Before Cerion and I could even co up with so kind of strategy, a giant stone fist ca flying down, right at the both of us. We dodged out of the way on ti, but only barely, because a split second after I activated aura step and Cerion used his wave movent skill, the fist landed on our previous position, digging into the tiled floor of the complex and causing a small crater to form.
Witnessing its power, I grimaced and evaluated our situation. Dealing with a monster that had more physical strength than myself wasnt anything new, nor was its speed, as far as we had observed. The issue was that much like the last boss, no weak points were visible, apart from the goliaths eyes.
Figuring this was the best opportunity to test its defenses since I hadnt charged up any mana yet, I called out to Cerion.
Im apparating! Distract it!
Ive got you covered! he shouted back.
A mont later, a round, orb-like water vortex appeared from his palm, growing in size as it approached the golem, until it beca about a tenth of the stone creatures size, which translated into a diater of ten ters.
It flew at the golem slowly, who moved to paw it out of the way. I took that chance to phase into a shadow, reappearing in a ghost-like state on the golems nose, which was actually just a stone archway turned upside down as it was assembled into the human-shaped giant. I swung my blade, timing it so that I would rematerialize right before my blade hit the eye that was responsible for the golems raw power and mana. Unfortunately, stone bricks covered it partially right before my blow struck, causing my attack to deal limited damage.
Luckily, limited damage was all I had needed to break a chunk off of the core, creating a crack in the rest of the giant marble. This ti, I was smart enough to leave a curse mark, instead of focusing purely on the power of my strike like I had done with the core in the clocktower.
Of course, I had expected the skill core, as I had co to call it, to react to my attack on its brother, the power core. First, it had attempted to defend it, which was only sowhat successful. Now, it would seek to counterattack, I knew.
I whirled my mana into another apparition, drawing mana from my core until it was nearly empty. I was too slow, though, because the stone archway that I had been standing on turned into spikes beneath my feet, piercing through my armor. From all directions, spikes flew at in retaliation to my attack, so of which hit before my apparition pulled away.
As I reappeared on the ground, I clutched my abdon to stop the blood flow and tore off pieces of my armor that were digging into my flesh because of the punctures. I breathed a sigh of relief as dark form started to do its job, healing my wounds, which luckily werent even close to lethal. It wouldnt take long to heal.
I shouted a warning to Cerion, who was surfing around the buildings and dodging stones that the behemoth had hurled at it before I had left another wound on one of its cores.
Cerion! It still has the ability to freely manipulate its body! Watch out for counterattacks from any angle when you get close!
Got it!
As we spoke, the effect of my attack finally beca apparent. Now that the power core had been partially broken as well, sothing about the boss presence seed to dim, if only slightly. The more wounded it beca, the weaker it would be. Maybe my reckless attack on the skill core before the fight would pay off more than anticipated, I pondered.
It seed that the creature heard my thoughts, because with its next attack it proved that it still had both skill and power in spades. After clutching at its second broken eye, stones moved to cover both eyes, leaving only small gaps, supposedly to see out of, like a helt. After renewing its defenses, it lifted both of its hands, which slowly warped to form sharper, more uniform appendages, which looked like blades instead of hands. With a strange roar, it started to move, twirling around like a spinning top. Its movent had been surprisingly quick, but what truly frightened us was what ca after.
Out of nowhere, strange gusts of wind started to form, similar to the sword arcs that Cerion and I loved to use, only colorless, as if made out of neutral mana.
The issue at hand, was that it didnt just create one half-moon-shaped wind blade, it created hundreds upon hundreds, forming a massive cyclone that spread outwards.
As the torrent of blades that moved around the golem in a circle widened, it tore up the tiled floor and smaller buildings, as if they were blades of grass being torn up in a tornado. Stones were torn from the ground and catapulted into the air, flying around the entire city and crashing into random houses and buildings, reducing them to rubble.
The wave of destruction gradually approached us, forcing Cerion and into the sky without skills. Unfortunately, remaining in the air to dodge its attack would drain our mana quickly. This wasnt a huge issue for because of my insane mana regeneration, but it would also stop from gathering enough mana to counterattack. Cerion, on the other hand, was in a race against the clock. He had an impressive core with a large capacity, but, eventually, it would run out of mana. Cerion had shared that he, too, had the skill [Battle ditation], but that skill wouldnt keep him afloat. It just wasnt powerful enough to fuel his movent skill for extended periods in the air.
To make matters worse, the golem didnt let up its attack, even after half a minute.
Seeing our predicant, we both realized that only by attacking the golem would we be able to stop its own skill. If this was what a broken skill core could accomplish, I couldnt imagine what the golem could have done at full health.
The issue with that was that only its eyes were vulnerable. We could, figuratively speaking, spend a century attacking its legs, arms and torso, only for it to regenerate instantly. Maybe my maelstrom skill could carve into its body, but even then it would be difficult to deal any real damage. I wondered how we could get past the protection around its eyes, though. Then I rembered how the tsuchigumo colony had gotten past my own maelstrom. Their acid had pierced my barrier because liquid was hard to stop fully with a skill like that. While that revelation made no difference to personally, it ant that Cerion could partially ignore the defences the golem had put around its eyes, because there were small slits and holes in the stone that covered the cores. Having co up with a quick plan, I called out to Cerion.
Cerion! Can you drown out those eyes of its?
Looking at confusedly as he surfed through the air, he responded.
Wha what? Drown its eyes?
