Seth Chapter 72

Chapter 72

“Intruders Detected!”

Its grating voice sent shivers down Seth's spine as the golem took a step forward, breaking free from the constraints binding it. It creaked as his eyes turned red, filled with the energy powering it up.

Looking down at the both of them, it stumbled forward, walking like a drunkard as it took uneven steps and swung its axe in a wild swing.

Both of them lunged to the side to dodge it and made a run for it, but the door to the other side stood closed. Rebecca tried to open it, but it didn't budge.

“What should we do now?” She asked, pulling at the handle and trying to break through it with a knife, but her attacks barely left a scratch on the steel doors.

“We need to fight it,” he said, looking at the golem who was making another move towards them. “I think the doors are locked to not let us leave until we defeat the golem.”

“Did the guide mention it?”

“No, it just said that you might encounter golems. It didn't say that you would be locked in a room with them.”

Seth frowned, sliding under the axe and taking the golem's attention away from Rebecca before using his Identity skill.

Stormweaver's Guardian - Level 35

It was far stronger than both him and Rebecca individually and every attack of his left craters on the ground. The silver lining was that it creaked and groaned as it moved.

Going by how it must have been over a hundred years since it was stitched together, it made sense for it to have gotten rusty.

Still, its power showed in the wild axe swings.

“Intruders Need To Be Killed! Examining Them…” Its eyes shone with a blue light as it turned its head to scan both him and Rebecca. “Level Detected. Threats Will Be Eradicated Easily!”

The next second, it shone with a red sheen of light which bursted forward towards Seth who wasn't able to use his skill to dodge. It hit him right in the chest as he crashed into the wall, coughing out blood as it made a dent.

“That hurts,” he groaned, looking up at the guardian who was focusing on Rebecca who used a forceball to keep his attention while hiding behind a movable protective barrier that didn't hinder her movements, one of her latest spells.

“Seth, are you okay?”

“Barely,” he replied. “Don't let it shoot those beams out of the axe.”

He said, taking out his dagger and pouring energy into it. Void Blades conjured up around him before sizzling forward towards the golem as he made a run towards it.

The blades hit it right in the chest, but they didn't seem to have much effect as it simply took a step back before stomping down with its legs at Seth.

He rolled and slashed at them, leaving a dent on the stone surface. Just enough for the golem to groan, but not able to halt its movements.

It screeched, opening its small mouth and looking at Seth with what he assumed to be a glare.

It made a strange mechanical noise as one of his arms sprung open and an axe popped up from it. Holding two axes in each of its arms, it swung them both.

Seth frowned and slid back to dodge one, but another one came in a downward strike. He used Flickering Step and appeared behind Rebecca as the golem took a wide step towards them and brought the axe down.

Her barrier shielded them as she gritted her teeth.

“What are we going to do?” She asked.

“My attacks are barely working on it. Try to slam your forceball on its head. I will distract it,” he said before jumping out of the way of the barrier.

The guardian tried to follow him, but ultimately, focused on breaking away the barrier as his axe shone with the red sheen again. Cracks appeared on the barrier as he prepared to strike it down.

Just then, Seth jumped on its back, using the gaps in its body to climb it and slash its shoulders with his blade. Pieces of rock scraped by as the golem cried out and tried to shake him away.

Getting the necessary break from the assault of the golem, she used the forceball to slam it on the golem's head.

She kept moving it and slamming as Seth scraped at its back.

The guardian cried out in pain before it finally got a hold of Seth and threw him on the ground before using it's axe to cut through the forceball, but instead of breaking, it exploded, sending the mechanical monster stumbling towards a wall.

Seeing it as an opportunity, Seth vanished from the spot and appeared right in front of it as it tried to get up. Pushing abyssal mana into his blade, it shone and he slammed it down into one of its eyeballs.

They broke in the next instant as he found an array of frayed wires behind it. Digging into it, he pulled into them as the guardian struggled.

It tried to use the axe, but Rebecca pulled them right out of its hands.

Seth broke the other eyeball too and pulled at the wires.

They were burned and full of dust. Breaking them sent waves of electric discharge around them, but he kept doing it until the golem stopped flailing its arms.

Finally, the notification he was waiting for rang in front of his eyes.

You have defeated a Level 35 Stormweaver's Guardian!

You have gotten experience!

You have reached Level 33! You have received +5 points in Agility, +2 points in Strength, and 1 free stat point to assign.

You have reached Level 34! You have received +5 points in Agility, +2 points in Strength, and 1 free stat point to assign.

