Emperor of Steel

Going to the temple of El Kassel was a lot easier than they thought.

There was nothing in their way, but there sure were a large number of people gathered together on the street.

A few hours ago, a bizarre monster had appeared in the sky along with explosions all over Nemesis, making a mess of the capital.

The people of the capital, who witnessed such scenes were fleeing in all directions.

“Damn it! Escaping from here is not going to be possible!”

“I never expected for this to happen.”

At Shirley’s flustered words, Luke spoke back with a deep frown on his head.

What he disliked was the escape which turned difficult because of the people blocking their path.

“Damn it! Get out of here! We will get caught up in here!”

“Run quickly! The mad emperor seems to have opened the door to the Devildom!”

“The demons would come out and kill us!”

A rumor got spread by someone with no facts, and that fueled the confusion and panic in the people.

What was even more ridiculous was that there were men who were actually robbing private shops in such drastic situations.

Among those men, there were quite a few men who were wearing Imperial military uniforms.

‘What? Has the command of the Baroque Imperial troops collapsed?’

It was when Luke titled his head.

Right in front of his eyes, the one sacking the shop yelled at them.

“What are you looking at? Turn away and go, bastard!”

“We took this place, go and find something else.”

Luke approached them and spoke coldly by clenching his fists.

“What are the soldiers who need to protect people doing here?”

The men responded calmly.

“What are we doing?! We are getting our pay!”

“We are actually mercenaries. That crazy emperor forced us to join that regular army.”

“But now that we see, the Baroque Empire is done. We didn’t get paid at all, so we are going to take our money and get out…”

Slash!

The neck of the sacker who was talking went flying.

While the other ones were shocked, Luke turned back to his men and gave them orders.

“Cut them all.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

“Wh-wait!”

The swords fell and so did the sackers.

Luke didn’t just stop with killing such men, but he thoroughly read the confusion which was spreading around the people.

Erwin approached him with concern.

“Your Majesty, we are in no situation to look after other men’s well-being.”

The explosions and earthquakes had stopped, but the flames from the Imperial Palace were still spreading.

In addition, if the Imperial army, which they escaped from earlier found the Symphonia men and counterattacked, the Symphonia troops would have a hard time fighting back.

They were of small numbers and were already exhausted from fighting the SS Knights.

Luke was well aware of that, but he refused to let Erwin and his men run out of there.

“The people here need to be taken to a safe place.”

“Your Majesty, the time right now isn’t…”

“it doesn’t matter. Consider why they are all panicking in here, it was because of the fight between me and Rudolf. I can’t just pretend and go away.”

It wouldn’t take long if they decided to abandon a city full of people.

The Baroque Empire, which had been in power for more than 500 years, ended with the advent of a tyrant named Rudolf.

“The people of Nemesis were abandoned by Rudolf. I don’t know who those people will be in the coming future, but I cannot ignore those who are suffering right in front of my eyes.”

Neither Gregory, his Saint Guards, or Symphonia Knights could refute Luke’s words.

They all knew Luke was right.

So they hurried to take the people to the temple where the catacombs were located.

In emergency situations, the temples weren’t just great refuge places, but a place full of compassionate people who could heal the injured.

However, the number of people gradually increased, and the march to the temples was so slow as there were a lot of old people and children.

That was when a huge fire tornado appeared right behind the march.

The flame tornado was so huge that it seemed like a pillar of fire that was reaching the sky.

“Kyakkk!”

“Run away! If we move like this we will all burn to death!”

“Uggg, mommy!”

Terrified women and children were screaming and crying.

Luke and the members of his party tried to evacuate the people and protect the elderly.

“Your Majesty, is that Rudolf’s plan?”

At Jo Mimi’s question, Luke shook his head.

“This is just a natural phenomenon. But it did start because of what Rudolf did.”

Fire tornadoes often occurred during large fires such as earthquakes and forest fires.

The dry updrafts generated by the fires get concentrated in one place, and a new flame gets ignited over there.

However, the fire tornado which occurred over the Nemesis was a lot larger and destructive than the fires caused by magic.

Rumble!

The fire tornado would randomly swallow in all the mansions and grow bigger in size.

“Your Majesty, what do we do about that?”

At Shirley’s question, Luke stepped ahead while thinking about it.

