I glanced up through the gap in the roof. A large humanoid of rocks and mud stood there, rising to at least twice the height of the house. The creature was featureless but for a red disk of light that shone eerily where its face should have been. A hazy aura of black surrounded it, as if darkness was enriching it, powering it from within.
A Golem. I stepped back, my chest thumping wildly. I was in trouble yet again.
The Dark Alliance had found me.
***
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The beast of rock towered over me. Patches of random green grew on its body, breaking its monotonous brown theme. Its face peered down at me, and its limbs shifted.
I instantly dashed to the edge of the room. The Golem swung down, and its fist cracked through another wall, turning it to rubble.
“Damn creature!” Krof threw his hands up in the air. “Stop wrecking my home!”
Streams of wind and fire intertwined around the wizard’s body and grew thicker in seconds.
My eyes widened. Dual casting, I realized.
“Scram, you pile of rocks!” Krof yelled. Fire and wind shot out of his palms. The elements swirled into the Golem and thundered in one massive explosion. Smoke and darkness surrounded the creature, masking it from our sight.
“Serves you right,” the old wizard panted.
A low rumble sounded from within the smokescreen and a rocky hand thudded out, crashing into what was left of the broken walls.
“What on earth?” Krof gasped, his eyes wide.
His attack did nothing. The Golem’s health bar was still completely full, as though that previous attack hadn’t even occurred. What’s going on here? I blinked.
A mysterious chant echoed into the air. Freya stood beside us, arms up to her shoulders, wind picking up around her body. She stopped chanting and looked up at the Golem.
“Loryi,” she said.
Many spears of bright light summoned above her and shot at the Golem. Multiple explosions blasted away, and the beast was shrouded in smoke yet again. However, this time, it emerged in a flash, much faster than before.
“It’s immune to magic,” Krof whispered.
Dammit. I looked up at the monster, summoning its Analyze screen.
DING!
Name
Forest Golem
Level
61
“Ugh,” I muttered. The thing was really strong, and taking it down was not going to be easy. I didn’t even know something could be immune to magic. I gritted my teeth. How troublesome.
“It’s no use.” Freya leaned closer to me. “We can only take the Golem down with physical attacks, and I can’t break my seal again for a while.”
“We’ll have to do without it.” I slid my sword out and held it in front of me. I only had one attack that I was confident enough to use in this situation, and so I summoned it.
I charged ahead and picked up speed in an instant. “Bladestorm!” I yelled. I jumped onto the walls of the house and used them as a launchpad to send myself straight up to the beast. I soared to its head, my sword pulled back and ready to swing. I waited a second more, till I hit my peak height, and slashed across its face.
My sword sank into the rocky structure and my hand jerked. A crack sounded in my ears right after. The weapon broke, and the blade shattered into a million rough pieces. My eyes widened. No! I fell back, my body frozen in shock.
The Golem rumbled and its form shifted. Its fist locked onto my position midair and swung up at me. Something tugged my arm, and the next thing I knew, I’d been pulled back down to the floor.
Freya stood before me, holding my wrist. “You idiot,” she muttered and let go.
DING!
Failure!
Your weapon, the Steel Sword of Haste, has broken.
My chest clenched, but I ignored the sensation. I dismissed the screen and looked up at the Golem. The creature stood up straight, ready to strike again.
“Stay here.” Freya jumped high into the air, gripping her sword tight. A flurry of strikes slashed around the Golem a second later, all of them too fast for my eye to catch. The beast’s health decreased, going down by a tenth in a few seconds.
My eyes widened. “You’re doing it, Freya! It’s wor—” The beast’s health bar flashed back to full health the very next moment.
“It’s got high health recovery,” Krof mumbled from beside me.
I gritted my teeth. “Can you do anything to it right now?”
“Kid, this thing is—”
The Golem smacked into Freya with the back of his hand. She crunched into the floor, and a sparse shockwave pulsated from the impact point. Smoke and wood chipped out into the air, partly hiding her struggling form.
She can’t do this by herself. I clenched my fists.
“But she doesn’t have to,” a voice chuckled in my mind.
My heartbeat stopped. I jerked my head around, looking into the darkness, searching for the voice.
“What’s the matter?” It laughed.
“Who are you?” I took a step back.
“I’m offended,” it said. “I’d like to think I’m quite memorable. Especially after that big battle with the Valdar.”
My eyes widened. “You,” I whispered.
The Golem rumbled like thunder and brought its hand down at us, faster than before. Freya immediately jumped, her sword glowing bright white as she rose into the air. She swung into the Golem’s attacking hand and pushed it back, knocking the creature off balance. The beast, however, quickly regained its stance and thrust forward, smacking into Freya and throwing her down to the floor.
“Freya!” I ran to her.
