Stray Soul

As I followed Elise, and ran alongside her through the corridors of the dungeon, the floor boss continued to chase after us as well.

Right now would’ve been a good time to ask her about the plan they had, as I wouldn’t want to ruin it by doing something they hadn’t planned, but as I had yet to rebuild a mouth, I was unable to talk.

And rebuilding that... wasn’t going to happen until after the battle was over.

Though I had taken the vocal cords off of my old body, so I only needed to carve out a mouth, lips and a tongue to start talking, which shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

I could’ve probably started doing that as we were running, but before I could even start, Xavier jumped out of one of the corridors and joined us.

“What’s the plan now that he is here with us?” Xavier asked Elise, and she turned to look at me expectantly for a moment, probably waiting for me to propose something.

But I quickly moved my other hand that wasn’t holding my weapon to my face to show that I didn’t have a mouth and couldn’t talk.

“...Lord Eternal, would you like to distract the boss while I and Xavier deal with it? You don’t have to attack it with your new body, you only have to pull its attention towards yourself while we ambush it.” She asked, and I nodded with the stub that was acting like my head.

“Perfect. Then, can you wait for it here while we go behind it?” She asked once more and I nodded and stopped in my tracks and turned towards the corridor we were coming from, while Xavier and Elise went their own way.

Was there a possibility that they were trying to get me killed or at least injured? Possibly, but it was not that big of a possibility, so I was willing to ignore it until proven otherwise.

Then, a few seconds later the golem boss appeared in front of me, and started running towards me, as best as it could.

Though it had a lot fewer glowing inscriptions on its body, with only a soft glow coming out of its back, indicating that its shield was currently on.

Not that I was going to try and disable it. Just parry its attacks and move out of its way... wait, why wasn’t Xavier here instead of me?

I mean, I am faster than the golem, yes, but I kinda can’t go circles around it as doing so would mean that Xavier and Elise may come out, and be face to face with the golem instead of behind it.

So, putting Xavier here with his shield would have been the right choice, right? But I also understand why they wouldn’t be too keen on relying on me to destroy the golem’s shields after seeing me getting absolutely owned by that golem... yeah, good thing they are going to go away in a few days. Otherwise, they would be able to destroy all of my credibility with the goblins.

Only now am I starting on my journey to godhood and losing that opportunity because people learnt that I was weak would be... really sad for me.

But I don’t really have a lot of time to be sad about a future that isn’t going to happen as the golem is getting closer and closer to me.

But before it could put me in its attacking range, I jumped forwards after activating my sprint, and starting to give it a steady supply of mana.

*BANG BANG*

The golem’s fists hit the ground as I ducked past them to slash at it with my weapon, and quickly went back to where I had been seconds prior, and did it again.

And then again, again, and again.

I didn’t have any hopes of my slashes actually doing damage, and I wasn’t putting all of my strength behind my slashes either.

But I was stalling the golem enough that it wasn’t moving too much.

And after a few seconds of continuing this charade, I saw Xavier and Elise appear behind the golem, and I rushed forwards to keep its attention on me, and not on Xavier who would be doing the heavy lifting for the group.

The golem though just simply continued to attack me normally. The inscriptions on its body not making it smart enough to understand my intentions had changed suddenly.

I dodged its attacks again, but this time, instead of going for a slash towards its body, I tried to pin its hands to the ground with my weapon, not that it worked though as its shield made my weapon basically useless unless I was using my full force.

Seeing this as an opportunity, the golem tried to smash me and moved its arms forwards, but before it could punch me as hard as it wanted, it heard some sounds behind its back and immediately started turning backwards, recognizing that whatever was behind it was a bigger threat than me.

But I attacked his arms once again, but this time with all the force I could muster and pinned one of its hands on the ground.

But before it could send its other arm towards it back to defend itself, Xavier’s sword penetrated its back, and I saw the soft glow on its back disappear.

*Swoosh~*

*BANG*

And then what happened a few minutes prior happened again with the golem sending a fist towards Xavier that he couldn’t block in time, that was promptly stopped by Elise’s arrow, that gave Xavier long enough time to equip his tower shield and defend himself from the golem’s fist.

And I watched Xavier and Elise’s actions for a few moments to see if they were going to run again, but instead of running to ambush the golem one more time, Elise knocked another arrow into her bow and fired it, while Xavier started eyeing the golem for any openings that he could use to destroy it further.

