Sealed in Steel [ Tank Litrpg ]

Elian didn't waste any time either.

He hastened his climb, flinging himself from ledge to Aether block to statue, and so on. He didn't care what he was jumping on. No hesitation. No fear of falling. Not that he was going to die if he did fall—he was too durable for that. But it might all be over if he fell and failed to cover the glass dome.

Reaching the topmost roof of the left-wing, Elian sprinted to the center towers as he wondered where Priestess Hazelheart was. There weren't any sounds of fighting. Had she found Thalman yet? Undoubtedly, Thalman accounted for Hazelheart discovering him early. He'd be using secret tunnels to reach the Magistrate instead of passing through the silver and golden halls.

Elian kept checking the sky as he ran. Some clouds covered the stars. It wasn't the charging Tribulations.

Faster, faster! He jumped onto the center tower's walls. He climbed diagonally, targeting the middle area where the dome sat.

His body was much stronger now compared to back on Earth, but he still wasn't an expert climber. If only he had trained his body's agility and flexibility. Instead, he spent most of his time meditating and studying to further his Aether magic. He wanted to build his magic defenses quickly. How could he have known that he'd be required to speed climb the temple to not just save people on the hills but also stop the Elder Giant from reforming?

He wanted to cuss in his head, but that wouldn't turn back time. I already lost that damn ability!

The priests should have protections around the Magistrate, right? But Thalman would also know about those. The only silver lining in this dire situation was that Thalman wanted to see the Magistrate dying with his own eyes. If not for that, Thalman could've just exited the building and destroyed everything anyway. No stopping him if that happened.

Elian could only hope that—

BOOM!

The building shook. Elian gripped tight the corner of the bricks. Viney whipped out to wrap around the neck of a gargoyle and pulled Elian to balance him. Dust from the upper ledges fell on them. The explosion was followed by a large crash.

Looking down, Elian saw a portion of the roof of a lower tower collapse. His heart stopped as he looked up at the sky. Still some stars above. No swirling clouds covering them. He continued to climb as more explosions followed.

"What the hell is Hazelheart doing?" Elian muttered through clenched teeth. "I told her Thalman's plan! She should be more careful."

Hazelheart might be trying to collapse the temple on Thalman and bury him in the lower levels until Khalamundi could arrive. But she shouldn't be so aggressive about it. Thalman could end everything if she made a mistake. At least, the ruckus should've attracted Khalamundi's attention by now. Elian could only hope that Khalamundi understood the direness of the situation. She would leave whatever busied her at present.

From this high up, Elian spared a second to glance at the surrounding hills. Flames danced on the hills, making them look like Christmas trees from afar. They were undoubtedly not very festive up close.

"Finally!" Elian scaled the decorative golden fence on the level of the dome. He dropped to the other side and headed for the glass dome reflecting some of the stars above. "Holy… this is huge."

The dome was wide enough to cover Borlen's camp.

No point complaining about the task at hand. Just do. Once again, he got to climbing, using the metal frames holding the glass panes together as holds. As he swept over the glass, he spread a layer of Viney's Barkskin over it. He had a wide area to cover so he had to make the Barkskin thin. But not too thin that it'd break from all the shaking.

"Good thing I had practice with this," Elian said, going over the weaving of hardened tendrils, ensuring that he made them correctly.

Even if Viney could fully heal itself several times, it couldn't cover the whole dome with Barkskin fast enough. Elian concentrated on making Aether constructs. He didn't go for panels to cover the glass. Instead, he formed constructors, miniaturizing them so they wouldn't take up too much brain power—he had to sustain both them and their creations. Amusing that Thalman trained him how to improve the efficiency of his Aether creations a few days ago.

But it wasn't the time to be amused. Elian sent the constructors to the other side of the dome to make blackout blankets of Aether. He was in charge of this side.

Viney's health continued to decrease as it spread Barkskin. Elian had three more uses until Viney would be near death. He didn't bring any of Gideon's potions, dammit! He had to make do with this. Why couldn't he be given time to prepare for a challenge this important?

