Chapter 282 - A Pitiable Fate (Patreon)

Miles beneath a majestic mountain, there was a city in ruins, and amongst those crumbling buildings walked a powerful golem made of bronze. Depicting a noble warrior, the moving statue had a proud visage, broad shoulders, and an unstoppable gait. Each heavy step rattled the city’s foundations and left tiny cracks along the surface of the flagstone street. It was undeterred and uncaring, ever moving in an unknowable and endless, but somehow predetermined, pattern.

Then, everything changed when a pebble – a rock no larger than a marble – struck its noble brow. A subdued but unmistakable clink filled the air, sounding loud amongst the ruins of the dead city. With ponderous inevitability, the proud statue turned its head, the metal screeching in protest as it searched for the source of the ineffective assault.

Another rock, this one even smaller than the first, arced through the air and hit it square in the forehead. The statue was mobile, and it possessed a rudimentary – if alien – intelligence, which was enough for it to track the pebble’s trajectory. It stopped its endless trek through the city, and its fellows – noble statues all – continued along, ignorant that each passing second separated their companion even further from the group.

Yet another pebble sailed through the air, hitting the statue in the chest, and, for the first time in its existence, it took a step in the wrong direction. One step turned into two, then two into three before another rock hit it in the face. It didn’t react, save to continue in its pursuit of flying pebbles. Hundreds of steps later, another rock forced it to turn down a street it had never traversed. Then, another after that.

Over and over, under a near-constant assault of tiny rocks, the beautiful statue continued its dogged pursuit until it left the ruined city behind entirely. It cared nothing for the change in scenery. It only had two choices: return to its eternal patrol or react to the single novelty it had ever experienced.

To its doom, it chose novelty.

Hundreds of steps into a tunnel, hours after it had left the city behind, it finally saw the source of those tormenting rocks. Standing in the center of the wide tunnel was a small man – everyone seemed tiny from the golem’s lofty perspective – wearing ragged clothes and armed with a crude hammer made of bone and silvery metal. His beard was unkempt, his hair long and dirty, and his eyes bore a glint of determination that bordered on madness.

The moment the statue beheld the intruder, it forgot all about the pebbles that had driven it so far off course. Instead, centuries-old instincts kicked in, and it charged. Even as its steps lengthened and the ground between the pair of opponents shrank, the man didn’t move. Instead, he stood his ground, his body turned to the side and his hammer held aloft.

To anything with a hint of sapience – or even animalistic cunning, such a sight might have given it pause. However, the bronze golem was not a thinking creature. Nor was it equipped with anything that might resemble cleverness. It had a directive – to protect the city – and it would not waver in that mission.

Nor would Zeke be deterred from his path.

When the bronze golem reached him, Zeke increased his weight to the maximum of his racial ability. It was further strengthened by [Weight of Two Worlds], which had pushed the area’s gravity well past anything ever felt on Earth. The golem stumbled as it passed into the field of enhanced gravity, which opened it up to Zeke’s attack.

His hammer took it in the ankle, the impact sending visible shockwaves through the cave. As the hammer connected, Zeke used [Unleash Momentum], releasing the force of hundreds of swings upon the comparatively delicate joint.

The ground cracked, and by virtue of simply being in proximity of the attack, a shower of stone erupted into the air, leaving a huge crater behind. The ankle fared no better, twisting under the pressure until only the smallest of cracks appeared. When Zeke saw the yellow glow beneath, his heart soared.

But he didn’t pounce. Not immediately. He needed to set himself up for the next fight.

So, for the next three hours, he rained one blow after another upon the stunned golem. Even though they bore the weight of his herculean strength, the attacks were ineffective, and the bronze golem was entirely unscathed.

Except for the wound in its ankle, which served the dual purpose of throwing the living statue off balance as well as giving him access to the earthen mana that drove the bronze shell. Even so, it took every ounce of Zeke’s considerable focus to avoid being pummeled into paste by the powerful creature.

