"Here it is!" Ordy yelled, raising his shield as the massive enemy in front of them approached slowly with its armored body.
"Here comes my first monster battle as an adventurer... Against a mana-sipping stone freak!" Gideon exclaimed, raising his sword and looking at the Gravel Golem.
Ordy chuckled as his body lit up in red light as he activated his Guardian's Protection, drawing the enemy's attention to him. "Incoming!"
The Gravel Golem roared deafeningly as it waved its greatsword in front of it, in such a moderate but destructive manner, destroying everything in its path. Ordy and Gideon both jumped away from the attack's range to avoid it.
Gideon was unfazed by such a terrifying scale of attack because of his previous encounters with dangerous monsters. In his eyes, there was not even a hint of genuine fear.
Mian and Halini unleashed a hail of exploding arrows and fireballs on the massive golem.
As the effect of Guardian's protection wore off, the golem ignored the two people in front of it and proceeded to walk deep into the backline toward Halini, knowing which of the members had the most mana in them thanks to its skill, Mana Vision.
The golem roared again, but a small silhouette caught its attention right away: Vien appeared on its shoulder, not attacking but simply walking around, taking the golem's already occupied attention. Because Vien was able to get close using Lethal Jump, the behemoth instinctively went into high alert and decided to focus on the one who could most threaten its core, the one who could teleport.
"Now, My lad!" Ordy screamed as he rushed in after noticing the golem's attention had briefly shifted to Vien. Ordy activated his Guardian's Protection once more, seizing control of the situation.
The massive golem raised its right hand, holding a sword stone, and slammed it into Ordy, who jumped to avoid the destructive attack, which caused the ground to tremble. At the same time, the shield on the other hand vanished and was replaced by a human hand poised to grab Vien, who was standing on its shoulder.
While running away from the golem's massive arm, Gideon's eyes darted around at breakneck speed, scrutinizing every angle and movement of their adversary. When Gideon noticed that the attack from above was aimed at Ordy, he took a different path and raised his hand while jumping as he approached the stone behemoth.
"Vien!"
Vien nodded and shifted her gaze to him. And before the stone hand of the golem reached Vien, she vanished and reappeared next to Gideon, who she used as her target for her skill that could not be used without a proper target, which could only be between what the user viewed as foe and ally, anything outside the two could not be considered a target.
Once more, the golem raised both hands and slammed the ground in the direction of Vien, Gideon, and Ordy, who had captured its full attention and forced it to ignore the backline. Ordy continued to taunt the golem, denying it the ability to focus solely on the most dangerous threat, while Vien continued to jump in and out of the golem's range while using Gideon as her beacon.
Despite the ongoing battle, Ordy, Gideon, and Vien had yet to launch an attack, with the exception of Mian and Halini, who were positioned in the backline. All they'd been doing was drawing the golem's attention and avoiding all of its attacks while disrupting its movements.
The golem roared again as both of its arms formed blades and walked forward with such force that the ground shook. It walked, ignoring the onslaught of fireballs and exploding arrows that couldn't even penetrate its extremely hard armor. It slammed both of its hands in opposite directions, targeting Ordy and Vien who had its full attention while ignoring Gideon who was running around giving Vien more ways to escape the stone giant's rage.
Gideon's lack of significant mana and ability to attract and threaten the golem, which caused the golem to completely ignore him, turned out to be an advantage in supporting his more vital ally. By acting as a walking target for Vien, she was able to go in angles that the golem couldn't easily reach.
"I can't believe how well you two complement each other!" Ordy exclaimed before looking up as a massive shadow from the sky approached him. "Incoming!"
Gideon came to a halt next to Ordy, who had just jumped away from the golem's massive arm.
Ordy laughed. "Holy Janux, that was close!"
Gideon crouched. "Anyway, I know it's a bad idea to ask questions during a battle. But I've noticed that all we've been doing is running and dodging; how will we know when it's time to take the core—"
"Go, Loafy! Show them who's the best!"
The focus of Gideon and Ordy shifted to the flying fireball rushing towards the golem. Loafy tackled the golem's chest without hesitation, making the sound of glass hitting a stone and stunning it for a second while looking down; however, all of the fire on Loafy's body vanished as it crashed to the golem's hard chest and returned to its original form as a white orb.
"You can do it! One more time!" Halini yelled as she leaped, Gideon's narrowed eyes darting on her.
Loafy, on the other hand, trembled and, once again covered in fire, float back a little and tackled the golem's chest again, making the sound of glass hitting a stone, before disappearing due to the damage it sustained.
"Yay, Loafy! You did fantastic!"
"I'm starting to think no one is taking this battle seriously," Gideon said, his narrowed eyes shifting to Ordy, who was smiling. "Anyhow, back to my question—"
Gideon's words were cut short when the golem's already audible roar became even louder as its body began to disassemble and all of its stone armor cracked in preparation for a devastating attack. The Golem had had it.
Gideon's gaze returned to the golem. "Never mind, I already know how; I think we just irritated it so much."
The golem's body began to disintegrate in tandem with the terrifying sound of its roar. Stone Explosion was a skill that allowed the stone giant to fire its armor as projectiles in all directions, but at the cost of revealing its true body. However, such a gamble of skill was not a form of attack to win a battle; rather, it was a last resort ability whose sole purpose was to allow the golem to flee by making the golem's invincible enemies back away while it fled.
Like squid and octopus on their ink, but this time it was a rain of destructive boulders rather than harmless black ink.
The Gravel Golem was not as intelligent as humans, but its instincts were strong enough to warn it that the battle was dangerous. The golem was running out of mana to control its stone armor, which would leave it completely vulnerable once it ran out.
So the Gravel Golem did what needed to be done.
"Hide!" Ordy yelled, grabbing Gideon in his leather armor and carrying him behind one of the massive rocks.
Then there was an explosion, the ground trembled, and the Feragins nearby flew away, howling in unison. Countless stones swarmed the area, and the sound of the stones colliding with everything in their path echoed in all directions. Gideon's eyes widened as he watched the smoke form around him, but the overwhelming impact of the explosion pushed his face to the ground.
After a while, the area became deafeningly quiet, with nothing but the sound of small rocks falling from the stones they had collided with.
"That was explosive... quite literally," Gideon said, raising his face from the ground where it had been planted.