Golem Invasion (2)

The trio looked at the five surrounding Golems and felt fear well up in their guts. There was no possible way that they could win against Origin Beasts that outnumbered them. Even five to one, the five being Peak Formation Soul cultivators, the five would not necessarily win against one Origin Beast.

However, the trio was able to let out a collective sigh of relief as the golden dome flickered back into place, as strong as it was when if first went up. The only problem was that the diameter of the dome shrank from fifty meters to forty.

"What are you guys doing? Move it!"

Qing Shan and Ming Bai were both startled by Qian Yong's shout, but quickly regained their senses. The two then began to fight off the Golems.

Qing Shan found out what Qian Yong had meant when she said that it was hard to land a hit when facing two Golems. Even with the inhuman reaction speed granted by his perception of time, Qing Shan was unable to attack more than once at each opening the Golems showed. This was because their attacks would happen so that one was just after the other, leaving little room to dodge. There was not much time before they would attack again, meaning that Qing Shan only had time to land one hit in between the Golem's attacks.

Soon, Ming Bai and Qian Yong came over and helped him take down the two Golems. Qing Shan had barely made a dent in one of the Golem's eyes in the time it took for Ming Bai to take down her one Golem and help Qian Yong get rid of her two.

After the ladies finished absorbing the Golem Cores, the next wave of Golems were starting two enter the room. The number had increased by one once more, bringing it up to six.

"I'll take three. It would be best it we have one person on their own so that they can help everyone else."

'This will be tough.'

Now that he would be facing three Golems, Qing Shan knew that he should not focus on attacking. He would focus on dodging the Golems' attacks, and would only attack enough to keep the Golems from going to bother one of the girls.

Qing Shan kept to this strategy as the wave of Golems fell upon the trio. Like before, it was not long before Ming Bai and Qian Yong swooped in to help Qing Shan get rid of the three Golems in front of him. Thanks to his skill, Qing Shan had been able to quite easily dodge all of the Golems' attacks. Unfortunately, he had not been able to get in any offensive hits against the Golems once again.

The Golems kept coming, until the numbers increased to seven, and then eight. Once either Qian Yong or Qing Shan had more than two Golems in front of them, Ming Bai would separate one from the small group of Golems, and take them down individually. Once two people were freed up, the Golems in front of the last person went down relatively quickly.

The eighth wave had been quite a bit harder than the ones prior, but it was still manageable with this strategy. However, it had taken much longer than the other waves, which kept the group on edge. Luckily, the fear of more Golems appearing was not realized as soon as the trio would have thought.

After these two waves passed, the group was still confused. No more Golems were coming. The hallways wee completely empty. However, this left the group feeling uneasy, like they had just entered the eye of a storm.

This eerie calm lasted for quite a while, and everyone in the group managed to get more than four hours of sleep before a disturbance appeared.

The trio noticed a small, blue flame flickering in the distant tunnels. Now that something had appeared, they felt a small weight lift from their shoulders. It was really stressful knowing that there was danger coming, but not knowing when. And, no matter what appeared, it could not be too difficult thanks to the golden dome that limited the strength of the garden's invaders.

The trio quickly noticed something that was strange. Whatever that blue flame belonged to was a lot faster than the golems. It seemed like it had a smaller body structure, judging from the size of the flame. These things led the trio to believe that this approaching figure was more powerful than the golems from before.

In less than a minute, the figure had crossed through the whole length of the tunnel and appeared in the corner of the room, just outside the golden dome. Like they had expected, this Golem was much smaller than the ones from before. However, the aura it gave off was much more powerful. This Golem was shaped almost perfectly like a human male, and looked like it was quite agile. It had blue flame as its eyes, and covering all of its joints. The flame that rages around it was less like a blade on the earlier Golems, and more like a cocoon.

The Golem stepped into the golden dome, which influenced a sudden change. The dome flickered once more, before shrinking so that it was now only fifteen meters in diameter. Once the Golem entered this smaller dome, only its cocoon was ripped away. The flame tracing its joints still remained. Although it was quite close, even with under the influence of the golden dome this Golem qualified as an Origin Beast!

"Shit."

Qian Yong dully nodded in response to Qing Shan.

"Shit."

The trio did not have time to make a plan. The two girls, who had more experience than Qing Shan, just decided to follow his lead, and fill in where he was lacking. Although this sounded simple, it was hard and required a large amount of combat experience with other people. Even though Qing Shan did have a lot of combat experience, he had rarely fought on a team with anyone before going on the Fire Fox mission.

