Chương 34

From his position behind a half-crumbled wall, he had a clear shot past two housing units. He'd spent the last hour preparing himself, jogging, sprinting, punching walls, and overall getting used to his new body's limits. Easiest part was not expecting any pain from his hands or legs. He still felt something, but more in the sense of information and far less like actual pain. At worse, broken bones just made it a little harder to walk around.

Running was a matter of slowly relearning his new speed, starting with fast walking, jogging, running and then working up to sprinting. The amount of speed and freedom he felt, no longer limping around, was intense. Jumping off the top of buildings took the longest to get himself adjusted to on the other hand. There was always that feeling of ' Uh oh, I'm falling' that kicked Wade in the gut as soon as gravity took notice of him.

But once he adjusted, he started feeling like some kind of parkour assassin; grabbing ledges, throwing himself up walls, vaulting off obstacles at full speed. He didn't figure out how to roll correctly when landing on the ground even after trying to figure it out on his own, so he often just ate shit and that was the price he paid for overextending. He hadn't been idle when it came to the golem plan either, testing it slightly here and there whenever he was completely safe from being spotted.

That and target practice with his new arms. Rocks were everywhere here. And there were plenty of long alleyways that offered a perfect target range. So he'd taken to practicing his rock throws, getting more accurate with each toss. All of which led to this moment, where he hid behind a half ruined housing wall. He angled a small rock back with newfound practiced ease, and let it fly off. Game start. The rock sailed in a gentle arc, passing the first housing unit, then the second on his side of the street.

It was on track to missing the golem, but that was fine. This was part of his plan. The golem's head swiveled with a mechanical whir he could hear all the way from here. Its eye sensor locked onto the projectile mid-flight, tracking its trajectory. The rock clattered into the alley across the street, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop.

"ANOMALY DETECTED. PLEASE REMAIN CALM." The golem's voice boomed through the empty street. It had said this three times thus far, when Wade had tested distraction rocks at it. The massive frame turned, each step deliberate and heavy as it approached the alley like a fat crab. Once it got near where the rock had rolled into, the entire body turned itself to allow the eye a better view down the alleyway. Like looking for the power outlet behind the couch.

Exactly where Wade needed it to be, exposing the uncracked slab to his direction. He hopped to his feet on the roof, drew one of Illy's daggers in his right hand, and a rock on his left. Then took a deep breath. If he could get a lucky critical hit, that'd be just perfect. But more importantly, Wade didn't want to miss. The blackrot in his arm seemed to wake at his thoughts, again undulating inside his skin, black veins moving around slightly. Coiling up. Wade jumped and launched the dagger like a missile.

That weapon didn't actually need to cut into anything, even if the hilt of the dagger hit hard enough to do some amount of damage, the debuff would get applied. Right after he landed, he swapped the left-handed rock in reserve, jumped up again and launched that one right after the dagger. The dagger slapped against the rock slab and did something, because the glowing concentric circles appeared, showing a bullseye over the golem. Part one was working.

The golem lifted itself slowly up in response, right as the rock slammed against the holstered slab. And exploded into dust and pebbles. It looked like Illy's daggers did some amount of damage from how hard they were, but rocks around here were too brittle to be effective. Fuck. The impact might as well have been a gentle breeze.

He wouldn't know for sure until he used identify in range and checked to see if there was any health loss, but he already had a sinking feeling the rock plan was going to take some more work.

"Well. Not ideal." His feet hit the flat rooftop with a clatter, as he rolled back up and dove off, hands outstretched to grab a ladder, then leapfrogging back down onto the ground. He'd picked this route earlier - three buildings over, then down through the collapsed section that led to the back alleys. His blackrotten body responded to his motions with ease and practice, even his hand grip strength was enough to hold up his entire body weight. The golem's head snapped toward the rooftop with precision.

Its eye sensors flared bright blue.