Oops. I probably should have explained that more clearly.
Like with the spides! Attack through the holes in its armor!
My attacks arent acidic, Arthur!, he shouted back from so distance away.
Figure sothing out then! Focus on the right eye! Our right, the light blue one!, I called back, confident he could sohow deal damage to the golem if he used my idea.
Cerion huffed, but nodded in the end.
Its your turn to distract it! he finished resolutely.
I grinned. Luckily, I knew just the thing to distract it with. Instead of continuing to bounce up and down, I redirected my aura step to the stone giant, launching myself right at the tornado it was still creating. As I reached it, I saw Cerion behind , charging up an attack slowly. I flew into the tornado, dodging incoming wind blades one by one with aura step, flying around like leaf in the wind.
It felt like I was trying to navigate a thunderstorm. I was forced to dance up and down, right and left, lifting my legs to dodged certain attacks and squeezing through tight gaps, just to get closer to the real prize, its head.
After a little while, I was finally close enough to its eyes. Now that I had gotten close, I realised that the golem's head wasnt spinning, instead floating several feet above its torso, unattached. It remained fixated on our direction, or, specifically, fixated on . I shivered a little at the thought.
Nervously, I grinned, sheathing my sword and summoning two overloaded orbs, one in either hand. Charging them up was slow going, because I had to concentrate on dodging, instead of prioritising my mana usage on the orbs themselves. Apparently, even animated constructs could get frustrated, because as I stared down the boss, its attacks increased in speed and frequency, nearly knocking out of the sky several tis.
By now, my puncture wounds had long since healed, giving all the mobility I needed to continue my previous strategy. Eventually, the orbs were charged up enough to be thrown, so I didnt bother buying more ti and chucked them at its head. They slowly hod in on the curse mark I had left before.
Unfortunately, the golems intelligence was higher than anticipated, because it decided to turn its head around just in ti, forcing the orbs to blow up the back of its stone head, rather than its eyes. The two orbs destabilised and exploded creating a massive shockwave, which threw back. I had anticipated it, but it still sent reeling as I lost so control over my movent, causing to lose a foot to a wind blade, armor sheared off cleanly. This wasnt very surprising, seeing as both the armor and my feet themselves took a beating from my aura step, which relied on small explosions to propel forward. They were already being destroyed more quickly than they healed, so they werent tough enough to withstand more attacks.
Luckily, the golem had taken so damage as well. The back of its head had beco a crater, most of the stone that was previously there having blown off in the blast or reduced to rubble. I even saw the backside of the two cores, though only small cracks were visible from this side, signifying the damage I had done to them was minimal. Perhaps more importantly, the head re-joined the torso, which stopped spinning, the tornado of wind blades slowly petering out as it did so.
As I bounced around with a single foot and a bloody stump in the other foots place, I mocked our opponent, using the fancy lingo Cerion had taught when we had visited a restaurant a few weeks ago.
That was just the entre, idiot!
The head started to recover, drawing in stone and rubble from the rest of its body to patch holes and cover the eyes again. As it did so, a few stone boulders flew at , trying to force to make so distance. With my mana just barely enough to keep in the air, I went along with the golem's intent and dodged backward. Fortunately for us, its recovery was slow. Too slow, in fact, to prevent Cerions attack.
From the sky, a large waterfall seed to appear out of nowhere, as if Cerion had carved a hole in the dungeons ceiling and redirected a wide rived into it. This was not the case, however. This powerful phenonon was the result of Alias and Cerions teamwork. As the waterfall neared the golems head from above, it stopped its downward flow and instead enveloped the aforentioned stone skull. Soon, a giant ball of water covered the behemoths head, as if it was a bubble.
From a distance, I could see Cerion clasp a raised hand, forming a fist with a previously open palm. The bubble beca smaller, concentrating around the head, becoming denser and denser, to the point that cracks started to appear on the stone itself.
Now I understood Cerions plan. He intended to use so free form water manipulation to break both eyes with intense water pressure. I was pretty sure he didnt have a system-recognised skill like this, after all.
The giant clawed at the bubble like a drowning man would, to no avail. Just when I though we would win like this, the monster's eyes started to shine brightly.
A mont later, an imnse shockwave erupted from them out of nowhere, throwing both Cerion and to the ground. My friend created water haphazardly as he fell, slowing his fall, but I had a hard ti regaining control because of aura steps random nature.
I crashed into the tiled floor, forming a crater as I made impact. As I crawled out of the hole, slowly healing the fractured ribs I had gotten, I stared at the sky, watching the boss change its shape.
The stone body of the golem, that seed to be made of pieces of random buildings, now started to flow as if it was water. As it had lted the sa way iron did when heated.
The two blue eyes slowly separated, both drawing in the liquid stone to themselves, forming new bodies. As the cores separated, I noticed that both were filled with cracks and holes. Clearly, Cerions attack had partially worked.
The power core slowly ford a shield, made out of smooth stone rather than the patchwork job the last golem had looked like. The giant tower shield had a single blue gem in the middle, where the power core rested.
The skill stone took a similar approach, only forming a stone broadsword instead, large enough to be wielded by its previous form, which now no longer existed. On its poml, the skill stone rested.
The duo of weapons floated in the air, revealing their massive size, each approaching at least 40 ters in height. They stared down at Cerion and , as well as our summons, ready to finally kill us, it seed.
With a nervous chuckle, I drew my blade.
Ready for phase two? Cerion asked.
Always. I answered resolutely.
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