Chương 150: Beatdown

The quarter guardian prioritized its threats accordingly. Its attention settled firmly on Othmuk. The drake tried to escape, but the guardian slammed its hands down. Othmuk may have been fast in his drake form, but he was nowhere near as nimble as our squads were on foot. The quarter guardian slammed its arms into the stone, creating a shockwave that launched Othmuk off his feet, then lumbered toward him. It grabbed him by the tail, then, silent as a rock, threw him down into the ground.

Before he could get up, it blasted a beam of sunlight from its chest, searing across his scales, cleaving off a swath and leaving a smouldering streak of flesh. Debris scattered, tumbling across the entire underground arena. The ground shuttered, and I pulled my squad back to avoid a spray of molten marble.

"Yes!" Brawl shouted.

"Destroy him!"

"It's not safe here," I said, jumping aside to dodge a spray of stone debris.

"We need to find shelter." We couldn't just run back to the old theater without trying to cross a kaiju battlefield. But the temple was behind us. I turned, then said, "Get back to the temple. It'll be the safest." As Othmuk and the level guardian fought, we sprinted back to the temple. We ran up the stairs at the front, passed the pale statues at the front. They reminded me of ancient Roman statues, and they depicted a man in robes, holding a shield with a sun emblem carved into it.

Into the temple, we hid behind the row of massive pillars at its front, sheltering under its peaked roof. There was a central atrium beyond the rows of pillars behind us, and I plotted an escape route if we needed. But the inside of the temple was sealed off. Sure, we could run back, but once we got in, where were we supposed to go?

"Like Lord Ceonwin said," I muttered.

"We have to beat the golem here." At the center of the atrium stood an altar. It was a simple marble block with a half-sphere indent at its center, channels streaking away from it and etching across the floor—then across the floor of the plaza.

"We need to get its core into that altar," Sage said, confirming my suspicions.

"It's old empire engineering. This would've powered the city's sky projections, but had a golem to guard it, in case of an attack."

"And how exactly do we get it back onto that altar?" Anchor asked. There was more than enough room to walk down the central aisle of the temple, even for the massive golem, and it could lay down on its back. But good luck getting it to go willingly. I grimaced, then turned my attention back to the fight. Othmuk spewed bile from his mouth, melting away parts of the golem, damaging the golem's arms and chest, eroding away its stone body.

The opening in the golem's chest was the exact same shape as the altar—round, and receptive to the altar. They'd mesh together.

"We have to lure it over here," I said.

"And get its core to slot in there."

"And we can just get it to lay down?" Anchor asked.

"Yes, we should," Sage said.

"The old empire would have deactivated their golems by sapping their energy, using specialized siphons. Once it reached a certain threshold, it would deactivate, and it would return itself to the altar. We should be able to simulate the same effect by damaging it."

"How do you know, sister?" Brawl asked.

"Judging by the runes around it," she said.

"And looking at their overall function. It is the only explanation. Have they not been making you study runes?"

"That is the business of druids," Anchor said.

"Does that still count as defeating the golem?" I asked.

"We won't be destroying it like the others. Will it still open up the next level?"

"It should work," Sage said.

"The quarter golems haven't been permanently destroyed, either. The Labyrinth Keepers are slowly putting them back together as we speak, which is why the Labyrinth and the sapper training classes work in a two-year cycle." I nodded. A moment later, a deep boom resounded through the plaza. The level guardian slammed Othmuk down into the floor harder than usual. Its markings were glowing. Othmuk had gotten it to the 'second phase' for us—doing half our work for us.

But this was the hardest part, and with the quarter golems still active, Othmuk was outmatched. The golem gripped Othmuk by the tail, then whipped the drake into the ground again. Silently, the golem fitted its hands into the drake's jaw, stone fingers wrapping around its teeth, then pulled in opposite directions. Othmuk's jaw cracked, and the beast flailed. With a ripple of flesh, it transformed back into orc form, but not fast enough to avoid the golem's stomp.

It left a crater in the ground, then stepped back and blasted the hole with a beam of concentrated sunlight, creating a gash of molten marble in the ground. Othmuk didn't rise out of the hole.

"That had better do it," I said.

"Brawl, sound the horn. It's our turn now."

"Yes, brother," Brawl said. He put the horn to his lips, then gave it a loud blast. It echoed around the entire underground cavern, and there was no way the other squads wouldn't hear. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Now, we wait," I said.

"How will we know when the other golems are down, brother?" Brawl asked.

"We won't," Sage said.

"That's why we wait until Habit and Yesman's squads show up. Shouldn't be too hard, and we can't go taking all the credit. Besides, even if it's just a Gold now, a regular strength Gold, I'm not sure if we can defeat it on our own."

"I don't think it's going to give us much of a choice, sarge," Anchor said. The golem's head turned toward us, and I swallowed.

"You're right." Quickly, I came up with a plan in my mind. We needed to lure it back toward the temple, so it coming toward us wasn't a problem. But it wasn't quite weak enough yet. We had to delay it, then, until we could wear it down to a level where it was about to power off.

"We've got to delay it, then," I said.

"It's half destroyed already. We can make this work, but we've gotta hold it back long enough for the others to get here." We charged out of the temple, racing across the plaza. The golem lumbered toward us, its footsteps thundering, trying to meet us in the middle. I pulled ahead. The faster I reached the golem and distracted it, the more time we'd have to slow it down. It slammed a sunlight-wrapped fist into the ground, sending shards of stone flying.

