Eventually, all that was left were the hulking brutes standing guard over the small chest. From this close, they were even larger than Jonathan had expected, towering over the rest of the room. Each was wrought out of strangely liquid black obsidian, with veins of ruddy light crisscrossing their forms. Traces of corruption could be seen winding across their bodies, intersecting with the lava veins. However, they were less grotesque than the other monsters had been. They surrounded a large support pillar, at the base of which stood the chest. It looked tiny in comparison, a mere speck beside the massive golems.
“Well, this is it,” Jonathan said calmly.
“Not worried, I take it?”
‘We’ve dealt with far worse. Let’s just go for it.”
With a grim smile, Jonathan launched himself towards his enemies, flying through the air. Behind him, Edgar sent a wave of air into his feet, propelling him forwards. The golems came to life as soon as Jonathan moved near, and began to move their hulking forms, their arms swinging out into the open air.
Jonathan pushed off one of them as it came hurtling in, pushing himself higher into the air. With a grunt, he pivoted around the limb and landed on one of the golem's shoulders. Edgar started to float into the air, readying his support skills. Jonathan leaped up as the golem swatted at its shoulder, and came down on the top of its head. With a detonation of purple, he brought his fist down, coating it with the Void. The stone underneath his hand cracked, and the golem staggered as he sent a line racing down its stony form.
The monster recovered soon enough though, and an ominous cloud of darkness started to pour from the crack. The other two golems were moving in, and seemed to be gathering up energy around themselves to attack Jonathan and Edgar. The black cloud started to increase in volume rapidly, and where it touched Jonathan, he started to go numb. With a curse, he hopped backwards, out of range. As he did so, the nearest golem sent out a straight right punch towards him, using a surprising amount of skill for such a monster. Jonathan was caught straight in the torso by the blow, and knocked backwards. However, to his surprise, it hardly did any damage. It was merely an inconvenience.
He righted himself as he fell, and Edgar caught him with a net of wind, depositing him safely on the ground. He rolled to his feet as the golems stomped down at him, and then zig zagged towards them. The monsters were too large to see him properly at his current range, and were perplexed by his sudden disappearance. The black cloud was still spreading, but it was about fifty feet up in the air, and not an immediate threat. Instead, Jonathan focused on avoiding the feet of the golem. Being caught under one of those would be an inconvenience, if nothing more. At his current level of power, he could probably survive being stepped on by one of these monsters. However, he was not eager to try.
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As one of the stony feet came down nearby, he leaped onto it, and clambered up its side, using the small protuberances in the rock as handholds. This golem was not the same one that he had fought earlier, but that was alright.The surface of the golem was knobbled and uneven, squishing slightly under his hands, and the faint heat from the red veins pulsated throughout.
Jonathan worked his way up the monster, trying his best to avoid the black veins. Edgar released a powerful skill a moment later, and Jonathan could feel the wind briefly pick up behind him. There was a loud crunching noise, and the golem that he had injured staggered as a spear of wind blasted the top of its head off. The black cloud started to expand outwards rapidly, but Edgar merely funneled the cloud away with his elemental control.
As Jonathan climbed, the other two golems turned their sights on Edgar, charging him. As their feet shook the earth, Edgar rose up into the air, beyond their reach. Jonathan smiled, and kept moving, using the distraction to his advantage. By the time he reached the golem’s shoulder, it was too distracted by Edgar to pay much attention to him. He drew back his fist, taking his time to layer as much power into it as possible, and then swung. With a single punch, he blasted apart the monster’s head, sending a spray of gravel like chunks everywhere. His fist continued through the air, its energy charge expanding outwards in all directions.
As the golem fell to its knees, Edgar captured the black cloud, and gathered it with the other one. He compressed them into tiny balls of inky darkness, and sent them off to the far side of the cave. The final golem seemed confused, not sure which of the men to target. In its confusion, it stumbled around, trying to work out the greater threat. However, that spelled its end.
Edgar sent another lance of wind towards the monster, knocking it backwards. As it fell to the ground, Jonathan leaped onto it, running along the length of the monster. As his feet pattered on the stony surface, he pumped his elemental energy into his fist. Leaping the last twenty feet, he came crashing down on the beast’s head, avoiding the black cloud. His fist hammered into the crack left by Edgar. There was a loud bang, and the monster’s face shattered, causing it to go limp. Essence rushed into Jonathan, but it was far too little for a level.
He leaped off the monster’s face as Edgar gathered up the black smoke, and headed towards the chest. It was made out of red stone, and banded with strikes of dark metal. It looked a lot larger than before now that it was not next to the titanic golems, about five feet tall.