The Golem Mage

#Back to Present

This was how the Gordons ended up with the entire Snow Lion Pride chasing after them. Alec and his group were dead set on reaching the city as fast as possible, all fully aware of the disaster that would unfold if the lion overlord king finally realised they were responsible for what happened at his mine and came for them.

But what they hadn't anticipated was that even before the lion king arrived, an entire horde—over five hundred lion-type demonic beasts—was already coming for them.

"Aaaahhh! If I survive this, I swear I'll place a proper curse on you, Alec!" Arthur shouted while sprinting for his life, he didn't know what else to do with the overwhelming panic building inside him besides cursing to cope.

Up ahead, the city loomed—still about three hundred meters away from the gates.

Alec couldn't help but wonder how the human outpost would handle the crisis they'd brought upon them, the three of them had single-handedly triggered a monster wave against a city that had enjoyed peace for so long.

"No need to hold back, curse away, you bastard," Alec shot back.

"All you ever do is push blame, when you saw those power stones, your eyes lit up the most, but now that we're in trouble, suddenly you hate me again? Common pick a side, brother!"

"Both of you shut up and focus on the drill. We've got one incoming—hop on!" Brandon snapped, unable to tolerate their bickering any longer.

With Brandon, who rarely spoke up, finally raising his voice, the other two quickly composed themselves, but that wasn't the end of it—"incoming" meant another long-range attack had just been launched at them.

To break through the strike zone and escape the range of the lion pride's long-range attacks, Brandon swiped his hand behind him like he was dragging the air, summoning a massive sandstorm that rippled across the ground like a raging sea aiming to crash onto a shoreline while carrying that same momentum.

If anyone else had faced that, they'd be swallowed whole by the storm, but all three were earth elemental mages, with precise control over their element, this was their domain—and their only edge in this deadly pursuit.

The skies lit up with a dazzling array of magical attacks—flaming balls, lightning bolts, and even water bombs streaked across the air. Yet, to the shock of the lion-type demonic beasts, the humans they were chasing didn't retaliate.

Instead, they seemed to be turning their powers on themselves.

They had assumed the massive sand wave raised by Brandon was meant to crash into their frontlines and slow their pursuit, however to their confusion, Brandon had directed the wave toward himself and his companions instead, before the demonic beasts could make sense of it, the next move stunned them even more.

As the towering sand wave loomed overhead, all three brothers leapt into the air, crouching low as they formed sandboards beneath their feet—solidified earth creations reinforced for speed and flexibility.

In perfect sync, the Gordons began to surf the wave, riding its wild current with practiced mastery.

Their speed more than tripled as they sliced through the raging sandstorm, weaving between each other in a breath-taking display of coordination, behind them, their pursuers were left in the dust—literally—as they struggled to navigate around or wait out the raging storm of sand.

A few of the Low Tier 7 Lion demonic beasts dared to enter the wave, hoping to keep the chase alive, but it ended badly for them, as the enchanted sand swallowed them whole, its density and momentum too overwhelming to counter.

Although Brandon had only conjured a move equivalent to a mid-rank spell, however the sheer range and environment made it devastatingly more powerful, being at the manipulation stage of earth magic, and surrounded by a sea of natural sand, allowed him to draw power far beyond what would normally be expected.

This wasn't something a standard Tier 7 could brute-force through.

Only those at the peak of Tier 7 or higher could hope to fly above the wave and keep up.

And just like that, Alec and his brothers created an enormous gap between themselves and their enemies—one that brought them significantly closer to the city gates and a chance at safety.

–

#Back to the City Outpost View

The moment the alarm blared and the black-armoured guard mage announced how dire the situation was, Edward and the dean immediately took to the skies, flying toward the city gates to assess things for themselves.

Old Man Alderic, however, lingered for a moment to issue a few urgent commands.

"Activate the city shield—Level 3 stage. Immediately," he ordered.

The captain turned toward him, visibly shocked. "But sir—"

"Don't worry," Alderic cut him off.

"Use all one hundred of the mid-grade power stones that were recently refined and delivered, one way or another, we'll recover the cost from Alec. If he can't pay now, I'll cover it under the logistics department's name, and the department would collect the debt from him later."

Without waiting for a response, Alderic turned and strode out of the monitoring room, heading toward the city gates to witness the oncoming storm for himself.

Left behind, the captain grit his teeth, he couldn't bring himself to accept such a costly decision lightly, however he understood why Alderic had done it, a Tier 9 leading a monster wave was no trivial matter and considering there was no Tier 9 mage in the city that can restrain the demonic wave leader it was all making more sense.

Though the energy shield would last only 24 hours—but it would be enough to buy them time to survive this crisis as no one under the monarch realm can break through the defence system, and that is why it came at such a steep cost.

"Proceed with the activation of the shield array. No slacking," he shouted the orders to the other black armoured guards around. The reality sank in, they were about to spend a fortune just because a student had brought a monster wave right to their doorstep.

--

#At the City Gate

A shimmering energy shield slowly began to spread across the city, encasing it in a transparent, protective bubble, this was the new defence system installed after the last devastating attack on the outpost—something they never imagined needing so soon due to its immense cost.

Now, all eyes were on the horizon.

As Alec and his crew could be seen in the distance, surfing atop a massive sand wave, weaving through the chaos of incoming spells exploding around them, despite the danger, they pressed forward.

There were still other students from the War God Mage Academy who had ventured out of the city for their own adventures

But after witnessing the massive horde of lion-type demonic beasts charging toward the city, the other students quickly retreated and hid deeper within the forest regions nearby.

Since they weren't the targets of the chase, most of them didn't dare attempt what the Gordons were doing—racing straight for the city, fortunately, the overwhelming presence of so many mid-ranked and Tier 7 lion demonic beasts seemed to have scared off most of the lower-ranked creatures in the low region, making it relatively safer for those who chose to stay hidden.