Meanwhile, Leah, the female warrior with flame-red hair and a body as agile as a panther, had already circled around to the other side of the giant golem as silently as a ghost.
Tapping her feet against a protruding rock, she leapt lightly into the air. The two adamantine short daggers in her hands, coated in a magic-breaking substance, drew two intersecting cold flashes under the glow of the cold-light stones. She thrust them with ruthless precision toward a slightly brittle rock joint behind the giant golem's left ankle!
That was precisely one of the weak points where the smaller golems had previously revealed a slight sluggishness in their energy flow.
Ssh! Ssh!
The short daggers plunged into the rock crevice. Though they did not penetrate deeply, the infused combat qi and magic-breaking properties erupted instantly, attempting to disrupt the fragile energy conduction within.
Sure enough, a barely perceptible stiffness appeared in the giant golem's left foot.
The other three Brass Rank adventurers also pressed forward.
Two of them raised their shields and brandished their swords, roaring as they launched a feint from a slight distance ahead. Their goal was to draw the giant golem's gaze and block any flying debris.
Meanwhile, the archer quickly retreated behind a stone pillar. Drawing his bowstring to a full moon, he locked an arrow with a faintly glowing Armor Penetration rune onto another crevice where the giant golem's neck met its torso.
Sutton's single eye flashed. Instead of charging at the giant golem, he swiftly raised his withered hands, his ten fingers dancing rapidly as if playing an invisible string instrument.
Obscure syllables spilled from his mouth. The temperature of the surrounding air plummeted, and the remaining moisture on the ground rapidly condensed.
An icy sphere radiating a biting chill, an 【Ice Bolt】, shot out in a straight line. Instead of striking the giant golem's thick torso directly, it flew at a tricky angle toward a joint in its waist and abdomen—all of which were critical nodes that could affect its movement, force generation, and balance!
Crack, crack...
Frost spread the instant it hit. Although it was also heavily weakened by the pale yellow halo and failed to cause actual freezing, the penetration of the extremely cold aura made the movements of those parts of the giant golem noticeably heavier and stiffer, as if icy slush had been poured into rusty gears.
Meanwhile, Herbert, who had just completed his thrilling dodge, had already stabilized his stance.
The moment Herbert stabilized his footing, the nearly five-meter-tall rock giant golem seemed utterly enraged by the succession of attacks. Its eerie red crystal eyes flared with brilliant light, and the earthy-yellow halo around its body suddenly solidified into something resembling physical amber, forcefully tanking Sutton's ice spell and the physical attacks of the adventurers.
This was precisely the terrifying aspect of its strength, which approached that of a Fourth-Grade Apprentice. Although its intelligence was low and its attack patterns were simple, its energy level was extremely high, and its defense was despairingly formidable.
Matthew watched intently from the side, his mind rapidly analyzing the situation:
“This shield... isn't a simple release of mana, but an earth-element solidified barrier that is practically fused with its stone body. Even though its movements are slowed by the frost, the shield's strength has barely weakened at all. Is this the energy reserve of a near Fourth-Grade Apprentice?”
Right at that moment, the giant golem suddenly raised both of its arms. No longer a simple smash, it slammed its fists together—
Boom!!!
A visible, earthy-yellow shockwave erupted violently with the golem at its center. Like a circular wave triggered by a giant boulder falling into water, it swept through half the hall in an instant!
“It's an area-of-effect shockwave! Fall back!” Sutton barked sharply. At the same time, he waved his staff to conjure a crimson fire shield in front of him. However, the moment the shockwave collided with the shield, the flames flickered violently. Sutton let out a muffled groan, taking two steps back before stabilizing himself.
The adventurers fared even worse. Rex's warhammer flew from his grip, and he was sent flying backward by the shockwave. Leah barely managed to stabilize herself by driving her twin daggers into the ground, but a trickle of blood already leaked from the corner of her mouth.
Matthew's pupils contracted sharply. Without a second thought, he channeled his Spirit—
“We can't let it launch another large-scale attack like that!”
Cupping his hands together, a pale gold missile composed purely of condensed energy formed in his palms in an instant. It had no elemental attributes, but it carried a highly compressed spiritual impact. Like a shooting star rising from the ground, it shot with pinpoint accuracy toward the shoulder joint of the giant golem's retracting right arm!
