**Chapter 683: Gold Stone**
Within the castle atop the wasteland, in the vast hall, the figure of Federico, who was in the process of transforming into a stone demon, was continuously growing larger while absorbing various treasures from his vault. During this process, those treasures occasionally exhibited signs of slowing down or changing trajectory, but in the end, they were all drawn into Federico’s body.
In just a few seconds of Federico’s devouring, the enormous vault was emptied. At this moment, Federico’s body underwent changes that no ordinary stone demon would experience.
Federico’s physique became increasingly gigantic, and after his clothing burst open, his sturdy body swelled to around six or seven meters in height, twice the size of an ordinary stone demon. Although his skin remained gray-black, it gleamed brightly, bearing a metallic texture. Countless gemstones sprouted on his huge wings, resembling decorative embellishments set into a metal artifact. His originally fierce-looking head grew long horns, and a spiked tail swung behind him. Federico transformed from a moving statue into a moving metallic sculpture.
After rapidly consuming all the treasures in his vault, Federico completed his transformation, facing the mysterious thief not far away, and let out a furious roar.
“Roar!”
Accompanied by the roar, a flame, far thicker than that of an ordinary stone demon, shot out from Federico’s mouth, aiming at the thief standing in the hall. At the same time, he vigorously flapped his wings, generating a powerful gust of wind that mixed with the fiery blasts, quickly forming a severe firestorm. In an instant, this firestorm swept through the entire hall, leaving no place untouched.
Against the agile high-mobility target, the most effective response was a massive area attack, leaving her nowhere to hide or escape. Recognizing the futility of confrontation against the rapidly expanding firestorm, the thief instinctively turned and fled. However, her proud speed failed to evade the relentless spread of flames enhanced by the wind in such a confined space. Just as she was approaching the window, the roaring flames were already hot on her heels, about to catch up.
At that moment, behind the thief, countless metal objects suddenly began to gather. Various decorative armor, weapons, tableware, and other items that had been scattered around the hall moved of their own accord under an unseen force. They coalesced into blocks just as Federico began spewing fire.
Just as the flames were about to completely engulf the thief, these blocks formed a thick iron wall behind her. The directly incoming flames crashed against the iron wall, dissipating upon impact. However, the brief moment gained was sufficient for the thief to leap out of the window and soar into the sky, propelled by an unseen force, with the castle’s main hall behind her belching high-temperature flames.
The firestorm quickly subsided after sweeping through the entire castle hall, revealing a scene of devastation. Everywhere was blackened, with flickering embers remaining. The once lavishly decorated hall was entirely obliterated. Federico stood in place, although he had just endured the raging flames, his metallic body still gleamed as if newly forged. He gazed at the scattered metal objects in the distance, recalling the minor disturbances he felt when he absorbed his treasures.
“Controlling metal, huh? No wonder…” Federico scoffed, recalling how he sensed someone trying to seize some metallic coins while he was absorbing treasures. Fortunately, his own precious treasures exerted a strong attraction during absorption, and that controlling force had not hindered him at the time.
Seeing the thief still escaping through the window, Federico immediately sprang into action. He flapped his wings, stirring up a strong air current as he soared upwards, shattering the hall’s ceiling and leaping outside to pursue the fleeing thief. Meanwhile, Henri and the others, who had been burned black by the fire, considered rushing outside to assist upon witnessing Federico’s actions.
Just as Henri was about to take flight, a figure suddenly plummeted down through the broken ceiling, crashing heavily into Henri as he ascended, landing a fierce kick on Henri’s chest. Instantly, Henri felt an overwhelming impact as he was sent crashing back to the ground, creating a large pit in the floor amid a resounding thud.
“Who is it?!”
“Does that guy have backup?!”
Seeing this scene, Doro and Craven, still on the ground, shouted out loud. They watched as the figure that had knocked Henri down gracefully landed on the charred hall floor after stepping on him. At this moment, Henri, who had been directly stomped into the pit, struggled to rise, angered as he glanced toward the direction the figure had landed.
What the Dark Gold Society trio saw was a mysterious woman clad in a dark red fitted outfit and skirt, wearing a mask and a small ladies’ hat, with her hair styled up, tall in stature. She was the one who had knocked Henri down.
