The Guardian (3)
A jagged pillar of rock erupted without warning, striking me square in the abdomen. The concussive impact launched my body backward through the air.
As I flew, time seemed to stretch into an agonizing crawl.
What... was that?
My mind struggled to process it. How could a boulder sprout directly from the Guardian's back?
No. Perhaps I had simply been naive.
Hadn't the creature already caused the cave floor to heave upward? Hadn't it shifted the plates across its chest to expose its core? Reshaping its own back would be child's play by comparison.
More importantly... how did it track my position...?
Crash! Ka-thud!
The train of thought derailed as blinding agony ripped through my back. The strike from that sudden rock had sent me hurtling a ridiculous distance; front and back, every nerve in my body was screaming.
"Ghhk... hahh...!"
I fought desperately to steady my ragged, stubborn breath. Gasping like a beached fish wasn't going to do me any favors. If there was any silver lining to this misery, it was that the blow hadn't landed directly on my solar plexus. Had it caught me there, I likely would have blacked out on the spot.
Thud! Thump!
The earth shuddered. Forcing my trembling neck upward, I glared toward the Guardian.
I had clearly severed its leg only moments ago, yet there it stood, perfectly restored as if nothing had ever happened. It wasn't merely manipulating the immediate terrain—perhaps it could command the entirety of this Orichalcum Cave at will. No matter how severely its body was mutilated, it simply reconstituted itself in seconds.
It's fighting on its own home turf...
Even as my mind churned, I worked to normalize my breathing. Inhaling was hard enough, but exhaling felt like trying to push air through a crushed pipe. The blow had landed far too cleanly.
Thwack!
"Gah!"
A heavy blow struck me between the shoulder blades. A sharp, stinging jolt surged straight up my spine, forcing a choked breath to burst from my lungs. Finally, sweet air rushed back in.
Wincing as I turned to see who had hit me, I found the Fast Tree Sloth. Just like back during the encounter with the sabertooth tiger, this fellow always delivered when it counted most.
"...Thanks."
"..."
Instead of answering—not that it ever spoke—the Fast Tree Sloth clambered onto my back. Its calm weight was a silent reprimand to pull myself together and lock back into the fight.
Swallowing the throbbing ache in my gut, I pushed myself up from the cavern floor. Perhaps because I had reinforced my flesh with mana a fraction of a second before the impact, my bones seemed intact.
Cough! Hack!
A violent spasm seized my throat, and I hastily brought the back of my hand to my mouth. When I pulled it away, it was glistening with fresh blood. My exterior might have held together, but my insides hadn't fared quite so well. Taking a hit of that magnitude without internal bleeding would have been a miracle.
Keeping a wary eye on the Guardian, I whipped out an Elixir and took a swift gulp. The soothing warmth spread rapidly through my torso, its analgesic properties taking the edge off the burning pain until I felt considerably more grounded.
Thud! Thump!
No matter how I look at it, something doesn't add up.
Even while I stood there drinking the draught, the Guardian made no move to attack. It merely plodded toward me with heavy, deliberate strides. It never took the initiative.
What was more, it continued to completely ignore Wonmo's frantic assaults. That was the detail that bothered me most. Why was it acutely aware of my existence, yet utterly oblivious to Wonmo's?
Smoothing out my breath, I began to circulate the mana pooling within my core. My abdomen twinged, but the numbing grace of the Elixir made it easy enough to endure.
Skrrr-k-k-kik—
The instant the mana began coursing through my vessels, the Guardian let out that eerie, grinding screech once more. Seeing both of its massive arms lift into the air, another strike was clearly imminent.
I have to dodge this first.
Blown so far back, closing the distance in a single leap was out of the question; evading was my only play. Keeping my gaze fixed on the construct, I began circling laterally. As if tracking my coordinates in real time, the Guardian twisted its torso at a sickening, impossible angle.
KABOOOM!
The moment its fists slammed into the cavern floor, a bed of stone spikes erupted and surged toward me like breaking waves. But as I had learned earlier, if you can see them coming, you can avoid them—especially across this much distance.
I leaped clear. But instead of charging in before it could reset, I held my ground and waited in silence.
Is it... sensing mana?
The Orichalcum Guardian's behavior followed a consistent pattern: so long as I remained passive, it merely lumbered forward without making an aggressive move. Yet the second I circulated mana, its onslaught began. Had it not turned a blind eye to Wonmo, I never would have picked up on it.
Which means...
I held my breath and forcefully suppressed the flow of mana inside my body. Right on cue, the Guardian—just about to launch its follow-up strike—froze dead in its tracks. It stared blankly in my direction, then slowly resumed dragging its colossal bulk forward. Its sensitivity to mana allowed it to pinpoint my general whereabouts, but without active energy signatures, that was the extent of its awareness.
I knew it.
Severing my mana—that was the key to this fight. Yet having a strategy meant nothing if I lacked the means to execute it.
I need mana to cut through that ore, though.
