27.

“Keep running!” Santi yelled at the dwarves and Hana, spinning and ducking as a heap of rust came flying through the space his head had just occupied. He cut the junk golem in half and kicked the parts away. There were definitely more than a hundred of the things in the rift. Grimvr had been quite conservative with how many he thought were here. From the sounds of trampling feet there was probably double that, if not triple.

[Crosscurrent-Orb] blew apart a knot of them, the savage winds breaking the poorly held together constructs. Limbs and stray pieces of metal went flying in a storm of shrapnel and Santi was forced to summon an [Air Shield] to prevent some of the scraps from hitting the dwarves.

The hole leading out of the foundry was close and Santi knew they were going to make it. He just worried about Daniel. The elusive scout had disappeared and hadn’t made contact with them. He didn’t want to leave him here alone, but at this point he would be hard pressed to hold back the rusting tide of metal.

“Fuck it, he’s a big boy,” Santi grumbled and jogged after the fleeing prisoners. They were darting as fast as they could, but their condition slowed them to a near crawl. Santi was forced to cast spell after spell, [Gust] and [Crosscurrent-Orb] ripping apart the weaker golems.

Moving between the machinery and through the swarms of weak golems, hulking masses of Acolyte grade golems weathered the spells with little difficulty. They continued to march forward without hesitation as all around them their lesser brethren were shredded away.

“Hana, move it!” Santi screamed, hoping his voice could be heard over the clatter of metal feet pounding on the floor. Setting himself behind the last dwarf he continued his fighting retreat and the kill notifications kept racking up. For the first time since his regression he could feel the strain of using the spells. Between his high mana and affinity, the cost of using air based spells were near non-existent. Spamming them constantly was starting to weigh on him.

The last dwarf went through the hole and Santi was right after him. He sent the morph blade whipping around to clear a bit of space and then raced behind them. The heat of the rift beat down on them, but the dwarves weren’t slowing. They weren’t speeding up either. For being on death’s door they were moving at an admirable trot, shuffling feet hardly scraping over the ground as they followed after Hana.

Golem arms were ripping at the hole, tearing and enlarging it so they could follow behind. The plan had been to rile up the rift’s inhabitants and that part had gone spectacularly. The getting out alive with the dwarves part was looking more and more shaky as the minutes trickled by.

With a crash, the horde spilled out of the broken wall, but the time it had taken the golems to break through had been enough to open up a wide lead. The tear in space and reality was ahead and the sight of it drove the dwarves as they picked up speed to a near sprint.

An echoing roar split the day and the front gates of the foundry toppled as a twelve foot tall cyclops came storming out. Black hair bound in bones fell past shoulders as broad as boulders. A simple stained tunic of stitched together skins stretched to mid thigh and she lugged a metal club behind her.

One of the mated pairs. Who was holding the massacred ruins of one of the smaller cyclops Santi had killed inside of the shack. A watery tear slid down her dirty face and she screamed again.

“FASTER!” Santi screamed at the dwarves as they tripped and stumbled through the rift and to the other side. Daniel was going to be on his own. Santi wasn’t going to fight the twelve foot monster and the Acolyte golems on their home turf while being outnumbered.

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He dove through the rift and was greeted to the repellent stench of rotting cyclops bodies. Hana was already shepherding the dwarves toward the exit and Santi stepped over the dead bodies and turned to look back at the rift, weapon ready.

The lesser [Junkyard Golem]s came first, stumbling out just to be disassembled by Santi’s precise bladework. He kept the morph weapon looking like a long sword and he tore through them as they came charging out. The tide felt endless, slowly forcing him back, deeper and deeper into the warehouse.

Losing his strategic position of being right in front of the rift, the golems began to work their way around him. He had to speed up his retreat to avoid the encirclement, dashing between the towering shelves as the golems crashed into them.

As he got to the exit of the warehouse, the roaring cry of the cyclops came heralding her entrance to the world. The building shuddered and the crash of heavy, food laden shelves hitting the ground made Santi wince. More desperately needed food ruined.

He darted outside and watched as the dwarves staggered toward Grimvr who stood waving them on at the convenience store. They had knocked out the back wall to let the dwarves leave while Santi and his team stood guard. The blockades were fully manned and bristled with weapons and people.

Finally done with the rearguard, Santi sprinted towards the store. He quickly passed the dwarves, leaving them as if they were standing still. He jumped and grabbed the lip of the building and flipped to the other side to land lightly. Hana was already on the roof, sipping on a bottle of water.

Adam and Chad were stationed at the ready. Adam had an assortment of weapons he had pillaged from a sporting goods store and looked like he was ready to really let loose. Chad kept eyeing the spot his brother Tristan was standing and seemed wary of not having him close by.

Chloe and Rayleigh each held their own section of the barricades. The two were the best non-Acolyte fighters they had. Grimvr would be busy helping his people settle in and Mom and Dad had generously offered their cooking skills while Penelope tended to their wounds.

Daniel still hadn’t made his appearance and Santi felt another pang of worry. Daniel was skilled and good at ambushing people, but he didn’t have the experience or levels to really make himself a match made in hell yet.

“Daniel will be fine. He’s good,” Hana reassured him. Santi looked at her and raised his eyebrows silently. He was sure that it was his job to reassure her that her boyfriend would be fine.

“Keep your eyes on the prize. Here they come,” Hana said, nodding her head toward the line of golems streaming out of the distribution center.

It started as a trickle, the leading elements pushing ahead with whatever order had been programmed into their mind. Likely something like “get the dwarves”. They would be relentless, never ceasing in their bid to fulfill their orders. Until the false life inside of their shells was extinguished.

Ranged weapons skills started to bring them down. Tristan fired a bolt of energy and killed one by himself. A few of Adam’s friends on the track team threw their own weapons and more of the many limbed golems came to inglorious ends. The clatter of metal of asphalt became a tumultuous roar as more and more of the golems came streaking out.

“I think your sister is going to be busy the next few days,” Adam said as scores of the upper teen, low twenties golems were destroyed. Santi had to agree with that assessment. Levels would be coming quickly for those who had braved the danger to fight. It was still the easy part of the fight, the golems hadn’t even reached the barricades and the melee fighters on them.

Time stretched as Santi had to force himself not to intervene. He couldn’t save the world by himself. He needed people to be strong enough to stand on their own. To not look outward for salvation. It was hard to watch and not intervene.

As the golems pressed against the barricades, the lashed together cars and assorted junk swayed by the press. Someone fell, their balance lost and scraps of flesh and red blood painted the golems in the immediate vicinity.

One of the golems reached up and plucked a slow fighter off the barricade and her screams stretched out across the street as her limbs were plucked from her body. More people died as he watched, some he couldn’t have saved if he had tried. Their positions just changing to fast to properly react.

Some he could have.

He had a job to do and that wasn’t to be a savior to the handful of unfortunates. It was to protect them from the wave of gleaming Acolytle level golems who were marching down the street as an honor guard to the twelve foot cyclops.

“Take ‘em out!” Santi barked at his two ranged fighters as the enemy got closer and closer. Both men drew their weapons and started to gather energy for their skills as the cyclops mother opened her wide mouth and screamed a challenge at them all.

Mature Cyclops lvl. 31