightening gaze, its movements paused briefly.
But immediately after, the red glow in its eyes flashed wildly, as though anger and fear had broken past the limit. It once again swung its huge spiked club and charged toward Ash.
Each step it took struck the ground like a heavy hammer, causing the specially reinforced stone floor to crack apart under the pressure with frightening cracking sounds.
The trembling ground made Ash's body shake slightly as well, but he only snorted coldly.
"You really don't know your place!"
His body shot forward like lightning, rushing toward the golem and preparing to tear it apart too.
However, at the instant it was about to collide with Ash, the golem made a move that shocked him.
It suddenly threw the spiked club away with force. Amid the rushing wind, Ash dodged sideways in surprise.
But before he could understand what it was trying to do, the golem lunged forward and grabbed him tightly.
The runes on the golem's body began flashing violently, shifting from dark red to a blinding crimson. The light even continued growing stronger.
"I... you? Self-destruct again? You really can't afford to lose like this? That's way too shameless!", Ash could not stop himself from cursing at such shameless tactics.
Hearing his words, the golem felt a trace of hope, thinking it really could complete its mission and protect the empire.
But Ash's expression returned to calm in the next moment. Looking up at the golem over three meters tall holding him tightly, he revealed an icy expression.
"But shameless or not, you and your master... don't actually think that just because you're shameless, just because you use tricks, you're guaranteed to win, right?"
The golem's autonomous core kept running. While thinking, it compressed the magic power inside itself, doing everything possible to improve the explosion's efficiency.
It even felt extreme anger because its creator had been insulted.
At the same time, it could not understand...
'Why does this guy speak exactly like a human?'
Before it could figure it out, it suddenly heard a sound impossible to describe or understand.
It was like the world itself shattering.
Under extremely distorted gravity, the entire hall's space exploded and twisted apart around Ash like shattered glass.
Twisted black cracks spread in all directions like lightning, reaching every corner of the hall.
At the center of those cracks, the space around Ash completely shattered, forcibly stopping all the golem's actions.
Its metal body over three meters tall began collapsing along with the cracks in space itself, twisted apart together with the broken space.
The self-destruction that should have happened vanished completely.
Even the "Anti-Magic Hall" itself could not escape this horrifying spatial collapse. It instantly shattered apart. Even the powerful sealing formulas were twisted apart like fragile paper under unreasonable brute force.
The twisted space became like a massive black hole, crushing the golem, everything inside the hall, and even the magic-nullifiying crystals with a crunching sound before dragging them all into the dark spatial rift.
The castle that the empire had spent a thousand years building, believed to be indestructible, vanished completely within a hundred-meter radius, twisted out of existence as though a giant spoon had dug a massive hole into a cake.
"With trash like you, using little tricks, and you still want to drag me down with you?", Ash coldly looked at the golem fragments disappearing into the dark space, his eyes like he was looking at worthless garbage, "You... really think too highly of yourself, don't you?"
Before the autonomous core fully shattered, it still heard those disdainful words, as though it were being mocked as a clown.
The autonomous core had no ability to speak. Before falling into endless darkness and being crushed apart by gravity, all that remained inside it was unwillingness and humiliation.
If its body had not already been destroyed and the self-destruction interrupted, even if nothing happened, it probably would have exploded from anger anyway.
But in the next instant, BANG!
The entire core shattered apart and turned into countless tiny crystals that disappeared into the void.
———
The Anti-Magic Hall had originally been prepared by Flamme a thousand years ago to deal with the Demon King or great demons forcefully invading the imperial castle for assassination.
It contained many ancient technologies. It could be called the crystallization of human wisdom and was a defensive facility specifically built against overwhelmingly powerful enemies.
Not only the two golems, but the entire Anti-Magic Hall itself possessed extremely high durability.
It could be called the strongest area in the entire imperial castle and was also the only route leading into the core region.
Even if the two golems, assisted by magic-nullifiying crystals, still could not defeat an overly powerful intruder, before they could even activate their self-destruction function.
Inside that high-strength sealed environment, the power of the explosion would increase exponentially. Even the Demon King supposedly would not be able to survive such a blast, at least according to past calculations.
Although Flamme and her disciples never encountered the real Demon King in their later years, and not even particularly powerful great demons appeared, ordinary great demons definitely would not have survived. They likely would not even have needed to reach the self-destruction stage.
Because of this, despite never being activated before, the Anti-Magic Hall carried the reputation of certain death, and everyone held great confidence in it.
However, due to the effects of the magic-nullifiying crystals, remote observation magic tools had stopped working.
But when all the magic-nullifiying crystals were shattered and swallowed by the void, all the images quickly returned.
The emperor, the imperial princes, and the important officials had already gathered in the core audience chamber, planning to record the enemy's miserable end while discussing how to spread the empire's glory afterward.
Yet after a series of tremors and another violent shake, the missing image suddenly returned.
At first, everyone thought the intruder had been eliminated, the seals lifted, and the magic-nullifiying crystals raised away by the mechanism, which was why the magic interference disappeared.
But no one expected...
"W-Why... what is this?"
The emperor on the throne completely lost his previous composure and imperial dignity.
His voice became so sharp it nearly tore apart. His eyes stared fixedly at the missing section where the Anti-Magic Hall should have existed.
The muscles on his face twisted from extreme fear. His hands uncontrollably gripped the throne's armrests so tightly that even his fingertips trembled.
The chancellor beside him widened his eyes so much they nearly popped from their sockets. His mouth hung open for a long while without any words coming out.
The princes and ministers were in complete chaos. Some muttered to themselves nonstop. Some sweated heavily, soaking the front of their official robes. Others wandered in circles like lost souls, repeatedly mumbling that this should have been impossible.
Inside the audience chamber, the originally solemn atmosphere had completely vanished, leaving only endless panic and disbelief.
At this moment, while everyone was in chaos, the emperor suddenly stood up and kicked over the table before him, scattering precious objects across the floor.
"How could this happen? That was a defense capable of resisting the Demon King!", he roared at the ministers, his voice continuously echoing through the hall.
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