Solo Cultivating in Superhero Academy
Chapter 84: Heavenly Slam

Chapter 84: Heavenly Slam

Suddenly, without another warning, he lunged forward. But instead of grabbing Soilandor for a slam, he drove his fist straight into the mummy’s gut.

BOOM!

The impact echoed like a drumbeat. A ripple of sand sprayed from the strike, the wrappings of Soilandor fluttering from the force. But the ancient soldier only tilted slightly—his torso absorbing the blow like a dune absorbing a breeze.

Then Elius followed up with a flurry.

Crack! Smash! Smack! BAM!

Fists flew in a brutal, relentless rhythm—his arms blurring into motion, elbows hammering into the ribs, knees slamming into the waist.

A wild left hook met Soilandor’s shoulder.

A spinning backhand hit his face.

Then came the rapid-fire jabs to the gut, again and again and again.

Thud. Thump. Thud-thud-thud.

Each punch came faster than the last.

Elius’s body was like a human whirlwind—moving, turning, pivoting, flowing from strike to strike.

He ducked low, swept his leg in an arc to try a leg trip, then followed it with a rising knee that cracked into Soilandor’s chest.

Then a jump-back kick.

Then another punch.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t.

Elius gritted his teeth, breathing sharp through his nose. His muscles burned. His hands felt like iron. But his mind kept saying—make it real, make it look like it’s just your fists, not the ground.

Make him forget the slam. Make them all forget.

Soilandor chuckled through the assault, though his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"Relax," he said with an amused tone. "You don’t need to be so paranoid. I’m not scheming anything this time. Go on. Finish it. Slam me. You won’t get another chance like this."

But Elius said nothing.

He kept attacking.

A straight punch.

Then a shoulder bash.

A reverse elbow.

Spinning sidekick.

Palm strike.

Fist.

Fist.

Fist again.

Soilandor blinked.

His wrapped brows twitched.

"You’re being a little too... wary, don’t you think?" he asked, lips curling in faint mockery. "You think I’ll stop you? I told you, I’m not resisting. I want to see it. Show me!"

Still, Elius said nothing.

CRACK. SMASH. THWACK.

The punches rained like a storm.

He kept going.

Soilandor’s body shifted from foot to foot. His posture started to stiffen. His chuckles came less frequently. The little arrogant shrug he had earlier—gone.

His head snapped slightly when a punch connected to his chin with a force that sent grains of dust bursting from his jaw. His arms reflexively moved to block, but Elius slipped under, landing a body blow, then another.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Why won’t you stop? Soilandor’s eyes seemed to ask silently.

And as Elius attacked, a dangerous glimmer began to flicker in the mummy’s glowing sockets.

Annoyance.

Just the tiniest shift.

His laughter died completely.

He began to grind his teeth behind the mask of cracked linen.

And then—his arm twitched.

Not in amusement.

Not in casual acceptance.

But in the first hint of agitated reaction.

Elius kept pushing.

A left. A right. An uppercut. A sweep. A knee to the face.

Soilandor’s balance shifted back.

His body wasn’t retreating, but it was reeling—and he didn’t like it.

"Enough of this..." he growled low.

But Elius drove a punch straight into his throat before he could say more.

The blow didn’t crush or choke—Soilandor had no lungs to collapse—but it jolted his spine.

He bared his teeth.

"You’re provoking me..."

Still, Elius said nothing. Just stepped again, shifted, and delivered a backhand strike with enough force to shake the bandages loose from Soilandor’s shoulder.

Finally, Soilandor snapped.

"ENO—!"

But he never finished.

Suddenly...

A soft hum began to rise.

A glow spread from behind Elius’s head.

Soilandor paused.

Eyes widened.

Clint, Balkan, and Monkaar gasped from afar.

From the roots of his scalp, cascading downward like a golden waterfall, Elius’ long blonde hair began to glow—threads of radiant sunlight coursing through each strand like divine wires.

And at that moment, the battlefield froze.

