Might as Well

The next golem fell just as easily as the first one. And so did the following one.

And Sam was pretty happy with the drops, which were different kinds of ores. Now he understood why this area was so fought over by the guilds.

‘Probably should sell it after I finish it,’ he thought as he eyed the lumbering form of the third golem. Lucky had already dived back into the shadows and, based on the excited wuffs, was ready to continue the assault on the earth golems.

The fight against the next few golems was nothing to write home. Sam got their attention, then Lucky distracted them with a simple attack and then he killed them with a supercharged move. However, they all managed to let out a roar. Some roars shook the nearby rocks, while the other ones were more like loud growls.

After finishing the seventh golem and collecting the loot, which luckily included a spell book, he noticed that several areas around the little plateau up high were covered in dust.

And those great dust clouds were rapidly moving towards him.

Then the noise hit him.

It was like standing before a sound avalanche. Which was rather apt as Sam focused on the dust clouds. He could pick out several golems rolling down the sides of the mountain. Apparently, the roars and growls of the golems he killed woke the rest up.

‘I wonder if they call a group of earth golems an avalanche…’ he mused as he got ready.

By his estimation, there were between six and twelve golems in each group approaching him from three directions with almost terminal velocity.

“Well… let’s rock and roll!” he whispered to himself and got ready for the first group to arrive.

The game was nice enough to stagger the arrival of the three approaching hordes. The first one to arrive amidst a giant cacophony of noise, crushing every rock that was on the surface of the plateau under them, was the one coming from the east.

Sam eyed the seven new earth golems that, while built similarly to the ones he already killed, looked marginally more coordinated.

They didn’t crash into each other, and as soon as they were stable, they stood up and fanned out as if searching for something.

Sam looked down at his sword and then back at the golems.

“This will take a while…” he sighed, then with a burst from Wind Jump began approaching the one golem that strayed the furthest from the group.

As he eyed the searching golems amidst them crashing their bulbous hands into anything and everything, trying to reveal Sam, he got an idea. After all, it worked with the two golems in the ancient ruins.

Dodging around their search, rushing behind giant boulders that hadn’t been smashed yet, Sam got into position and waited for the golems to move into a somewhat coherent line.

The moment the first three golems stood in a line, he activated Shadow Burst and charged directly at the first golem. Thankfully, the golems were too slow to react to him, thus he managed to get into touching distance with the golem. Sam charged up the hand not holding his sword with enough neutral and wind mana that it would make a lot of people uncomfortable, and the moment his hand touched the golem, he unleashed it at the monster.

There was a giant explosion and Sam was thrown backward, but thanks to his Mana Shield, he didn’t feel anything. Instead, he made sure to land on his feet while keeping his eyes on the golem he hit with his improvised spell.

The golem, thanks to the force of the spell, moved backward (sadly, due to the weight it didn’t fly) and, while beginning to windmill with its misshapen arms, crashed into the golem behind it. And that golem also began to move and crashed into the golem standing behind it.

Unfortunately, Sam couldn’t position all seven to stand behind each other. Still, having three golems on the floor would make it much easier. While the other four golems began to turn towards Sam and the fallen golems, he rushed forward while calling out to his pet.

“Lucky! The last one!” And as he stabbed down on the first fallen golem, Lucky emerged from the shadows and pounced on the golem that was the farthest from Sam, sending it stumbling. Instead of returning to the shadows, Lucky launched himself from the golem and pounced on the next one.

So Sam had the time to go around leisurely and execute the three monsters thrashing around on the ground and collecting their drops. Sadly, it was only a few bunches of random ores.

Meanwhile, Lucky jumped between the remaining four golems, staggering them for a second or two and then jumping to the next one, like a demented rubber ball made of shadows. Based on the noises Sam heard when he ignored the constant roaring that sounded like rocks crushed together, Lucky was really enjoying himself.

Finishing the last one, he turned towards the confused group of golems and called out.

“Lucky! Go back to the shadow!”

Lucky let out an acknowledging bark and, with the last swish of his tail, launched off the head of one of the earth golems and dived directly into the nearest shadow. Sam almost expected a small splash to appear in the shadows as Lucky impacted the surface, it was such an elegant dive.

The four golems spent a few seconds roaring confusedly while regaining their balance. Still, it was enough for Sam to get close to them and strike down one of them.

Jumping backward, he used Wind Jump to maneuver around the rest of the golems, and as they turned around to face the direction where the golem fell; he struck another one.

And then another one. And another.

Watching the last one fall, he looked up at the approaching other two groups of golems. By his estimation, the second group arriving from the west would reach the plateau in around fifteen seconds.

He quickly collected the loot, somewhat disappointed that there weren’t any more skill book drops. Then did a quick check on his equipment and dashed behind one of the still-standing boulders and hid to watch as the next group of earth golems landed on the plateau amidst chaos and earth-shaking roars.

The mana running through his sword blazed to life, and he used his burgeoning mana manipulation skill to take control of the wind mana swirling chaotically around the sword and first wrestled it into something that resembled order. Then he channeled even more mana into it and watched as the simple long sword had enough mana moving around it that Sam could shape it into a giant greatsword. Thankfully, because it was made purely out of wind mana, it didn’t have the same weight as a real greatsword. So, he could still wield it, but it would give him enough firepower to take down the golems more easily.

He swung the sword around a few times, developing a feel for it while keeping control of the greatsword shape. At the same time, he was concentrating on the edge of the construct, making sure it was as sharp as possible.