The constructors did their job well, spinning Aether from the air into wide coverings that didn't let light through. Though they took a toll on Elian's mind—both the constructors and the covers. He was getting dizzy. The world was swimming in his vision. He hoped he could last long enough to finish his job.

He balanced with his hands and feet on the metal frames, not wanting to put his weight on the Barkskin, as he searched for holes. It was hard to do under time pressure and with only the lights of his constructs. That made the ridges and bumps left behind by the tendrils cast shadows. It drove him crazy thinking that any dark patch could be a hole.

How big should a hole be to call down a Tribulation? Would Tribulations still descend if the Penitent was moved away from the spot? Would they follow the Penitent? Elian could only hope that Hazelheart had plans of her own because he had nothing left after covering the glass dome.

And where the hell was Khalamundi? Didn't she listen to his warnings earlier? Could her golems even hear his words?

"No more shaking?" Elian was so engrossed in his work that he had tuned out everything.

He only realized that the night on Temple Hill had fallen silent except for the mild whoosh of the wind. There were no more vibrations beneath him. Guards were probably managing a commotion below but he was too high up to hear. Still no sign of Khalamundi. There didn't seem to be any fighting though. Did Hazelheart win?

Was everything okay now?

Elian couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't. Given his luck, he shouldn't expect a smooth triumph. Something was bound to go wrong.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

He removed the dragon bone gauntlet he had tucked into his belt. Its stained pearly glow was like the moon. For a few seconds, he was entranced by its beauty. It had curious carvings of runes unlike any he had seen before. The individual pieces of the gauntlet were connected at the joints by a golden metal. As he held it, magic symbols popped up in various colors, displaying its wealth of enchantments. This would be useful in a fight against Thalman. Elian could feel in his gut that it wasn't the last they had met for tonight.

He was about to put the gauntlet on but stopped himself. He didn't think that Thalman trapped it. Problem was, if he wore the gauntlet, the Elder Giant's Curse would zero its Magic Resilience. Magic damage was his concern.

Would holding this up to block Thalman's attack work? Sounded stupid.

Elian juggled the gauntlet as he stabilized his mind burdened by Aether constructs. "How am I going to use this? Just hold it up, I guess?"

"What did you do?" A furious Thalman clone appeared above him.

The clone was distorted, parts of its body enlarging and shrinking. It also flickered in and out of existence like an old television set with a weak signal. Runes floating around the clone flashed brightly as the tower shook. The runes then exploded. The real Thalman must be fighting Hazelheart below and had just taken damage, dispersing it to his clones.

More clones appeared. All of them trembled with anger. On the verge of shrieking, hatred laced their words. "What did you do, brother Elian?"

"I stopped you from destroying the hills!" Elian shouted back. There was no point trying to change Thalman's mind; Elian was just buying time for the other priests to save the day.

"Why did you betray me?" Thalman demanded. Another crash. Another flicker. A couple of clones disappeared. "Explain yourself before I bring about the great calamity."

"Betray you?" Elian was taken aback by how much Thalman appeared hurt by his actions. Did Thalman seriously think Elian was just going to follow his plan? "You betrayed me. You were going to kill me and many others."

"To stop the Magistrate from causing more suffering! I took it upon myself to sacrifice our—"

"Don't go sacrificing other people for your—"

"Enough!" The first Thalman clone swiped his arms down, shooting purple lightning at the covered glass dome.

"No!"

The lightning spread over the dome, shredding Barkskin and Aether fabric. The dreaded sound of shattering glass followed. Elian looked up, as he had done many times that night. No Tribulations charging in the sky. The clones had confused expressions instead of triumphant.

"It can't be!" they all exclaimed. "Khalamundi, you're—argh!" A large wave of dark materials, that turned out to be bricks and sand, engulfed the clones. It was just like a movie, Khalamundi arriving in the nick of time to cover the tower just as Thalman broke the dome.

"Yes!" Elian punched the air. Extremely rare for him to experience a win in his previous life.

"This is all your fault!" One clone blasted a hole through the cocoon of bricks and broke free. Eyes ablaze, he gathered a huge ball of Aether and dove for Elian. "I'll take you with me, Cursed brother."