The Heavenly Demon's Sword was an exceptional weapon, but it wasn't omnipotent. Even peerless equipment couldn't display its true brilliance if the wielder lacked the proficiency to match. Right now, I was the greenest of novices, having only just begun studying the Mind Cultivation Method. With the ability to infuse the blade with mana sealed away, my only recourse was brute, unrefined muscle.
My only option is to play the timing...
Watching the automaton's steady approach, I crept forward an inch at a time. It was possible it hadn't attacked simply because I was outside its operational range; I needed to determine the exact perimeter that triggered its aggression.
Skrrr-k-k-kik—
When the gap closed to roughly twenty paces, the Guardian stirred. The moment I caught the subtle shift in its posture as it raised a foot to stomp, I threw myself backward.
Krr-k-kik—
Sure enough, it gently lowered its raised limb and resumed its plodding march. That settled it. The construct tracked targets through mana resonance. The eerie absence of predatory beasts in these tunnels was almost certainly due to this mechanical sentry.
In that case...
I edged backward just far enough to hover beyond its sensory threshold. Opportunities might present themselves, but out of all of them, I would only get one genuine opening. If I took another direct blow to the midsection like the last one, even an Elixir might not put me back together. Hell, long before the medicine could do its work, I would lose consciousness. And then I would end up burdening the Fast Tree Sloth all over again.
Slow and steady. Don't rush.
I stepped back and forth across the invisible line, mapping the boundary down to the pace. Once I had locked onto the optimal launch distance, I let out a long, controlled exhalation.
"Phew..."
Skrrr-k-k-kik—
The instant the breath left my lips, the Guardian let out a harsh shudder. My heart skipped a beat, but thankfully the reaction subsided without an attack. Breathing naturally caused minor fluctuations in internal energy, which it was sensitive enough to detect.
...Now!
Detonating my mana into an explosive burst, I surged forward. The Guardian raised a foot to crush me, but it was already too late—I was already beneath its stride, slipping between its thighs just as I had before.
Can I do this?
Doubt flickered for a fraction of a second, but I snuffed it out instantly, funneling every synapse in my body straight into the edge of the blade. If I fail, I die. And I refuse to die here. I'm going to survive this nightmare and walk out of this forest alive. I didn't claw my way through hell just to end up buried in a cave!
Slash!
Forsaking Aura entirely, I drove the blade purely with the raw physical torque of my muscles, shearing the leg clean off. The hulking mass of orichalcum lost its balance and slammed forward onto one knee. Inside me, my internal energy spun in a violent, frantic vortex.
Slash! Shing!
Determined not to let it retaliate, I didn't stop at the legs—I hacked away at every joint, severing both arms and its remaining limb in a blur of strikes. Stone spikes erupted from its carapace mid-swing, nearly skewering my chest, but my shield absorbed the brunt of the kinetic shock. Within seconds, the Guardian was reduced to a bare, limbless torso. All that remained was the core.
BOOOM!
The moment my boots hit its back, a spear of stone burst from its plating. I twisted away by a hair's breadth. A desperate death rattle, but far too late; the Heavenly Demon's Sword was already lined up with its heart.
"Hrrk!"
I drove the blade down with everything I had. The razor edge sank smoothly into the chassis like a heated needle through wax. Just push it an inch deeper into the core, and—
Rumbleee!
...Naturally, nothing in this godforsaken world ever went as planned.
The severed limbs I had just carved away began to twitch, writhing across the cavern floor as though possessed by independent life. Before my brain could even register the horror, another disaster struck.
Whooosh!
"Ghk?!"
A staggering wave of lethargy washed through my limbs. It felt like stepping out of a scalding hot bath into freezing air—a sudden, paralyzing languor that turned my muscles to lead. Confused for a fraction of a second, the horrifying reality dawned on me immediately.
Th-This bastard is draining my mana...!
The Guardian was siphoning my energy, using the Heavenly Demon's Sword lodged in its spine as a siphon. Panicking, I yanked frantically on the hilt, but the metal was locked tight, fused in a vice-like grip.
Whoosh! Vwip!
To make matters worse, the discarded limbs thrashing on the stone began slithering like severed earthworms, launching themselves into a coordinated counterattack.
CLANG!
I managed to duck under a flying kick, but the follow-up punch caught me blind. I raised my shield just in the nick of time, but the tremendous kinetic force launched me off the construct's back. Worse still, my fingers slipped from the hilt—I had lost my grip on the Heavenly Demon's Sword.
Crash! Skitter!
"Ku-rrgh...!"
Even as I tumbled through the air, instinct took over and I broke my fall with a roll across the stone, but there was no room for relief. Given the profound exhaustion dragging down my limbs, a lethal follow-up was all but guaranteed.
