At the end of the tunnel Zihan, Madame Dembe, and their men reached a cavern about six times larger than the cave where the Acid Lakes were located. This new area was full of mushrooms of all kinds of sizes, it was a forest of red mushrooms.
The place was covered by a kind of miasma illuminated slightly by the reddish colors of the different types of fungi. This substance in the air was the accumulation of millions of spores in the cave.
These spores varied in sizes. Some were microscopic, almost invisible; while others, easy to see with the naked eye, reached the size of a Ubax (thirty centimeters in diameter).
“Take out your masks!” Madame Dembe said when she saw the density of the miasma.
“The place may contain poisonous substances," she warned putting on her mask.
All the quinoids listened and searched through their things taking out the protection they needed to breathe.
Zihan took pity on the weak creatures of flesh and motioned with his hand for his followers to continue moving. There was no time to wait for the weak.
The nature of the voidmaws made them resistant to almost all toxic and corrosive substances, but it was not foolproof. These powerful metal beings would drop dead in less than five minutes of ingesting more than ten milliliters of a drink with calcium. In other words, an enemy could poison them with a glass of milk.
As they began to enter the mushroom forest, the atmosphere began to tense. At this distance, even the weakest of the nineteen beings could feel the powerful creature that inhabited the place.
Unfortunately for them, the huge creature had also felt them. In the center of the cavern, inside a huge crater full of pieces of crystals, rocks, plants, and fungi; a three-meter golem formed.
When the group of Voidmaws arrived at the crater, having outdistanced the quinoids, the huge creature was waiting for them in its abstract form created with the bodies of various insects and creatures from the depths, rocks, and crystals. The corpse of a sanc flower, several meters larger than the leader that Zihan had defeated moments before, was part of one of this golem's arms.
Had they seen the corpse in the cave where the children were or the creature that Darthañan and Frigglene had to surround, they might have known that this was the third Caveking living in this cave system. A rather peculiar event, for the Cavekings, are generally known as supremely territorial and solitary creatures.
“Attack!” Zihan shouted, opening his hands threateningly.
The long fingers on his limbs looked like repiers that served for both cutting and stabbing, unlike the weapon, its shape had a slight curvature.
“Roar!” All the voidmaws roared launching themselves against the golem.
Madame Dembe and the other quinoids arrived in time to see how: all the voidmaws except Zihan stood stunned as they approached a ten-meter radius of the corpse creature.
“Use magic to get them away from the golem!” Madame Dembe ordered when noticing the strange reaction of the voidmaws.
“Bang!”
At that same moment, the huge golem taking advantage of the small loss of concentration Zihan had; as he saw his men stop midway to combat like fools, used a large crystal column from its body as if it was a spear to pierce the leader of the voidmaws through his chest.
Zihan's inert body was pinned to the ground, practically split in half.
“Hurry up!” Madame Dembe shouted realizing that the situation was much worse than she had estimated.
Being able to kill Zihan with one blow meant that the golem was at the last level of the second magnitude. Adding its ability to immobilize a large number of enemies made this an entity that could not be underestimated.
The quinoids listening to Madame Dembe began to use all kinds of tricks to try to move the voidmaws away from the radius of influence of the golem. The wizard, who had bird characteristics, drove four voidmaws away from a single telekinetic spell. One of the two bear-like quinoids used a wind technique to move two others.
And before anyone could save the last two, the golem's arm made up of several corpses of sanc flowers, tangled around them and brought their bodies to its mouth with such speed that the quinoids couldn't do anything else but look.
“Crack!”
“Crack!”
The golem began chewing on the two unfortunate voidmaws. The sound of his jaws breaking against the sturdy metal bodies stunned everyone who heard it. The bodies of these voidmaws soon became part of the golem's jaw.
The moment the voidmaws lucky enough to be rescued began to emerge from the trance in which they found themselves, the Caveking's arm reached out again, instinctively causing everyone to recoil in fear.
The golem grabbed Zihan's body and ripping off both a piece of soil and part of the crystal column he brought everything to its mouth.
“Crack!”
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“Crack!”
His chewing rumbled in the cave thanks to the echo.
“Wake up!” shouted Madame Dembe the moment she recovered from the fear.
“Use fire against the parts of its body that consist of plants or animals!”