Thud!
The energy missile struck the shield. Instead of exploding, it forced its way through the earthy-yellow halo like an awl. Although it dissipated after penetrating only three inches, it successfully interrupted the giant golem's next impending shockwave. The golem's movements used to be stiffened, and its eerie red crystal eyes turned toward Matthew, marking this “weak” target on its threat list for the first time.
Herbert seized this split-second opportunity.
His eyes were ice-cold, and his grey robe billowed even without wind. He formed a complex runic gesture with his hands in front of his chest, chanting short, obscure incantations.
Moisture in the air gathered frantically, but instead of forming an attack, it turned into three spinning, icy-blue rings that locked onto the giant golem's legs and waist like lightning.
The moment the rings touched the shield, the extreme cold did not force its way through. Instead, it seeped and spread like marrow-eating poison, freezing the surface of the earth-element shield into a web of frost patterns.
The giant golem tried to lift its foot to take a step, but it was as if it had sunk into an invisible mire, its movements suddenly slowing by nearly half!
“So that's how it is...”
Matthew's heart stirred.
“He isn't trying to break the shield. Instead, he's using the slowing property of ice spells to reduce the speed of the shield's energy circulation from the outside, indirectly weakening its defensive response! Is this a Third-Grade Apprentice's mastery over the rhythm of battle?”
Seeing this, Sutton immediately coordinated his attack.
A ruthless gleam flashed in his single eye. At some point, he had retrieved a staff, its tip glowing with a brilliant crimson light.
It took only a brief moment.
A blazing spear composed entirely of compressed flames, its edges flashing with a blinding white light, shot out. Instead of targeting the giant golem's torso, it plunged fiercely into the waist node covered by Herbert's ice rings!
As ice and fire intertwined, the elemental conflict erupted into a violent surge of energy. The rock shield at the giant golem's waist let out an overburdened crack, and a palm-sized gap was actually melted open by the flame spear, exposing the dark brown rock of its true body beneath!
The giant golem let out a silent roar, its eerie red crystal eyes flashing frantically, seemingly triggering some core defensive mechanism.
The energy core in its chest suddenly lit up with a blinding yellow light. The surrounding ground trembled as pebbles floated into the air, clearly charging up for a terrifying counterattack—
Alarm bells rang wildly in Matthew's mind:
“It's going to forcibly draw leyline energy to replenish its shield! We can't let it finish!”
He acted again without hesitation. This time, however, he did not condense a missile. Instead, he compressed his entire Spirit into an invisible, needle-sharp spell shockwave, thrusting it fiercely through the shield gap breached by the flame spear straight toward the energy core in the giant golem's chest!
This was not a standard spell, but a pure application of Spirit manipulation technique, stemming from his “solid as steel” spiritual trait.
Buzz—
The giant golem's movements suddenly froze, and the yellow light on its chest flickered violently, as if a running machine had suddenly been injected with corrupted code. Although it was only disrupted for a split second, that split second was enough.
Herbert's figure lunged forward like a ghost. He charged right in front of the giant golem before the ice rings could even dissipate. Hooking his right fingers like claws, five half-foot-long, deep-blue ice spikes condensed at his fingertips, which he plunged ruthlessly into the gap in its waist—
The moment the ice spikes entered its body, an extreme cold erupted, freezing and making the rock structure brittle from the inside. Immediately after, Herbert cupped his left hand, and a fist-sized ice spike, condensed as solid as a diamond, blasted out at point-blank range, plunging with absolute precision into the very same gap!
Bang—Crack!
The rock at the giant golem's waist shattered, and frost spread frantically from the inside, instantly covering nearly half of its torso.
Its highly raised arms froze midair. Its eerie red crystal eyes flickered unsteadily before finally dimming completely.
Rumble...
The five-meter-tall rock body slowly collapsed, crumbling into a pile of frost-covered stones. Only the energy core in its chest, still emitting a faint glow, rolled onto the ground, proving that it had once possessed strength close to that of a Fourth-Grade Apprentice.
A temporary silence fell over the hall, broken only by the heavy breathing of the crowd.
...
...
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