“I’m…fine,” the elf said, barely managing to walk out of the rubble, her hand still gripping her sword tight. “Need to…Golem…”
“You can’t do this.” I held her shoulders, steadying her stance. “We need to run from this thing.”
“We don’t have time,” she said. “I was able to use one of my moves to reduce its defenses by half. If we don’t attack it now, we won’t be able to take it down.”
“You can’t attack the Golem the way you are now.”
“Yes, I—” She stumbled.
I caught her and stood her up. “See?”
“Ugh,” the voice sighed. “I need to help you again, huh?”
Images of the Valdar massacre filled my head. No! I yelled.
“Relax,” it chuckled. “I’m going to let you do everything this time.”
I blinked. “What do you—”
DING!
A screen popped up.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill
Fire Arts!
Set the world ablaze with the flame of your existence. Make it burn. Increased resistance to extreme heat.
Effect 1
+10% Attack Damage in the presence of extreme heat.
DING!
Congratulations! You have learned a new Fire Arts Spell:
Blast Burn: Erkiela.
A spell of the Fire Arts, this attack causes a torrential wave of fire to surge away from you, searing everyone and everything in its path. Inflicts target with the burn status effect. Attack is not affected by magical resistance.
Mana Cost
20
Casting Time
10 seconds
Cooldown Time
5 minutes
Range
50 yards
Effect 1
+1% Burn Damage per second
DING!
Congratulations! You have learned a new Fire Arts Spell:
Flame Charge: Asgionis.
A spell of the Fire Arts, this attack encompasses your body in red-hot flames. Damage caused by flames will be determined by Wisdom and Mana levels.
Mana Cost
10
Casting Time
5 seconds
Cooldown Time
5 minutes
Range
N/A
Effect 1
Agility increased by +5%
Did that voice just bless me with a skill? I blinked. Is that even possible?
I was overwhelmed by everything that I’d obtained in less than half a minute. A part of my mind had already begun processing it all. I remembered that this Golem was a Forest Golem, and that Fire Arts were strong against it.
There’s way to get out of this alive, I realized.
A loud rumble sounded from the rocky beast, and the tone trembled through the ground. Its red eye lit up, and a red beam of energy shot out of it. A dome of white light instantly expanded out from the ground, surrounding me and Freya. I turned around and saw the old wizard standing a yard behind us.
He grinned. “Just because the Golem has a magical resistance doesn’t mean we can’t protect ourselves from it.”
My mind suddenly clicked. I should still have it, I thought. “Krof, can you hold this shield up for a few more seconds?”
He nodded. “I can give you more if you need it.”
“That should be enough.” I quickly slid open my Ga’em menu and went into my Equipment Inventory menu. I tapped on the small icon of a darkly shaded stick, and a screen popped up.
Equipment Title
Staff of the Goblin Shaman
Damage
45 – 50 ATK
Special Effects
+15% Damage to all fire spells
Grade
One Star
Durability
15/30
Rarity
Uncommon
Value
18000 Sol
Just what I needed. I tapped on the Equip option and a stream of lights collected into my hand, materializing as a staff of dark gray wood. Staffs, in general, were items that amplified the power of the spells one cast from the magical arts. The fact that my weapon had a 15% damage increase to all fire spells was even better for me.
“Eternal, how much longer do I need to hold this up?” Krof asked, sounding strained.
“One second.” I breathed in. “Asgionis.”
The sounds of ignition blurred my thoughts, and flames of blood-red threw themselves around me, encompassing me in a shroud of fire. A red hue glowed over my skin—a sign that my Agility boost had been activated.
Good. I turned to Krof. “Drop the shield.”
The wizard let his hands fall to his side, and the dome immediately faded away. The Golem took notice and jerked around, its arms already swinging down onto us. I didn’t dive away this time and charged in instead, my feet flying over the ground. The beast’s arms came down, but I was running faster than it was falling.
A small grin curled onto my face as I stopped myself in front of it. I held my staff up and pointed it at the creature of rock.
“Erkiela!” I yelled, and the tone vibrated through the air. I tensed for a second. What if nothing happens?
And then it did.
A deluge of orange and red fire exploded around me, surging away like waves. It crashed and turned, weaving an ocean of flames right before my very eyes. The waves of fire shot into the air, wrapping around the Golem and setting it ablaze. The creature growled, and its arms swung hard, swiping at the flames that now consumed its body.
The rock and stone shattered, and the rough structures crumbled in the face of the intense heat. The beast growled out one last time, the sound echoing through the forest, and then collapsed to the floor, dissolving into a lone pile of simple mud.
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated:
Forest Golem (Lv 61)!