“I’m sorry, but there’s a performance outside, and there’s another here. It’s best not to interfere with roles from different acts… unless we finish our own performance first…”
Looking at the three stone demons ahead who regarded her as an enemy, the disguised Adele stretched her shoulders and loosened her joints.
Now, Adele wanted to verify her strength and see how much she had surpassed ordinary white chalk.
…
Outside the main hall of the castle, beneath the night sky, Federico, having just broken through the rooftop in pursuit, quickly locked onto the figure of the thief who had just flown out of the main hall. From her appearance, it seemed she wanted to continue flying outside the castle’s range.
“Don’t even think about escaping, little thief…”
Watching the flying thief from afar, Federico murmured, then flapped his wings, immediately unleashing several fireballs toward the fleeing thief. Sensing danger from behind, the flying thief quickly dodged, evading several fireballs in succession. The fireballs weren’t very fast, so with the thief’s speed, dodging them wasn’t much trouble.
Seeing that all his fireballs had missed, Federico let out a low growl and flapped his wings more energetically. Powerful gusts of wind were summoned from his solid stone wings, mixed with biting cold and moisture, and rushed toward the thief in the sky, leading to a furious blizzard sweeping over the area.
The blizzard, mixed with numerous elemental forces, covered a vast area, making it impossible for even the most agile thief to avoid the effects. Realizing her body was quickly freezing under the icy embrace, the thief immediately changed direction, flying toward the castle below, darting between the castle’s structures and bridges to seek cover from the blizzard’s direct onslaught.
Federico’s ice storm followed the thief, chilling everything it touched, coating the surfaces of the protective buildings in thick ice. Yet, even so, he still couldn’t trap the thief; his own castle had become an obstacle to his own attack.
In light of this development, Federico was not angry. While continuing to unleash the ice storm, he opened his mouth once again, constantly firing fireballs that predicted the thief’s escape routes, colliding violently with the castle’s structures, leading to massive explosions and fiery roars as many buildings shattered amid the tumult.
While these fireballs did not directly hit the thief, the waves of energy and flames generated upon impact severely affected her movements. High-speed shrapnel from the explosions became lethal projectiles, making it difficult for the thief to maintain her footing.
The explosive shockwaves destabilized the thief, making maneuverability quite challenging. Her body was battered by the debris, leaving several deep cuts, causing her to involuntarily bleed from the corner of her mouth.
This was Federico’s tactic; the main purpose of his ice storm was not to freeze Thief K but to force her down to the ground. The immense coverage of the storm made it impossible for the thief to evade while flying high, pushing her to ground level in search of cover.
Once the thief approached the ground, Federico’s fireballs would become advantageous again. While his fireballs lacked speed when targeting the sky, making them easy to dodge, their explosive power upon impacting the ground and buildings rendered them immensely powerful, creating strong shockwaves filled with debris to trap the agile thief. Given that the castle belonged to Federico, he could easily track the thief’s location regardless of where she tried to hide.
The repeated explosions around her inflicted several injuries on the normally agile thief. Fortunately, her stamina stemmed from Nephnis, having a tier-two “Cup” physique, and with a mysterious power within her body, she could instantly heal from some of her more serious wounds. Thus, although she was heavily damaged, she soon recovered and continued to flee under the barrage of ice and fire from Federico. Even though she possessed a powerful teleportation ability with her escape magic, it could only be used three times in an hour, and she had already used it once, leaving her with only two usages for more critical moments.
Despite this, the thief continued to zoom through the castle at high speed, struggling onward amidst Federico’s relentless elemental bombardment. Just as he prepared to continue his onslaught, the situation on-site began to change.
From every corner of the castle, weapons, armor, tableware, chalices, chains, and other metal objects floated into the air. Upon closer inspection, these were items from throughout the castle that now flew out, coalescing into blocks, rushing toward Federico while intercepting the fireballs he launched. Upon impact with the fireballs, these metal blocks caused them to explode prematurely in midair, creating bursts of flames.
The metallic projectiles successfully intercepted Federico’s barrage, significantly reducing the number of fireballs that could strike the ground. With the explosions lessening their interference, the thief’s speed surged, making a beeline toward the distant exit, seemingly close to bursting out of the castle.
“Another one of those abilities… Seems like ordinary methods won’t suffice against you, little thief…”
Noticing the countless metallic barriers before him, Federico frowned in contemplation. It was clear that these strange metallic interceptors significantly hindered his fireballs, and he needed to find a more potent method to eliminate the thief.
