The golem brought its foot down after another step. Earth convulsed as tectonic plates shifted in a cascade. Snow detonated in a shockwave, riding on displaced gales to slam into my shoulders.
A single, invisible line bisected that blast a moment before impact. Snow parted in two directions from ahead. Everything left of me peeled skyward, an enormous sheet of white stripped clean off the ground.
The frost rightward exploded against that shockwave and burst upward, a landslide thrown in reverse.
Plumes of superheated steam heaved from its chimneys, and that golem dragged its arm back.
Needle leaves of nearly all pine trees trembled in a hundred meter radius. Their trunks followed, bending backward until their canopies touched the frosted ground, taut like a spine arched past its limits.
Ice particles swept alongside its cocking arm, a whirlwind of white swirling around those knuckles, fingers locking into a fist.
It held that arm coiled. Even the snow paused.
And—
The arm snapped forward.
Pine trees wrenched free from frosted soil, erupting outward in concentric circles, spinning end over end before disintegrating into ash. Ice particles were launched ahead of the fist, melting from friction and flattening into a thousand liquid pins. Each left a vapor trail in its wake, the air in their path screeching aside in bursts.
Medusa pulled her glasses off, her eyes drifting shut.
I inched forward. The crimson of Blood Fort rippled like water around me, bracing for the oncoming fist falling alongside that lethal rain.
As the golem's hand descended, amber lights spilled from windows along its fingers, pouring over my shoulders.
The light's angle of descent shifted with each breath. My shadow, cast upon the endless white snow behind me, began to stretch.
With every meter that fist fell, my silhouette expanded. It slid across the frosted plains, rising over those flattened tree lines.
Fifty meters. A hundred.
It cleaved through the snowfield, a projection of one man that swallowed the landscape.
By the time that fist was a fraction away from me, my shadow stretched hundreds of meters across snow. It loomed behind me, dark and calm, climbing higher than the golem's torso, dwarfing its castle-body itself.
A giant was throwing its weight at a human.
But painted across the snow, it looked like a mountain of stone trembling before the shadow of a titan.
[Deca Accel].
The world snapped into a photograph. Snowflakes locked mid-melt. Vapor trails froze mid-curl. The screech of displaced air died into silence. Medusa's lashes were caught an inch from opening.
I took a single step inside that frozen frame. My boots sank into the snow, spine aligning, knees bending, calves tensing—
Gone.
Seconds later, a blast ripped through that space I had occupied. By then, I was already scaling the golem's forearm.
Another thunderclap followed my own, the two resounding as if they were echoes of one another.
My heels struck across the golem's forearm with relentless thuds as I ascended diagonally.
A familiar echo of another pair of footsteps trailed my own. I did not look back.
Eight liquid pins screamed toward us, two for my thighs, one for her palm, three for my torso, the last two for her shoulders.
Tiny air bubbles trapped inside the pins were still shifting when they froze, visible yet motionless. The subtle vibration of stone beneath my soles ceased at the same time.
My heart beat once, those pins still in my path. My heart beat a second time, and they were far behind me, their trajectories adjusted by mere fractions. Medusa reached them a moment later; she didn't shift her stance to dodge, yet they still passed her by inches.
Ahead, four windows wrenched inward, superheated steam bubbling forth from within. It was still accumulating, about to blast outward, when it came to a stuttering halt.
One second, I smelled scorched metal and steam. The next, all I smelled was stone, my heel already stepping onto the golem's inner elbow joint.
Behind me, a straight line stretched from my finger to those vents, carving the windows apart like skin under a scalpel.
As those windows split, Medusa vaulted over them, eyes snapping open, piercing directly into the superheated vents. Bubbling steam, molten mechanisms, and rushing gears, everything inside them crystallized into gray stone.
Her lashes lowered as she landed, ears perked to follow my footsteps.
We pushed higher, reaching a massive curve on its bicep.
Then, Jubstacheit's voice boomed out from the golem.
"How about now, boy?"
The stone bicep under our feet lost its firmness, melting into an orange, surging river of magma. Its heat evaporated any specks of snow into an enormous curtain of floating vapor where our domains clashed.
There was no solid ground left. I materialized a stake-chain in my grip and threw it ahead, driving it tip-first into that patch of molten rock.
