Golem Invasion (1)

Everyone was confused as to what was happening. Even the golems seemed out of whack. Well, of course they would be, considering the effect that this golden dome had on them. The fire covering the gaps between the Flame Golems limbs and main body was extinguished, and their aura of flame was rendered useless. While the Golems still had the strength of an Origin Beast, the golden dome had restrained their usage of Qi externally!

"Woah."

The trio was in awe by this effect, but they could not afford to stay distracted for long. While the beasts had been downgraded from Origin Beast to Half-step Origin Beast, both of the golems were still dangerous. Being hit by any of their attacks would be horrifying.

However, the situation still had a bright side. Now that the Golems were not protected by their flames, their weak points were easily accessible. On top of that, the Golems slow speed was not something that was advantageous to them.

"We have a chance! Charge!"

After Qing Shan gave the order, the trio moved toward the nearest Golem, which was still recovering from its confusion at losing the fire surrounding it. Once it noticed them approaching, Qing Shan and Qian Yong already had their spears imbedded in the groove between the Golem's right leg and torso.

Qing Shan was especially glad the Qian Yong had happened to have a spare spear with her. He did not know what he would have done if he had to fight these huge things bare handed.

*Groan*

The man-made beast lifted up its left leg slowly, and prepared to stomp down.

"Get back!"

The three jumped backwards right before the Golem's leg made contact with the ground, narrowly evading the mini-earthquake caused by the thing's immense strength and size. Rocks flew into the air, and one of the larger ones hit the other Golem, enraging it. That Golem moved toward the group, and began joining the fight.

"Shit! You guys take the new one, I'll try to keep this one busy! Aim for the base of the limbs, and back off whenever it winds up for an attack. These things are absurdly sturdy, so try not to tire yourselves out too quickly."

Qing Shan turned to the Golem that had just slammed its foot down and was preparing for a wide swipe with its rocky arm. A grin grew on his face. It was one of his favorite things to enjoy, a tough opponent, one-on-one!

"It's just you and me…"

Qing Shan used his Flowing Wind movement technique to quickly close the distance with the Golem and weave under its arm, just before it swiped sideways. Qing Shan sent a strong series of thrusts into the crevasse at the top of the Golem's right arm as it was swinging to deal the most amount of damage. Even so, Qing Shan could tell that he was nowhere near close to chopping off the limb. If he stayed uninterrupted, he guessed that this fight could last over four hours.

Qing Shan continued using the same strategy, backing off for big attacks, and capitalizing on the smaller ones to deal the most damage. Unfortunately, even after an hour Qing Shan had still been unable to get rid of one limb. But, he was close. The right arm, which Qing Shan had been focusing on weakening, was almost too thin to stay connected to the torso. Just one more attack from Qing Shan's spear, or attempted attack with it by the Golem, and it would fall off.

*Rumble*

*Crash*

Finally, the giant arm fell to the floor. Now, Qing Shan just had three more limbs, and a head, to go.

As soon as the arm fell to the ground, Qing Shan noticed something on the stump of the arm that was just cut off. There was a glimmer of crystal, that appeared to be the Qi Crystal. It seemed to disappear into the center of the Golem. Qing Shan opened his Third Eye, and quickly noticed something. Flowing from each of the Golems' limbs was Qi, and it clumped together in one place on each Golem. There were always two clumps, one in the head, and the other in a seemingly random position on the Golem's body.

"Look at its flow of Qi! I think their weak spots are outlined!"

Although Qing Shan wanted to watch the girls to make sure that they understood him, he did not have enough time to divert his attention. Qing Shan began weaving around the Golem, and focusing all of his thrusts onto the spot of the Qi clump on the Golem's torso. After all, Qing Shan did not know if it would due after only one clump was destroyed, or if those clumps were even weak points.

Qing Shan continued to dig through the rock hard Golem, but was making slow progress. He could not really manage to dig into the Golem with only steel. The only explanation was that the rock was infused with Qi. Qing Shan was just glad that the Golem's attacks were very easy to avoid.

