Chapter 278 - Loophole (Patreon)

Zeke hammered the living statue’s knee, hoping to find some minor weakness. Even throwing the thing off balance would have been a victory. However, he found no such vulnerability when his weapon hit home. Instead, it felt like he’d just hit an entirely immovable object, which wasn’t far from the truth. His hands violently vibrated, and a few cracks appeared in his bones, but he was already channeling [Metallurgical Repair], so they only lasted a split second before they were healed.

And then he repeated the process all over again, the swings punctuated by him dodging out of the way of the statue’s ponderous blows. They were slow, but if any of them landed, he’d be in trouble; that first kick had taught him the futility of testing his limits like that. So, avoidance was the key.

As the fight went on, Zeke remembered to use [Inspect]:

Bronze Golem – Level 52

The results of Zeke’s inspection surprised him, largely because the name seemed too mundane for the unstoppable creature. It also seemed to be much lower leveled than he would have expected; after all, the kobold legionnaire had only been ten levels lower, and it was infinitely less durable. Sure, the kobold had done far more damage, if for no other reason than because it wasn’t so slow, but even considering that, the golem seemed to be on an entirely different tier of power.

Zeke dodged to the side, avoiding an overhand blow that shook the tunnel when it hit the ground. Then, he aimed a backhanded strike at the monster’s knee. He’d already hit that same joint more than a dozen times, but its condition seemed as pristine as ever. The rest of the bronze monster was in similar condition, its metallic surface marred only by the teal streaks of oxidation and a few scrapes it had picked up from the collapsing ceiling.

It wasn’t enough.

If Zeke kept going as he was going, he would die from exhaustion before he ever damaged the monster. He just wasn’t strong enough. He didn’t have enough skills. And he was still only level twenty-five, which meant that he was woefully underpowered. That he could keep up at all was a testament to how much of an aberration he really was. But as much as that helped, it couldn’t bridge the gap between him and something truly powerful.

He'd seen it against the wraith, and the golem had once again hammered that fact home.

It was such a shift. Back in the Radiant Isles, he’d never really encountered anything he couldn’t beat. Sure, there were plenty of close calls – the wyrm queen, especially – but he’d never fought anything as implacable as the golem. Now, though? For the first time in years, he felt inept and weak.

And he didn’t like it – not one little bit.

For now, though, Zeke had a choice to make. He could either keep banging his head against the proverbial wall – or rather, his hammer against the seemingly indestructible golem – or he could run away and hope he didn’t find more powerful enemies deeper into the mine. On the surface, the choice seemed easy enough. The smart decision was probably to run away. But Zeke wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel.

No - he was too stubborn for that.

Fleeing before the wraith had been bad enough, but running away from the golem would feel even worse. So, even knowing that it was probably futile, Zeke recommitted himself toward beating the bronze golem.

His fingers tightened around Voromir’s grip, and he stepped forward. As he swung, he reached deep inside his mind and embraced his path. Green energy enveloped his entire body, but it was even more concentrated in the head of his hammer. He swung, the attack powered by every advancement he’d ever made and augmented by the fundamental truth that came with the concept of force.

When the hammer made contact, it did so with the force of a volcanic eruption. Zeke chose that moment to use [Unleash Momentum], adding more fuel to the fire. It wasn’t as much as the first time he’d used the skill against the golem, but every little bit counted. And when it combined with the effect of his path, it resulted in a vicious strike that tore into the same knee Zeke had attacked a dozen other times.

Stripped down to its basic power, the latest attack was weaker than when he’d first used [Unleash Momentum]. But it was also far more focused – the difference between a bullet and a bomb. And Zeke’s target was small. His power concentrated into a tiny area of effect.

The golem’s knee buckled and a miniscule crack appeared in the metal.

It was barely visible, but it shone with blindingly yellow light.

The golem fell to one knee, but it wasn’t done. Far from it. It was only a stumble, and it recovered in the space of an instant. Then, it turned its head, fixing Zeke with an inscrutable gaze.