That wasn’t your battle to win, and yet you did. Your luck is impeccable. (Even though your luck stat is terrible). Reward: 10000XP. Reward: 20000 Sol. Reward: Shield of the Forest Golem.
DING!
Congratulations! Your level has increased!
Level 19!
Given how much you struggled with the golem, you should probably think hard about where you invest your points into from now on. You gain 4 stat points to spend on your skills. You also gain a 25% advancement to the skill of your choice.
I breathed easy for a second. That was some A-grade luck back there, I chuckled.
The Golem was nearly four times as strong as I was. The only reason I’d been able to take it down was a combination of Freya lowering its defense, the staff giving me the big damage bonus, and the voice giving me that sick Fire Arts spell.
Who was that voice anyway? I frowned. And how on earth did it give me a skill like the Fire Arts?
“Zoran!” An injured Freya ran to me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Boy.” Krof walked up to me, his eyes narrow. “Who talked to you?”
I stared at him. “How do you know about that?”
“I felt it,” he said. “A certain…presence.”
“Was it…like the one you’d felt before?” I asked. “Like the Phantom Lord?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I don’t know if the voice itself is the Phantom Lord, but it is most certainly related to him.”
“Interesting,” I said. “The voice said it was the one I’d heard when I lost consciousness against the Valdar.”
“The one that controlled you in that battle,” Krof said. “Ijyela had told me about that. It seems that both then and now, this voice was only trying to help you. Yet you possess a Death Seal, a sign that the Phantom Lord is coming after you. It is the oddest thing.”
“I know,” I said. It’s like he’s both helping and hurting me at the same time.
“On that note,” Freya said, “what the hell was that Golem that just attacked us? Magical immunity? Really?”
“It was an enchanted beast,” Krof said. “I couldn’t see well in the darkness, but there were runes on the creature’s body.”
My eyes widened. “The Phantom Lord?” I asked.
“Not just him,” he said. “That dark aura from before was also characteristic of another kind of enchantment. This Golem was caused by both the Phantom Lord and the Dark Alliance.”
I blinked. “What?”
“They’re working together now?” Freya asked. “But we just said the voice that helped Zoran was something related to the Phantom Lord. What the hell is going on here?”
The old wizard scratched his head. “I do not know either,” he said. “But what I can say is that the Heartfelt Ruins are the best place to go find out.”
I nodded.
DING!
Congratulations! You have completed the quest:
The Mysteries of the Self III!
You found the Grand Wizard Krof and gained a lead on finding out what is happening with you. Rewards: 25000 Sol. Rewards: Mysteries of the Self IV.
DING!
Congratulations! You have obtained a quest:
The Mysteries of the Self IV!
The Grand Wizard Krof says there have been some mysterious presences roaming the Heartfelt Ruins recently. Visit the ruins and see if you can find any answers to your situation. Rewards: Unknown.
At least I’m advancing with the quests, I thought.
Freya walked up to me, with an empty vial in her hand and her health back at maximum capacity. “Are you ready to go?” she asked.
I blinked. “Are you sure?” I asked. “It’s not going to be safe. We might end up having to face off against a lot of strong enemies.”
She leaned in. “I was the Queen of Iskaeil. I’ll take them all on.” Her breath tickled my neck and she walked past me.
I stood dazed, snapping out of it only when I saw the old man grinning.
“Go on, young one,” he said, smiling, but in seriousness rather than jest. “I hope you find the answers you are looking for.”
I opened my mouth to thank him, but before I could, the wizard spoke a word, summoning a bright flash of light and disappearing within it.
Teleportation magic.
“Zoran!” Freya yelled from ahead of me. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”
“Yeah.” I smiled and ran af
ter her.
Things moved fast after that.
We checked the Heartfelt Ruins on our maps and noticed that it was about half a day’s journey toward the heart of the Dargonian Empire. I’ll admit, that was not a pleasant thing to see, especially since the Dark Alliance had made their intentions clear by sending a Golem after me. But it wasn’t like that event was going to change any of my plans.
I’d been waiting far too long for answers to come to me. It was my turn now. If answers didn’t want to come to me, I was going to go after them, no matter what.
We’d walked quite a distance and were fairly close to the ruins when we saw a small village on the horizon. I personally felt it’d be better to go around the place, but Freya figured we might be able to get good information if we actually went through it.
And so, to the village we went.
“Here.” The elf handed me a spare hooded tunic she had, and I wore it, just on the off chance that the Dark Alliance had also issued a bounty on my head. Don’t want to deal with people hunting me down here as well, I thought.
“I really don’t get what kind of information you think we’ll obtain,” I said as we stepped into the village. I pulled my hood down and completely covered my face.
“You never know,” the elf chuckled. She’d gone back to her Frey appearance and had hidden her identity underneath her clothes.
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 17
