novelraw Chapter 18 : Chapter 18
Chapter 18 : Chapter 18
Chapter 18. The Otherworldly Apostle
While Lee Han-seong was surprised by Prometheus' face.
“Garrr!”
The cat suddenly looked up at the Sun Sovereign's statue and let out a low growl.
[The Unnamed Constellation warns you to prepare for battle.]
Dddddd!
The statue vibrated and then began to move.
When he looked towards the treasure chest, Park Seong-cheol had his hand on the chest.
‘Touching the treasure chest was the trigger for the statue to move!’
[Intruder. Exterminate.]
The statue, no, the Stone Golem, spoke in a stiff voice and unleashed its presence.
The presence felt from it was clearly comparable to that of a Hobgoblin Rider in a Frenzy state.
It was a 4-Star level enemy.
‘Weren't only the dungeon bosses 4-Star?’
As if answering Lee Han-seong's question, the cat looked into the air.
In order to alter history, one must read the history one intends to change.
The cat's eyes were not looking at the present, but somewhere else.
Jiiing!
[The Unnamed Constellation views the history of the rewound timeline.]
The cat's gaze, having regained the Stigma History Alteration, transcended time and space and read the records of the party that had raided this place before the regression.
The record read by the Constellation unfolded before his eyes.
In his left field of vision, the temple of the Sun Sovereign that Lee Han-seong's team found was reflected, and in his right field of vision, the temple of Prometheus that Jin Yu-seong's team found was reflected.
The people there were the party that had raided the place at that time.
‘The number of party members… is more than I knew?’
However, the faces of the party that Lee Han-seong knew to have raided the Crossroads of the Scale dungeon were only those reflected in the left field of vision.
The Awakeners reflected on the right were complete strangers.
Looking at their more solid equipment and skilled movements compared to the raid party he originally knew, the right party seemed superior.
But here, their strength was instead a poison.
‘They probably died here.’
Sure enough, in the video reflected before his eyes, the right party confidently touches the treasure chest first and awakens the statue.
The party in the right passage, after a fierce battle, barely manages to defeat the golem.
But their victory ultimately led to death.
Dddddd, Thud, Thud, Thud.
Subsequently, the weight of the 4-Star blood was added, and the scale of the two passages tilted by three stages.
It seemed that in the process of reaching the midpoint, they had already committed more slaughter, and the balance was already tilted by more than one stage, so the death of the golem brought about a catastrophe.
Jjeojeojeojeok!!
The floor collapses, and the right passage sinks into a bottomless pit filled with darkness.
As a counter-effect, the left passage, which was still in battle, having awakened the statue late due to tending to their injuries, experienced a rapid ascent.
Kugugugu- Thud.
And when the ascent finally stopped, the golem they were fighting crumbled on its own, and at the same time, a pillar of light appeared in its place.
It was an exit that allowed them to go outside the dungeon.
The party on the left, after a moment's hesitation, takes the treasure chest and escapes.
With that scene, the video before his eyes ended.
This was the untold story of the Crossroads of the Scale raid before my regression, which I did not know.
‘So this is why they mistook the 4-Star golem for the dungeon boss.’
Watching the golem fight, it was an opponent our forces could sufficiently defeat.
The problem was after defeating it.
‘If one side defeats the golem first, the balance between the passages will be greatly tilted.’
The weight of 4-Star blood was not small.
So, to maintain the balance, they had to defeat the golems in both passages simultaneously.
But suddenly, he felt like the scene he had just seen and the inscription on the altar were connected.
‘Don't tell me?’
Crossroads of Ascension… Crossroads of the Scale.
World collision… Otherworld and Earth.
The left passage that rose with the fall of the right passage… the Great War 10 years later.
‘What if they put the two worlds on each side of a balance scale, and intended to tilt the balance with the weight of blood by slaughtering life on Earth…?’
The ascension of the otherworld resulting from the fall of Earth.
That was probably the purpose of the Great War.
And there was only one group capable of weaving such a grand scheme.
The twelve constellations of the Heavenly Palace!
‘What in the world do they think Earth is…!’
Grit.
Even spreading the power of the spirits to help Earth was, in the end, no different from fattening up livestock.
A trick to increase the weight of blood on the Earth side.
He gritted his teeth at the mindset of the Heavenly Palace, which regarded them as mere sacrifices.
The moment his mind was about to be consumed by rage towards the twelve constellations.
