"Spread out, make sure to block its attacks!" Siggurd said as 20 people were fighting against one golem.
They were fighting it together and right now, they were actually using this as combat practice.
Over 2 hours had passed since they had entered the underground cave, and so far, they had fought against 8 golems. Reign was the one who dealt with the second one by himself as he had asked them all not to intervene as he wanted to see just how strong a golem was when fighting against it himself.
It turned out to be stronger than expected. With its head and arms still present, the golem was much more powerful, it was able to respond to Reign's attacks faster, and it could even use its arms to defend against his attacks as the front of the arms was even sturdier than its legs. Actually, the arms proved to be the toughest part of the golem's body.
After that, in order for Reign to regain his mana and conserve his strength, Basred and a couple of Tier IV individuals fought against the next golem. Basred's ability proved to be quite effective against the golem, and not only because he was a tier higher than everyone else, but because the sonic waves that would hit the golem would actually destabilize it.
They would even shake the core and make the numerous rocks that made up the golem shake, some of them falling off from its body. The ability that Basred had was very effective, even more effective than Reign's darkness, but that might be because he was a Tier V combatant as well.
Right now, Reign and the others were staring at the battle taking place in front of them.
They weren't in a hurry to find the artifact right now as they had closed the hole back when they went down. The two Tier IV earth manipulators had done it. Instead of jumping straight down with the others, they had actually created two small platforms on each side of the large hole and jumped on them, while another wind manipulator had jumped down with them, waiting for them to finish before they all went down to meet up with the rest of the group.
That meant that the demons wouldn't be able to notice anything in the area as the two had used rocks to patch up the hole before placing a layer of soil above it. The ground was quite tough because of that, and the only way for it to break would be for a Tier III individual to hit it multiple times with full force, or a Tier IV to strike it once with everything he had, which was highly unlikely since there was no reason for the demons to go around hitting the ground.
The demons had no idea they were even in this area since they had killed all the groups that they had come across. Instead of running blindly forward, they decided to slowly make their way deeper through the tunnels and destroy the golems while conserving their strength, after all, they had no idea just how many of them they would need to face, nor if there were any more powerful golems or any other creatures inside as well.
The golem fell down after a 10-minute-long battle, and everybody who was fighting him sat down on the ground to rest up. They had used a lot of mana as their powers weren't as effective as Reign's darkness, so they had to spend double the effort for half the results compared to him.
Bright light fell on some of them while purple demonic energy fell on others as Reign and Laura used their abilities to heal those who were injured. They had a couple of more healers present, three more to be exact, but they had been healing them before, so now it was time for them to rest up and recharge their mana while Reign and Laura took over and healed.
"Both of them are more powerful than us in a fight, and their abilities allowed them to heal themselves and others with the same efficiency as we do, these two are freaking monsters man." One of the healers said as he glanced at Laura and Reign and chuckled.
He wasn't jealous of either of them as he knew that such power wasn't to be taken lightly. Both of them had to risk their lives and fight at the frontlines all the time in order to hone their skills and become more powerful while he and the other healers mostly stayed in the back, rarely ever being in danger.
"Well, it's to be expected, she's a demon hunter, while Reign, well, he's something else entirely, I doubt that anyone other than the two leaders could beat him, to be honest."
"Yeah, that guy is just too much, I was shocked when I learned that some people have 2 innate abilities, and that guy has even more."
All three of the healers nodded their heads, feeling slightly better about themselves. After all, what could they do, they weren't blessed with great innate abilities and powers like Reign and Laura, so it was only natural for them to be weaker and to stay out of combat most of the time.
"You guys alright now?" Reign asked the ones that finished their fight against the golem, prompting them all to nod their heads as 5 minutes had passed since the golem died.
It was Basred's job to destroy the golem once it tried to self-destruct as his ability could immediately disrupt the core and destroy it. Even Reign couldn't do it as quickly and effectively as him.
"Alright then, let's move, Liara, which way do we go?" Siggurd asked as they were currently standing in another cave that was below the one they were originally in. They didn't know just how deep down they were, but thanks to them memorizing the way they took to get here, they were certain that they were now located right below it.
Liara's eyes turned hazy again as she pointed her arm to the right, prompting Reign to send an orb of light over there so that they could see what was present.
What they found, was slightly unexpected.
There was no tunnel present at all.
They all glanced at each other Liara shook her head as she didn't know why the souls pointed there. They all made their way over there and found out why the souls told them to go there.
There was no tunnel, but there was a hole in the ground.
Reign sent his orb below, which allowed them to see how deep the hole was.
"Not too bad, about 7 meters." Reign said as he stared at the ground below them.
"The ground looks a bit different, smoother compared to before," Siggurd said as he stared down as well.
"Hmmmm … hey, can somebody bring over a couple of rocks from the golem's body?!" Reign asked, which made everybody look at him weirdly.
Still, they obliged, and a minute later, there were a couple of large rocks placed next to Reign and Siggurd.
Reign grabbed one rock, while Siggurd grabbed another, and they threw them down.
As soon as the rocks landed on the ground, a splash was heard.
"It's not rocks, it's more akin to a bog."
"Yes, it looks quite muddy, but at the very least, it's not deep, only about 30 – 40cm ( 1 – 1.3 feet )."
"Shall we?" Siggurd asked as Reign nodded to him.
Everybody gathered around the hole, which was about 6 meters wide. Not all of them could jump in at once, so the first ones to go down were Reign, Alistair, Siggurd, Liara, and Laura.
Basred was staying up with the others to make sure nothing happened to them, and he was going to be the last one to go down.
There was no need for Siggurd to use his ability, nor did the wind manipulators need to use it either as a 7-meter jump wasn't dangerous to any of them.
They were all Tier IV combatants and even if they were to jump down from a height of 12 meters, they would still be fine as long as they used mana to reinforce their bodies.
Reign and the others jumped down and landed, splashing the thick mud all around them and touching the bottom right away.
"Damn, this is disgusting," Liara said as she glanced down at the mud.
"Yeah, but what can we do, this is where the souls told us to go, we have to listen to them." Reign said as the others started jumping down as well.
After a couple of seconds, everybody had made it below, and so far, there were no monsters attacking them.
Liara once again showed them the way and Reign lit up their surroundings before they started moving to their location.
There was no tunnel present, the entire area they were in was incredibly wide, so they simply moved forward.
It was at that time that the ground shook as a couple of meters away from them, the mud started rising.
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