"THREAT DETECTED. INVESTIGATING." New Personal quest: Challenge Gauntlet - An enemy forty levels or more above you is hunting you down. Evade or defeat your hunter. Reward: One storefront coin if your pursuer is eliminated. Yeah no shit it was forty levels above him. Frankly Wade felt a little cheated here. How many more times above forty was this golem? The quest should give him two storefront coins, or maybe three even. He could see the light bounce around the narrow alleyways.

It was coming this way just as he made it into safety where, he could watch its reaction from a random window. Just so long as he wasn't on the rooftop anymore. The grinding of metal filled the air as the golem's docked hand detached from the side of its thorax. It drifted to the back, connecting with the stone slab, merging into the material like water into sand. I think you pissed it off lolol"You got any other actually useful advice here, or just going to be the peanut gallery?"

Sure, when it shoots you, try to dodge (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b Peanut gallery it is. The phone went back into his pants. Maybe he hadn't been close enough and too much energy bled from the rock? He needed to get close to identify the health percentage anyhow. He could hear the thumping as the golem was making its way here. A quick glance over the window showed him the golem's max speed seemed about the same as a brisk jog.

It was either taking its sweet time moving around without hurry, or that much mass couldn't be moved quickly around without issues. Even a hyper-advanced magical society had to have some grounding rules to it. If that was the golem's max speed, then could easily outrun it with his blackrot empowered sprint. Wade crept closer, keeping close to the walls. Another rock, about the size of an apple, felt right in his palm. Just needed to get within twenty feet or so.

Close enough for a proper hit, far enough to bolt if things went south. He'd use Illy's daggers again only if he confirmed he could do damage to it with a rock. Otherwise, he'd just need to toss away double daggers to take out its gun. He popped up, hurled the rock - but this time the golem's sensors caught the motion early. The floating turret tilted on itself, presenting an angled surface. The rock glanced off harmlessly, skittering across the street.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The turret's barrel flashed not even a heartbeat later. Wade dropped, but not fast enough. The wall was punched through above him in a spray of blinding white lines. He dove further to the left and felt something slice into his shoulder, his side, his leg. More rounds cut through the wall like it was paper, no impact or anything more than clean circles. He hit the ground hard, vision swimming.

The stream of bullets swept past his position, cutting through walls and debris in a blind spray, as if the golem was trying to predicted where he would have gone. He crawled on the floor, not yet checking to see the damage. If he could still think, his head hadn't been hit. Once he felt safe enough, he got back on his feet and went into a full sprint, as the golem approached his last known position. Like the weasel and the spider before, even with holes in his body that should have crippled him, he felt fine.

No pain, full range of motion. Golems would chase after him forever, if it spotted him. Right now, it was belatedly spotting attacks, knew something was out there attacking, but hadn't yet seen him. Halfway through his sprint he felt the bullet holes in his body start mending up fully. His body grew more controlled again, back to normal. A minute later of hiding, and he was completely healed. It would have been absolutely overpowered if it all didn't come with a ticking time bomb.

The moment that mithril collar got ripped apart by accident, or he scratched his nose with a finger, it was over. Wade made it to his next safehouse. Game of cat and mouse now. The phone buzzed. Wade didn't take it out, instead he stared up at the ceiling.

"Play, I swear to everything that's holy out there, this better be good advice or else." He took the phone out. You got this boo~ Trust your plan ٩(◕‿◕)۶ Play actually being supportive was not on his bingo sheet. But oddly welcome from that psychopath. At least someone out there was cheering for him. He closed his eyes and put the phone back in his pocket. All right, Play's advice was to stick to the main plan: Break the gun. He just needed something more than the rocks around here.

On the other hand the golem had responded to the stone. It hadn't ignored the rock toss, just angled itself to deflect damage the moment it had spotted the incoming attack. Which meant he'd threatened to do damage if he kept at it. Or the golem wasn't sure if he'd throw a rock with something more sturdy inside it. The stone slab was clearly made of harder material than the concreate walls here, so all he needed to do was find something that was harder.

