It didn't take too long to find the entrance to the next floor, Sera found it behind a large painting. Once again they ventured up the staircase and found themselves in the main room of the mansion.

This time though, the entire mansion was empty.

They had to be a little less reckless and more wary because they were already injured and they didn't know how many floors they had to go through before they reached the end.

They creeped through the house, cautious for enemies but there appeared to be none so far. It wasn't until they passed by the library that they heard noise coming from behind its closed door.

“My best guess is that the entrance to the next floor is in there.” Sera pointed to the library door.

The rest nodded their heads.

“I'll take the lead if you guys want.” Zorn suggested and no one countered him so he opened the door and walked in. They followed in after him.

The library looked almost normal, there were still no desks or tables around, but its giant shelves still stood tall— just without books in them.

Peering down the shelf passageways, Bo could see a giant humanoid golem taller than the shelves themselves, standing still at the other end. Its body wasn't made of stone or metal but appeared to be made from a couch-like material.

The ceiling was higher up here allowing for this tall golem to stand comfortably. Up above were wooden beams which helped to support the room and while there was little light up there, Bo could swear he saw little shadows flutter across the beams.

‘I don't like this.’ Bo thought, a little on edge.

“What do we do now?” Sera said. “Approach the golem?”

Iris looked around the room before responding, “There doesn't appear to be anywhere we can stay defensive, it's an open room with only the bookshelves as cover. I think we need to go on the offensive.”

“Agreed.” Zorn readied his ax and sprinted at the golem.

“Wait, we haven't planned anything yet!” Iris shouted but Zorn didn't stop.

The second he took a step through the shelf passageway, the golem began to move. It straightened itself and its blank cushiony face turned to look at Zorn.

Zorn didn't slow down and instead sped up and leapt at the golems' neck. He aimed and slashed his ax but the golem managed to block the attack with its arm. The ax got lodged into the golems arm which momentarily slowed Zorn down as he thought he could pull it out.

Wham!

Hitting a bookshelf and knocking it over was Zorn's body as he got slapped away by the golem. The bookshelves on one half of the room toppled over in a domino fashion.

The golem raised its arms up and clapped.

A fluttering sound came soaring down from above as birds made of paper and leather dove at them from the beams near the ceiling.

Before they had a chance to react to the birds, the golem picked up a fallen over bookshelf, and tossed it at them. An over ten foot tall bookshelf flew towards them about to crush them.

“Argh!” Sera stepped in front of Bo and Iris and activated her ember to its max. She felt a wild surge of unlimited energy enter her body.

She caught the book shelf out of midair, bent her knees, and threw it back at the golem. The golem was clueless and could only get hit by the bookshelf and get knocked over.

Sera quickly deactivated her ember but she felt the strain immediately plague her body. Her muscles felt strained and a wave of exhaustion penetrated her entire body to her core.

“That might be it for me in this fight.” Sera said exasperated and knelt down.

The paper birds didn't give Bo or Iris enough to respond. Twenty, maybe thirty birds flocked towards them with sharp paper claws and beaks.

“I guess there's no better time to use them than now!” Iris shouted and pulled two potions off her satchel.

She threw them in the middle of the birds and they promptly exploded, shredding the birds apart into pieces.

“No more exploding potions left!” Iris announced.

Furious caws barked from all around and the remaining paper birds angrily attacked Iris who had blown up their friends.

“What do we do?” Iris, a little nervous, yelled at Bo.

Once again there was no time to respond, the birds were already on them. Beaks and claws attacked them without mercy.

Bo was doing well because they didn't seem to have as much penetrating power as the hounds and couldn't break through his skin but Iris was not faring well and was getting mauled by the birds.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Sera didn't seem to catch any of the bird's attention as she was laying on the ground dead tired. She tried her best to stand up but she simply had no energy left, that one toss coupled with the earlier fights had her drained.

Bo was wildly swinging at the birds trying to hit them which worked somewhat well but Iris wouldn't last long, she was protecting her face and neck which meant she couldn't attack back.

He couldn't watch Iris being attacked and made the decision to protect her. Without warning Iris, he gently tackled her to the floor and straddled over her body making sure to not leave any opening.

“Uwh!” Iris squealed in surprise.

“Curl up in a ball so no birds can get in.” He commanded and Iris listened. She curled up into a tight ball.

Thankfully their size difference made it easy for him to fully encompass her body underneath him.

“Sera, we're gonna need your help!” Bo yelled out to the delirious Sera.

She struggled to stand up but hearing Bo’s yell, her vision cleared and she saw the scene in front of her. The smell and sight of bright red blood was strong and she knew it wasn't hers or Bo’s, it must be Iris’s then.

