Trouble in the City [3]

"Shit...", Elijah muttered under his breath as the undead golems approached him. There is only one thought running in his mind right now, 'I'm in trouble.'

There are many creatures in the world created by Alumeria. From the smallest worm to the mightiest dragons, every single one of them are the Goddess' creations. However, after many many years, intelligent races like humans or elves have created a system to distinguish the dangerous and the not.

There are the normal animals—cows, cats, dogs, birds, wolves, and the like—, and there are the monsters—goblins, orcs, basilisks, boggles, and of course the undead. There are also the demonic beasts and demons, but those are an entirely different thing and a story for another time.

Undead golems are high-class undead, typically classified as 5 stars. They are around 5 meters tall. Their speed is relatively slow, but one must never underestimate their physical strength.

Elijah's strength and overall combat ability are classified at 5 stars as well. As such he can easily defeat a bone or flesh golem one-on-one, but if 5 undead golems all come at him at once, he would struggle a lot.

Elijah could always just leap back into the backlines and retreat, however, if he does that, the golems might follow him and rampage and disturb the adventurers, mercenaries, and soldiers that are fighting against the hordes of normal undead.

Their job is to buy time for the Griffin Knights to arrive. The soldiers and adventurers wouldn't be able to hold back the undead golems. Unless there was a 5-star adventurer or mercenary in the city other than Elijah, but Leghorn city is located in a relatively safe region. Only monsters at 4-star and below could be found in this region. Any adventurer that ranks up to 5-star moves to a different region to fight more difficult prey, and since Leghorn city is a relatively peaceful place, there's not many bounties mercenaries can get, so powerful mercenaries never go to Leghorn city.

Elijah, knowing all that, tightened his grip on his war hammer.

"I will protect this city." Elijah's Aura exploded in a flash of bright orange light.

He's unleashing everything he's got to swiftly destroy the 5 undead golems. His knees bent as he kicked off the ground, launching himself towards one of the bone golems.

Bone golems are generally weaker than flesh golems, as there is no flesh to cushion blunt impacts.

Elijah swung his war hammer at the bone golem's chest.

*BOOM*

Almost instantly, the ribs cracked and other reinforcing bone surrounding it cracked and caved in. Seeing the mana core that powers the golem exposed, Elijah punched, shattering the core into thousands of pieces.

Elijah used the now falling bone golem as a foothold to jump away, narrowly avoiding a flesh golem's fist.

Elijah quickly destroyed the other bone golem's core, leaving only 3 flesh golems left.

This is where Elijah will start to struggle. As mentioned before, flesh golems have thick flesh covering them, effectively cushioning blunt impacts. For Elijah, who uses a war hammer, this is a bad matchup. The only he could do is attack with a force that is stronger than the flesh golem's defense.

"Good thing these bastards are slow," Elijah said to himself.

Kicking off the ground, Elijah approached the nearest flesh golem. He swung his war hammer with all his might. In the very last second, just before the war hammer made contact, Elijah stopped channeling Aura to the rest of his body and channeled everything to his arms and war hammer.

*BOOOOM*

The impact blew off the upper body of the golem, including the mana core. The flesh golem—or what's left of it—fell down.

Just before Elijah landed he channeled Aura back to the rest of his body and rolled to prevent damage from landing on the ground.

Elijah looked back at the other two golems, making their way towards him. He expended a lot of Aura in that stunt, leaving him exhausted. He was panting hard and sweating buckets. But he gritted his teeth and attacked the other flesh golem.

The 2nd flesh golem was quickly destroyed, with its upper half being blown off just like the first one. However, because Elijah had to do the same stunt, he expended more Aura and his stamina dropped along with it.

The exhaustion made him careless as the last flesh golem kicked him. He couldn't avoid it because of his exhaustion. He was sent flying. His ribs cracked, puncturing his lungs which made him spit blood as his body ragdolled in the air.

Elijah fell to the ground, surrounded by numerous undead. He stood up with great difficulty. His lungs felt like breathing hot fire as he wheezed every time he took a breathe, each time being shorter and shorter.

He noticed that he dropped his weapon when he was blown away. He formed fists in both of his hands as he punched an undead trying to stab him. The undead easily shattered from the impact.

The necromancer saw this and snorted, "A feeble old man's grasping at straws. He'll die soon enough. I'm here for that bastard William anyway, not a nameless old man."

Elijah continued, as punched, kicked, and even headbutted more and more undead. The undead horde was slowly but surely being whittled down. The collaboration of the city guards, adventurers, and mercenaries was bearing fruit. The melee fighters held back the undead as the mages cast magic. Archers weren't of much help, so they helped the city guards bring back the injured instead.

Soon, Elijah's exhaustion caught up to him. He fell down, regrets filling up his mind, 'Is this how I'm going to die?'

The undead swarmed him, trying to take his life. But before they could, a wave of energy destroyed them.

"You aren't gonna die this time old man." A young man's voice ringed in Elijah's ears.

"Heheh, you're late, brat." Elijah chuckled as he saw the face of the voice's owner.

William and the Griffin Knights have arrived.