“What about what? If we don’t stop that, we might have a chance, but all the people of the capital would get burned to death.”

Luke began to unfold a wide area of shield magic.

It was to protect people from the debris which was flying in from the tornado.

However, there was too much debris falling down that even the wide-range shield magic of Luke didn’t seem enough.

Karen and Erwin, as well as the other wizards in the troops helped.

“Mana, be a wall according to my will! Grand Protect!”

“The wall of a thousand years!”

“Water Shower!”

Thanks to everyone’s work, they were able to stop the debris from the tornado spilling onto people.

But soon came another crisis.

“Oh! Th-this…!”

“Kuk, I can’t breath!”

As the tornado moved, a heat wave came over.

What was harder for Luke and his party wasn’t the heatwave, but the lack of oxygen.

As the fire tornado moved, it sucked in all the oxygen.

People with weak strength, those will low levels of magic were the first to fall down.

“Ah! Teacher!”

“Get yourself together! Princess!”

When Erwin and Jo Mimi stumbled, Karen and the warriors rushed to support the women.

Watching them retreat to a safe spot, Luke quickly turned his gaze towards the tornado.

‘Kuk, is it going to be impossible to put that monster to sleep with my magic too?’

He tried to use water-based magic, but it only weakened the force of the tornado for a while, and extinguishing it didn’t even seem possible.

It was because the tornado had grown into a size which no humans could suppress.

Even when a wizard reached 9th magic circles, or a Knight reached the Sword Emperor, humans still were helpless when it came to the power of nature.

No matter how strong a wizard or knight was, there was no way they could face a typhoon or tsunami.

‘If we look at this mess of disaster here, it was all because of human desires and obsession. What was started by humans can be stopped by human hands too!’

Luke, thinking about it, boarded his Avenger which he brought from the Imperial Palace.

Boarding his Avenger, he clenched his teeth and collected mana.

Kiiing!

The Aether Globe converted to a mana circle and amplified the core engine of Avenger.

Kwannng!

Those who were startled by the roar of the engine closed their ears and stepped back.

They saw the Avenger holding a giant sword rushing for the fire tornado.

“Daddy!”

Hearing Karen’s scream, Luke raised his giant sword.

As if asking her to not worry.

“Kay, where should I start it?”

Luke, who had already raised the magic to maximum, and also began to use the demon abilities.

“Build-up!”

He enhanced the ability to develop his physical traits, he developed the gold aura to the maximum.

And the magic, which had already reached the maximum level, was placed at the tip of the giant sword where the second half of the Gold Sword was unfolded.

“Let’s go, Cyclone Rage… No Hurricane Rage!”

The new skill of the magic sword was combined by using the demon ability and the storm magic, and the second half of the Gold Sword.

Realizing that the water-based magic couldn’t subdue the flame tornado, Luke thought of destroying the fire tornado with the wind.

Swooosh!

The moment Luke unfolded the skill, a huge gust of wind which had turned into a Gold tornado, rose around Avenger.

With a golden tornado containing the fierce energy, Luke clashed with the terrifying flame tornado.

Rumble!

“Woah!”

“Wh-what is happening?!”

When the thunderstorms seemed to tear off the earth and heavens, dazzling light blinded most people.

Arch Duke Gregory, Hwang Bo-sung, and Karen watched it while everyone else was crouching on the ground.

They watched the golden tornado created by the strongest Rune Knight splitting open the fire tornado which was soaring till then.

“Dad!”

“Oh, Your Majesty!”

Avenger, who created a golden tornado, floated in the sky till then, but fell.

Thud!

The hatch was off along with the breastplate, and Avenger’s armor seemed to have melted through the heat of the fire tornado.

Luke, soaked in sweat, crawled out in exhaustion.

Karen hurriedly ran to check her father’s condition and kept yelling while trying to heal him.

“Why did you do such a reckless thing?!”

“Because there was no other way. Didn’t it work well in the end?”

Despite Luke’s natural virtues, Karen wasn’t actually angry.

If his plan didn’t have worked out, he could’ve been eaten by the fire tornado.

And that was dangerous.

“I will tell mom.”

“This child, so wicked…!”

Watching the father and daughter fight, Arch Duke Gregory smiled.

The crisis which had struck in the situation was subdued safely by the humans who were loved by God, the chosen one.