Chương 93: Air Golem

The quarter guardian stood in the middle of an ancient city plaza. It was about a hundred paces wide, with buildings lining the edges. Their stone facades were all that remained, with the Labyrinth Keepers maintaining them. The wood and fabric had long since decayed, and there were no plants left—just bone-white stone. The golem stood at the center of the plaza. It was about twice my height, but its head had sunk between its shoulders, and it boasted a pair of glowing white eyes.

Its shoulders were as wide as it was tall, though its waist was half as wide, and ancient, crumbling columns formed its limbs. Unlike the other golems, its joints weren't sealed with rocky amalgamations. They hovered there, air filling the gaps. And in the center of its chest, like the other quarter guardian we'd defeated a few months ago, a flame burned in an open cavity. Unlike the other golem, this flame was perfectly white. Not even a hint of orange. We sprinted out into the plaza to face the guardian.

Brawl and I stuck close together. We could split apart when we reached the golem, but— Its head snapped toward us with a deep, stony crack, and its eyes blazed brighter. Then it punched one of its arms toward us. We were still thirty paces away, though. What was it doing? Its arm came apart. The bicep disconnected from the shoulder, and the forearm launched out toward us, like it was attached to a massive elastic band.

Air whistled around the golem's limb, and white marble gravel flung off it, pelting across the ground.

"Watch out!" I shouted. Brawl moved one way, and I dodged the other direction. The golem's fist impacted the ground where we'd been standing, creating an explosion of dust and paving stone debris. Pellets of gravel pattered off my shield, but I was safe, and so were the others. Brawl tried to group up with me again, but I said, "Stay apart! Make it split its focus, and don't let it concentrate on either of us!" The golem pulled its arm back.

Joints clacked as they fit back together, and the wind whistled around them, holding them in place. As I circled around to the right, it threw a second punch at me. I rolled away, then said, "Let's see how you handle this…" I triggered my Art, aiming right below the golem's extended arm, and pulled the chunks to the ground. They slammed into the stones, and an invisible connection kept the beast's limb attached. It staggered to the side.

"Brawl, do you have an opening?" I shouted.

"On it, brother!" Brawl struck it with his flail resonance Skill, sending it stumbling to the side. Its upper torso rotated, and its unpinned arm swung out, skimming over my head. I dropped to the ground. The arm struck Brawl, flinging him across the plaza. He triggered his Art just in time to absorb the blow, but it still knocked him off his feet and knocked him through a building's facade on the other side. Pulling back, the golem ripped its arm out of my gravity well.

With a pop, it flung back toward the golem, then locked in place at its normal length, joints no longer stretched out. Air rushed around the limb, flooding back to its core, and its fire blazed much brighter for a few seconds, roaring outside the confines of its hole. The edges of the rock stayed red-hot a little while longer, before dimming as well. I scowled. How hot was that fire? But my next angle of attack was, much like with the first golem, to try to deprive it of air for a brief moment.

I had more than enough Presence to test and see what would happen, even if it failed. Jumping aside and dodging another punch from the golem, I rolled to my feet, then triggered my Art, envisioning my range of gravity creation above the golem's head. I made sure not to catch the golem in it, but only form a gradient of air above its head. Wind rushed into the 'gravity tube,' following the concentration gradient, but the golem's flame didn't even flinch.

It had a far stronger grasp on the wind than my subtle manipulations ever could, and it knew to keep its flame fuelled. I rolled back, dodging away from another punch, then sprang to my feet beside Anchor.

"The strategy we used last time isn't going to work."

"Any other ideas?" he asked.

"I'm trying to plan," I replied. My Art helped, if only slightly, but if I didn't know everything the golem was capable of, I couldn't predict what exactly was going to happen.

"We have to probe it a little more," I said.

"Hit it with arrows. See what's gonna happen."

"And what are you going to do if there's no weakness?" Sage asked.

"What if we just have to grind it down? Are you ready for that, and are we capable of that? We're still only Irons, and it's a Titanium."

"It's easier to punch up when you can exploit a weakness," Anchor added.

"If we just have to grind it down brute-force, we won't win."

"We'll see when it comes to that," I said.

"But until then… circle around and check up on Brawl, see if he needs healing. Then see how it reacts to arrows." They nodded. I rushed in, keeping the golem busy. My spear resonance Skill made tiny gashes in the stone, but the stone was tougher than most, and I couldn't slice too deeply. And if I stabbed too close to the fire, my spear was going to melt before it hit the stone. Even a few paces away, at a regular engagement distance, it was like standing above a stove element. How hot was that flame?

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. So using my spear Skills to destroy it was off the table. While Anchor and Sage rushed over to the other side of the plaza, where the golem had flung Brawl, I rolled back the other direction, keeping the golem's gaze focused on me. It lumbered forward, unable to match my agility, and my limbs were strong enough to speed me up. I thrust myself back to a safe distance, then reached for my bow.

An arrow would probably go much the same as a spear, but I needed to know. My first arrow took a bit of fumbling to draw under pressure, and I ended up dropping it while avoiding a strike from the golem, but my second arrow at least flew toward it. I didn't add a resonance Skill, though. The arrow, as expected, just bounced off. The golem didn't even flinch.