Then, I leaped, heels landing on its metallic bottom jutting from liquid stone like a stair of steel.
Another chain materialized in my left hand, iron links biting into my palm. I hurled it higher, punched it through the blazing heat, and tugged hard, springing upward.
Before reaching the second stake-chain, my free hand swiped horizontally, severing a deep stretch on my way up.
My foot landed on the stake, and I moved.
[Deca Accel]
Visual mirages of the river of magma around me caught mid-surge. The curtain of vapor above us hung locked in place.
But the churning magma beneath me smeared into a blinding blur of red.
Stake. Sever. Stake. Sever.
And I landed on the golem's shoulder, boot crashing into bricks.
Medusa leaped onto the first stake-chain, and her eyes shot open, the purple within them glowing with escalating intensity.
All liquid fire churning underneath her dimmed to gray, and she climbed along my exact footsteps, closing all the stretches I had opened on my way.
Medusa reached the second stake-chain, then third, then fourth, each foothold giving way beneath her a moment after she was past them.
Finally, she vaulted onto the shoulder beside me, boots meeting brick with a soft sound.
Its shoulder was wide enough to park three trucks side by side. Wind howled across it, carrying flecks of ash and vapor that settled on our faces.
I turned to face the golem's neck. Castle spires jutted from that thing's spine, windows in between still flickering with amber light. Its head was far above, hidden behind clouds of discharged steam.
Medusa stood behind me, her fingers brushing my shoulder.
I glanced back at her once and spoke.
"We need to find its core and destr—"
"Boy!"
Jubstacheit cut me off. His voice coming from left instead of above.
I turned.
The golem's other arm, the one we hadn't climbed, was already in motion. It had opened, palm facing toward us, and inside magma pooled.
Molten stone ran over the edges of its fingers, dripping in slow arcs, each droplet hanging long enough to illuminate the vapor curtain above before falling.
The arm was bringing that hand toward its own shoulder.
It was larger than the one we'd climbed, the windows along its forearm burning white instead of amber. It had been charging while we ascended.
The palm was forty meters away. Thirty.
I turned my back to her and dropped to one knee.
"Get on."
She didn't hesitate, and her weight settled against my back, legs locking around my waist, arms hooking over my neck.
Her cheek came to settle beside mine.
I stood.
Twenty meters. Its heat reached us first, a gust that evaporated moisture from every surface. Even bricks under my boots began to glow from their edges.
My knees coiled, spine bending back alongside hers, fingers tightening around the back of her thighs.
She opened her eyes.
The approaching magma palm caught her gaze and crystallized, all of it, in a single beat.
I detonated forward, and cut.
A fissure ripped across its molten rock part, wide enough for a single person.
We dove through that gap.
Inside the arm.
Orange fumes dense enough to choke my breath poured from the ceiling. Magma churned in channels along the walls, gears grinding deeper within. My boots struck a narrow ledge and I sprinted.
She shifted her eyes slightly. A channel ahead crystallized, sealing a surge mid-burst.
I cut through that channel. The wall split and we tore into the next chamber with gears the size of car tires, still spinning.
Petrify. Cut. Step. Petrify.
Our rhythm found itself. She froze what was ahead. I carved through what she'd frozen. We moved before the next surge reached us.
Liquid fire erupted through the floor.
She looked. It froze. I carved. We passed over it.
The chambers tightened. Magic cables pulsing blue constricted around us.
Stare. Swipe. Cables fell in coils.
Metal changed, darker now, multiple channels converged.
The elbow joint.
Her spine straightened against my back.
Ahead, interlocking metal plates, each larger than a house, bound by magic cables pulsing deep blue. Every channel in the arm fed into here.
Those cables tightened. The joint locked.
Her irises narrowed, purple in them blinding now.
Lustre left those metallic walls. Magma stopped being hot. Every mechanism, gear and inscription—
Turned gray.
Her eyelids closed.
I swiped.
The joint split.
And we were through again, out into the open.
Cold air hit my face. Snowflakes drifted past my boots.
I looked down, and the ground was hundreds of meters below.
Gravity pulled on us.
Down.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
And there it goes. Let's see what happens from here.
Have a fabulous day, everyone!