Spirit Taming

Chapter 744: Remnant City

With a wave of their combined efforts, another burst of wind pushed the smoke around away. This time, the wind was closer so more smoke was pushed away. The group was more so in a dimly lit area of a town rather than an actual night environment.

This was all due to the shadow swarm centipede. It's dark energy bonds caused the dark energy to flow in the air causing this effect. This lesser darkness was why they were able to tell that it was very weak.

The skittering sounds on metal only increased, but there was not an immediate show of any other sections of the shadow swarm centipede. This didn't mean that the group was relaxing at all though. They could still sense the dangers all around them.

"How many do you think died?" Jerold was looking at the parts of metallic golems and knew that there could be many that had lost tamers or there were potentially without tamers already. But the dwarven bodies they could see already proved a grave disaster.

"Too many to count. But we need to focus on those that are alive." Clark's mind was exactly where it should be. He knew what the cultists wanted to do. He believed that their theory for traveling through worlds to fight and change everything in to monsters was happening right now.

So, the best move was to find a living dwarf, rescue them, and hope that they could get to the blood moon cultists attacking their dungeon sooner than later. Especially if they had another monster like the one that was here. If this was even the entire shadow swarm centipede at all!

The sound of tearing screeching metal alerted everyone that something was happening nearby. They looked to their right and saw a massive chunk of metal fly through the air. It appeared to be a large leg of some sort. Gears of metal turned within it before steam and oils poured out and it ceased movement.

This was one of many that were part of the moving mining city. Something was a little further away still tearing it to pieces. The next sound of metal causing something to crack made them move faster. Leaping over a few broken metal sections and gears, the group was able to take in the battle that was continuing right now.

'Gear golem- rare

This is a basic defense golem created by the dwarven blacksmiths. It is carved with unique metal runic patterns along with unique metal alloys. There is a very hard to create gear core within the center that acts as a false soul so that the energy can gather there. This ties the entire golem together so that it can follow the orders of the creator without needing a true bond.

It can only grow stronger by gathering more metal energy and having a blacksmith forge additional or new parts for it. Due to the incredible precision needed, this is a massive endeavor for the blacksmith undertaking it. It could take years to accomplish without the proper skills and blueprints from the creator.

There is a very powerful defense within this gear golem. Due to this, it is slower and needs a higher amount of metal energy to move. Without that, it will not be able to lift the metal gear sword that it carries and interlocks on one arm…'

The information from the analysis was long. There were so many details that Clark felt his head ache slightly just trying to skim through it all. But he did notice that the weakness of these golems could be fine dusts or water with fine particles in it. Simply because it would jam up the gears within. Not that doing so was an easy thing.

The skills needed to ensure that the insides were pierced by such things would be very highly ranked. This was simply because the dwarfs knew the weaknesses of their own creations. They needed to ensure that they were making things as best as possible to defend themselves.

Instead of a portion of the shadow swarm centipede attacking the gear golem, there was a smaller metallic looking figure. Nothing about it seemed normal though. It was cracking and fusing back together constantly while it moved. Like a smaller man had been coated in paint that was still drying and being wet over and over whenever he moved.

'Steel hammer dwarf- monster

A high hammer spirit beast and a dwarf were forcefully fused together by an experimental potion by the blood moon cultists. This was done by raining down the potion on top of their mining city. From the inside out, the city began to be torn apart. Many of the dwarfs became this or similar monsters because of their partners being mostly tools and metal affinity beasts.

This monster is tough, but always suffering. Their body is partially metal that easily cracks when they are moving because the insides of their body are not made entirely of metal. Because of this, every movement breaks the body but the metal energy forces it back together.

In this blind rage of pain, the dwarf has lost his mind within. Mentally, the dwarf is dead while the beast half rages on in pain. Due to this, attacking anything and everything is the only result there could be. Unless the heart is pierced, these monsters will keep suffering until it rusts or rots…'

Clark saw Ralph leap forward. One ax and one happier in either hand. He slashed the back of the head of the steel hammer dwarf with his ax. It stopped only leaving a decent cut in to the metal body of the monster.

In a fluid swing, the hammer came next, hitting the back of the ax and finishing the decapitating swing. The head of the steel hammer dwarf fell to the ground, but the body still stood. It blindly swung out and tried to tear at the air or whatever had attacked it.

"Pierce the heart to kill it. There is no dwarf mind left. Just a suffering beast in there!" Clark saw Ralph's head nod as he swung again. This time at the chest of the monster. The hammer swinging down again made the same cracking and sickening metallic ring. It cut halfway in to the chest of the monster, but the sudden writhing and grasping stopped.

The monster was dead and hopefully, the beast was put to rest.

The gear golem fell to its knees with a harsh grinding sound. Whatever it had been ordered to do, it had finished with what it could do. As more oils and grinding came from the broken gear golem, it finally fell silent. The group could only look at the destruction ahead.

There was a brightening atmosphere. The sections of the shadow swarm centipede left here were definitely either dead or on their way to death. If the main body was here, then they would surely have been releasing more dark energy. That meant that the size of the shadow swarm centipede was much larger than what they had imagined.

Just based on the massive, almost mountainous, chunks of metal that had made up the moving mining city before them, they all knew. The way that this monster had fought had been enough with the attack within.

It also meant that there was another monster around. One capable of making the demonic tainted potions fall from the sky like rain. Therefore, it must control the rain or be able to create rain. So water affinity would be a sure bet. They would need to counter it somehow when they came in to contacts with it.

"Let's go." The resolute tone that Clark took while looking at the crushed bodies of both monster and dwarf creation was all they needed to understand. This wasn't a rescue so much as a retrieval. They had to search this entire city of broken metal. Come sections were even charred black where they had burned out entirely.

If the city had not been broken and strewn about the immediate area, it would have been a hundred times taller than Clark was. Easily a tenth of the size of the mountain that they were right next to. But that was if it was all together. Split apart, it felt small. It felt broken.

The smoke was also calming down as the isolated sections had burned themselves out. Some metals burning and becoming amalgamations of metal and whatever lay within. Not that any of them wanted to dig through what may have burned up within.

"You damned monster!" The slurred and rough words that broke through the air came with a sickening sound of metal crushing the carapace of another section of the shadow swarm centipede.

"Over here!" Reese darted around a chunk of metal. This piece was once a portion of defensive sheet metal on the city. Now it was showing clear claw marks tainted with dark energy which slowly dissipated. But Reese had ignored that, he was focused on the sounds of one survivor killing off a monster attacking him.