[The Unnamed Constellation warns you to focus on what's in front of you!]
The Constellation's message woke Lee Han-seong up.
Right in front of him, the statue that had just completely emerged from the relief was in the middle of swinging its arm down at him.
“Watch out for the shockwave!”
“Got it!”
Park Seong-cheol, who had received the golem's combat patterns shared by Lee Han-seong through Overmind, nodded his head confidently.
Jin Yu-seong's team, who had awakened their statue by touching the treasure chest in sync with Lee Han-seong's team's situation, also nodded their heads in the same way.
Kooong!
The shock from the Stone Golem striking the ground spread throughout the entire midpoint, and the boss battles began in both passages.
***
To summarize the characteristics of the 4-Star golem, they were ‘hardness’, ‘slowness’, and ‘overwhelming power’.
Kooong!
The movement itself was slow enough to be dodged with ease, but it had a powerful single strike that caused a shockwave to erupt every time its attack, swinging down from above, hit the ground.
It was a pattern where if you were swept up by the shockwave spreading in a circle from the point of impact, you would fall over, and if you fell, you couldn't avoid the follow-up attack and would be beaten to a pulp.
“Jump!”
Taat!
Thus, every time the golem attacked, the cat had to leap in time and let the shockwave pass while briefly in the air.
The problem was that attacks also came while it was in the air.
Hwoong! Hwirik.
That wasn't a problem for us, who could pull each other in the air to move using Shadow Craft.
Anyway, the situation was that they were attacking the golem while avoiding its slow and strong attacks.
Kang! Kagang!
The plan was to lower its durability as much as possible and then finish off the golems simultaneously with Awakening Skills activated at the right time in both passages, but it was too hard.
“How long do we have to keep hitting it?”
“There's still a long way to go.”
No matter how much they hit it, its durability showed no signs of dropping.
If they were to rashly fire an extreme-attack type Awakening Skill like One-Swing Sweep, Blood-Dyed Mountains and Rivers and one side's progress was delayed, the balance would be tilted.
Having seen the end of the other party before the regression, it was difficult to raid recklessly.
It would have been convenient if he could see the golem's remaining health.
…The moment he thought that, the
[
The golem was an inanimate object, not a living being, so the appraisal skill seemed to have worked.
The remaining durability appeared above its head in the form of a bar.
And it was the same for Jin Yu-seong's side's golem.
[
The
“Ha, not even half is gone.”
“Golems are tough.”
Park Seong-cheol clicked his tongue after confirming the golem's durability.
Its defense was beyond imagination.
It was due to the skills the golem possessed.
“
“Ha, so not even half of the physical damage was getting through.”
If it weren't for the Spirit Armaments and the Demonic Sword, their weapons might have run out of durability before they could defeat the golem.
But then, the reduction rate of the durability bar suddenly plummeted.
Kkang! Kkang!
The repulsion felt through the sword changed.
Park Seong-cheol looked at the golem's durability bar with a puzzled expression.
“……?”
“It's 《Physical Damage Immunity》.”
Lee Han-seong, who had immediately grasped the golem's state through
The Stone Golem's first Awakening Skill, 《Physical Damage Immunity》, was an ability that completely blocked physical damage for its duration.
‘The duration is… 1 minute, I guess.’
Since that state wasn't long, he focused solely on evasion for a while.
Attacking now would be a waste of effort, so it was better to save even a little bit of stamina.
But in the meantime, the durability bar started to recover little by little.
“Ha, it even recovers? It's got all sorts of tricks.”
The golem didn't just have defensive skills.
From skills to detect enemies, to using a power source, manipulating mana, and repairing damaged parts with that mana.
It wasn't a 4-Star for nothing.
“This raid is going to take longer than I thought.”
Besides, there were still two more Awakening Skills it hadn't used.
‘A 4-Star can usually use three Awakening Skills.’
If you added Destiny Awakening Skills, it would be four, but since it was rare for a monster to use a Destiny Awakening Skill, it was right to assume there were three.
He deduced its Awakening Skills based on its common skills.
Since an Awakening Skill was a skill that had evolved several stages through the blessing of a constellation when an awakening achievement was met, it was bound to be related to the common skills it had at the time the awakening achievement was met.
‘Physical Damage Immunity is probably an Awakening Skill derived from
The next Awakening Skills would be one derived from
Woooong!
As soon as the duration of Physical Damage Immunity ended, a faint light swirled in the golem's eyes.
