We left at first light. Gertrude’s summoner teammate came along with four scorpions. I let Naran and Gertrude handle the blue gargoyles. They were ugly and quick, but Naran had enough experience from our recent grinding sessions to take them down easily enough.

Gertrude struggled a bit on the ones she fought, but she managed after seeing Naran handle the first one. Eventually the tower came into view.

“What…what is that?” Gertrude stuttered.

“That Gertrude, is the tower,” I calmly said as she stared at its square structure and towering height. It wasn’t a dungeon, unless level 3 zones broke the pattern. I would have thought level 3 monsters as minions and level 4 monsters as bosses and sub-bosses. But the golems were level 4, implying it was something else.

With the massive increase in size compared to previous dungeons it wasn’t a difficult assumption to make. Naran had looked at it and didn’t figure out anything new. It was just stupidly massive and just like one big middle finger from the Systemic Lands to everyone stuck here.

“We are pulling a level 4 from it?” she asked.

“Yes. Stay back,” I said. We advanced as a group. I picked the spot I had before and prepared another summoning circle. I had saved the supplies for level 3 summoning of blue gargoyles. I didn’t summon it before, since I wanted to take the time to observe things while we waited.

“Can’t…you…hurry…up?” The summoner asked while shivering heavily. I just gave her a dirty look.

“Take this time to observe the surroundings. It isn’t worthwhile rushing things with a level 4,” I replied harshly.

“It is fine, so, what is in the tower?” Gertrude asked.

“It isn’t a test then,” I said, and she stared at me. “Fine, a large silver golem. They jump high and fast and shoot pieces of themselves for defense and attack.” I didn’t like her, but no need to let her die. I guess some feelings had managed to sneak through.

I could tell Naran was raising an eyebrow in my direction, but I knew Gertrude wasn’t ready after our spar.

There was a high chance I would have to intervene. I finished the summoning. I then had Naran and the summoner go back a fair distance while I stayed with Gertrude as I sent my summon forward and up the giant tower stairs.

Ten golems came out once more. I had been hoping for nine. That way I could have ground them down and possibly peaked closer at the tower. The curiosity about the tower was massive, but it was way too much of a risk currently. One of the golems leapt off. I maneuvered my gargoyle back by using its stubby wings to glide down the steps.

The golem impacted the step. I could sense Gertrude tense up next to me. The golem leapt again and I had my summon come to a halt and mentally cut the tether. The golem crushed the summon beneath it as it turned to dust.

The golem leapt up into the air at us. Then my heart skipped a beat. Seven more golems were following the one in front, making a total of eight. My mind quickly did the math. Four people, four more summons. And we were all in range somehow.

“Run!” I shouted and started running. Gertrude was right behind me. I did my standard mini-leap run method, but I kicked off a bit higher. I was able to do a quick 360 degrees turn in the air to check behind me while running.

Gertrude was struggling to keep up. She clearly hadn’t practiced her running, same as her high stat combat. The entire ground was shaking as the horde of golems chased after us. It wasn’t a group. It was a horde.

Eight level 4 monsters. I could try to grind them down and I could win one on one. But the issue was I needed to get close to use Acid Shot, then the rest would be on me. Gertrude was going to get caught. Even with 500 Body stat, she was kicking off too hard in her panic and going vertical too much. That was why practice was key.

I turned mid-air once again, but this time I didn’t keep rotating. I skidded to a halt on the frozen ground. I didn’t spare any words as Gertrude ran past me. I wasn’t doing this for her, I was doing this to whittle down the number of level 4 monsters chasing us.

I knew exactly where the golem would land. Acid Shot. I targeted the golem in the air. A side panel ejected to intercept the attack. I had already moved out of the way, while keeping my distance and orientation towards its spent side. Acid Shot x3. I normally would have used more, but I needed to conserve energy.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The golem couldn’t rotate or do anything, since my attack was timed for the moment, it landed. It was coated in acid and began to melt. My heart cried in pain as I kept running away. The golem leapt again even as the outside melted.

The horde of seven golems was about one big jump behind. The melting golem soared over my head towards Gertrude. It ejected a panel at me and began to spin. I was close enough to the ground to quickly kick downwards and go to the side. Two more panels impacted the ground behind me as the golem finally turned to dust. A suicide attack, that was not good.

Naran was far ahead, carrying the summoner. The summons had run back towards us. What an idiot. “To the side!” I pointed and shouted. Apparently, the summoner wasn’t paying attention or didn’t here me as the scorpions rushed past me.

