Akiol cut down another monster, it had been fifteen minutes and almost no progress had been made. The still had several meters before they could reach the artifact. Monsters flooded the space and seemed never-ending.
At this rate the party would die before making it even half way to the artifact. Kan'na noticed this as well, using her platform magic circles she walked above the crowd of monsters. When she approached the artifact she observed it.
Turns out the hollow square wasn't empty, inside was a transparent crystal providing magic to the artifact. Knowing this Kan'na pulled out the crystal. The magic artifact shut down and all the monsters stopped fighting, instead they stared at the unpowered artifact.
The ground shook, causing all the monsters to flee. From the ground rose a grass covered stone golem.
The difference between and rock and stone golem wasn't great. Rock golems used their core to gather surrounding rocks to form a body. Stone golems grew from stone, the stone is their body and they have full control over it. A rock golem is more fragile than a stone golem, but they can regenerate if given enough time. Stone golems are more sturdy and can hit harder, but they cannot regenerate.
It is said that the larger a golem the stronger it is.
The stone golem had fully arisen from the ground. Its size reached a three story building. Its fists were simple large boulders. It moved its head and looked at the party. These small creatures had ruined the mana device it was leeching off of. It was going to use the large amount of mana to grow larger, the only reasonable thing to do was eliminate the creatures who had stopped it.
The party wasted no time, Tilia refreshed the parties buffs. Kan'na began to form a large magic circle, her magic bullets wouldn't be too affective. She would have to be a bit creative. . .
Jarvis was wondering why Seeth didn't notice the stone golem. The only reasonable conclusion was the stone golem was under the dirt. Seeth couldn't dig in stone after all. With the stone golem arising Seeth's progress in making the pitfall was reset. The ground had shifted massively, the stone golem could probably travel easily in the ground anyway. So Jarvis called back Seeth and Bo and To. He would need something with a bit more firepower to take down the stone golem. So he patiently waited for the cooldown to finish.
Wrock was already attacking the golem. To his displeasure his fists were mostly ineffective against the golem. The stone body provided a large amount of damage and Wrock couldn't destroy it fast enough. He would need more firepower.
Akiol had an idea, could he absorb the golem? Or at least the stone covering it? There would be no harm in trying. He wrapped his body around one of the golems legs and used [Absorb].
It was only a bit disappointing. The fight would be too easy to complete if he could. So Akiol swung his sword to attack the golem. Only a small chip was taken off the golem. Akiol stared at the small bit of damage he did. Until the golem's fist came crashing down on him. He quickly dodged and ran back towards Yielya and Tilia. He wouldn't be able to do much in this battle.
Wrock noticed he was the only one attacking the golem. He wasn't too surprised, before Akiol had got his hands on the legendary sword he was the one who fought against sword resistant monsters. It looked like the same would happen here.
He jumped up, intending to use [The Beasts' Roar] to break apart some of the stone. The shockwave would do more damage if it collided with the golem. If the kick landed the shockwave would at most weaken the golem. While the weakening did sound nice, he had an idea.
The golem punched towards Wrock, since he was in the air he could necessarily dodge. He didn't plan to anyway, when the golem's fist hit him he was sent higher.
This happened because Wrock angled his body to take the hit at an angle. Utilizing the large force of the golem the hit sent him higher in the air.
Having underestimated the power of the golem a bit, he hadn't expected that the damage he took from the hit was going to be this immense. Even though he didn't take the blow fully, the attack dealt 2/3's of his health!
Wrock grunted from the pain, he didn't plan on getting hit again. Now that he was in the air he shouted, "The Beasts' Roar!"
Kicking through the air the shockwave that formed violently traveled towards the golem, hitting it on the shoulder. This did a decent amount of damage to the golems health, which had remained nearly untouched previously.
Wrock wasn't finished, once he landed he immediately sprinted towards the golem. Dodging another fist he slipped underneath it. Once he was behind the golem he aimed his fist at the same should he attacked previously. The move he was going to used was called [Mastered Basic Punch]. Even though the name seemed a little lacking the damage it did was not.
