Ebony had 3 Glacial Models running about. Only 2 of them were fully compressed, each of them took a lot of effort to compress and he tried to put his Will on them. He still wasn't sure how he was supposed to do that but he tried his best to force his desire for what he wanted them to be able to do. Meaningfully, he tried to recall all his memories of fighting while he created them. Due to the increase in his skill level, the range where they could still be within control is outside of his range of senses. Although it would be like moving them blind, he could still use his 'eyes' so that he knew what they were up to. The physical strength of his Models were dependent on his Intelligence which, honestly, wasn't very high when compared to any other mage of the same level. The skill level also helped plenty to increase their strength.
Glacial Model at level 92 was far weaker than any half-broken golem in the tomb. It would be the same even if he levelled the skill by a significant amount. However, his Glacial Model was walking off the topaz mana growing in them. The sheer physical advantage the topaz golems have over them was barely enough to scratch their icy countenance due to how compressed they were.
They got hit a lot, allowing topaz mana to build up but Ebony took it upon himself to discharge a layer of their skin as scales stimulating shedding or moulting.
The golems here seemed even more proficient at fighting whether it was close combat or support magic. The Core Topaz Golems were cutting people down beyond his reach. Ebony was fighting one himself at the moment and so were his 2 allies.
Some of the notable Grandmasters were ganging up on the [True Topaz Core Golem Lvl ???] which for some reason was blue like sapphire instead of yellow. Everyone was wary from the True Topaz Head versions that got the chance to cast a type of large-area rain spell. The sapphire-like magic was so potent that Grandmasters with their special potion's effect weren't able to survive a second hit. Mages and archers shatter into chunks in seconds. Only those that had thick enough mana over their skins were alive.
Seeing dozens of different people allowed Ebony to sense very interesting things about how they protected or enhanced themselves with mana. He was possibly the only one present that had sensitivity with mana so high that he could tell how differently each of them wielded mana. Most of the warriors were simple, they gathered their mana and layered them over their skin or infused them into their bodies. The archers and rogues all had slightly denser mana in their eyes, arms and some of their legs as well.
The mages on the other hand, intricately weaved mana in the shape of armour over their body. Some are elemental but more commonly a mixture of their pure mana. It was very intriguing and showed him how one or two of them were tanking topaz hammer strikes. Since quite a few of them were earth mages and the others were water mages, they were actually doing better than warriors. They didn't have to get close to attack and their risk was lower as long as they could protect themselves against the enemy's ranged attacks.
It took over half a minute for Ebony to dispatch the yellow core golem. They were currently roughly five hundred metres away from the tower.
Things were looking bad, the tower appeared to be a sun underground. It probably charged enough power to start shooting. Having their numbers drop to 300 or so made the charge quicker and it took its first shot. Although everyone was looking out for it, they were already fighting for their lives while being outnumbered. Inevitably, a couple of them were not able to dodge the beam even though at this distance, a single beam was easy enough to dodge. Some unlucky ones dodged only to get hit by another stray spell.
It was pretty noisy, there were a few rifle users that were far away with some archers that focus on long-ranged support. Their fire rate was high but the bullets bounced off more often than not. They were not blind, the golems closer to the tower were different.
Obviously, Ebony was familiar with the difference. Every one of the golems within 500 metres of the defence tower had similar runes as Na did. There wasn't a difference in Identify's results though.
Mark freed himself by bashing down a door and entering the building, he gulped down a potion. The potion he made to copy Na, and possibly with the same effects as Ebony's Stalwart Endowment if not stronger. Na's body shape was extremely similar to his own, so there was little need to change the runes at all but he was unable to cast Stalwart Endowment on anyone else at the moment. They also needed to be able to conjure ice mana to power the endowment.
The fact that he could cast Stalwart Endowment on his Glacial Models only made them more indestructible except that it would slowly kill the Models due to the consumption of ice mana. He would also need to consume 500 mana per minute for each endowment he was keeping up so he would only use it on his Models if he was training and wasn't in danger like the present.
Ning Xin spearheaded the charge and got the bulk of the attention from the defenders of the tower. He saw the pressure increase on her and pushed his way through to get near her. Not near enough where her enraged attacks would hit him. She was more reckless than usual, he was too familiar with how she fought not to tell. Unleashing her fire magic with no care for the environment. No one but him could remain close to her. Nowadays, even he couldn't stay close to her for long because there just wasn't any air near her. She knew about it, and with his comment, she manually syphons wind to feed her flames so breathing was a huge issue.
He didn't need as much air due to his physique and his heart rate is always very low, Optimum Conditioning helped his body ignore its needs. The practice with air runes was going to be very useful soon enough. He should have done that sooner.
Mark could also ignore the heat from her but he was worse off with the air situation. He was probably going to do something about his helmet soon.
Ebony kept his blue flames to a minimum so he wasn't attracting any eyes on him.