A beam of yellow light erupted from its forehead, piercing through Zeke’s shoulder before he could even react. But curiously, it didn’t hurt. No – if anything, it actually felt soothing. And more importantly, his still-running [Metallurgical Repair] went wild, devouring the energy and pushing his recovery to new heights.

A moment later, the light faded, leaving only afterimages dancing across Zeke’s eyes. The golem cocked its head in confusion, as if it had no idea how Zeke had survived its attack.

But he wasn’t going to let the chance go, so he dashed forward once again, aiming yet another path-infused attack at the monster’s knee. When it hit, the crack widened a little more. The next attack continued the pattern, and the next, a little more. Meanwhile, the golem went wild, swinging its mighty fists with reckless abandon. Zeke avoided most of them easily, but he couldn’t dodge them all. When they hit, his bones crumbled beneath their force. But fortunately, he only had to use [Metallurgical Repair] to heal the damage.

The skill was curious in that it seemed far stronger now than it had in the Rainbow Forest. Perhaps it had something to do with the higher-grade ore in the area. Maybe the same thing that had drawn the golem fueled his skill. Without experimentation, Zeke had no way of knowing for sure, but he felt like he was on the right track.

The same could be said for his progress against the monster itself. Slowly, he whittled the golem’s leg down to the point where it was only hanging on by a thread. Then, with yet another mighty swing, he dislodged it completely. More yellow light poured out of the wound, and Zeke pounced forward. The moment he touched that energy, the monster went even crazier, hammering him with one blow after another as it moved with alacrity it had yet to display.

Zeke couldn’t dodge.

He could only endure.

But that was okay, because he’d the moment he’d touched that yellow energy inside the golem, he’d established a plan. Throughout the fight, Zeke had begun to suspect that the bronze golem was nothing but a shell, a container for something else. And when he’d broken the leg open, he’d confirmed it with a simple usage of [Inspect]:

Earth Spirit – Level 52

Zeke wasn’t certain how it all worked. The golem was its own entity – or at least that was how it felt – but the spirit was too? Either way, as nigh indestructible as the golem seemed to be, the spirit’s ephemeral nature should have made it nearly as unassailable as the wraith. However, Zeke had already used his most effective weapon.

[Metallurgical Repair] wasn’t intended as an attack. It was there for healing. But Zeke had long since discovered one of the fundamental truths of the world – energy, whether it was mana or the effects of his path – didn’t come for nothing. For instance, [Metallurgical Repair] fueled itself via the earthen energy suffused through the ground.

Or inside the golem.

As Zeke endured the blows, he reached out and plunged his hand into the ephemeral body of the earth spirit. Then, he pulled.

Energy flooded into him even as the ferocity of the golem’s attacks reached a new peak. Zeke’s body crunched and crumpled. His bones were shattered. His flesh was rent. But as quickly as his form was destroyed, his supercharged skill rebuilt it. Over and over, one second after the next. Seconds turned to more than a minute, and that in turn wore on for what felt like infinity.

But slowly, the light within the golem began to fade. Its attacks weakened and slowed. Bit by bit, it dimmed until, some indeterminate amount of time later, the monster’s bronze body crashed down on top of Zeke, breaking him free of the near-meditative state he’d fallen into.

He groaned, then tried to push the golem aside.

And he failed.

The shell of the monster was so heavy that, even with his impressive strength, Zeke couldn’t get it to budge more than an inch or two. Slowly, he used that tiny bit of freedom to work himself free, but when he’d reached the halfway point, he felt like slapping himself in the face. He was going about things all wrong.

With a thought, he looted the monster, and rather than just taking the valuable bits and pieces, the entire thing disappeared into his storage. Of the earth spirit, there was nothing left. No loot. No core, like had been present with the elementals he’d killed in the past. Everything had already been absorbed.