Similar to [The Beasts' Roar] the force of this punch forced the wind to move in the direction of the fist. This also meant the punch carried a great force behind it.
When the fist hit the golem's shoulder it suddenly exploded. The golem's arm was completely detached from the golem and fell to the ground with a thump.
The golem's health dropped by a fourth. This blow Wrock did was massive and now the golem only had one fist to attack with.
Wrock had to retreat however, the moves he used had a large cooldown. They couldn't be used for a long while.
Jarvis smiled, it was his turn now. He flipped to a page on his book. On it was what looked like an armored mantis, the front legs looked heavily modified. This was called the Mountain Carver. True to its name it used its heavy front legs to smash rocks and various metals. It usually carved through mountains and ate some of the rare metals and rocks. It would use these consumed materials to further strengthen its armor and legs. These angered dwarves who used the mountains as their homes, and when their mines had been thoroughly excavated. This process would be continued until it had been exterminated, or when it had reached a satisfying point in its armor and legs. The second choice was extremely rare.
Currently Jarvis' Mountain Carver wasn't even close to the peak of its armor and legs. He had obtained this creature when he had helped the forest animals. It was one of the few animals that wanted to go with him. Similar to Whitelash.
When the Mountain Carver was summoned it smacked the ground with its two front legs. Since it looked very similar to a mantis Jarvis named it Mantid. Pointing to the golem he said, "Eat up!"
Mantid looked at the golem excitedly. Living stone was hard to come across, if it ate the rock it's armor would grow even stronger!It dashed towards the golem happily. The golem swung towards Mantid only to find that its fist was missing a large chunk.
Mantid was crunching down on the stone. It had already carved away a chunk of the golem's fist. Once it finished its meal it looked at the golem hungrily. The golem, for once, felt fear. Golem's usually don't have feelings, since they are rock, so it was incredibly strange for it to feel fear towards the creature.
Mantid immediately began to carve through the golem, tearing apart the stone and eating at the same time. Every now and then it would stop to finish eating what it had carved through, this was one of its major weaknesses. If Wrock hadn't disabled one of the golem's arms, Mantid would have been hit when it first started eating.
The golem didn't stand a chance now. It was broken into enough pieces to where it couldn't move. It would watch as the creature ate the stone slowly. Until no stone remained and it would cease to exist.
It regretted coming to the surface, had it stayed in the ground it would still have grown slowly. It was too late now, for it had been thoroughly defeated.
When Mantid ate the last bit of rock a notification appeared.
The exp was generous, on top of the experience gained from the monsters they had defeated some of the party members leveled up, while others twice. Akiol was more interested in the mysterious reward.
Kan'na pulled out a transparent crystal, "I think this is the reward. I took it from the artifact but I don't know what it is. I assume it was a power source.
Everyone took a look at the crystal, when Akiol looked at it he was immediately aware of what it was.
"That's a mana crystal, they house a large amount of mana. I have never seen a transparent one though." He informed everyone.
No-one asked why he knew what it was. They all trusted him anyway.
Akiol asked, "Could I have it? Slimes eat mana crystals to evolve. I probably could get some experience from it."
Kan'na tossed him the mana crystal. There was an unspoken agreement between the party. Items that best fit an individual would be given to that individual. Since Akiol said he had use for the crystal no-one would complain.
Akiol held the crystal in his hand and used [Absorb].
Not high enough level? That was the first time Akiol had ever experience him unable to absorb something because the limit of level. He had absorb a extremely powerful sword when he was an even lower level! So what was the crystal?
He didn't know and felt like he wouldn't know for a while. So he stuck it in his inventory and said, "I can't use it right now for some reason. I'll do some research later and tell you the results."
"I especially want to know. It interests me greatly." Kan'na said.
After taking a short break and healing up the party was ready. They all pressed proceed and prepared themselves for the next stage of the dungeon.