Honestly, other than the hardy and durable trait of the golems. They couldn't touch him and his Sonic Intrusion, Guided Path and Ceaseless Onslaught were doing amazingly well and hacking them down slowly. The only difference between the 'True' topaz golems other than their level and stats was the fact that their magic was more potent and his Glacial Models couldn't take many hits. He had his Models retreat around him so that he could better control them and use them as Imperishable Frost Scales when he needed to.
Their group successfully destroyed every defender within range and reached the tower. The tower only managed to charge up for a second shot before they reached the tower. Ebony could sense over 240 people still alive and spot a dozen or so archers and gunners hiding further away.
"Crap! Where's the entrance?!" The short and buff leader screamed in frustration.
Ebony kept his eyes closed when the yelling of suggestions from people were really getting to him. The vibrations from the ground told him that more enemies were coming for them.
In the centre of the tomb city, the light from the tallest tower dimmed out and was completely turned off.
Finally, the leader was reminded that she was just supposed to climb up and stab the large key she was given. Maintaining contact and feeding it mana until it shut down. She took another potion out to dunk on herself before leaping up the wall as if it was a short ledge.
Democlus was prepared, Ebony couldn't help but think that he knew exactly how strong the forces had to be. The numbers had to be high enough such that the defence towers weren't shooting beams every few seconds. Thanks to the equipment-protecting potion, they were doing reasonably well. Too many died due to being careless at the start. The Masters also couldn't keep up with the runic versions.
"Green one coming, stay 10 girs away or pour what I gave you all over yourself if you don't want to die! I'll be helping the north first and go clockwise!" Democlus's voice echoed throughout the tomb city.
'50 metres? Why…'
It didn't take too long for him to find out. Support fire died out first, he was busy handling 2 of the blue core golem when it happened. The menace had a visible green light 50 metres in radius with itself as the centre. It just popped beside the gunners and archers and cast its domain that got every building around it to fall apart. The protection the others had didn't even last a second when they were in the green glow.
Panic rose amongst the group.
Mark decided it was a bad idea to stay at the edges of combat; the three of them stuck closer together. Ning Xin already snapped out of her rage-filled combat. She quickly took a sip of his blood that she still had on her.
"Don't even try." He warned her not to get close to the green menace. The glow of green was spreading outside its domain and the very air was getting broken apart. If there was a weakness to it, it was that he could see it controlling the spread not to get to the floor. Likely so that it still had a foothold.
One big weakness for the golems was that they couldn't fly and that might be why the towers prioritised aerial targets. Then again, he didn't see anyone here capable of flight.
The expedition group didn't hesitate to funnel their spells towards the new threat but both water and earth spells no matter the size fizzled out before even crossing half of its domain. Physical matter immediately falls apart as the 'probably topaz' mana invades and tears them apart.
Everyone scattered.
The good thing for them was that it stopped using its domain. Ebony guessed that it didn't want to damage the tower itself.
[Untarnished Topaz Homunculi Lvl ???]
'Its lower level than the blue ones? Also, it's not even a golem?' Ebony was even warier now. True Topaz Golems were over level 300 but these Homunculi hadn't evolved yet. It was a different creature they were dealing with. It didn't look squarish with rough edges, it was humanoid as far as he could tell but had a head twice as big and it didn't have any facial features.
He wanted to take it as a target that was twice as big but the green domain was only contained over its own body like armour. If it was anything like a mage, it would logically compress the mana so touching it was out of the picture. A few friendly summoned earth golems went to slow it down as it was clearly aiming to remove the buff lady leader who was too engrossed with shutting the tower off. She was giving orders to keep the big-headed glowstick away from her.
As luck may have it, they would be dead last to receive support from Democlus.
"Here, this should protect you." Kong Jing appeared out of nowhere to put a mantle over her dear cousin.
"Don't look at me, I didn't have time to make another for you." She said to her two students.
"Can't you send it away?" Mark complained.
"I could but look at this cute face." She cupped Ning Xin's face and turned it to face Mark. He only saw the emotionless mask.
Ebony could see the desire to fight in her eyes.
"We know their topaz consumes mana and physical matter but when I direct ice mana to it, it would break mana down before my sword so you should be able to protect your twin sword with fire mana too. Not sure how fast this Untarnished consumes matter though." Ebony gave his tips since she seemed worried for her blades.
He didn't have to say more as she changed out her new mantle properly and clashed with the Homunculi immediately. The Homunculi blocked with its arms, its reaction speed seemed roughly equal to the Grandmaster-ranked True Topaz Golems.
"Hey! There's another one coming from the north, that bastard! Didn't he go north!?" The leader whose name Ebony hasn't learnt of, called for help.
No one listened to her pleas to get someone to hold the key while she fought off the incoming Homunculi. They probably didn't want to become defenceless and the target of every golem and homunculi.
Ebony's body moved as he was equally itchy for combat. Still, his body wasn't so dumb as to leap to it while it still had its domain up. Once it got close to the tower, it reduced the range of that deadly domain.