It really was good practice. Sparring was one thing, but fighting something that could crush him if he made the slightest mistake was something else entirely. Of course, he hadn’t even sparred since his ascension, and he’d begun to worry that he was losing a grip on the advancements he’d begun to make.

On the surface, it didn’t seem like technique should have been that important to someone like him. He didn’t need to fine-tune complicated spells, and he certainly didn’t rely on intricate footwork or deft manipulation of a blade. Instead, his preferred style was straightforward and, though he’d been forced to work on his avoidance by the circumstances, could usually involved him enduring quite a bit of punishment.

And that wasn’t too surprising, considering his advantages. For one, he’d usually had the benefit of high-quality armor – a void he hoped would be filled by his skill once he completed his quest – and his ability to heal himself. And though he’d been forced to adjust while fighting the golems, he didn’t see any need to change the overall flavor of his style. After all, his ability to self-heal had only grown more powerful, and soon, he would get armor, one way or another.

But a good warrior is also a flexible one, and so, he considered the practice he got with the golems to be an invaluable resource.

Or maybe Zeke was just trying to make himself feel better about his blatant inability to do any damage without using every single one of his advantages in conjunction. Even while embracing his path of force – which he did for the duration of every single fight – he could barely even scratch the durable monsters. And that wounded his pride more than a little.

It didn’t matter that the creature were often thirty levels above him. They would have squashed just about anyone else to dust. He knew that. But that didn’t make his ineffectiveness feel any better.

But at least he knew how to kill them, even if it wasn’t exactly an elegant solution.

After a few hours – during which he was like a whirlwind of attacks and dodges – he’d built a sizable amount of momentum for the next fight. So, with a sigh, he pounced on that tiny crack he’d created. The moment Zeke touched it, he activated [Metallurgical Repair] and latched onto the ankle, gripping it tightly with his arms and legs.

Predictably, the golem reacted by raining one powerful attack after another down on him. Almost every one of them broke bones. Some pulverized organs. Almost every single one of them would have been enough to kill him. And more than once, Zeke blacked out for a second. Thankfully, his skill was powerful enough that those brief moments of unconsciousness ever lasted long enough for him to lose his grip.

Ever so slowly, the radiant power of the earth spirit was drained until, after a subjective eternity, it winked out. Zeke held on for a few more seconds until the golem’s motivating force petered out and it collapsed. When that happened, he disengaged and rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the heavy statue’s fall.

It crashed to the ground, as inert as any other work of art. However, to Zeke, it glowed with a complex enchantment comprised of thousands of glyphs and symbols, which, in turn, were each constructed from thousands more. On and on it went until there were millions of runes that were responsible for turning the statue into a golem.

But there was something missing. Something wrong. Zeke couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but he felt almost certain that the intricate web of runes had been altered either by time or the earth spirit that had resided within.

As he knelt beside it, mentally recovering from the constant cycle of damage and repair to which he’d been subjected, Zeke studied the patterns. He’d been at it for three days, and he’d already defeated and examined four of the golems. Each one was different, but only subtly so. It made the process of examination and categorization maddeningly difficult, and Zeke suspected that without his prodigious intelligence or wisdom – not to mention his path of runecrafting – he never would have made any progress at all.

But the progress he had made – minor though it was – had proven incredibly important in that he’d recognized that the golems were never meant to be driven by earth spirits. Instead, the interior bore hundreds of crystals that had once acted as batteries. In the presumably hundreds of years since the city had been abandoned, those crystals had run dry, and the earth spirits had stepped in to fill the gap.

It truly was a symbiotic relationship. The earth spirits got a nearly indestructible shell to protect them, and the golems were once again given the energy necessary to fulfill their purpose. Along the way, the golems would hunt sources of metal – Zeke had seen them feeding on exposed veins of ore – but most of their time was spent on an endless patrol through the ruined city.

