The bolt hit the crude head between the eyes and died on arrival. The surface absorbed the impact and the lightning sank into the rock; the veins of light spread into the dirt.
[HP: 340/340]
The hollowed eyes blinked and looked right at Ty.
The massive boulder rose out of the valley floor and kept rising. Shoulders came first. A torso followed, wide as the river channel, the arms coming last. The ground quaked with every bellow.
It was already taller than the trees.
Something within its boulder chest was churning to life.
[VIEWERS: 34]
Its crater eyes glowed blue and so did the rest of the crevices in its hulking body. The golem's chest opened up and revealed a sapphire gem brimming with energy.
Then it shot out a beam of condensed mana.
FWOOSH!
Ty fell to his stomach as the beam raged overhead, cutting through the air around him and decimating everything in a 30-meter radius.
Fuka flew over the golem and got a perfect shot of its throbbing core.
More boulders around Ty began moving. Arms pushed out of the sides and legs split free from the base.
[HP: 120/120]
They were smaller than the guardian, maybe twice Ty's height.
But there were six of them.
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Fuka's wings buzzed past his ear as she shot lower.
Her purple eyes swept the smaller golems and she circled back to the large one.
[VIEWERS: 58]
The nearest one swung first. Its arm came around in a vertical arc and Ty rolled beside it. The stone fist hit the ground where he'd been standing and cratered the dirt.
Ty raised his right hand and fired a [Lesser Bolt] into the joint where the arm met its jagged shoulder.
The stone cracked and its arm fell to the dirt with a thud.
These things were stone all the way through, but at least the smaller ones didn't have a natural [Mana Barrier].
A second one came from the left and he rolled under that swing and came up running. He glanced at the river. The guardian was wading across, but it was slow. Dragging its legs through the current, the sapphire core dim behind its open chest.
Whatever that beam had cost, it was still paying for it.
[VIEWERS: 67]
Ty had about two more bolts before he was left with just his fists.
The river. If I can apply the electric current to the water, the heat'll bypass the barrier on its surface.
Ty turned and fired at the guardian's leg where it stood in the channel.
The bolt hit the knee joint below the waterline and the water around the leg boiled on contact. The thermal shock cracked the stone from the heat differential. A fracture split up the shin and the guardian's leg buckled.
It caught itself on one arm in the riverbed, letting out a grinding moan.
[HP: 308/340]
The water actually made the difference; heat against wet stone cracked faster than heat against dry.
[VIEWERS: 89]
Ty had enough mana for one more bolt.
The guardian was pulling itself back up, its core glowing brighter every second. The six smaller golems on the bank closed from all sides, the one without an arm trying to shove its limb back on its shoulder.
Fuka dove to his eye level.
Her purple eyes were wide and she darted left and right above his shoulder.
"Mister, you're in trouble now!"
"Yeah, I fucking see that."
Ty's right hand was shaking. The nerves in his left arm still hurt to move. Worse yet, one bolt wouldn't kill any of them, let alone hurt them hard enough to run.
The guardian dragged itself out of the river onto the near bank, cracked leg holding. It rose to full height and its crater eyes looked down at Ty from twenty meters up.
The sapphire gem pulsed behind its open chest, brighter.
The six golems surrounded him, each of their steps quaking the dirt beneath them.
"Mister, you got incoming!"
[GIFT RECEIVED: SLIMES (x12)]
[FROM: darkflame99]
Twelve slimes popped into existence around Ty's feet. Each one came up to his knee, translucent green and wobbling. They bounced off the dirt and rolled in every direction, bumping into rocks and each other and the legs of the nearest golem.
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The guardian's next step landed on three of them. They burst under the stone foot and green sludge sprayed up the shin and across the knee. Two of the smaller golems stepped on more and the sludge splashed across the bank.
It stuck to everything.
It even clung to the cracks in the stones of the golems and pooled where the fractures ran deepest.
Same principle as the river.
Ty formed a [Lesser Bolt] in his palm and pointed it at the rest of the slime jumping into its brethren.
"Move again," Ty said, "and I let the spell go and everyone dies."
[VIEWERS: 114]
The six smaller golems stopped, but the big one did not.
It stepped forward and the sludge squelched under its foot.
Its crater eyes moved from Ty's hand to the green smear across its own leg, then back to Ty.
The core behind its chest started churning again, drawing in the ambient energy from the air.
"You disturb our hibernation and seek more violence?" the golem boomed. "Are you mad?"
Fuka nearly dropped out of the air.
Ty kept his hand raised. "You fucking moved. But I'm feeling nice, so I'll give you one more chance." The sigils hummed between his fingers.
The guardian looked down at its children, then back at Ty.
"You're bluffing," the golem said.
"One bolt is all it takes."
The [Lesser Bolt] whined at its fullest output.