I rolled to the side, deflecting them, then used an Art—pushing on its arm two directions—to hold it in place and stall it. While I held it, I tested my Journeyman-tier spear Skill on its hand, stabbing it, but I barely made a dent. The stone chipped, but that was about it. I'd need more than a spear Skill, then. When the golem pulled its arm back, Brawl and the others caught up to me, and we took our usual formation.

Now, I only had about eleven Presence left—it was a low estimate, sure, but didn't want to overestimate and leave myself out of options, or base a plan around something I couldn't do. Still, the exhaustion of the drain was catching up to me, and my eyelids grew heavy. It had been a long day. But it wasn't over yet.

"What are the weaknesses we're going for?" I asked Anchor.

"To do as much damage as we can?" Anchor asked.

"The joints of its limbs should be the weakest and the easiest for us to reach." The golem didn't exactly cast a shadow on us. Even if there was light for it to block, it was its own source of light. But it did tower over us, and it didn't stop attacking just because we were talking. With a screech of energy, the golem directed a beam of sunlight out its core. We dodged to the side, and the beam followed us. It singed my cloak, and I pulled it off my shoulders before it caught on fire and burned me as well.

Racing around the side of the golem, I led my squad close to its ankle. Maybe we could get a good strike in when it stepped next. But it rotated its upper body to face us, and I couldn't spare the Presence to slow it down. Then it slammed its fists down, punching the ground repeatedly, forcing us to pull back or die. Stone shards pelted my armour. One struck my helmet, hitting hard and knocking me off my feet, and another slashed my flank.

More of it hit Brawl, though, and he fell back on the ground, ribs cracked, a shard protruding from his chest. And that was even with his Art active, gathering energy from the impacts he took. Sage knelt over him, doing her best to heal him and keep him alive. I said, "Anchor, with me. We've gotta keep it off them."

"Yes, Sarge," he said. We ran to the left, forcing the golem to turn the other way and follow us. I shouted, "Anchor, how hard can you hammer its joints with your arrows?"

"Enhanced arrows should do a bit of damage!" His archery Skill was Advanced-tier now. It would, hopefully, be strong enough to pierce and damage some of the rocks. But he wasn't a Silver—it wouldn't be as long as it could be.

"Go for its left ankle," I added.

"That's our first target." We maneuvered around it, moving in a circle. After a few seconds, its core dimmed noticeably. One of the quarter guardians was down. It slowed, and its fists didn't burn as hot. When they struck the ground, it didn't create as massive of an explosion of magma as it usually did. A few seconds later, it dimmed again, and the golem suffered the same reduction of power. But that didn't mean we could get complacent. As we circled, Anchor fired arrows, aiming for the joints.

They blasted through the air with a crack of thunder, piercing thin holes in its ankle marble. Whenever it stomped or punched, we dodged, and I deflected as much debris as I could. When the golem tried to crush us with a heavy blow from both its arms, I tackled Anchor to the side.

"What are you saving your Presence for?" Anchor complained.

"The ideal moment," I replied.

"I don't have much left! Keep hitting—" Before I could finish, the golem fired a beam of sunlight in front of us. I staggered to a halt, digging my heels in, then pulled Anchor to the side as the beam shifted toward us, forcing us to move closer to the golem. It raised a foot. A dark shadow fell over our heads. The golem had cornered us, and there wasn't time to avoid it—especially not for Anchor, who wasn't as mobile as I was. But before the foot could land, a swell of force struck it from the side.

A powerful will to chop cleaved through the beast's ankle, severing it. Rock debris rained down us, but the golem staggered, and it planted the stub of its leg down beside us.

"Thanks for weakening the joint!" Yesman shouted, giving his axe a whirl as he and his squad sprinted into the plaza.

"Our pleasure," Anchor said, brushing himself off.

"Now, let's finish the job," I said.

"We need to break off its limb, and preferably, we'll do it back at the temple." There wasn't time to explain everything, not as the golem recovered, and marched back toward us.

"We have our formations. Damage it and weaken it as much as we can, while slowly retreating back toward the temple." I sprinted back to Sage and Brawl. Brawl was moving again, and he claimed to be "Good enough." I took his word for it. Slowly, we worked our way back across the plaza, aiming toward the temple. If we retreated outright, we wouldn't do enough damage, and the golem would probably catch one or two of us as we ran.

It staggered, trying to compensate for its injured foot, but each step made it shed more rock dust from its leg. I almost felt bad for it. Our formations worked too well. We wove figure-eights in front of it, distracting its aim and making it impossible to focus on any one group. When it tried to slam its hands down, we were already gone. And by the time we reached the stairs up to the temple, we were almost there. Sage yelled, "It's in range of the shutdown runes!

We just need to hit it a little harder for the sequence to begin."

"Formation five!" I yelled.

"We need it to slam an arm down!" We took our positions on the stairs, clumping up. The level guardian moved exactly how we anticipated, and its arm smashed down onto the stairs. As planned, we scattered, half of us moving to one side, and half to the other. I triggered [Mass Hammer] with the last of my Presence, creating a multi-directional well beneath the beast's arm, and pulling downward with two forty-five degree angles, locking its hand down on the stairs.

"Hit its elbow joint!" I yelled. I stabbed with my spear, Brawl released his Art, and all the others attacked at the same time as well. With a burst of stone, the joint cracked. The golem staggered back, the rest of its body free. Then it froze. The runes on the temple floor lit up. It was now or never. This had better work.