“You bastards!” She yelled, stood up and swung at the birds taking two or three out with every swing.

With a new threat, the birds left Bo and went after Sera.

No longer feeling any attacks coming his way, Bo lifted himself off Iris and took a good look at her bleeding body. There were no large wounds, just many tiny cuts and holes left by the birds claws and beaks.

But… he wasn't going to baby her.

“You good?” He asked and Iris wiped a glob of blood off her eyelid and nodded.

“Thanks.” She said as they both stood up and helped Sera deal with the remaining dozen or so birds.

After finally dealing with the last bird, they took a breath of relief.

That all happened in the span of roughly a minute. They looked to see the other end of the battlefield and saw a struggling Zorn trying to deal with the golem.

Whatever he did; cut, slash or chop, no attack went deep enough to affect the golem. Its body was incredibly durable and annoyingly tough.

Having used up the remainder of her energy, Sera lay down on the floor taking deep breaths and told Bo and Iris to go help out Zorn while she took a quick break.

Bo rushed towards the golem while Iris trailed by his side.

“Let's work together, Zorn!” Bo shouted out and stopped right on the edge of the golems' reach, watching Zorn crawl all over the golems body and continuously attacking it.

“Sure!” Zorn angrily shouted, not because they were helping but because he hadn't won already.

“How do we beat this thing Iris?” Bo asked. Not wanting to dive into the freaky recklessly and without a plan.

“Hmm, it's so massive so if we can knock it over again hopefully that will give us enough time to finish it off.” Iris explained. “Try to whittle away one of its legs and eventually it should fall over.”

“Got it!” Bo tightened his grip on his machete and dashed at the golems leg.

He managed to reach it without trouble since the golem was distracted by Zorn who was crawling on its back and face. Stabbing his machete into the golems' calf, he began to move it back and forth like a saw.

Going at the pace he was going, it would take half a minute to whittle the golems leg enough that it would fall over— hopefully.

But the golem wouldn't sit still, it kicked backwards using the leg Bo was cutting into. He hurriedly grabbed onto the leg, held firmly and managed not to get flung away by the kick.

Zorn brought its attention back to himself with a stab to the golems face. The golem lowered its leg giving Bo another chance and more time to cut it.

Thunk!

He looked up to see Iris standing beside him helping him cut the golems leg with a blade that the Keeper had given her.

She smiled and sped up. “Come on Bo, no time to dawdle!”

He focused up and with the two of them working together, they managed to slice enough of the golems leg that it started to tip over. They ran in the opposite direction of where the golem was falling and watched it topple over onto its back.

Zorn skillfully maneuvered over top of the golem while it was falling and ended up standing on its chest. He didn't hesitate to run over to its neck and once again begin to cut through it.

The golem resisted by using its arm to try and swat him away but once Bo and Iris jumped into its body and helped Zorn out, they managed to cut its head off quickly without too much resistance.

Once the golems head was disconnected from its body, it stopped moving and its raised limbs fell down, no longer able to move.

The second the fight was over, Bo and Iris rushed over to Sera to check in on her and make sure she was okay— which she was.

They fed her some water and made her eat some food to replenish her energy reserves. Iris on the other hand was once again bleeding and wounded and needed to clean herself up.

Luckily Gladesdale had some restoration lotion for healing scars because without it, Iris would be almost entirely covered in them with the way things have happened.

“We really need to find a better way to deal with swarms of enemies don't we?” Bo remarked thinking about how they had fought fog sprites and a flock of paper birds.

“We did manage to win both times.” Iris said. “Even if the cost was to be covered in wounds all over. None of us have great embers or artifacts for dealing with swarms, maybe when we get back to Gladesdale we can buy something to help.”

Bo chuckled and nodded. He relaxed his body and took a long swig of water.

They came to the agreement that they were gonna rest up before moving onto the next floor.

The entrance, as they had guessed, was in the library.

Even Zorn wasn't keen on rushing ahead and agreed with them that he needed a little rest.

“Should we head down to a floor where the mansion actually has beds or do we stay up here?” Sera asked after getting enough food in her that she didn't feel like fainting.

“Let's not risk heading back down, who knows what might happen.” Iris said. “We have a tent we can sleep in so we're good, what about you Zorn?”

“I can sleep on the floor, don't worry. I'll sleep in the kitchen.” Zorn didn’t wait around and left.

They also needed some rest so they quickly prepared the tent and dozed off, Bo taking the first watch— he would also let them sleep a little longer because he had plenty of stamina and didn't feel the need to sleep even though his body was a little tired.