Shen jumped, somersaulting and twisting his body to avoid getting turned into paste by the enormous first. He threw his qi-filled spear at the golem's neck and fell at a perfect angle to reach the floating step closest to that height.
The spearhead struck, there was an explosion, and it was thrown far away from the boss.
| Titanic Metal Golem (D) | 50,000 / 49,938 | -62
While Shen was in the air, he looked around and shook his head as he saw a fireball, a lightning bolt, and an ice shard appear a few hundred feet away from the golem, already moving towards it. That was short-sighted and stupid.
The boss had no soul, so spells thrown against it didn't need to go through any innate soul defense. Yet, even if the willpower expenditure was minimal, it was still a thing, as creating and controlling spells required some will.
Shen had no way of finding out who had cast those spells, so he couldn't hunt for them. What he could do was delay his next spear throw to move around and prevent the following spells from hitting the golem's heart, its weak spot for mages.
The first three struck though; Shen had been midair when they formed and couldn't redirect himself without exploding one of his sides, which would deal damage to him.
Still, he started moving in less optimal ways to make the golem move around as much as possible. That made it much harder for incoming spells to hit its weak spot.
That solved most of the problem. Shen returned to what he had been doing, distracting the boss for the others. If he wasn't doing that, the groups might've lured the golem to each other to crush them.
While he did that, he also dealt as much damage as possible. It would make killing it easier when the time came and prevent anyone from dealing more damage than him. If the latter happened, the golem would pursue them instead of Shen.
Shen kept doing his part while watching all sides, looking out for traitors.
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Alicia looked at her group while Shen fought the golem. The two hundred sixty-three people with her were her only chance at victory.
Shen had had everyone pick those they wanted to fight with, but making sure there were five final big groups. Then they had been placed around the golem to make it harder for more than two to gang on a single one of them. Now there was one goal only:
Be the last group standing. Only then would they be allowed to attack the golem.
Alicia was together with most leaders from the age groups. She had wanted to fight beside Evelyn to see her contribution points and avoid surpassing the girl—in case both died—and Evelyn had wanted to keep an eye on Alicia too.
"Do as we practiced!" Schneider, the commander of their group, yelled.
As they had expected, they were the target of the two closest groups. Alicia's group was arguably the strongest and would triumph unless crushed first.
Schneider planned to have a small part of their own group defend against one group while the majority tried to wipe out the other.
They all obeyed his call, and Alicia focused on killing as many people as possible.
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Sai had been invited to the strongest group for one reason only: his connection to Shen. Everyone knew that. Yet, he would do his best not to disappoint. He was an elite in his own right.
He took his daggers out and shrouded himself with a layer of mana containing the Concept of Stealth.
He hid behind a big-ass strength fighter, wearing plate armor, moving against the group they had to fight. The strength dude was hiding behind a defender, who in turn was protected by some spellcasters.
Sai waited and waited. The two fighters took some hits from projectiles. The defender used a crystal to heal instantly, and the strength fighter used the cheaper potion. Eventually, the warrior left the back of the defender and rushed ahead. Sai followed.
The fighter engaged with another warrior coming from the opposing front line. When Sai's ally was struck and pushed back, Sai advanced.
He pushed mana containing the Concept of Penetration on his daggers and leaped on the opponent. The man hadn't been expecting that and reacted too slowly.
Sai pushed his dagger through the fighter's helmet—the man wore plate armor—once, twice, three times, then kicked his chest to jump back, roll, and get behind his ally again.
His warrior killed the other one quickly after that, then retreated. Sai retreated with him before finding someone else advancing to hide in the shadows of.
This fight was merely for the privilege of attacking the boss. Trying to be all cool here, like jumping in the middle of the enemy mages, would be dumb unless you were Feng Shen and could kill everyone alone. Both sides knew that, which slowed the battle a little, but Sai's group currently held the advantage.
Soon, the other group would grow desperate, and things would escalate, especially when their front line died, and the mages got scared for their lives.
But that was for a worry for the future.
Sai brought his mind back to the present as he put his daggers through another man's neck then retreated.
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There were very few non-mages who tried to attack the golem. Some tried to argue their case with Shen, while others went straight for a hit. They felt hopeless about the group fight and hoped a single hit might let them get the Achievement in case everyone with the same stat in their age group died without striking it.
Shen killed both types with no mercy.
There was no way to contain treachery other than limiting the people who could attack the boss. Even then, he expected it to be a matter of time until chaos ensued. The closer victory looked, the more people would be willing to risk their honor for the grand prize.
The group fights looked terrible, but to his surprise, no one had yet betrayed—
Shen saw a female mage suddenly create something like Alicia's Hellfire Eclipse in the middle of her group, except it was made of lightning. He dodged a golem's slap and threw his spear at her.
His spear hit the dome of lightning, and his will fought against hers, but he was not alone. She was attacking dozens of people, and their willpower also fought back. The bubble popped off in a single second, and Shen's spear continued until it hit her head.
Arc Flash made it explode.
He pulled the spear back, but that betrayal seemed to open the dam of treachery. In all groups, people started killing each other. Shen was glad to see only five such people did that in Alicia's group, and she survived. He stopped attacking the golem and started throwing spears against all betrayers he saw.
He felt like the heavens judging everyone from up above. It was inebriating—and dangerous. Each time he sent his spear against someone, he repeated to himself, "Power corrupts."
Things devolved into chaos. Shen's rank let him see the faces of everyone fighting who didn't cover them, and they were not pretty. They twisted in rage, greed, and fear. They all wanted the same thing, and they were willing to give up on everything they believed in if they got it.