"Try to keep it whole, there's a lot of information we can study from its body." Kong Jing's voice reached him before his mind was completely turned off.
He turned his robe into scale armour by activating the mana in them. With every layer of his offensive skills put together, his fist reached the Homunculi's big head.
❅❅❅
"You idiot!" Kong Jing panicked when she saw the punch Ebony threw.
"Um, why isn't he using his greatsword? I thought he was more of a kicking guy too…" Mark was actually speechless when he saw the image of Ebony charging in for a punch.
"What is he thinking?" She scratched her head in frustration. She hoped it wasn't because she told him not to destroy Homunculi's body.
"Master Jing, don't you think he's acting a little weird recently?" Mark questioned.
"...A little, but he's always been weird." She replied. She calmed down when she saw that he was fine and dandy with no green growing into or onto his fist.
They turned to the commotion from her little Xin's battle. Little Xin got hit with a body blow. Fortunately, she made a new defensive mantle for her after understanding the nature of Topaz magic's attack. The physical blow itself didn't seem to injure her too much.
Well, some idiots tried to budge into her battle and almost got themselves killed and it was her surprisingly kind little Xin who pushed them out of the way. She wouldn't have gotten hit so easily if it wasn't for that. Kong Jing would have to give those idiots a good beating later.
These 'Homunculi' were completely dark green and she couldn't visibly see any runes. Her mask also evolved in a manner that fit with her own skills. She had a pretty good eye. The main ability of the yellow and blue golems with runes didn't seem to be like Ordina's or the runic formula that her new student with an obsessive academic fervour for runes showed her.
The natural spawn didn't have any runes on them but worked to protect tomb city all the same. The ones with runes were probably created by the factories. Instead of durability or stat-enhancing functions, she believed that these runes were actually related to mind magic. Closer to memory than the mind.
She didn't know enough about this odd rune language to tell but she roughly deciphered that just from looking at all the buildings, the tower, the huge gravestone. She wanted to study the huge gravestone but she wasn't a fighter and there were more scary things protecting that.
If she had to make an educated guess, those runes copied the fighting techniques of someone. These golems seemed to have a pattern and all fought in the exact same way. She had taken a look at the other 2 groups that were shutting the towers down and the golems there fought differently.
It should be that the nearest factory was set to produce different runic golems.
It was pretty interesting but she found her motivation decreasing since her armour dolls were better in most ways. She was sticking around since there was too much value in getting her hands on this knowledge. Now that she saw these 'Homunculi' she wasn't planning on leaving any time soon. These things were complex, her instinct told her she needed to get her hands on them and dissect them.
Kong Jing continued keeping a close watch for her little Xin, extremely worried for her. She also feels sad that anything against her little Xin would not come out in one piece.
She got irritated by her new student constantly tugging her mantle.
"What?" Annoyed that she had to pull her eye away. Her senses were watching both battles so she didn't really need to put her sight on them. Then again, she wasn't focusing on his battle.
"I just wanted to ask if you have seen him smile before."
"Nope. Little Xin insists that he smiles but I can't take her seriously when that rascal has dead facial muscles."
"Then you might want to take a look. Or not…"
She was already looking.
That deadpan rascal was actually smiling, just a little but it was clear enough for her to consider as a smile.
She didn't really care that he was mounting the Homunculi onto the floor and just smashing his fist left and right. Any magic it tried to cast onto that little rascal was either blocked with a scale of incredibly hard ice, dodged just by shifting his head slightly or just ignored as they landed on him.
The sound magic he used was getting very useful when breaking physical defence.
"How did he fight before he got to this…punch down?"
"He forced the Homunculi into close combat which it actually preferred but it realised its magic wasn't eating Ebony up and wanted to create distance. Well, creating distance with him is quite hard. It feels like the Homunculi's face or head thing is moving towards Ebony's fists instead of the other way around. His grasp over gravity I assume, is getting better."
Kong Jing herself noticed the close combat method of the Homunculi that fought her little Xin using its bare hands and feet like a martial artist. It was an effective way of ramming their topaz into their foes.
"No punch, kick, elbow, knee or headbutts worked on him. I mean, he seems to be mocking the Homunculi by meeting punch with punch, kick with kick and headbutt with headbutt. Only the Homunculi seem to be getting injured though." Mark frowned.
Mark was older than her but still considered a young man so she told him not to frown that much before but habits weren't so easily broken.
'That mana reflection huh, what a barbaric method…' Kong Jing didn't know much about Ebony's domain spell but she knew he wasn't even using that at the moment.
"Still, why was he smiling? Looks creepy on him." She was harsh with her words and she hoped Ebony hadn't heard her. He was surprisingly fragile at heart.
"I don't know? Maybe he actually likes beating things up. I wouldn't be surprised. Well, he's not smiling anymore. I think he got bored that Homunculi wasn't as good of a fighter as he assumed."
Kong Jing forgot that like her little Xin, Ebony was one who loved battle. She could never understand the love for violence the way they do.
The fact that she loved hitting people did not register in her mind.