Getting Lost

Recovery of the energy pool went by without incident as Atlas cleaned up the new batch of crystals. Checking through the status window showed Energy and Vitality had gone up by ten, confirming that battle was a way to raise the values. Outer durability went back up to max from mending, Core durability went up by a measly four, and the rest of the status showed no change.

The two longswords and the tower shield only needed minor mending with the compressed longsword needing a bit of a rebalance for the centre of mass and the handful of expended crystal grenades were to be replaced. While dangerous near the end Atlas deemed the battle very profitable in both material and experience in fighting, though it definitely needed to keep an eye on energy management in the future.

With everything in order, the golem once again kicked down the door leading out and began marching through the halls armed with the tower shield and compressed longsword. Atlas didn't come across any enemies for a while, likely because the slaughter earlier had included every zombie and amalgam in the near vicinity. At some point, it began humming an old tune through the obsidian orbs as it wandered about. Even when it encountered enemies there weren't many, the zombie hordes were too small to pose a threat and only the weaker amalgams ever showed up.

"It definitely lives up to the name of Labyrinth,' Atlas thought when it realized it had gone in a circle twice now.

The golem sped up its steps, trying to find new areas in the sprawling maze-like halls and finally felt like it was going in the right direction once it started finding stronger enemies. To be honest, it was getting a bit sick of fighting zombies, they were only strong in hordes and were far too common. The visuals of rotting corpses didn't even bother it that much, they simply weren't satisfying to fight and didn't scratch the itch it got from wanting to test out its arsenal.

Atlas encountered a few more of the higher-grade amalgams like the twin beetles it had fought but with the addition of incorporating the crystal grenades into its attacks, they fell quickly. While the zombie's crystals weren't big enough to cause major damage they were enough to trip up the enemy when exploded, especially if Atlas managed to hit the eyes or get them in the mouth.

In order to challenge itself, it subsequently banned itself from using the grenades unless necessary. It also felt that they should have some other use other than just blowing up, it just didn't have the skills to figure it out.

Soon Atlas was shaken from its own thoughts by shouts and the sounds of battle not too far off ahead. 'Adventurers? I was beginning to think there weren't any on this floor.' Atlas was curious, since leaving the second floor it did not encounter any signs of anything other than the monsters.

The shouts were strange and not in a language Atlas could understand and were accompanied by flashes of light bursting in the distance. They were strung together in almost a musical fashion along with the distinct sound of metal hitting metal. 'Are they fighting each other?' Atlas hurried its pace to see what was going on.

Turning a corner the golem was met with a dazzling scene, several armored figures with hoods stood in a tight formation, shouting and beating immaculate silver shield with their weapons. Every time one of them hit their shield a flash of silver light would burst out and strike out at a massive horde of zombies. In addition to their intricately engraved armor, the cloaks descending from the hoods had a large silver tree emblazoned on the fabric.

Atlas was surprised and briefly touched its own face that had a tree formed from the pure silver metal. It knew it definitely didn't design it, it couldn't even manipulate the metal. Thinking back to the sapling design on the chest in the boss room it could come to two conclusions.

The first was that these people were also monsters of the dungeon since they share the same emblem the dungeon seems to be fond of. This was unlikely as they were fighting the zombies, but so was it, so it couldn't be sure.

The second would be that these were knights or paladins of some sort of religion based on or linked to the tree emblem, which would explain the holy light coming from their actions.

What felt out of place was that the Library of Worlds never made any mention of any religions existing on Lapis, but there should be at least one right? And what worried Atlas was that the other worlds it looked at the religions generally had a hatred for monsters, demons, and basically anything non-human. With some of the knights being beastmen Atlas could only hope they were like Dean, even if Dean was a bit over the top in trying to make friends.

One of the knights seemed to notice something and whipped around to look at Atlas, giving the golem a better look at their armor. 'What's with this world and silver,' Atlas internally laughed upon seeing the entirety of the intricate silver full plate.

Seeing Atlas stop approaching when looked at and not make any threatening movements the knight shouted, "Friend or foe!?" The hood made it hard for Atlas to see his face, there seemed to be black bandages covering his eyes, making the golem wonder if he could actually see anything.

Atlas channeled energy through the obsidian orbs for a louder response, "Friend, for now," and began marching towards the undead horde. The golem thought it heard a gasp as the knight seemed to stare through him before turning back and rejoining the shouting and shield drumming, supposedly accepting Atlas' answer.

None of the knights stopped it as it went past and dove into the horde, slashing and smashing everything in its path.