The daggers were always an option, but Wade really didn't want to lose all of them yet. The skeletons had used pickaxes to damage the other slab before. Plenty of tools inside the houses were left behind, there had to be some designed like pickaxes to break or chisel rock. He needed something sturdy, possibly with a good bit of weight to it, and that was harder than stone. The metal doorways into the houses? Then his head came to one single perfect candidate.

Wade started laughing to himself at the absurdity, then chucked a rock far behind him down the alleyway to distract the golem while he raced back. Gunshots rang out further behind where the rock had collided, and Wade quickly made his way through the network of alleyways he'd grown to memorize over the past hour of training. Right back to the house that started it all. Deep within the gloom here, his eyes fell over the shiny remains of the mimic: The silver lootbox itself.

He was going to yank that thing up with him, and chuck it at the golem. That or he was going to find out if it was bullet proof, and use that as a helmet while he made a bee-line for the manhole. He could certainly open the inside up and then run using it as a turtle shell shield over his head. If a mimic was using that as its first line of defense, it might actually be rather sturdy. But the thought of beating up the golem with his lootbox chest felt far more savage.

He closed the lid, heard it lock shut with a satisfying click and lifted the entire thing up. His new strength and assistance from the blackrock made the chest feel like it was only five pounds, despite him knowing it would be far more. Could he really throw this thing from far away enough to do damage? Only one way to find out. He pulled it out with him, and then slunk through the alleyways looking for the source of noise further off. It was still looking for him in the wrong place. Good.

Wade drew out Illy's dagger, then gave it a gentle arcing throw at the golem, so it would land onto its head. Then while it sailed upwards, he grabbed the handle of the chest, angled a clear shot at the floating turret, and starting sprinting forward. At the last minute he leaped up, blackrot undulating under his arms in the familiar anticipation before he rocketed the chest ahead of him, letting it fly like a giant bullet into the giant stone slab. Illy's dagger landed first, nailing the golem with minimum damage.

The crosshair marks appeared again, giving him a few seconds to get the next hit off. He didn't need a few seconds, the lootbox chest was zipping right into the exposed gun-slab. It collided, one of the square corners being the first to hit at an angle. Chucks of white granite exploded outwards as the rest of the lootbox slammed into the stone, leaving giant cracks spreading out. Glowing lines across the slab instantly winked out, making the entire weapon look outright dead. The gun was down for the count.

He'd seen the same thing happen for the skeletons. The lootbox spun away, hitting a rooftop, crushing through some rubble there before bouncing down out of sight under. Last Wade saw, it was completely unscratched. The golem on the other hand, was not. Level 122 Nathir Security Golem - 79% Illy's debuff, his blackrotten empowered body, a silver basically indestructible chest all expertly thrown right at the golem's only brittle bodypart, and he managed to knock off 3% of its health pool. Barely a tickle.

But Wade didn't see it that way. The debuff was applied and he knew it would continue to eat away at it. Mist started to float out of the golem, like acid fizzing away. He'd noticed that before on skeletons and other hits he'd done with the debuff, but the size of the enemy seemed proportional and so the vapors were hardly noticeable. On the golem? It looked almost like steam billowing out of it. Wade saw the health bar start flashing red as damage was periodically applied.

He felt elated, already racing back into safety. Ten seconds later, he checked from his new safe spot. The final result for his highest possible initial impact, now copied ten times over for the entire debuff duration? Level 122 Nathir Security Golem - 71%"Hell yeah baby! I am a fucking walking nuke!" He whooped out in a half whisper and fistpump. Math and multipliers was a powerful thing.

The golem's tank-like armor would have made most of Wade's attacks moot, or outright tickle, but the System didn't care for how powerful the golem was or if its guns were even linked to its central systems. The ability said damage would be done to the main healthpool, and so damage was goddamn done. Wade ran the number in his head and returned an even better jackpot: Nine or ten more hits with the dagger/chest combo and that golem could potentially die. And he had twelve more daggers to get it right.