Chapter 40

The stone king did not have a castle. He was at the center of his faction’s encampment, but he did not have a tent. He did not even have a throne. He stood there, a mountain so big his head appeared tiny when looked at from below, in an open field of brownish stone. The king’s body was made of black obsidian, here and there streaked by lighter colored stone. His joints were green like jade, and his head was a white monolith of pure limestone. In the middle of the white rock were two deep holes, shining with red malice. There was no mouth, but words reverberated through the air, unintelligible from where Michael was hiding as the king gave orders to the scouts.

Then he was left alone. No royal guard, no servants. There were other golems milling about, but all of them were working on something, splitting rocks or smashing gigantic stone formations, digging into the ground or recharging in places where the Earth element was strongest.

Their bodies were stone moved by magic. That much was clear to Michael’s powerful mana sense. But beyond a framework that animated the otherwise dead material, he could see nothing, lending credibility to what Drullkrin had told him about the race of sentient golems. They were strong, and he could see that they were fast when they attacked the ground with gusto, but they didn’t have any magic. They probably did not need it. Their body was their armor, and their strength and speed their weapon.

“What is the plan, my lord?” Drullkrin asked after they surveyed the area.

Michael patted his backpack, retrieving a small bundle. “See this? This is a remotely triggered demolition charge, used to blow up mountains. I have six of them.”

“How does one use such artifacts?” the goblin asked, awed at the might his king could command.

“Just stick them to the stone, and they blow up. Better if from the inside. We might need to stick the charges to the joints.”

The goblin hummed. “It will be hard to get close to the king. He has good eyes, and he stands in an open field.”

“Can he smell us?” Michael asked, suddenly concerned.

Drullkrin shook his head. “We would be already dead if he could. Golems has sharp senses, but lack some like touch and smell.”

Michael nodded, refocusing on the king. “What is he doing? Why is he just standing there?”

The huge golem, easily thirty feet tall, had not moved an inch since the scouts had left. It played the part of landscape perfectly, even his eyes barely alive with light.

“He is thinking, my lord.” The goblin said, “Devising a strategy. Golems are smart, fast when they must think about numbers and calculations, but slow when it comes to other things.”

Michael nodded. “Can we sneak up to him?”

“I am afraid not, my lord. A golem does not see with eyes like we do. He can see all around.”

“Then we need a diversion. Here’s a plan…”

***

The goblin’s face was contorted in a feral grin. “I see. A feasible plan, my liege. Making use of our superior power. But what about contingencies?”

Michael thought about it. “We can always go the magic route if all else fails. I tested my water bullet against rock before coming here, and it makes it brittle.”

“Keep the ability hidden, my lord,” the goblin said, “it can be our secret weapon if our first plan fails.” He looked down, “not that it will fail, my king.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Just because I’m your king, it doesn’t mean my plans are infallible. I would rather have you tear my plans to shreds than just nod along and then have us fail.”

The goblin nodded, respect in his dark and deep-set eyes. “You are wise as you are strong. I shall obey, my king. Your plan is sound, and I agree that the time to act is now, if we wish to leverage the element of surprise. I am worried about the lack of contingencies, but we shall make do.”

With a nod, the two took position. Drullkrin was given Michael’s anti-material rifle and grenade launcher, while he kept the demolition charges. Pushing his speed to the extreme with his body enhancement, Michael had discovered that he was now actually faster than the goblin—despite the latter having a perfect Fae network of magic to mitigate the ill effects of the skill.

Probably due to Michael’s mana pool almost reaching 50 Coppers of capacity after many days of intense training.

Michael circled the rocky outcropping, at the center of which still stood the stone king, unmoving. He had strapped the charges to his jacket, leaving the backpack with the goblin. He had considered wearing a bulletproof vest to the fight, but decided to leave it behind in favor of more mobility.

Taking position, Michael took a deep breath. Then he poked his head out of the cover of the rock, finally seeing the king in his entirety. His body was even bigger than he thought, his bulk massive and he was covered in spikes and sharp blades of obsidian. His limbs were thin and long, with many joints that could move independently.

The very moment Michael left his cover, the king’s eyes snapped to him. His head had rotated a full 180 degrees without the rest of the body moving, but the red light of the king’s eyes was back in full force. Michael saw the stone body twitch slightly, alerting him that the king was about to charge.

Then he heard an explosion, followed by a shower of stone. Drullkrin had shot the king with the anti-material rifle, hitting the golem in the shoulder. The bullet did not have much effect there, simply blowing some rock into the air and destroying some of the spikes that made up the king’s body armor.

But it had the intended other effect. Now the king’s attention was fully on Drullkrin as the goblin readied another shot. He did not have a marksman skill, but it was part of the plan, making the king think the goblin was vulnerable as he reloaded.