It was showtime!

And, as not to break the spirit of showtime, I was planning on going all out!

Feeling the ground beneath my claws move, I jumped backwards and landed on all my fours, and saw that the golem was moving its hand towards Xavier.

Not on my watch!

Putting a few dozen points into dash, I aimed not for the golem’s hand, but its shoulder instead.

I wasn’t confident that I’d be able to be precise enough to destroy its hand in one go, and I wasn’t confident in my strength that much either, but as its shoulder was a bigger target, and one that was harder for it to move, I was confident that I’d be able to hit it multiple times and at least disable or completely detach it in a few tries.

Then I just did that, I dashed and jumped forwards, towards its shoulder, keeping my mass of weapons as straight as I could and made contact with its shoulder.

*Crack~*

Though my weapon didn’t pierce through it in one go, I was able to make it crack, and as I escaped from the slap of the golem, I saw a few pieces of rock fall from the golem and saw what was inside of it.

“Wait... this thing has a fucking endoskeleton made out of brass?” I wondered to myself as I could clearly see an orange-ish metal rod inside the golem, that seemed to go further down its arm, and inside its body.

So, breaking its shoulder just became impossible for me, as I didn’t know how hard brass or copper or whatever this things skeleton was made out of, and as I didn’t think I could destroy it.

But it should have some kind of core inside of it, right? Afterall, all the other golems had cores, so this one should have one too!

Hmm... but where could it be? It surely isn’t inside of its head as... I don’t believe just putting a layer of rock over its head would make that much of a difference for the survivability of the golem... so, where would I put the core of a golem, if I couldn’t put it in its head?

It’s definitely not in any of its limbs, or its neck, so, if I were a golem designer, I’d put it where the human heart would be, or in its stomach because... well, that’s where golems usually have their cores, if not their head or heart, right?

Using my other worldly knowledge on this is probably a bad, a really, really bad idea.

But I am semi-confident that Xavier won’t drop over and die in the next minute, so I have a bit of time to slowly crack the golem’s shell open.

Then, I once again readied myself to attack the golem and break some of its shell apart, but this time the golem was keeping one of its arms towards its back, where the only opening in its body was—

*Crack~*

Then I heard some cracking coming from in front of the golem, surely the doing of Xavier.

And the golem’ arm moved forwards to swat away the pesky human in front of it.

Using this opportunity to my advantage, I once again dumped a few dozen points of mana into dash, and dash forwards, towards the stomach area of the golem where its core could’ve been.

*Swoosh~*

*Crack~*

*BANG*

I quickly zapped towards the golem’s back, and cracked a bit of its outer stone shell, revealing a bit of its metallic spine, and being the kind gentlemen it was, the golem slammed a its fists on its back, and cracked a bit more of its back and revealed more of its spine.

And I became sure that its core was more in its chest area rather than its stomach area as there was no blueish glow coming from somewhere in its stomach.

But there was one coming from its chest area.

That was also spewing mana at a really, really fast rate.

Like—holly mother of god. That mana stream looks like one of those pressured water hoses or whatever.

If I go there, my flesh is definitely getting ripped apart a bit, and my soul is going to kingdom come.

Then, suddenly the golem dropped to one of its knees. I could see it still swinging its arms around, trying to hit Xavier who was in front of it, but its control over the mana around us was waning and apparently the small gap that was spewing mana was enough to disable one of its legs.

“...Should I, or should I not?” I wondered as this was kinda the perfect opportunity to disable the golem for good, but also, I’d definitely—possibly die from the following explosion.

“...Nah, fuck that. I am getting Elise to do the final shot.” I muttered, and immediately moved a claw to my “head” and started carving out a small mouth, lips, and tongue for myself.

And after a few minutes, I was done.

Then I put some points into sprint, and ran under the golem’s remaining leg, and around Xavier, who was looking pretty bad right now.

“Elise, do you sense that mana stream coming from the golem’s back?” I asked her as soon as I approached.

“A mana stream?” She asked, confused. The mana in the air must still be causing some confusion for her senses then.

“I managed to reveal parts of where I think the golem’s core is, and it is spewing out a dense stream of mana, and, though I am sure another good wank would dislodge enough stone to reveal its core fully, I am worried that the core might explode on my face.”

“So, you want me to do it?” She said, catching on pretty quickly.