War wasn't glorious.
He had seen larger scale battles before, here in this very tutorial. But he had never seen people who walked beside one another backstab their colleagues, much less with such ease. There were only forty Achievements available, and the worst the fight got, the more things escalated, as desperation pushed them an extra mile.
Fire rained from what looked like portals on the skies, burning people alive. Lightning struck people in a chain effect. Gravity tore limbs apart, space itself bisected men and women alike, and an impressive swing of a sword created a big scar on the ground.
In misery and ambition, they uncovered the secret to improve.
Shen could see why the Alliance would want them to push themselves like that. He could even argue it was for the greater good. But he couldn't condone it.
The worst part was that it made him wonder.
He had said during his tribulation that war among mortals was treacherous, and these people were undoubtedly mortals. Yet they held power. They lacked only two things cultivators had: long age and their culture.
He had already considered how long age didn't mean infallibility. Both the Immortal Emperor and the Alliance were old yet saw differently on some matters. That meant wisdom wasn't always used for good.
That left culture, and cultivator culture was the Immortal Emperor.
He alone controlled the Eternal Empire. Without his power, how long would it take for honor to crumble? Without his seemingly omniscient and omnipotent power watching over them all, would some people even care about the laws?
Mystical realms were cut from the Emperor's gaze, and sometimes there were only a few survivors. Shen had never thought twice about it. Now, he wondered: what really happened in them?
Shen had already realized his father had protected him by appointing him as the next Keeper of Knowledge, but maybe that protection extended for more than just danger. His father might have sheltered him from the ugly side of cultivation too. Shen had been just a kid with a dream of becoming a cultivator, and why take it from him by marring that dream with terrible truth?
People... People in general, cultivator or not, strong or weak. People. People weren't much better than children. Put candy in front of a child, tell them not to eat, and leave the room. How many would obey without the threat of a negative consequence that they can see right in front of them in the form of an adult?
Not only an adult either; an adult who could punish them. Shen was doing his best, but he was no Immortal Emperor. These people didn't fear Shen enough.
It pained his heart to realize how honor and fear seemed to be so closely related to each other.
He had no idea why his mother had been killed, but now he wondered how many others had wanted to kill her yet had feared the consequences. Even afraid, one of them had done it because his father couldn't be everywhere all the time. Only omniscience and omnipotence, or something close enough to be taken as such—like the Immortal Emperor—could truly stop evil before it even started. Even the Emperor was blind to small-scale unlawful actions, and Shen had to wonder if he hadn't been simply lacking... greater strength.
War... Shen had to admit the tribulation had been right. War brought the worst on people, and there was only one way to prevent that: absolute power.
He reached that conclusion while reaping to himself the mantra "power corrupts."
Was that corruption seeping in already? Or was he just maturing? He had no way to know.
But as he threw a spear to blow up another traitor's head, he decided he would find out one way or another.
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Things became almost a free-for-all, then the about two hundred survivors of different groups just stopped attacking each other, reaching a practical truce. There should be people missing from some age groups already, and continuing with the killing would only help the few mages who had landed hits on the golem.
Shen had predicted that possibility, despite it not being as good as his plan. Yet, that was the path those people had chosen. They would have to live with it.
"Attack the boss at will," Shen said using his Lion's Roar, then focused on doing just that.
The proportion of the survivors had been flipped. About half the remaining people were no longer mages, who had suffered the most with the betrayals, but strength fighters. They approached the golem's feet and attacked there. That was the boss' strength weak spot.
Shen was distracting the golem, so their difficulty was handling the electricity on the boss's carapace. Touching it meant getting electrocuted. They had to beware of that and make plans, but some still got stuck like had happened to Shen himself.
To their luck, Shen had thought of a solution to that. About thirty of the survivors were resistance fighters. Instead of taking hits that could one-shot them, like the boss' kicks and stomps, they helped the warriors. They pulled whoever got stuck, getting shocked and taking damage on the process. And all damage a defender took was reflected back on the boss—that was the resistance weak spot.
Both warriors and defenders used potions and healing crystals freely. This was their shot at an Achievement. They were investing all they had on it.
Meanwhile, the forty mages or so just kept attacking the golem's heart, the magic weak spot. It was actually fortunate that so few of them remained; the weak spot was limited in area, and if a spell touched on another, it started a fight of wills. Then it became a matter of who gave up and let go of their spell first, thus allowing the other to deal damage. The survivors were not people who let go.
But with forty people, it was easy for them to avoid touching each other's spells.
Finally, the remaining participants, around thirty, were agility fighters. It was also fortunate that there were so few of them remaining. Only a couple dozen floating islands were high enough for them to attack the golem's neck from, and when the boss attacked Shen, it broke at least half of them.
Shen couldn't get to the ground to let the others have free access to the boss though. Even with all his speed and advantages, he would get stomped to the death against the boss' D- agility. He had to stay on the islands, and the unlucky agility fighters could only do their best.
Shen was glad to see Sai among them, throwing his daggers at the boss. Alicia was also part of the mages— unfortunately, so was Evelyn.
Things went well for a long while. They had tested halving the golem's HP once during practice to see if it would change its attack patterns. That was the most Shen had been willing to lower the boss' HP while training; the temptation might have been too much otherwise. What if they attacked Shen while he focused on the golem and then killed it?
Sai and others had agreed that half HP was the most common first threshold in boss fights in gaming. It didn't work like that in the tutorial. The golem's HP reached 25,000, 20,000, and rapidly fell to 15,000.
Everything was fine.
Then everything changed when it reached 10,000 HP.