With the two ladies following close behind him, Qing Shan darted toward the Golem. Surprisingly, it also decided to rush him. The two met and instantly began trading blows. amazingly, Qing Shan was winning in terms of the amount of damage being dished out. Pushing his reaction time to the limit, Qing Shan used his spear to block the Golem's fists while still managing to strike at its head. However, in order to do this Qing Shan had to push his speed to the limit, which meant that he would not last long.

Noticing that Qing Shan was quickly growing tired, the girls acted. Ming Bai attacked the Golem's joints with her steep-tipped whip. She was not doing as much damage as Qing Shan, so the Golem did not turn to her. Qing Shan suddenly faltered.

However, this was not without cause. Ming Bai called out, sharing some useful information.

"Its joints will melt your weapons! Only attack the rock!"

Now that both Ming Bai and Qian Yong had jumped into the fight, Qing Shan had much more breathing room. Because Qian Yong had stepped in to occupy the Golem, Qing Shan had been able to successfully regain his footing. However, even though he had not been attacking while doing so, he was still doing something. Qing Shan was analyzing the Golem!

In an instant, Qing Shan was able to find out the main features of the Golem.

"Guys! I got something! Hold it off for a sec while I explain its traits! I think I figured them all out!"

"Got it, so hurry up!"

"This Golem is built primarily for agility, so it's attack power is weak! It can use the rings of fire on its joints like Qi Loops! One of them can be activated at once to enhance that body part! It can also expand those rings in a small flame attack, ranging roughly twenty centimeters from that ring. This could easily cause a burn! The last thing is that it cannot use the loops for amplification and attack at the same time!"

"Thanks for the info. Now get your ass back in here. We can't hold this thing off for much longer!"

"Coming! Try and keep your range! If you can, Ming Bai, switch to a blunt weapon with more range! I don't think your whip will be able to grab a hold off something this speed."

"Okay. Give me five seconds."

Qing Shan kept up his flurry of attacks, keeping the Golem from focusing its attacks anywhere else. While he was still rapidly growing more and more tired, Qing Shan was able to fend off the attacks due to Qian Yong's help. Unfortunately, the number of attacks was getting smaller and smaller. On top of that, Qing Shan had to make sure to avoid hitting the Golem's joints, which would not have been nearly as hard if the Golem hadn't been trying to make Qing Shan's spear enter its joints.

Because of the cleverness shown by the Golem, Qing Shan had to not only put his effort into attacking and keeping up, but stopping his own attacks before they could hit the wrong area.

"Haaah!"

*Crash*

Qing Shan and Qian Yong both stumbled backwards. This was out of surprise.

Who wouldn't be surprised seeing a Warhammer that size. It's handle was about two meters long, and the head was over half a meter in length, width and height. Qing Shan could tell that the only way a hammer this size could be used would be if it had an advanced runic formation of the rune lightness.

However, even with the sheer size and destructive power of the hammer, it did not look like much. It had relatively poor craftsman ship. It was like a large cube of stone attached to a stick. There were a few runes that held the handle and head together, but it seemed that the Runic Forgemaster who created this hammer was lacking in their forging skills. Even Qing Shan could create something less unwieldy and more intricate than that hammer.

Anyways.

The hammer crashed down on the head of the Golem, and caused a huge crack to sun from the top of its head, down the front of its face, and splintering over the rest of its head. Although the head did not break all together, a gust of wind would now be enough to shatter the Golem's skull.

Just for good measure, Qing Shan jabbed the Golem in the head with the butt of his spear. While it was in such a precarious position, it did not dare to move quickly for fear its head would break off.

*Crumble*

"Wow, this Golem is a lot less durable than the ones before. I guess the Golems are weak to blunt weapons. That would have been great to know sooner."

"tell me about it."

Ming Bai, who was the closest to the Golem of the ladies, quickly absorbed the Golem's core that was in its head.

"Amazing! It's so pure!"

"C'mon… I want some too."

"You get the next one."

Unlike the trio expected, The Golem did not die.

Something strange began to happen in the cave. The environment, which was abundant with fire Qi from the Golems, began to contract towards the Golem. It was as though fire was scorching through the air and entering the Golems body. The fire radiating from the Golem's joints changed from blue into a white color, the hottest natural color of flame. The golden dome burst under the power of the Golem.

Based purely on the amount of Qi entering the Golem, and the aura that it was now radiating, the Golem had regained its power at the upper levels of the Origin Realm! Fortunately, the Golem did not seem like it could hold onto all this power for long. In about one minute, the Golem would explode if its core was not taken care of!