Not only did he defeat the guardian, he even levelled up twice.

Moving away from the body of the golem, he sprawled on the floor, taking deep breaths. His back stung, bruised from the impact and he had also scraped his knees.

Rebecca smiled next to him since she seemed to have also levelled up, but sweat formed on her eyebrows. She panted, exhausted from the usage of her spells and had barely stopped the golem from breaking her barrier.

“You did well by getting the forceball to explode,” he said, gulping up a health potion.

“I didn't do anything. It exploded because the guardian attacked the centre of it. The spell structure was formed there and its axe came in contact with it. I think the energy around the axe had something to do with it,” she said, looking at the pieces of the axe on the floor. Due to the explosion, only the handle was left and rest had sprinkled around the room. “Normally, directly impacting the spell structure can make magic explode. It's rare, but it happens.”

“So, we survived by luck.”

“And skill,” Rebecca added and smiled wearily.

They both took time to rest up and observe the room. After the battle, crates have formed and walls were broken. Looking around the place, they didn't find anything and decided to move on ahead.

There were only a few clay statues placed around in the back with some crude drawings on the walls that had been withered due to age and were unrecognisable now.

With the battle over, the door leading out of the room was unsurprisingly unlocked and with just a push of his fingers, it creaked open.

“The Stormweaver really prepared for rooms with automatic locks to keep the intruders with the golem,” he muttered and sighed, wondering how he was back when he was alive. And what had even killed him? Old age? An experiment? A golem went rogue?

“Let's be more careful from here on. If we come across more golems, we won't be able to face them,” Rebecca said, taking the first step into a corridor that lit up as she stepped first foot in, surprising both of them.

It was a very different area than what they had seen before with lots of vines covering the walls. The stone tiles were ladened with dirt and there were small cracks or fissures on the ceiling.

The whole place seemed spooky to him.

Surprisingly, lamps were placed throughout the corridor, letting them thread the path without any problems.

If they didn't look so old and worn out, he would have assumed someone had come here recently.

“The lamps seem to be installed in a way that they only turn on when someone is walking through the corridors,” Rebecca said, following his gaze towards the lamps.

“I haven't seen such things before in this world.”

“Yes, the Stormweaver probably installed a mechanism in the steps that sends a signal for the lamps to light up. It's not used much anywhere else, but it makes sense for a temple,” she said. “At least one which he converted into a cult.”

They kept walking like that, careful of where they were putting their steps. According to the guide Kalrus had given them, the whole area had never been explored, so most of the traps weren't disarmed.

He didn't want a spike or arrows to come flying at them out of nowhere.

After half an hour, they found themselves standing in front of a small room with nothing inside of it other than a door that was on the other side.

They didn't take a step inside and just observed the room, trying to wonder what was the significance of it since there was literally nothing inside.

“It's probably a trap.”

Rebecca looked at the tiles before conjuring up a forceball and moving it through the tiles, trying to activate some sort of a trap, but nothing happened.

Even the ceilings looked normal.

With no way of knowing if it was a trap or not, Seth pondered on a way out of the room. His mind raced before he finally got an idea.

“I can use Flickering Step to take us to the other side,” he said and Rebecca smiled, nodding.

He picked her up as she squealed in what he ignored as embarrassment and used his skill. The next second, he appeared on the other side of the room before putting her back down.

“You should have warned me before,” she said, glaring at him.

“No fun in that.”

He turned towards the door and opened it, but suddenly, a clicking sound rang out as he looked down at the ground where a thread seems to have broken by the door opening.

Arrows flew at them and Seth barely managed to dodge two of them before more of them came, only blocked by the barrier that Rebecca conjured just in time.

Once the onslaught was over, both of them looked at the corridor in front of them and the arrows with the broken tips that were on the ground.

There were more than twenty of them and they had been delayed a bit, giving Rebecca time to protect them. He guessed that it was because of the rust the traps must have collected over the years.

Though, it was still something that they barely survived.

“That was close,” he said and Rebecca nodded next to him, still keeping the barrier active.

“The Stormweaver must have expected people to dodge the traps in the room and planted one right at the door. If it wasn't old, we would be heavily injured or dead.”

Seth gulped, thinking of such a scenario. Without the barrier, he might have been able to get out of the way, but wasn't sure of dodging every arrow since they seem to have been released from everywhere.

“Do you want me to keep the barrier intact?” Rebecca asked, moving the barrier around them.

“Yes, that would be good.”

***

Sorry, still recovering! Gonna post Magus chap next!