Free from the crushing weight of the living statue, Zeke pushed himself to his feet and looked around. The tunnel had been destroyed. Before the fight, it had been more than a hundred feet wide, but now it had been reduced to a little more than a quarter of that. The ceiling had mostly collapsed, and the walls had crumbled into rubble.

But it wasn’t all bad.

With that destruction came opportunity in the form of dislodged ore. Zeke quickly set about gathering what he could; he didn’t have any immediate uses for the silvery stuff, but it was valuable enough that the dwarves had sent a team of miners after it. So, that meant he could probably use it for something, even if that something was contribution points or selling it once he escaped the dwarven mines.

It took about an hour to gather everything he could, and once he was done, he set off back up the tunnel towards the gate. As he covered that distance, Zeke reengaged his collar and manacles, sealing his skills away after he reassured himself that he’d been completely healed by [Metallurgical Repair].

And that’s how he found himself approaching the massive gate that filled the tunnel. It was a giant thing of metal and intricately carved wood. Zeke could tell they were runes, but it would take weeks of intense study to pick the structure apart. Even so, it wasn’t difficult to surmise that they were meant to enhance the gate’s durability.

For a moment, Zeke considered stopping to examine the runes, but ultimately chose not to because he had no idea if the dwarves had some way to observe him from the other side of the gate. If they caught him studying the gate’s runes, it wasn’t a stretch that they would discover his ability to disable his collar and manacles. Zeke didn’t want to think about what they might do in that event.

So, without further hesitation, Zeke banged on the gate and yelled for someone to open up.

And after a few minutes, they did. A surly dwarf pushed the gate open and, once he saw that the way was clear, demanded to know how Zeke had managed to survive the encounter with such a powerful monster. That’s when Zeke wove a fanciful tale of how he led the golem on a merry chase before losing it in the maze of deeper tunnels.

Then, he asked, “Where did something like that even come from?”

“Ruins,” was the dwarf’s terse response.

With that, the dwarf turned and led Zeke back inside, where a troop of armed and armored dwarves waited. Each and every one of them radiated power, telling Zeke what the stone dwarves had planned for the golem. After exchanging a few words with the first dwarf, the others set off through the gate at a hurried march, clearly hoping to deal with the threat before it escaped.

But Zeke didn’t pay much attention to them. Instead, he was fully focused on two things. First, if there were more of those golems in the ruins deeper into the mines, they might prove to be a good hunting spot. After all, once he’d discovered the trick to beating the golem, it had been fairly easy to disable it. Perhaps he could repeat the process and gain a few quick levels.

Second, he was looking at the notification he’d received upon killing the golem. At the time, he’d been a little too preoccupied with survival, so he’d pushed the notification to the side. However, now that he was relatively safe, he could focus more fully on it.

Congratulations! You have reached level 26! You have two free points to distribute!

Zeke smiled a bit, then opened his status:

He was pleasantly surprised at what he saw. The level gain seemed to have come with a few automatic stat increases, notably two points in strength and endurance, with another point in intelligence and wisdom, respectively. But the question was what he should do with his remaining two points. On the one hand, it probably made the most sense to use those two points in strength or endurance; with the tier multiplier, the points would do the most good there. But there was something to be said for trying to shore up his weaknesses, too. While he wasn’t as concerned with vitality, agility and dexterity would need augmentation if he was going to keep up with speed-focused enemies.

But did he need to worry about that? With his endurance he might not need to concern himself with that sort of enemy. Couple that with what he hoped would be an armor skill in [Colossus], and there was every chance that he’d end up just as durable as the golem he’d just killed.

In the end, Zeke decided that he needed to make sure that he could at least keep up with agility-focused foes, so he chose to invest one point in dexterity and another in agility. Perhaps he’d shift strategies at some point – after all, he’d all but decided to explore the ruins the dwarf had mentioned, so he stood to gain a few levels in the near future – but for now, shoring up his weaknesses seemed the better path.