"Another golem?" Liara asked as the entire group stared vigilantly at whatever creature was rising from the mud.
"No, it doesn't seem to be another one of those guys," Siggurd said as Reign and the others took out their weapons.
"The mud isn't that deep, how did something as large as that suddenly appear in front of us?"
"Either the mud is much deeper there, or we might not be standing on ground right now," Reign told Laura who asked the question, which made everybody stare apprehensively below their feet.
The mud finally slid down from the monster and its body presented itself to Reign and the others. The balls of light that Reign had summoned made it easy for them all to identify the monster, unfortunately, this was the first time any of them had come across such a being.
It stood at about 5 meters tall, but a part of its body was in the mud, perhaps about a meter or more.
The monster had a long tail, one akin to a crocodile's tail while standing on two legs. The legs of the monster seemed to be relatively short compared to the rest of the body as the torso was 3 meters tall, while the head was relatively small, being as tall as a normal human's head, but elongated to the back and front.
The legs and arms were covered in thick scales while the rest of the body was seemingly made out of dark green rocks. The claws of the monster were about 30cm long and a mere glance was enough to tell them all that they were trouble.
The mouth of the monster was closed, but even then, the sharp teeth were visible as they protruded out of the monster's mouth. The presence of the monster was overbearing as it stared at Reign and the others before opening its mouth.
A powerful wind blew at Reign and the others as the monster roared at them, and with it, a powerful stench assaulted them.
"Hasn't brushed its teeth for quite some time I see," Alistair said as he held his nose before smirking.
Reign charged first.
He couldn't use his lightning here, the mud made it impossible as he would hit the others as well, so he was sticking with using the darkness element. He hoped that the monster they were fighting against right now was the same as the golems and was weak to the element of darkness.
He arrived almost instantly and struck the monster, but it blocked his swords with its claws. A sound akin to metal striking metal reverberated through the area as the monster pushed Reign back before swiping with its tail, which he easily evaded by jumping toward the monster.
He quickly stabbed the monster in the back, but he didn't get the desired effect as only a small portion of his swords managed to penetrate through the rocky back of the monster, but even that turned out to be enough to make the monster mad.
Reign let go of his swords as the monster jumped back and tried to flatten him. He quickly kicked the back of the monster and managed to evade it before he summoned his swords back to his hands.
Laura and the others didn't stand idle anymore as they used their abilities and skills and attacked the monster as well.
Siggurd and Basred were standing and merely observing the battle. It would be good for the rest of the group to fight and get used to the monster's attack pattern, as well as its weaknesses. This turned out to work better than expected as the monster was not as sturdy as the golems were.
Its back was the place that had the highest defense while the front was not that difficult to damage. More and more attacks landed and soon, the monster was riddled with injuries and was walking with some difficulty.
They all found it a bit weird.
The deeper they went, the closer they got to the artifact, so shouldn't the monsters that were defending it be more powerful as well?
Compared to the golems, this monster was definitely better at attacking, but against a group of people, it was simply unable to do anything and died quite quickly.
"Liara, where to next, quickly, show us the way!" Reign said with a shout, making the others glance at him in confusion.
Liara didn't ask any questions and quickly pointed in a direction.
"Everybody run as fast as you can, now!" Reign shouted as he ran toward the direction Liara had pointed while using the balls of light to make it easy for the others to follow him.
A second later, they all realized why he was running and why he was so tense as the ground started shaking.
They suddenly had to start jumping around as the mud started rising all around them.
"Oh god, don't tell me that these are-"
"They're everywhere, the monsters are everywhere in this place!" A girl from the group said with horror visible on her face. It wasn't just her that felt horrified and scared at what they had just found out as everyone had the same expression as they ran with all their might.
More and more monsters rose from the depths of the area, some of them rising faster than the others, which made Siggurd and Basred a bit nervous, so they used their powers to get rid of them quickly.
The rest of the group did so as well, as did Reign. He was going all out and clearing up the way for the others. His darkness was not that effective against the monsters, so he used his light manipulation, which ended up being very effective.
His swords turned into beacons for the group as they shone a bright white light. The power of light that Reign was using allowed him to easily cut through the monsters, but there were hundreds of them in the area, perhaps even above a thousand. Even if they were to all go all out and fight the monsters, they might end up winning, but that would mean using up all their trump cards and using up all the mana they had.
Reign swung his swords with full force, cutting through the monsters as if they were made out of butter.
'These guys, how are they so weak against light, it's as if I'm hitting a paper doll, not a huge monster.' Reign thought as he killed more and more of the monsters who didn't even bleed, they would just crumble down.
Finally, he arrived at a tunnel that had a slightly steep slope.
He turned around and started fighting and killing the monsters around him as the others continued running toward him. They were jumping from monster to monster as the mud was over a meter deep, which would slow them down considerably.
They finally arrived, and they had done it just as the monsters had all woken up and were charging at them.
"We'll hold them back, go down!" Siggurd said as he, Basred, and Reign stood in front of the others and fought against the monsters.
Siggurd was able to use his gravity manipulation to make the monsters act weirdly, he would change the gravity in one area in a second, then change it again, and again. The monsters would slow down, go faster, slow down, fall, trip…
He would also jump up before using his ability to increase gravity and stomp the monsters, destroying them instantly.
Basred was merely standing still and using his sonic waves, which destroyed the bodies of the monsters instantly while Reign was cutting them up with his swords, as well as launching rays of light at the monsters that would easily penetrate through their bodies.
It only took a couple of seconds for the entire group to go down the tunnel. They had all jumped down and were sliding as the tunnel was incredibly smooth, and when the last person jumped, Reign, Siggurd, and Basred jumped down as well.
The monsters were not too big for the tunnel, but none of them went in, they all stood at the entrance and roared, but none of them took a step forward.
Reign was sliding for about 20 seconds before reaching the end of the tunnel and falling down. The fall was only about 2.5 meters, so he easily landed on the ground and looked around the area.
The rest of the group was fighting right now, and they were fighting against what looked very similar to the monsters they just fought against, but they were smaller, and, compared to those, they were even slightly weaker, but they were real monsters, they bled and felt pain, not like the previous ones that would show emotions, but were just empty husks.
"Are these … kobolds?" Reign asked as he looked at the familiar monsters that he had fought against multiple times in the past. The kobolds were the monsters that gave Reign and his party great difficulty early on, and he had almost died against one.
"Form up, don't let them overwhelm us with numbers!" Siggurd said as he and Basred started fighting as well.
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