The Adamant Golem was a staggering figure, over three meters (10′) tall with violet crystals embossed at every joint to instantly transmit the orders of the power core and fuel spells more powerful than any mortal mage could cast.
It couldn’t repair itself as fast as a Rock Golem but damaging Adamant was an impressive feat and the construct was entirely made out of metal, not just coated with it.
On top of that, the Adamant Golem was just one of the many roaming the space between the tunnel and the fortress.
“You know what they say. The bigger they are…” Lith shapeshifted into his Tiamat form as Double Edge appeared in his hand in a burst of emerald flames. “The harder they hit!”
He kicked the Adamant Golem like it was a toy, sending it to crash against an incoming wave of enemies.
‘My blades are useless here!’ Strider cursed his bad luck and strategized with Solus and Ryka. ‘I’ll support you and deal with the Dread Knights but someone needs to think of a way out of here.’
‘Way ahead of you!’ Solus threw the Fury, activating its enchantment, Furies’ Flight.
As the Davross hammer generated eight identical copies of itself and sent everything on its path flying, the Zouwu had the time to look in the direction in which Solus pointed.
Ragnarök moved in delicate, sharp cuts that conjured an intricate sequence of runes.
‘A Blade Spell! Gods above, I knew that Lith can use Blade Magic but I never thought I’d see him cast it in person.’ Strider thought and he wasn’t the only one.
“Charge like your undeath depends on it, because it does!” One of the Dread Knights yelled at the top of his lungs. “If Verhen completes that spell, we’re dead, and this time for good.”
On his cue, side doors opened in the castle walls, letting out human soldiers, Emperor Beasts, and Dread Knights while Rock Golems emerged from the stone floor under which they had been lying in ambush.
Their main target was Lith. There was no one on Garlen who had not seen the videos of the Supreme Magus of the Kingdom conquering cities by himself during the War of the Griffons.
Sure, the world energy in the underground cave was scarce, but Lith’s equipment was fully charged and he had become stronger after the end of the war. More than anything, what scared the people of the fortress was the threat of the seemingly endless tricks he was able to pull out of thin air whenever he needed.
The air condensed in front of the speartips of the Dread Knights in a spiral pattern, both creating a slipstream effect in front of their horses and accumulating more destructive power as they moved.
Dread Knights were the heavy cavalry of the undead and despite their name and each one of them was bound to a steed, they had no relationship with Baba Yaga’s Horsemen.
In life, they had been valiant knights who had been forced to sully their honor to uphold their oaths of loyalty.
Murder, kidnapping, slaughtering of innocents, no matter what their masters had ordered them back when they were alive, all Dread Knights had loyally followed orders even though it went against everything they believed in.
They accumulated shame and regret their whole life and once old age put an end to their services, they could no longer run away from their inner demons and died when their past caught up to them.
Dread Knights sought in death absolution for the infamy of their lives.
Their loyal steeds followed them in undeath, becoming part of a Dread Knight’s body just like their armor and equipment. The blood core would nurture them all, allowing them to grow in strength with their master.
On top of that, the bloodline ability Windwalker belonged to the horse, not the rider, and allowed a Dread Knight to constantly accelerate as long as they moved.
It was said that a Dread Knight could circle Mogar in a single night if unopposed, but not even at that speed could they outrun their guilt.
‘Shit, we need to do something!’ Solus struck a Rock Golem with the Fury, sending it tumbling away with almost a quarter of its body in ruin.
The problem was that by the time the construct stood up, the damage was already fixed and she had now to deal with three more constructs. Solus bashed them back, but the situation worsened by the second.
Rock and Adamant Golems had zero cast time for spells, they only had to fuel the enchantments that comprised their power cores to unleash an endless barrage of destruction from a distance.
From up close, things were even worse. All Golems had been enchanted with a powerful darkness aura that weakened everything and everyone around them, including the enemy’s spells.
Without someone holding the constructs still, Solus’ hits achieved nothing, no matter how powerful. The Rock Golems healed before she could reach their crystal core while Adamant Golems would bend under her blows but not break.
The Dread Knights galloped non-stop, cutting through the Awakened’s formation without targeting anyone in particular. Their goal was to keep the invaders out of focus while their horses gained speed and their spears power.
It was only a matter of time before the built-up kinetic energy and the wind element became strong enough to threaten the Tiamat’s life.
‘There’s something weird about these guys and I can’t finish them on my own.’ Even with her Voidwalker armor’s Full Guard enchantment, it was hard to keep pace with everything that was coming her way.
‘Me neither!’ Ryka cursed as she opened her body into vines to avoid a rain of blows.
As a Titania, she possessed the strength of a Griffon, but the darkness aura of the Golems made both attacking and blocking painful to her. Whenever she got close to the constructs, her body started to wither.
She had already shattered many Rock Golems but failed to destroy a single core. Ryka’s trade of blows had bought her a few seconds at the price of several wounds. Wounds she couldn’t heal due to the lack of green and nutrients in the barren rock around her.
The situation was so bad that Lith was already under attack and would have lost his focus if not for body casting. He dodged, intercepted the incoming spells with Ragnarök, and constantly changed his size to be harder to follow while conjuring new runes with every movement he made.
“Scram!” The black and red crystals on the Voidwalker armor combined their strength to conjure the tier five spell, Final Eclipse.
A flaming dome encased the Tiamat, hiding him from mystical and regular sight while also engulfing everyone who got too close to him. Darkness magic was the bane of undead and living alike.
The humans and Emperor Beasts had to step back, needing time to conjure a spell strong enough to pierce through the barrier. The Golems, however had no such problem.
They walked through the black flames, their enchanted bodies taking little damage from Final Eclipse, and unleashed a barrage of tier five spells, Raging Sun and Stormnado.
