The Earth Dragon ( Part 4)
Bato went to look at the corner of the room and discovered that the ground was hollowed and there was a thin layer of earth covering a circular area. The area was a shaft that led to another level of the arena and all the corners were the same in terms of design except that the properties of the energy in each of the corners in the room were different.
"Vulcan I got to go check this out, Don't die"
"Bullshit! Don't take too long or I'll kill this worm all by myself"
Snort…
O Blessed One, Shakyamuni Buddha,
Precious treasury of compassion,
Bestower of supreme inner peace,
Please give me the light of your wisdom
To dispel the darkness of my mind
And to heal my mental continuum.
With folded hands I turn to you,
Supreme unchanging friend,
I request from the depths of my heart
That my body becomes four.
SPIRITS OF THE REALM
It was a prayer composed by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso at Manjushri Centre and it help Bato activate the 8th bead and transform into four clones of different elements.
Fire, Thunder, Light and Darkness went towards the different corners of the room. The thunder clone became lightning and rush down the tube while the darkness element melded with the shadows and move down the shaft.
Bato didn't know what to expect when he got down there but it was really anticlimactic but troublesome at the same time. There was a large corridor about 10 ft wide and about half a mile long with a plethora of golems that seemed to be immobilized but Bato knew better.
"This is troublesome but at last we can beat that worm now..."
At the end of the passage, there was a giant magic array being powered by a large piece of elementum. All four clones saw the same set up in each and every room with the exception of the symbols in the array that also glowed on the bodies of the golems granting them the same protection as the one provided to the worm.
Click click click
The Golems started to come to life and the clones started to move, whirlwind dragon punch and Rising Sun kicks imbued with the different elements attacked the golems but none of the clones moved at the same speed and the reason for that was the special properties of the magic arrays and its defenders.
Some of the golems displayed immunity towards Magical attacks, while others were immune to mental attacks,physical attacks and the ones protecting the mana power plant were launching Railgun bullets non stop without running out of mana.
The lights started blinking in two of the passageways and massive energy move along the corridors, up the shaft and into the barriers of the Jormungand.
"I guess Vulcan is doing his Job"
It was a good assessment, the Barbarian King had managed to land another Lethal Strike that obliterated 2 of the barriers and this caused the magic arrays to work overtime in order to replenish the damage. The problem was, that even with the clones beating the golems it didn't seem to have and effect on the energy of the magic array that kept working at full capacity.
The solution to the problem of the Jormungand barriers was right in front of Bato and his clones, but yet it was still so far. The Magical Arrays were hundreds of feet away and it just seemed impossible as the golems that had been defeated reconstructed themselves after a few seconds.
"There is something missing, My clones are not making any progress"
Bato left the underground rooms the same way he came in and reach the top where Vulcan was fighting the creature and Xiao Niu was trampling the crystal worms that were created time and time again to stop them from overwhelming them.
"Any Ideas on how to beat this thing?" asked Xiao
"It is possible to stop the barriers; however, I am having a hard time getting through so I came up to see the situation. Is there any way to beat it using brute force?"
"There is but it will be dangerous, and I won't be able to fight anymore. If the Earth Dragon comes at that time, you are on your own" said Vulcan
Hmm…
"That is not good, I am pretty sure we will need your help. I need help figuring out a way to pass a tunnel full of golems to reach a Magic Array, that is providing the barriers. My Thunder Clone was trying to defeat the golems that had a magic resist barrier and it took double the effort to destroy one while the Light element Clone was stuck with the ones with mental barriers that made its illusions and mirages useless".
BOOM!! BOOM!! ZAP! WOOSH
The four clones didn't stand around doing nothing and moved around the room thinning out the Crystal Golems along Xiao Niu until there were none left. After the additional enemies were destroyed, the four Batos started looking around to see if the others had any solutions.
"Do you have to defeat the golems to reach the Array?"
"Not really… there is an elementum power supply that acts as the core of the whole thing. Once is removed and brought up, the barriers and Golems should stop working"
"Then Just change the property of your clones so that you can sneak through the golems instead of fighting them"
….
"I guess… I can try" Said Bato dejectedly as it was an obvious answer that he overlooked in the heat of the moment. "This should do it!" Since it was an evade and grab job he decided to change the properties around and in doing so a water clone took the place of the fire one and left the group.
The four clones left for their respective corners and descended again into the corredors to start their assault. The first one to arrive was the water clone and the array that he was sent to was the mana regeneration one that allowed the Golems inside to fire projectiles none stop but the main weakness of their defensive strategy was that all their attacks were physical in nature. The water clone dissolve into liquid and created a tidal wave as it moved forward that swept away the golems that no matter how many bullets they fired passed through the water without any effect.
"One down 3 to go"
SCREECH
Krull felt his mana supply being cut off and started to trample with more vigor towards Vulcan and Xiao swinging his tail and parts of its body into the ground. The Body of the Worm was extremely long and Vulcan saw himself evading different parts at the same time but the Crystal Barrages stop coming as a result of the progress Bato was having underneath the arena.
The Second Shield to drop was the Magic Shield thanks to the Light Clone that used the mirages to create a massive amount of copies of itself that move him forward generating Chaos in the hall. Every time a copy was destroyed, many more mirages appeared and by the time the Elementium core was taken all it had to do was used the Skill Light Substitution and trade places with a copy by the entrance.
One by one the Shields drop like dominos and wounds were started to show. The jourmogand Screech in raged and the whole arena started to tremble. Boulders fell from the ceiling while cracks appeared on the floor.
"No so tough now… ha"
STRENGTH OF THE TITAN
BLOODLUST
Vulcan increased his strength to enormous heights before jumping into the air while Rage energy transformed into a colossal Titan around his body, held the sword of the conqueror and cut down.
CLEAVE!!!
Slash!!
The Energy manifested into a sharp half moon shape that cut across at an angle towards the ground encompassing the whole area in front of him. All the pieces of the worm that was visible was cut in two.
"Quickly get behind me"
Vulcan's smiled disappeared the moment he heard those words and when he looked around, there was no blood anywhere instead, the broken pieces that were left on the ground started to swell for a grand explosion.
The three people move to the area farthest from the pieces of flesh about to explode and Xiao place as many earth and light barriers as he could while he moved behind Bato that started to recite yet another prayer to activate the Third Bead's skill The Siddharta's Aegis.
BOOM
The Explosion decimated all the shields and hit Bato like a truck but as long as his Aegis was active he was immune to all attacks. The people behind him however were not as lucky specially vulcan that had his whole left side with various degrees of burns.
SHIT!!
Even before Bato had time to ask if everybody was O.K, the floor started to cave in like it was just a layer with no foundation towards the bottom of the palace. There was no time for anything except to use some of the bigger rocks to stabilize themselves while they drop to the ground.
The Initial drop was very fast and as they were taken off balance, out of the corner of his eye Vulcan saw the head of Krull sticking out of a hole in the wall and there was no doubt in Vulcan's mind that it was smirking.
"Ain't that a bitch"