Elian didn't bother running. He couldn't escape the clone trying to kill him. His only choice was to face the attack head-on. Since all his constructs were destroyed by Thalman, he was free to make more. He constructed layers of shields, each one of them had their attributes pooled to Magic Resilience. They wouldn't amount to much but Elian wasn't giving up.

The last Thalman clone flung the ball of crackling Aether at Elian before it was completely covered by Khalamundi's wave.

The ball punched through Elian's constructs as if they were wet paper. Elian held up the undead dragon bone gauntlet with his left hand, hiding his right arm behind his back to protect Viney. The ball of furious Aether hit the gauntlet. A single note rang, consuming all other sounds, as the gauntlet vibrated.

"Yargh!" Elian held on to the gauntlet. His fingers were shredded to the bone by Aether blades. And his bones were ground to dust.

The gauntlet remained floating in the air as Elian's hand holding it became a stump. It absorbed much of Thalman's magic, its ancient runes unraveling Thalman's constructions. The dark energies of the undead bone emerged to wrap around the Aether ball.

The ball suddenly exploded, tearing apart Elian's left arm he had raised to shield himself, and burning his entire front with magical flames. The force of the explosion flung him off the roof. Barely conscious, he heard the sounds of more explosions as he fell hundreds of feet to the ground.

Cool air washed over his exposed ribs and torn-open guts. And then, he hit the ground.

It was barely painful. Nothing compared to his injuries caused by Thalman that slowly drained him of life.

But the world wasn't done with him yet as a large chunk of the tower broke off, likely Thalman's continued attempts to find an opening. The sky was blotted out, the chunk getting bigger as it descended.

"Oh… come on…" Elian gurgled through the blood filling his throat.

The mass of bricks, dozens of tons in weight, crashed on him.

Elian gingerly opened his eyes. It was dark.

Facing right, he could see a sliver of light. Sunlight peeked through the small opening between the heavy curtains. He felt around him, grimacing in pain as he did so. A soft mattress was underneath him. Some fluffy pillows too. The room smelled a bit musty and dusty as if it hadn't been used for a long time.

He was inside one of the rooms of the temple turned into a temporary holding cell for him.

"Right…" he said in a hoarse voice. "Hazelheart got me out of the wreckage."

He had difficulties piecing together the events of last night. He floated in and out of consciousness under the rubble. He didn't know how long he was under there. An hour, probably. If it weren't for the dragon bone gauntlet buried with Elian, no one would've dug up the rubble given that many other parts of the temple needed fixing.

Viney was Elian's savior. Really. In any medical book, whether on Earth or Fellenyr, having the front of his body blasted open was certain death. His impressive Armor wasn't going to stop the bleeding, and the Aether flames continued to eat away at his flesh. His mind was wasted by all the Aether construction plus controlling Viney to make Barkskin. Elian would've died without Viney controlling its Rejuvenating Roots on its own, some kind of survival instinct kicking in.

Elian raised his right arm covered in bandages. "Many thanks, Viney. All of humanity should thank you too. If I died… that's it."

Viney wriggled inside the bandages.

Elian pushed himself to sit and examined himself. It wasn't just his arms that were wrapped in bandages but his whole body. The healing ointment they had applied on his wounds refreshed him, as if he took a bath in mint, even as pains tormented him.

He vaguely remembered experts from Vigor school brought in when the priests realized that healing magic and health potions didn't work on him. The Vigor school professors accelerated his regeneration while guiding his body to properly reconstruct itself.

They did a pretty good job but still couldn't get rid of Thalman's magic. It was some sort of magical corrosion they couldn't dispel.

"This isn't Aether magic," Elian remembered Hazelheart saying as she examined his wounds. "These might be caused by the negative energies of Thalman's mountains of Tribulation debt."

"I can stave off its effects," said Ihadir. Elian wasn't sure when the hulking priest showed up. "But the ultimate solution likely lies with the Hundred-Armed Magistrate."

"We will convene council tomorrow."

And that was the last of Elian's memories before everything was black.

Elian hobbled to the window, about to open the curtains with stiff hands to see the sunlight of the next day. Wait, I haven't done my Tribulations.