Grrrr-k-k-k—
Its strikes might have been sluggish, but its regenerative speed was absurd. In the blink of an eye, the detached limbs had fused back onto the torso. The entire cavern was lined with orichalcum, giving it an inexhaustible reservoir of material to draw from. But that realization was immediately eclipsed by a far more pressing horror—the plates across the Guardian's chest were sliding open.
Vrrr-vrrr-vrrr—
The blinding laser beam from earlier. It was tracking my position with surgical precision.
Scrambling to get back on my feet, my body betrayed me.
Spinning—
"...?!"
The mana drain had taken its toll; all strength had bled out of my limbs. A vicious wave of vertigo struck behind my temples, driving me down onto one knee.
D-Damn it...!
Dizzy or not, I had to think. I glared at the Guardian as its glowing core converged on me. Even with my internal mana drained to near nothingness, its sensors were locked onto me without an inch of deviation. Why? Before the thought could fully form—
Flicker!
The illumination in the cavern blinked out for a split second, then snapped back on, like a dying filament surging with current. Stunned, I jerked my head upward. Squinting against the sudden flare, my vision finally cleared.
...The Light?
The crystal orb gifted to me by KingLeor. The Light 'spell' enchanted inside it. For any 'magic' to sustain its manifestation, 'mana' was an absolute prerequisite.
The instant the connection clicked, I reached into my pack without a breath of hesitation and tore the crystal sphere free. Scraping together every last drop of mana hiding in the crevices of my dried-up pathways, I slammed it straight into the orb.
FLASH!
The moment the energy took hold, the sphere erupted in a blinding brilliance that washed across the entire cavern. Ignoring the searing glare, I wound up and hurled the crystal orb far behind the Guardian's back.
Skrrr-k-k-kik!
It worked. The construct's aggro shifted entirely. Tracking the intense mana signature of the glowing orb, the Guardian's upper torso violently whipped around in a near one-hundred-and-eighty-degree swivel.
And there, embedded deep in its exposed spine like a sword in an anvil, was the hilt of the Heavenly Demon's Sword.
Dragging up every scrap of adrenaline left in my hollowed body, I launched myself upright.
"Aaaaagh!"
Bellowing a war cry to drown out the terror, I sprinted straight toward the monstrosity. My objective was singular: the sword. It was completely deaf anyway, so I let my lungs tear without holding back.
Vrrr-vrrr-vrrring!
A piercing whine gathered inside the core. I watched its posture, calculating the exact millisecond of the blast. The moment the brilliance reached critical mass, I locked my left arm behind my shield, tucking my shoulder in tight for a full-body charge. Maintaining the momentum, I launched myself into the air.
KABOOOOM!!
The laser erupted from its chest the instant my feet left the earth. No matter how immense a creature's mass might be, recoil was an immutable law of physics. True to my wager, its gargantuan chassis was jolted backward—just a fraction of an inch.
And that recoil was the greatest ally I could have asked for.
BANG!!
The heavy iron face of my shield crashed straight into the pommel of the Heavenly Demon's Sword with a deafening clang. Already resting against the inner core, the blade was driven violently forward by the collision. The entire length of the steel sank into the construct, piercing cleanly through the spiritual core.
Thud!
A mid-air shield slam carries an inevitable conclusion: gravity. Hitting the hard stone floor hurt a little—actually, it hurt like hell. Even so, running on pure survival instinct, I scrambled into an ungainly, undignified tumble, putting as much distance between myself and the Guardian as possible. Let anyone mock me who wants to; staying alive comes first.
Skrr-k-kik— k-kik— skrr-kik—
With its core pierced clean through, the Guardian suffered catastrophic failure. Its limbs detached and re-fused haphazardly, its chassis convulsing and twitching in a grotesque, stuttering dance. It looked precisely like a complex machine short-circuiting to its death.
THUD!
Before long, its arms dropped limply to the floor, and the Guardian collapsed forward with a dull boom. A faint tremor rattled through its frame, but even that soon flickered out. The eerie blue light animating its core died away entirely.
The only remaining illumination in the cavern was the single Light orb drifting lazily near the ceiling. It had absorbed the direct blast of the laser cannon, yet miraculously remained completely intact.
"Aaargh..."
I nearly died back there. Had I not figured out its operational logic, I would have been slaughtered without ever knowing why. Are all Guardians this absurd? How in the world did Sword Master manage to defeat things like this as if taking an afternoon stroll?
With my mana thoroughly tapped out, every ounce of strength had evaporated from my limbs. I was going to have to stay flat on my back for a good while.
Rustle—
Soft footsteps approached my side. At first, I assumed it was the Fast Tree Sloth, but catching sight of wide, beady eyes and a hooked beak, I realized my mistake.
The undisputed MVP who had carried this entire boss fight: Wonmo.
"Kyuu?"
Wonmo tilted his head curiously, peering down at my sprawled, pathetic form.
Staring blankly up at him, a ragged chuckle slipped past my lips.
"Wonmo."
"Kyu?"
"Want some honey later?"
"Kyuu!"
Look at him. Thrilled out of his little mind.