In a way, it was sad. These marvels of enchantment had been reduced to uselessness. Certainly, they were powerful and nearly indestructible – at least with Zeke’s means – but with the city having fallen, their purpose was gone. Zeke didn’t feel for the statues themselves; they were just machines, after all. But he couldn’t imagine their creator would be pleased with the pointlessness of their existence.

After a few more hours, Zeke stored the statue in his cellar – which had reached truly gargantuan proportions since he’d ascended – and turned his attention to recovery. To that end, he ate some of the veritable mountain of crab meat he’d gotten from the giant sand crab he’d killed all the way back in the Red Wastes. Because of the unique properties of the spatial storage, it would keep indefinitely, so he’d recently spent a few hours cooking almost a month’s worth of meals. He’d roasted it. Stewed it. He’d even tried his hand at making gumbo like he’d eaten back on Earth. But Zeke had never been a great cook, and his lack of ability showed itself with how uninspired and bland everything tasted. Still, it was sustenance, and given that he’d long since run out of prepared food, it was the best he was going to get.

Aside from the cavern that contained the city, he hadn’t found anywhere big enough to accommodate the tower, so for water, he’d had to make do by dipping a few barrels into the river. It had been a nerve wracking experience, watching for the patrolling golems – after all, if he fought more than one at a time, especially without preparation, things wouldn’t turn out well for him – but he’d made it through without alerting them.

Thus fed and watered, he took a few more hours to meditate on his path of force. He hadn’t gained any new insights, but that wasn’t surprising. Others might’ve found enlightenment through pondering the truths of the universe, but Zeke needed something more active. For his path of runecrafting, that meant study. For force, it meant that any breakthroughs he experienced would probably happen in the heat of battle. That felt appropriate, considering his history and, probably more importantly, his overall mindset. Even so, Zeke had found that meditating after a fight clarified things a bit, so he’d resolved to do so as often as possible.

Once Zeke had finished his meditation, he took a few minutes to stretch. He was already limber, and he didn’t really get sore anymore – not without significant injury – but he’d found that the routine helped put him in the right frame of mind.

As he did so, he took a look at his status with satisfaction:

He’d gained a level after the third kill, but he suspected it would take at least four more before he reached twenty-eight. Just as he had when he reached level twenty-six, Zeke’s class automatically assigned two points each in strength and endurance, then one each in intelligence and wisdom. He had added his two free points into dexterity, bringing it to double digits. Going forward, he intended to bring his agility up to that same level, then do the same with his vitality before focusing on what he considered his core attributes.

His reasoning was simple: he used all of his physical stats in battle, and so, he couldn’t let any of them lag behind. The only stat he didn’t think was absolutely vital was, oddly enough, vitality. With [Metallurgical Repair], he could rapidly heal from most injuries. Certainly, there might come a time when he was cut off from earthen energy, which was why he wanted to at least bring up to ten, but he expected to favor other stats going forward – at least until he felt confident in his ability to overpower his opponents.

And given how poorly he stacked up against the golems, Zeke expected it to be a while before he reached that point. Even so, there were at least a hundred of the living statues in the ruined city, and though he fully expected them to give less experience as he gained levels, he hoped it would be enough to take him to level thirty – and a skill. He didn’t know if he’d have to do another quest, but even if he did, the sooner he attained it, the better off he’d be.

“Best get to it, then,” he muttered to himself.

And without further delay, he gathered a handful of pebbles and headed back to the ruined city, where he hoped to repeat his success. It wasn’t a pleasant way to gain levels, but he suspected that if he didn’t exploit the situation as much as possible, he’d soon run up on someone truly powerful.

Like the blood wraith from whom he’d barely escaped.

And when that happened, he didn’t want to be forced to run away. Again. So, Zeke resolved to endure whatever he had to endure in order to never again be pushed into retreat. It was a lofty – and probably impossible – goal, but it was one he held close to his heart.