Chương 25: Another Guardian

HE and Frank spent too long furrowing the tunnels and connecting symbols. It wasn't a bad time, to be clear, just a rather rote time; once the novelty of the runic puzzles faded and Warhol understood how the symbols interacted, in part, through a lot of trial and error, it became a game of connecting the appropriate symbols to their cousins.

Once in a while a new symbol would appear within the casual chain and though that new symbol required some more trial and error to see how it fit in with the rest, it was never a difficult thing to figure out. Their day only brightened up when they encountered another massive circular door. One with the same kinds of runes, sigils, and glyphs which portended the first Construct battle.

"You sure you're ready to fight a Construct? The last one was level one thousand. This one will probably be stronger..." he asked Frank. Frank chuckled.

"Buddy, look who you're talking to — jeez! You think I've gone soft since our fight a couple years ago? I don't stay on my haunches. I'm out there in the field day-in, day-out. Open the door and I will be fine." Warhol swallowed.

"Okay. Let me know if you need back up..." He placed his hands against the door and imbued it with as much mana as he could push into the oversized mana lock. In the past, he had to be careful against pouring too much mana into a lock least it breaks and render the door operational only in 'the hard' sense, which was to say, that required him to blast a hole through it. Something he would like to avoid with these relic doors.

Seeing how the doors could take a mana-based beating, he threw caution to the wind and injected as much mana as his capabilities allowed. Twenty-minutes later the door unlocked. The sigils and glyphs and so on faded and the door curled into its slot below. Warhol exhaled.

"Ready?"

"Ready." Repeated Frank. They entered the chamber. Like last time, the chamber brightened as they approached and illuminated a vast number of bones and dust. All of which flew into the air and swirled around them like dead leaves in an unreal breeze. The bones and bone fragments smashed together, locking into place with startling haste; in minutes, a massive skeleton had formed in the same shape as the previous Construct: wings, webbed feet, horns, multiple arms and the rest.

In a flash of light, the skeleton was replaced with a ferocious flesh-and-blood creature.

"This is what you fought last time, I take it?" Frank asked.

"Yup! Although this one has a robe. I guess it's a spellcaster? I should take the lead, here — I will tie it up, you go in for the kill, okay?" Warhol told Frank. In telling his Possible Friend to take the finishing blow, something in the back of his mind tickled. Wasn't he supposed to be doing something that had a similar nature? But what? What could he be doing or needed to do that required another person to claim a monster kill?

Knowing now wasn't the time or the place to dwell on his To Do list, Warhol had the System scan the enemy. Frank, meanwhile, ran off to the side and waited for his opportunity to strike. While he waited for the [Scan] results, he incanted [Barrier] as well as [Flight]; he took to the air and shot off several weak [Fireball] spells. The fire slammed into the air that surrounded the Construct. He should've expected the Constructed to have a barrier, considering its mage-affinity. But that wasn't a problem.

His [Fireball] incantation had all but shattered the Construct's barrier. One more would be all it took — so that's what Warhol did: he shot off a final gust of flame and the Construct's barrier shattered like a glass window in a storm.

"Almost!" he yelled to Frank.

"Wait for my signal." At that moment, the System finished scanning the enemy: [Lifeform Identified: Guardian Construct (Lv. 2500)]. Warhol had to whistle-impressed at that! An additional fifteen-hundred levels between this second guardian and the first. If Guardians appeared at the rate between the first and second and that rate continued all the way to the center of the planet, then... holy crap, Warhol couldn't do that kind of math in his head, but it would be enough to keep him busy and then some!

Maybe even provide him a challenge before the Cosmic Horror! In his distracted awe at the level difference, the Construct had gotten the better edge on him and unleashed several omni-blasts at him. Omni-blasts were an elemental fusion of multiple elements into an unstable whole. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, it could be a fearsome weapon. More often than not, an omni-blast was something done by a fool in favor of disciplined study in a small handful of elements.

The Construct's blast was somewhere in the middle, an impressive feat for an undead construct! If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The omni-blast shot straight into and was diffracted by Warhol's barrier, its component bits lashed into the ground like a tightly coiled tether unbound; from his eye's corner, he saw Frank impacted and was sent flying against the wall.

