The Golem ignored Morok, turning around to focus on Lith. When the first hammer struck, the back of the construct exploded and sprayed the nutrients stored inside its hunch all over the corridor.
The second hammer hit the Golem’s side, it pierced through the stone shell until only its handle was still visible.
“Now you ignore me? Now? Too little too late!” Morok’s hammers struck in a flurry of attacks, sending debris, flesh, and blood flying across the room. By the time the Golem managed to react, its power core was destroyed.
Morok fell to his knees due to exhaustion, too weak to even hold his weapons any longer. Both the Odi and the humans were astonished that another Flesh Golem had fallen so fast.
“All right, stop. Hammer time will resume in a jiffy.” He said panting.
Normal Golems would have frozen now that their protocols were contradictory. Back when Jiira had ordered them to kill the Golem slayer, only Lith fit their bill, but now there were two.
Unfortunately, the human side allowed them to understand an order beyond its literal meaning, so they simply split.
“Never screw with the Healer, because the next time you go down, you stay down!” Quylla had never stopped moving, grabbing the nearest Golem. She was glad to discover that the Forgemastering process for all the constructs was identical.
That way she already knew where the three runes she had found when Scanning the first Golem were located in the life force of all the other enemies.
Her Chisels broke them all at once.
“Lith!” She yelled while tackling the third Golem that Phloria had been facing until a second ago with her small body. The construct wasn’t stupid. Its orders were to bring the bodies alive, not intact.
The little girl had already paralyzed two of its kin, and even though the poor woman grafted inside the Golem wanted nothing more than to be put out of her misery, her self defense protocols forbid her to allow any damage to be willingly inflicted upon the enchanted rock that was now her body.
The construct struck Quylla with a backhanded slap, sending her slamming against a wall. Even with the Skinwalker armor’s protection, the hit was strong enough to break her jaw and nose.
She fell limp on the ground, leaving a trail of blood on the wall where her head had struck.
Lith swallowed his rage down to keep her sacrifice from going to waste. He ignored the still active Golem and ripped the power core out from the still stiff construct, further reducing their numbers.
Now only eighteen were left, yet they were likely to be seventeen too many of them.
“We have to retreat. We can’t hold them for much longer.” Yondra was the most vigorous Professor thanks to her rejuvenated body. She quickly conjured a Warp Steps and gestured her colleagues to get into it.
“What about me?” Morok was still wheezing for air, cornered like a mouse between two walls. The eight golems around him had yet to attack only because they were taking position.
“Blink, you moron!” She replied while Phloria used that very same spell to rescue Quylla and bring her past the dimensional door.
‘The Golems are charging up their arrays, we have to be quick!’ Solus warned Lith, who Blinked as well and dragged Yondra with himself. He knew that unlike Wardens, a construct only needed a handful of seconds to activate an elemental blocking array.
Yondra’s plan would have failed if everyone wasn’t already close to each other. Not even five seconds had passed since the moment the Warp had been opened and it was already about to be closed.
“Oh shit!” Morok could feel the mana density in the air rise to the point that it started making his skin crawl. He had nothing like Life Vision, but his instincts were screaming at him to get the heck out of there.
He Blinked a split second before the Air Blocking array was activated and jumped inside the Warp while it was collapsing in on itself. Morok curled up into a fetal position and managed to lose only the extremities of some of his toes due to the dimensional cut.
He immediately stopped the bleeding and then started to regenerate the missing flesh and bones.
“I need some help.” He said, but no one made a move.
Yondra only handed him some food and said:
“Sorry kid, everyone is beat and has something better to do.” She pointed at Neshal, who was chanting an array as fast as she could.
She was casting the Earth Blocking array which would greatly hinder the Golems. It would prevent them from opening a Warping Array in the proximity of the makeshift camp and limit their movements in case they came too close for comfort.
Lith was treating Quylla. Her nose and jaw weren’t a problem, but the concussion was a different story. If she had suffered brain damage, she would need a long time to recover, time that they didn’t have.
Lith used Invigoration on her, making her instantly recover and even partially replenishing her mana. She woke startled and instinctively raised her arms in defense.
“Don’t worry, little one. You’re safe.” When he had heard Quylla’s skull crack, something inside Lith had almost snapped. Her pallor had almost driven him insane, reminding him of Carl’s corpse lying on the hospital’s stretcher.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me ‘little one’?” She angrily replied. “Where are we?” She asked when she realized that everyone was staring at her.
“In front of the elevator. The furthest place we know of from the Golems.” Yondra replied, noticing that Quylla was way too healthy for someone who had sustained multiple fractures and the blood loss from both her head and nose.
Healers weren’t miracle workers, or so she had always believed.
Quylla nodded and took some food out of her dimensional ring, wolfing it down as fast as she could. Invigoration could do many things, but it couldn’t give a body the nutrients it required.
“Can you work your magic on me too?” Morok asked, eating and healing at the same time to not collapse due to exhaustion.
“Fuck you.” Lith snarled, taking care of Phloria first.
“I’m fine, don’t worry.” She tried to push him away, but his grip was as gentle as it was strong.
“A body with cracked ribs, arms, and countless bruises is far from being fine.” Lith replied while cursing at the constructs’ insane power.
Phloria had fought with all she had, and even though the Golems had only tried to capture her, they had still managed to hurt her badly, despite her Skinwalker armor.
“Now stay still. This may feel weird but bear with me.” Lith chanted some gibberish and Invigorated her. Phloria’s battered body healed and recovered as her mana was fully recovered.
The surprise made her turn pale as a ghost, helping Lith to keep up his façade. Not that he cared that much. His life was on the line and the Odi were the perfect scapegoats in case he had to get rid of any of the members of the expedition.
Only Yondra troubled him. She reminded him of Nana too much to leave him indifferent. Luckily, as long as they were stuck underground, he had all the time to make up his mind.
Lith took out all the food he could before Neshal’s array was complete. After that, dimensional items would become useless.
“Am I there yet?” Morok asked. He was about to collapse due to the lack of nutrients and mana, yet he still had the energy to be obnoxious.