He grinned at the possibilities that this would give him. ‘Who doesn’t like giant swords?’

By the time he put together his newest ability, the golems gathered their wits and the dust cloud settled somewhat down. The eight new earth golems looked bigger and meaner than the last group. They had several areas on their bodies that had nasty spikes jutting out, ready to skewer anyone.

“Lucky, the plan is still the same. Watch out for the spikes!” he spoke calmly, listening for the quiet bark of an answer echoing from his shadow, and then, with a savage grin, launched himself at the nearest golem, slashing upwards.

He didn’t have time to watch as the slash separated the golem’s hand and shoulder from the rest of its body he immediately moved on and continued the slash to the side, cutting into the next golem. Meanwhile, Lucky emerged at the back of the horde of golems and began jumping around, sending them staggering.

Sam’s second slash with his giant wind greatsword separated the head and shoulder of the second golem from their body. He finished the movement by spinning back to the first golem, bringing his weapon directly at the torso of the golem, where the core was hidden, and while pushing more mana through the edge of the mana construct, cutting through said torso.

Not even paying attention to the chime coming from his interface that signaled that the golem died, he used the Shadow Mirage skill to leave an illusion of himself behind and jump away with a brief burst of Wind Jump as the third golem had enough time to reach him and try to swat him with their spiked hand.

And while illusions didn’t really work on golems, he still wanted to integrate them into his fighting style, so it was still good practice in timing and skill usage.

As the third golem raised its hands high to strike down again, Sam overpowered the Wind Jump skill and launched himself at the torso of the golem, his sword held in front of him.

The next second, his greatsword created from wind mana, was rammed through the middle of the golem’s torso, skewering the core with one swift strike.

Sam watched as the earth golem collapsed, ignored the chime from the game interface, and called out to Lucky, who was playing with a billiard ball between four roaring golems. Sam would say that despite lacking any kind of face, they looked incredibly frustrated.

“Lucky! Back to the shadow!”

“Wuff!” Lucky let out a cheerful bark and, with one last bounce off the head of one of the golems once again dove back into the shadows just as gracefully as an Olympic diver.

The four golems looked at each other for a second as they all regained their stability, then as one, they turned towards Sam. As he faced them down, he would swear they looked extra menacing.

“Come!” he yelled, and the golems didn’t disappoint. As one, they roared so loud that Sam could feel it in his bones and he was pretty sure that without his trusty Mana Shield, he would have suffered some kind of damage. He would know later when he went over the logs…

Continuing to pump mana into the wind greatsword, getting a real liking to the construct, Sam grinned and activated Shadow Burst.

With a roar of his own, he launched himself at the golems.

Standing amidst the corpses of the monsters, he looked up at the approaching, much bigger cloud of golems. ‘Probably has a boss or mini-boss in it…’

He looked around the plateau and couldn’t help but curse. There was nowhere to hide. The last group and the subsequent fight destroyed every boulder or place where one could hide.

Sighing silently, he dismissed the wind greatsword and jumped down the side of the plateau onto a small rock that was jutting out of the mountainside. Previously, he used it as foothold to climb up. It had enough room that he could stand there, but if he moved, there was a big chance that he would fall. Grunting a little, he used Earth Wall to cause a small stone wall to jut out horizontally from the mountainside, thus giving him more space to stand on.

The moment he ducked down, the last group of earth golems arrived, kicking up dust and stone debris everywhere. Sam peeked out of his hiding space and he saw only two small golems, but between the two extremely spiky earth golems stood another one that was twice their size. And just to make things more fun, it even had spikes on its spikes. As well as a mouth that was filled with razor-sharp metal bits. And given that the head was big enough that one chomp could take his legs off, Sam wanted nothing to do with said teeth.

And this one had eyes. A pair of unworked rubies sparked, set deeply into their monstrous face with a cruel light. ‘Probably the intelligence behind the attacks…’ he mused as he observed his newest enemies.

Sam looked down and picked up a head-sized rock and threw it up and down in his hand, then pitched backward and launched it over the heads of the golems.

He wasn’t disappointed in their reactions.

The moment the rock entered the boss golem’s field of view, they raised one of their overly sparkly hand, inlaid with metal bits (some of them looking very sharp), and launched several Earth Bullets at the flying rock. Understandably, it was smashed apart within a second.

“Right, it can use magic… Great…” he mused out loud. “Now how to do it?”

Placing his hand against the ground as the big golem looked around, more than likely looking for him, Sam concentrated briefly.

Instantly, the ground under one of the smaller golems rose with extreme speed, sending the golem off balance. This resulted in the golem crashing into the boss while windmilling with their hands.

Apparently, they all had some balance issues…

However, the boss golem just simply raised one giant arm and smashed the golem away. Sam didn’t even wait to see what the result of that was, instead he raised another Earth Wall under the other minion monster.

Predictably, the boss monster slapped away this one too, sending it careening into the ground with a frustrated roar.

Then it raised one of its legs and for a moment Sam could feel mana gather in the golem’s leg before it was slammed down.

Sam had exactly a heart beat to realize what was happening, but thanks to being on the edge of the plateau he had enough time to launch himself up in the air as giant and very sharp rock spikes emerged from the ground in concentric circles around the golem reaching even his hiding space.

As he was in the air, he looked down and locked eyes with the giant earth golem. Its ruby-red eyes glinted with satisfaction and cruel enjoyment.

Sam summoned his wind sword and began to fall toward the ground…