Soilandor’s eyes widened with glee, his dried lips parting into what passed for a grin, his mummified jaw creaking as though trying to crack open the vault of anticipation within him.

The glowing hair—the signal—it was happening.

This is it.

This is it.

The moment he had been waiting for.

He could feel it.

The golden radiance from Elius’ hair was like a ceremonial horn blown at the start of a long-awaited ritual.

That light was a trumpet to triumph, a declaration that the same slam that annihilated Lava Scissor was finally about to be used on him.

Soilandor had seen it.

He had watched from Pantheon’s view, had studied every twitch of Elius’ body before that devastating moment.

Lava Scissor’s elemental form had cracked and evaporated into nothingness like fragile glass struck by a meteor. And now... now, he, Soilandor, was next.

He was not afraid.

He was elated.

Inside his desiccated mind, he played out scenario after scenario, tasting each one like the finest grains of sand gathered from different deserts across eternity.

What would Elius’ face look like when the truth hit him?

In the scenario one, Elius slams him into the ground, lightning crackles, thunder booms—and then... nothing.

Soilandor rises unscathed. He sees Elius’ wide eyes, lips parting in disbelief. The boy tries to speak but words fail. That confusion. That splinter of horror.

Soilandor would laugh.

He would clap his hands and mock the boy’s foolishness. "What? That’s it? The mighty technique? I didn’t even feel it."

In the Scenario Two, Elius doesn’t stop at one slam.

He goes again. And again.

Each time, his strikes grow more frenzied, more desperate. But Soilandor remains unaffected, his sand absorbing every ounce of force like a desert swallowing raindrops.

Until eventually, Elius’s fists tremble and his shoulders slump. He kneels in exhaustion, and Soilandor simply walks up, pats him on the head like a child, and says, "You really thought the Earth would help you? Fool. I am the Earth."

And last, the Scenario Three, the best one—Elius realizes mid-attack that it’s not working.

Soilandor imagines the look—the flicker of doubt in the boy’s golden eyes.

The flare of uncertainty.

That beautiful, devastating revelation that he had gambled everything on a technique that had no effect.

Oh, how Soilandor would lean in and whisper:

"Your power was never real. Just a borrowed miracle."

And he would enjoy that moment—drag it out, let Elius sink in despair, let the boy’s soul shatter beneath the weight of failure.

Soilandor grinned wider.

The Earth would betray you boy. It’s this time.

Then—

Whirl.

His vision twisted.

What?

What?

The horizon flipped. Sky became ground, ground became sky.

He was... turning?

No, no, not turning—rotating. His entire body was being spun midair, like a toy grasped by a vengeful god-child.

The force was unnatural. His perception reeled, the angles of the world spinning faster than his thoughts could register.

His legs—above him.

His head—facing down.

His chest—compressed by invisible pressure.

His body—elevated by nothing but pure force.

I’m... airborne?

He had barely begun to question what was happening when his body twisted again.

The wind screamed past him like a siren. The ground below zoomed up—no, he was falling. No, being hurled. Fast. Too fast.

SO FAST.

His bandages flapped like shredded flags caught in a hurricane, snapping violently against his limbs.

He felt the press of gravity, and then something more—something unnatural, something sentient, guiding the descent.

The air around him folded, vibrated, howled in protest as if it feared what was about to happen.

His senses sharpened.

Time slowed.

Every second was stretched.

A breath lasted an eternity.

He could see the Earth now.

The exact spot he was being slammed toward.

It wasn’t just soil. It was a point in space that seemed to tremble with expectation. His ancient instincts—the kind that had kept him alive through forgotten wars and unspoken plagues—told him: This is no ordinary ground.

He was being offered to the Earth like a sacrifice.

However, before all that...

That moment seemed to slow, like it was crawling.

Soilandor could feel something, like every grain of air separating, every atom folding out of the way as his back neared the dirt.

His body stretched slightly, as if something inside him recognized the oncoming trauma and tried to escape.

Then.

SLAM.