I turned to look and that was when my heart chilled even colder than the frostlands. One of the golems sides erupted with scatter shot. The monsters were shredded in an instant. That was a new attack. A new attack. Could the golems be different despite appearing the same.

This fight went from hard, to insane, just from that one move. “Kick closer to the ground, less air time,” I shouted at Gertrude as I caught up to her.

She didn’t spare any breath to shout back. What were we going to do? We could only keep running so long. I had no doubt that the golems would keep chasing us. We could lose them in Neo Brasilia. But everyone else would be killed. Naran could carry one person. I could carry another. With Gertrude, that was only five people.

I did another midair spin and looked at the horde and winced. The issue was getting ganged up on. This was the first fight beyond the Ritualist where it was a team battle of monsters versus me. I tried to think of a way to fight and win. I was already down 80 energy and only had 120 more.

I needed to keep 50 energy for an emergency Air Burst. I did another midair turn and checked behind me again. The golems were catching up but were also slowing down. At least they didn’t have tracking. If they had any kind of tracking, they could have overtaken us.

They were slowly catching up on Gertrude. I could see the focus on her face. But learning to run in the middle of a high pressure situation wasn’t the best place to learn exactly how to kick off. It was about precision and angling your foot just right.

Too low and you didn’t stay above the ground long enough. You would tire yourself kicking off the ground that rapidly. Too high and you would get too much airtime. It was a very narrow range, and she wasn’t hitting it.

I did another midair turn and that was when I saw her screw up. She kicked off too low and had to get rapidly again. She went up into the air at a forty five degree angle. She wasn’t covering enough ground.

The golems landed right behind her. I finished spinning around. The last look on her face was pure terror. Fear etched into every inch of her face. I kicked off and did another midair spin. There was nothing left but ruined meat and viscera scattered on the frozen ground.

I almost missed it, but she was cut in half. There was another type of attack. There were puncture wounds as well. Probably the scatter shot attack. I was slowly catching up with Naran. Carrying a person really slowed him down despite his high Body stat.

“Gertrude?” he asked me while breathing heavily as I caught up.

“Didn’t know how to run properly. She was killed. There are new attacks. A scattershot and something that cut her in half, despite her Body stat,” I quickly said.

“You left her-“ Naran tossed the summoner off his shoulder. She let out a scream that was quickly cut off. That was a good decision. She was dead weight, and we needed every little bit of strength to win this fight.

“Run back to Neo Brasilia?” Naran asked.

“Well, we can’t win against seven golems at the same time,” I said.

“Try to bypass our camp?” Naran asked and I winced at that question.

“No way we can just run past the blue gargoyles. With their force walls, even one small mistake and the golems would be on us. We have to follow the clear path back,” I said.

He was silent at that but didn’t disagree with me. “We will have to run through the night, level 2 centipedes,” he replied.

“They are bad, but we can dodge them easily enough. The real problem is if we are still being chased once we reach Neo Brasilia.

“I can take out two in a row, safely, I think. But will probably need to use Air Burst after that,” I said and did another mid-air rotation. “Tempting to try and take one of them down,” I said.

“That would be tricky,” Naran replied.

We kept running and after a couple more midair rotations I picked up on something new. “They are targeting you. So, it isn’t the Body stat they are focusing on,” I said.

“Well one can sense the energy of another person. They are probably basing their movement off that,” Naran replied.

“Yes,” I said since I knew he couldn’t see me running. I needed to focus on my breathing and get it under control. Naran’s high Body stat meant he could easily out pace me, but he didn’t. Since that would have pulled the golems right on top of me and killed me. Better to run side by side.

“What if Neo Brasilia doesn’t work?” Naran asked. That was a very good question. It was something I was thinking about right now as well.

“No idea. I think we are going to have to just see what happens,” I replied. That was a question with no good answer. All we could do was just run. I did another midair rotation, and my eyes went wide.

One golem was in the air, but then another one rammed into it from below, sending it further. The monsters were incapable of tracking but were capable of teamwork. “Dodge!” I shouted. Naran didn’t hesitate and kicked off to the left. I went right. The golem landed where we had been. I kicked forward as a metal pole zipped through the air, right behind me.

I did another midair spin, but no golems boosting other ones. But that didn’t mean anything. They did it once, they could do it again. Naran matched his pace to mine. “We might not make it to Neo Brasilia at this rate,” he said. I couldn’t find myself disagreeing with that statement.