“Don't get closer than 15 meters from him!”
“Aim all your ranged skills at its joints!”
Madame Dembe said in succession.
“Urngi! Boka! Find its energy core!” ordered the quinoid turtle to the magician and the shaman who were in the group.
With Madame Dembe's series of shouts and orders, the ten quinoids and six voidmaws soon organized and began fighting Caveking from a distance. None of them knew the nature of this creature due to how few were its sightings. It could be said that even within Vorpiax very few knew about this dangerous mold.
The fact that it takes a long time to mature and get enough parts to form a golem; besides, of its aversion to leaving its territory made the measures to combat it were of little interest.
The battle began to spread and within five minutes the golem had lost one of its arms while four quinoids and two voidmaws were trapped by the Caveking spores and then were devoured.
“The core is in the crater!” Shouted the shaman as soon as he found out the location.
The magician, who had been transferring his energy to the shaman, fell unconscious to the ground from exhaustion.
The timely information was for the survivors such as finding an oasis in the desert. The creature would not let them escape, but in turn, tried not to move from where it was. Now it all made sense. The core was separated from the golem's body in a safe place away from combat.
The question now was how to get to the crater?
At that moment one of the voidmaws, who was now in command of his people, approached where Madame Dembe and Rosha were.
“Buffalo warrior throw me to the crater, I will take care of the core of the golem," said the voidmaw to Rosha.
Madame Dembe smiled upon hearing the metallic being offering himself as a sacrifice to eliminate the golem.
The powerful buffalo quinoid dropped its large hammer to the ground. She was a little confused by the voidmaw's request. How was she going to launch him into the crater?
“Grab his legs like a spear," said Madame Dembe seeing that Rosha did not know what to do.
“Understood.” Confirmed the buffalo quinoid.
Rosha squatting down prepared herself. The voidmaw stood on one of her knees and then let her take him by the feet with her right hand, and rest her left hand on his chest.
Breathing deeply, Rosha regulated her internal energy, closed her eyes to send all her forces towards her arms, and when she opened them, she took two steps, launching with all her power the voidmaw towards the crater.
“Fush!”
The voidmaw shot through the air, taking the Caveking by surprise, who fighting against the other survivors, had moved far enough away from the crater to use his hallucinogenic spores there.
“Crash!”
The moldy glass core exploded to pieces with the blow of the voidmaw. The gigantic golem that had managed to catch one of the quinoids with bear characteristics completely collapsed.
“We won!”
“Take that shit piece of stone!”
The surviving quinoids started celebrating excitedly.
“Our brothers have been avenged!” The new leader of the voidmaws proclaimed with a triumphant pose.
“Let their souls cause nightmares to Titans!” The others replied with tired faces full of joy.
“Kill them!” Helvella's voice interrupted the celebrations of the exhausted warriors.
“Boom!”
Powerful techniques caught both quinoids and voidmaws by surprise. Helvella and his thirty-four companions ended the lives of everyone present.
Looking to the side of the crater Helvella smiled maliciously.
“Do you think your second class talismans can hide you from me?”
Madame Dembe appeared with slight distortion at the place where Helvella was looking.
“Please spare my life. I will serve you from now on for the rest of my days,” implored Madame Dembe falling to her knees before Helvella.
Several of his men appeared behind her, but Helvella stopped them with a wave of his hand.
Seeing that she had not been attacked, Madame Dembe was pleased to learn that she still had some value for the Baron.
“I can say everything I know about the attack plans of Barons Musset, Beura and Jinshu.”
Helvella's smile widened almost distorting his visage. The wound on his face made him look intimidating. Walking to the kneeling quinoid he crouched down, never removing his smile.
“I have no use for an old turtle.”
“I also know where their treasures are and ...”
“Shhh!” Helvella gently silenced her by placing a finger over her mouth.
“What did you think was going to happen when you thought that threatening my daughter was a good idea?”
The hope in Madame Dembe's eyes was replaced by fear, an incredible horror ran through her body as she realized that Helvella had purposely left her to survive.
Immediately she tried to move as she had to escape from this place. But when she did she realized that her body was motionless. She tried to beg again, but to her surprise, no sound came out of her mouth.
"Forgive my rudeness, but I don't like to hear the screams. " Helvella scoffed as he set her on fire. Black flames engulfed her body.