With this in mind, Federico began to channel an immense amount of spiritual energy. Within him, a peculiar organ, akin to an engine or a stomach, accelerated its operation, transforming the vast treasures he had devoured into overwhelming elemental power.
Stone demons possess the ability to absorb external high-spiritual elemental attacks and store them for reuse. However, this capacity is inherently unstable; while it strongly counters various elementalists’ attacks, it greatly depends on elementalists to replenish their power. As a result, stone demons often find themselves on the brink of limitations. They cannot create elemental forces themselves and struggle to replenish their reserves when depleted, as elementalists are key figures of other extraordinary organizations.
However, after achieving the Red Tier, this phenomenon would alleviate. The stone demon, upon reaching this level, becomes a “Gold Stone Demon”, endowed with a unique perception, attraction, and control over recognized treasures in the world. By ingesting valuable crafts, precious metals, gemstones, and other highly valued treasures, they can store and digest them to generate diverse elemental powers depending on the treasure type.
In other words, Federico could generate elemental powers directly from the vast treasures in his body, independent of external elementalists’ strength. This dramatically elevated his mastery over elemental powers, both in might and quantity, compared to other stone demons. He could even perform powerful elemental skills beyond the capabilities of some Red Tier elementalists due to his physical structure.
Having extracted abundant elemental energy from countless treasures within him, Federico focused this energy into a particular structure at his eyes. His dual obsidian-like eyes immediately emitted a brilliant light, firing two scorching orange-red rays, which rapidly shot down below. The iron shield interceptors were instantly penetrated and melted into a hole, allowing the rays to pass through all obstacles and head toward the distant thief.
At a critical moment, the thief seemed to receive an omen, narrowly avoiding the molten rays that pierced through the ceiling above her. Seeing the rays miss, Federico began swiveling his head, directing the rays to slice toward the fleeing thief, like two heated blades.
As the scorching rays pursued her, the thief waved her cloak, attempting to transform the ray closest to her into a harmless form. However, since the rays inflicted extremely high-frequency continuous damage, the power was formidable. The thief could only briefly turn part of the ray into a stream of water before the ongoing rays instantaneously evaporated the water, negating her alteration.
Using that momentary change, the thief successfully dodged another heated ray. The rays continued to slice through the air, devastating a tall tower nearby in a thunderous crash.
Although one ray missed its target, Federico did not give up. After halting the first round of rays, he reoriented himself and prepared for a second assault. This time, he ceased the icy tempest his wings had been generating, aligning both his eyes and wings at the target below. At that moment, the myriad gems embedded in his eyes and wings emitted blinding light.
At the same time, nearly ten hot rays shot down from Federico’s eyes and wings toward the building below where the thief remained. These rays wove together a cage of light, too swift, dense, and wide-ranging for her to escape.
Faced with the high-density attack, the thief had already begun to dodge in advance. However, during this dodge, she completed another action: removing the high hat originally perched atop her head. She struck it apart, holding each half in her hands; it turned out she had been wearing two hats stacked atop each other.
As the rains of heated rays fell upon her, the thief exerted all her effort to evade. Although she dodged most of the rays, one still shot straight toward her, evidently aimed to pierce her body.
At the moment the unavoidable ray struck the thief, it collided with the high hat she held up in front of herself. By precise calculation, the scorching ray hit just at the edge of the hat.
Logically, with such power, the ray would immediately pierce both the hat and the thief’s chest. However, astonishingly, the ray, which could penetrate steel and stone, seemed to vanish upon entering the hat, as if the thin top of the hat had completely blocked the forceful beam.
At that moment, the thief flipped her other hand, revealing the second hat she had been holding. She inverted it, pointing the opening toward the ceiling. Suddenly, a bright orange light ignited from within the dark opening of the hat.
A thick, scorching ray shot forth from the thief’s left-hand hat, piercing through the ceiling above in an instant, shooting upward in rebellion to the other rays. It soared into the night sky. Before Federico could fully react, it struck him, causing an even more powerful flash to illuminate the sky.
“In the magic show, the audience never knows what a magician will pull out of a hat. They always wonder why an item placed inside one hat emerges from another.”
“This… is also a classic magician’s trick, the ‘Hat Trick.'”
In the skies not far from the castle, Doro, dressed in a cloak, gazed at the distant flash in the sky, murmuring softly.