They were up and back at it before long, the barrier he cast on him took a hit, as his System pinged, informing him of [-1000 Mana Reduced], though it remained intact. Concerned though he had been with Frank's safety, he didn't let that distract him from the task at hand and had busily formed an [Icicle] while he looked out for his friend's interest; on that incantation, he then cast [Reinforce] on before his final layer of [Electro-Infusion].

Now he held an immense, harder-than-diamond, electric icicle which would piece just about anything. But Warhol did not unleash it, not yet.

"Get ready!" he called to Frank. Warhol tapped his finger against his giant icicle, and it broke into several smaller pieces. He waved his index finger forward and one by one, the icicles shot into a different part of the Construct's body, crucifying it against the wall. It let out terrible cries which would've made a normal man's ears bleed before a [Power Punch] to its mouth removed the creature's ability to make awful noises. Satisfied the creature was on its last legs, he turned to Frank.

"Do your thing!" Frank charged at the creature and hacked at the pinned monster with all-mighty hacks of his sword imbued with raw mana for maximum physical hurt. Bit-by-bit, the monster was cut, literally, down to size, as Frank's colossal hacks removed first its right leg, then its right arm, before its other limbs came. Although the Construct struck at Frank with its bendable sword-like talons, Frank deflected most of the attacks with but only a gash to show.

A final [Thrusting Jab] from Frank ended the construct granting Frank all of the experience for the kill. Warhol descended to the floor and checked in on his Maybe-Friend. He incanted [Heal] on Frank's wounds and asked the man how he felt.

"I feel... good!" Frank replied.

"No, not just good, I feel great!" Frank pumped his arm like he was some new army recruit showing off for some local girls.

"I feel like I'm twenty-five again and ready to sleep my way through a harem!"

"You leveled up, I take it?" he asked.

"Heck yeah, I did! I haven't leveled up since... damn, a few years, I think."

"A few years?" Warhol placed his arms on his hips, akimbo.

"I thought you were Mister Field Work? Mister Always Out in the Field Getting His Hands Dirty Just in Case I Went Bad? You mean to tell me despite all of that you haven't gotten a level up in how long?" Frank frowned.

"Not all things come easy to normal folks, Warhol. You might be a superhuman demi-God, mage-of-a-man, but I am but a normal human. One who has trained long and done immense things, but still normal. Have you forgotten the tremendous efforts it takes for a human past a certain level to level up?"

"I guess I have forgotten. My apologies," he told Frank. As he spoke, he felt that familiar tingle in the back of his head. Leveling up... how slow it could be... one Boon Point per level... his 'hacking' of the system... what was he forgetting?

"No worries." Frank kept his cool.

"No worries at all. Wow! Warhol, we need to do this more often. I mean it. If we are to oppose this 'horror' that is coming our way, I need to be as strong as possible. If each time I claim the kill of one of these things I level up, then by the time the horror has arrived, I will be a force to be reckoned with!"

"I don't doubt it," Warhol stalled, not sure on the words.

"But...?" Frank teased.

"You don't feel like protecting my hide? Or is it that now that your kid's at the academy, you're becoming a family man and want to spend the weekends throwing balls with him?" Frank joked but it caused a shock of a remembrance inside of him. Shit... he was supposed to be training Lance! He had taken and left his son on Murder Island! He had grown bored with watching his son fight bandits and popped off to meet with Frank. Then it was one distraction after another!

The planning, the complex's discovery, more chatting, the researchers! How could he be so addled?! As he fought alongside Frank like old times, his nineteen-year-old son was fighting for his life on an island full of cutthroats and monsters! For Gods' sake, he had detected an abomination on that island as well as a baby kraken!

"Are you okay, Warhol...?" Frank's words cut through his mental fog.

"Ah, Frank... I need to go. I have to check in on something. Do you want to stay here or go back to Headquarters?" Frank made a show of considering.

"Take me back to HQ. I should report in on our findings. What we've found should be enough to spur people to action. I need to draft up a document anyway for the eventuality of national powers wanting to annex their part of the complex."

"Yes, very wise. We can't ignore that," Warhol said as he incanted [Portal] for Frank to use. Frank stepped through the portal and returned to the Planetary Defense Council's headquarters. A blink later and he had [Teleported] back to Murder Island, praying his son, his precious, one and only son, hadn't been eaten by a Kraken or consumed, flesh and soul, by an abomination. To his son's credit, what he saw surprised him.