Michael shot forward, pushing his body-enhancing skill to the extreme, feeling the strain of the skill tear his body from the inside while at the same time a wave of healing energy washed over him. Sticking his hand into his pocket, several Copper Coins vaporized into mana and topped-up his reserves—too dangerous to wait for regeneration to refill him—before he was halfway to the king, demolition charge at the ready.

The king did not even turn around. He simply raised a slender limb towards Michael.

Michael’s reflexes allowed him to react, and a [[Distortion Field] appeared to intercept. The king’s arm reached the sphere. The two forces clashed, like it had happened in the first floor when Michael had attacked the shimmer skeletons.

The sphere deformed, like a balloon squeezed at its center, becoming bean-shaped. Then it popped. Michael gaped even as the king slapped him into the air, to slam into the stone behind. Then he charged at the goblin.

Shit.

Michael got up, feeling the multiple broken bones from the impact. He activated heal and started running, fighting through pain the was all too familiar to him, trying to close the distance with the king. But the golem was faster than even his top speed, let alone the stumbling jog of a man with broken legs in the process of healing. An explosion followed, Drullkrin shooting another bullet. He was showing his prowess with all weapons, for this time the shot hit the king in the face, staggering him for a moment but not dealing much damage beyond a small crater.

It gave the goblin time to reach for the grenade launcher. Six explosions followed as the goblin emptied the rotating mag into the king, the high-yield explosives tearing chunks of rock and dislodging the spikes from the king’s surface.

But the golem’s bulk was too much to stop, now that it was bracing for the impacts. The king reached Drullkrin before Michael, who was still healing the injuries from the slap, could get close enough. It slammed down, but the goblin dodged at the last possible moment. Instead of Drullkrin’s head, a boulder became fine powder.

The goblin tried to line up another shot, but the king’s many jointed arm slammed the grendade launcher away from the goblin’s grip like an adult tearing a toy away from a child’s arms. Then the king stomped on the empty grenade launcher, reducing it to scrap metal.

When the king’s foot rose, there was no metal there anymore.

What? Where did it go?

Now the king was moving slowly, for some reason. During the whole fight, he had never uttered a word, but now a single word echoed like a decree, shattering stone and making the two fleshy beings bleed due to sheer vibration of the air.

“Die!” was the decree, and then the king disappeared.

He reappeared right beside the goblin, the biggest perceived threat. Drullkrin shot another time, but the king intercepted the shot with an obsidian limb, the bullet doing nothing but putting some superficial cracks in the crystalline mesh of the stone.

He is fast when calculating bullet trajectories.

Then the king simply yanked the gun away. Michael looked in horror as the rifle was sucked into the stone that made up the king’s body as if it was quicksand. Then his mind quickly caught up with him, and the budding battle sense that had been developing since he started delving into the dungeon screamed at him.

This is such a stupid idea.

“Fuck it, contingency this.”

A foul water bullet appeared, then another and another, all of them hovering in place around his head, twitching as they wanted to be released from his mental grip. Soon, he was burning coins with abandon, healing himself as the strain of [Marksman] and of manipulating mana like this threatened to melt his brain, and suppressing dialogue boxes about level ups. All at once, he released the deluge of rotting rain into the king.

The water splashed almost harmlessly.

At first, the king did nothing. He had not even seen the attack as a threat.

But Michael saw that the stone skin of the king was cracking and flaking.

No sense of touch!

He kept shooting, even though Drullkrin was getting pummeled by the king to within an inch of his life.

I need to trust his skills. This was one of the contingencies, after all.

By now, a large patch of skin was whitened rock, as if bleached by the sun.

And now the crazy part.

Michael armed one of the remote demolition charged and threw it. The charge landed on the damaged stone, latching onto it thanks to the adhesive he had covered it with.

With a grin, Michael triggered the charge. Large chunks of stone simply exploded, revealing the inner mechanisms of the golem, delicate threads of magic circuitry carved in precisely-cut marble. Some of them were disrupted, and the king howled in pain hard enough to stagger Michael.

In the hole, the tip of something could be seen, metal gleaming in the dim light of the sun. It was the rifle, Michael realized, and it was somehow still intact.

The king turned to him, now that he’d been revealed to be the biggest threat. Behind him, Drullkrin was twitching on the ground, beaten to a pulp but alive.

Good, Michael thought coldly, it would be a bother to have to find a new leader for my forces.

Meanwhile, the golem king’s eyes were glued to the other demolition charges. Even though Michael knew the king could see everything, he was now sure that his attention was entirely on them. Just as planned.

He threw the five charges all at once. All armed.

The king did not hesitate to intercept and absorb them. For a moment Michael thought he saw a satisfied smug look on the flat stone face. The king’s eyes shone a deep red. Then it lunged at Michael.

“Hasta la vista, baby.”