The golem's mana core seemed to be starting up in earnest.
Right after the light that started from its eyes wrapped around the golem's entire body once.
Ting! Ting!
Our swords, which had started attacking again, were repelled by something just before they reached the golem.
“What was that just now…?”
“A light definitely flashed on the part being attacked, right?”
《Magic Reactive Armor》.
The Stone Golem's second Awakening Skill, which forms a localized mana shield at the point of impact in response to an opponent's attack, specifically their mana.
Since the Demonic Sword of Gluttony and the promising talents' armaments all contained mana, we couldn't damage the golem as long as the Magic Reactive Armor was active.
“If it reacts to mana, do we have to attack with our bare hands?”
“Wouldn't our hands hurt more if we did that?”
Since there was no immediate answer, they just clashed head-on for now.
Ting! Ting! Chaeng!
In the midst of that, an attack whose trajectory was changed by accidentally clashing with Park Seong-cheol's sword landed as a valid hit.
Seeing that, Lee Han-seong's expression brightened up.
“Ah! The reactive armor can only block a small part for a moment.”
Just now, when the position of the reactive armor's shield was slightly off, the shield failed to block the attack.
“Attack with feints! Make the shield block the wrong spot!”
“Haha. That's easy.”
Gobhan's swordsmanship was a great help in deceiving the golem's senses.
Parurururu…
The trembling tip of the sword confused the attack trajectory.
Similar feints were unfolding in the hands of all the party members.
Normally, it wouldn't have been an easy strategy to follow at once, but they were currently connected by Overmind.
Even if they couldn't share all their techniques, they could share enough feints to deceive the Magic Reactive Armor and land valid hits.
Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!
Valid hits landed consecutively, chipping away at the durability at a speed that surpassed its recovery rate.
Moreover, when the reactive armor was generated, the golem's own defense seemed to drop, and its durability was being chipped away rapidly.
The moment the durability bar was about halfway down.
Woooooong-!
The golem's eyes, which had been white, turned crimson.
[The Unnamed Constellation warns you!]
Right after he perceived the Constellation's warning along with a hair-raising sensation.
“Duck!”
Simultaneously with Lee Han-seong's shout, a crimson beam was emitted from the golem's eyes.
An overwhelming destructive power reminiscent of the blood dragon from One-Swing Sweep, Blood-Dyed Mountains and Rivers!
Jiiiiiing!
A scorching heat spread along the trajectory of the beam that passed at chest height, following the golem's line of sight.
Tadak-tadak.
Sparks scattered from the molten marks on the temple's pillars and floor where the beam had passed.
They survived because the party members, who had perceived the danger in advance through Overmind before he shouted, had ducked a step ahead; if they had been even a little late, it would have been instant death.
“I almost died, if I was a little late.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
This was the Stone Golem's third Awakening Skill, 《Overload Beam》.
However, just as its power was great, the price was also high.
As its name, Overload, suggested, the golem, having poured out all its energy, including that used for repair and reactive armor, had now stopped healing and its defense was lowered.
This was fever time.
“This is no time for thanks. Drop the feints and attack as much as you can!”
“Okay.”
Chwachwachwachwa! Kagagagagaga!
They saved even the strength to speak and focused only on attacking.
The durability bar was rapidly depleting.
And just before the golem's overload recovered, when the durability bar had about 10% left.
《One-Swing Sweep, Blood-Dyed Mountains and Rivers》, 《Assassination Directive》.
Park Seong-cheol and Jin Yu-seong unleashed their respective Awakening Skills in both passages.
In the left passage, the crimson-dyed Three-Foot Sword fired a blood dragon.
In the right passage, the Stone Golem's shadow rose from behind and pierced through its master's chest.
Kwakwakwakwakwa!!
Simultaneously, the two statues, their durability bars gone, collapsed.
Normally, the achievement for defeating a 4-Star enemy would have come in, but since achievements related to dungeon raids were settled all at once upon clearing the dungeon, no message appeared yet.
However, considering the achievements related to the Big Rats or Shadow Spiders hunted while passing through here, Lee Han-seong's party's 2-Star awakening was already as good as decided.
Ddddddd! Click.
And, sensing the collapse of the Stone Golem, the door of the passage on the opposite side opened.
But there was something to check before that.
Just like the door to the next passage, the treasure chest, its lid automatically unlocked after the Stone Golem was destroyed, was waiting for us.
It was time to check the rewards of the boss battle.