“You have the advantage of range, so you’ll be... mostly safe. Sorry, can’t promise anything. Haven’t seen this much mana concentrated in a single place before.” I told her, and she was thought for a few moments, but then started talking.

“I can do it, but the golem won’t let its core get destroyed that easily. We need to first disable an arm or two and as you can see—” she said and gestured broadly towards Xavier and the golem who had many chunks fallen out of the front of its body, revealing the full metallic skeleton of the golem.

Though they had left its torso and head pretty undamaged, probably suspecting that the core could be there.

“You see that they are made out of metal, right? Can Xavier even disable its arms?”

“In 10 minutes or so he should be able to.”

“...Where’s Heinrich btw? I know that its good that he is not here, but surely its not that safe for him to go back to the other three alone. Right?”

“Oh, he’s still in this floor. If we could open the doors, we would’ve left with him by now. But the dungeon won’t let us go until we destroy the golem.”

“Oh... well, we need to get rid of him soon then.” I muttered and looked at golem. I could see small cuts on its metallic arms that Xavier had done but he was showing clear signs of fatigue.

Doing a 1 v 1 against a floor boss was taking a clear toll on his body, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to last long enough to destroy one of its arms.

“...Eh, fuck it.”

“...What?”

“Elise, you need to understand I am a really, really impatient person. And I simply can’t be bothered with taking the long and safe route here.”

“...What do you mean?”

“I mean that, what we are doing right now, which is letting Xavier handle the golem by himself, is going to take long. A lot longer than 10 minutes or an hour as he’s clearly fatigued, and will need to rest soon.” I said, and then she looked at Xavier for a moment, and nodded.

“I can see. But is there a faster option?”

“Yes. But I need to go back to my old body and then I’ll need Xavier’s shield.”

“And why is that?”

“Simple, I’ll bunker down here, and let the golem just take out its anger on me, while you go behind its back and land a lucky shot.

“The mana explosion will be dangerous, but even then, it won’t be able to penetrate through a meter of flesh in addition to dozens of metallic plates and a shield Xavier’s shield.”

“But that will break his shield, won’t it?”

“I’ll put it in the deepest side of the body with me, if it gets destroyed, know that it was destroyed to protect a really important person... and no, I will not be reimbursing you with a new shield or money if it gets destroyed.”

“...Sure, I’ll tell Xavier about it. How long will you take?”

“Less than 10 minutes. Just don’t move away too much from the boss, and I’ll find you.” I said, and after Elise nodded, I quickly ran towards where my old body was.

After a few minutes I reached my old body and—

“Oh? Why are you three here? Came to see the fireworks?” I asked loudly to the trio of Lazarus, Caroline, and Xylene. All of whom turned towards me after hearing a monstrous voice.

And they seemed surprised for a moment as they were kinda prodding my old body, and looking if I was alive or not.

“Where is Xavier!” Xylene immediately asked, followed by Caroline who asked for the whereabouts of Heinrich.

“They are fine, they are fine. I just left Xavier and Elise for a moment to take this old thing with me.

“Though you three being here is going to... complicate things a bit.”

“How so?” Lazarus asked.

“Well... you still feel the mana storm?”

“Yes?” He asked.

“Well, we were about to blow up its source, which will definitely create a nice show.

“A really nice show that will blow you out of your skin!” I said, and they seemed worried for a moment, but I quickly told them it was not important, and we had a plan.

“So, do you three want to follow me, or stay here where it’s definitely safe?” I asked them, and Xylene and Caroline immediately wanted to follow me while Lazarus wanted to stay safe.

But he was ignored, and I escorted the two to where Elise and Xavier were.

Then Xylene made a little scene by wanting to jump towards Xavier and help him, but she was quickly put out.

And yes, I do mean Elise literally hit her in the head and knocked her out. She seemed a bit annoyed at me but... can’t really tell why.

Then I took my position near the golem, and came its bangs.

*BANG BANG BANG*

Thankfully though, the thick layers of flesh, bones, branches, and metal was good enough that I didn’t really feel anything.

Though that quickly changed after the bangs stopped and I heard a weird sound that sounded like air quickly escaping a tube of sorts.

“...Well, that can’t be good--*

*BOOM~*

*SWOOSH~~*

“...That... doesn’t sound okay, but I am still alive and in one piece, so I’ll accept that as a plan gone right!”