I moved back, putting enough distance between myself and the golem as I could, then enhanced my arrow in the only way I knew how: I used a resonance Skill, then generated a direction gravity well in front of me, creating a horizontal tug. The arrow flew into the well, then accelerated in a blink. I aimed right at the golem's flaming core. With a boom, it shot forward, fast as a bullet, but nothing happened. The core incinerated it as well, vapourizing the wood and melting the arrowhead.

I quickly abandoned that plan, and instead, just used my regular, unenhanced arrows to goad it from a distance, luring it back across the plaza and keeping its attention focused on me. It swung its arms and punched from a distance, but every time, I rolled aside and forced myself to fire an arrow as a counter attack. The arrow didn't really help—except for increasing my archery Skill's tier, which had to have gotten slightly better. But soon, the golem backed me up to the edge of the plaza.

My spine brushed up against an ornamental pillar, and the beast raised its arms. I rolled to the side to avoid a crushing slam, but it never came. Before the golem hit, Brawl smashed it in the side with another resonance Skill. He hit its flank with his flail, and a pulse of invisible energy surged out, flinging the beast across the floor. It skidded twenty paces away, buying us time.

"You've gotten stronger," I said, jumping up to my feet.

"I have, brother. But we are far from finished. My Art is still charging."

"I have an idea," I said.

"You think you can take a few more hits and charge it all the way?"

"It would be my pleasure."

"Just don't die," I said.

"Sage, can you keep an eye on him and help him with the not dying part?"

"Will do," she said.

"And Anchor," I added, "I need you to test something for me." He drew an arrow and nocked it in his bow.

"You shot it plenty of times."

"I won't be able to make this shot," I replied.

"I need your aim. Shoot an arrow right through a joint, and see what happens. Nothing enhanced." Anchor nodded. While Brawl approached, and while Sage and Morph circled around at a safe distance, Anchor launched an arrow at the golem's joints. The arrow whistled through the joint, passing through without obstruction. It simply wobbled, as if a gust of wind had hit it.

"It's using wind to hold its joints together," I said. I shut my eyes, then drew on my Art to help me envision. It worked better if I imagined how I'd use a gravity well to help with the situation, so I imagined pinning one of its arms as Brawl struck it. The beast's arm stretched, but it used wind to maintain its joints, pulling on them harder. And if we released it when it wasn't expecting, the air would rush back to its core—and the flame.

There was a reason it had glowed brighter every single time it finished an attack.

"I have an idea," I said.

"You're going to strike the finishing blow. But I need you to change your arrowhead."

"What are you planning?" Anchor asked.

"I wish I had time to explain," I said. Brawl took a fist to the chest, and it knocked him flat on his back. One of his ribs cracked—I could hear it from here—but Sage healed him almost immediately.

"But there isn't time. Find a stone, attach it to the head of one of your arrows. Something that, when it impacts half-melted stone, will punch deep enough." Anchor nodded.

"I'll trust your judgement." I tightened my grip on my shield, gave it a whirl, then switched back to my spear and rushed closer, taking some pressure off Brawl as he recovered. My shield wasn't strong enough to block a direct hit, but I used it to deflect a swell of gravel as the golem stomped in front of me, guarding my face.

"Anchor, hold your Art just a little longer!" I shouted.

"I don't know how much more I can hold, brother!" Brawl said.

"The Art has drained three Presences already!" I winced, then said, "Draw its attention, and get it to slam both limbs down on you! But don't go far!" He nodded, then lunged in, taking my place again. He was getting slightly better at dodging, and his agility must've been improving. But the golem saw him as a far greater threat, and a far more durable threat, than it'd ever seen me. It resorted to slamming both arms down atop him almost immediately.

Before it could strike and kill him, Sage commanded Morph, and the forest golem whipped out a tendril of branches and vines, pushing Brawl to the side. I triggered a regular vertical gravity well, trapping the golem's arms—both of them at once—and pinning them to the plaza ground. The bricks cracked and shattered around the impact point.

"Use your Art, now!" I shouted at Brawl. He released the pent-up impact from the fight, directing it in a wave at the golem. The beast's arms stretched, and wind whistled between the joints as it tried to hold itself together. I glanced back at Anchor. He finished tying a small, flat stone to the tip of one of his arrows.

"It won't fly far," he said.

"And it won't fly as true as normal."

"Hit it right above the flame, on my mark." As the golem stumbled back, I released the gravity art. Wind whistled toward its core as it tried to cope with the backlash, but it was too late. The flame blazed bright, too bright to even look at, and the combusting roared louder than a passing train. I'd never smelled molten rock before, and I wasn't sure if I was smelling that or my own hair singing. The air rushing into the core was acting like bellows, heating the flame to a greater degree.

After a few seconds, I yelled, "Anchor! Now!" He fired an arrow, enhanced with a resonance Skill. It wobbled through the air, moving almost too fast to track, then impacted with a boom. Superheated, fragile rock cracked, specks of magma sprays. Its molten core buckled under the pressure. The golem's upper body shattered, leaving a hole for air and heat to escape. The rushing wind snuffed the fire, and the crumbling golem's upper body put out its embers.

It collapsed in a heap of dust and sparks, and I grabbed Brawl and pulled him back before the pellets of hot stone could hit us, guarding myself and him with my shield. When I was sure the golem wasn't going to get up again, I lowered my shield.

"That went…slightly better than the first golem. Two down, one more to go."