After another two hours, Qing Shan finally pierced through the Golem. He stuck his hand inside, and was surprised to find a dense ball of pure Qi. He quickly absorbed it, and watched the Golem fall to the ground; without enough fuel, it would not be able to function.

Qing Shan whipped around, turning toward the other Golem, intending to help the girls.

"I see you finally finished."

Qian Yong grinned at Qing Shan, mirth dancing in her eyes. Qing Shan decided to ignore her for the time being, as he looked at the Golem's remains.

The head was cleanly severed from the rest of the body, and the Golem's eyes were pierces. Although the eyes were also made of rock, the rock was much thinner over the eyes than anywhere else. Qing Shan also found out that a Golem's head is actually hollow, and is lined with Qi Shards, which unfortunately became Barren after the Golem died. Since they had the time, the girls had even pierced down into the Golem's torso from the neck, and absorbed the Qi that was there as well.

Suddenly, Ming Bai spoke up.

"In case you are not able to tell, the Qi Crystal is much easier to destroy than the rock. We just followed it down and eliminated its second core. It seems that, once you eliminate one core, the golem becomes unable to move. However, it is still alive."

Qing Shan used the next ten minutes to absorb his Golem's second core, to avoid anything unexpected from happening. While he wanted to salvage as many Barren Qi Shards as he could, the girls forbade him from doing so. They did not want Qing Shan to be expelled from the trial like Qian Zhen. Because they had no clue what would happen, they decided not to test their luck and give into greed.

'At least it is only Barren Qi Shards. If it was a Barren Qi Cube, or higher, I don't think I would be able to hold myself back…'

"I see more lights at the end of the tunnel! I think there are more of them this time around!"

After hearing Qian Yong's words, Qing Shan and Ming Bai turned and confirmed this for themselves. Based on the light from the Golems' flame in comparison to before. There were now three Golems.

Once the Golems got close, the group was relieved to see that the flames still went out when the Golems entered the golden dome. If that stopped working, the group would definitely have a lot of trouble.

Now that everyone knew how to best take down the Golems, the fight only lasted a bit under an hour. Everyone punctured the Golems' eyes and absorbed their Qi, before digging through the Qi Shards in the neck down to the second core before absorbing that one as well. Now that there were three Golems, everyone got an equal amount of Qi to absorb.

"Whew. It isn't that hard to destroy those things, especially since their attacks are easy to dodge. But, it does get really annoying having to use brute force to get into their heads. I don't want to dull my spear too quickly."

Qian Yong spoke aloud everyone's thoughts, obviously trying to start a conversation.

"Um… Yeah. The best part is how each one of them give out such a huge amount of pure Qi! Although it is tedious to destroy them, fighting these Golems is kind of a boon."

Qian Yong nodded enthusiastically to Ming Bai's words, making Qing Shan feel the slightest bit of guilt.

"Actually... I already have enough Qi to break through to the Origin Realm, so you guys can share the Qi in mine."

"That's cool. So, how are we gonna do that?"

"Simple. I'll break a hole in the eye, and call one of you over to absorb the Qi, than the other one of you can take the Qi in its torso."

"I guess that works. We will have to make it quick though, so that no one is trying to face more than one Golem at a time."

While the girls continued to talk about how great it was to be getting so much pure Qi, Qing Shan was thinking other thoughts about this 'great' reward.

'I hope we get some kind of good item as a reward for this, preferably an expensive one. We aren't allowed to take the Qi Crystals, and the Golem's cores couldn't be more useless to me…'

"Um… guys. There's more coming, and there are four this time!"

Hearing Ming Bai's words, Qing Shan and Qian Yong looked down the largest hallway that the Golems had been coming from. However, the lights were not from that hallway. Instead, the Golems were coming from the four cardinal directions.

"Are they going to steadily increase? For how long?"

"…"

No one had a response.

The trio decided that Qian Yong would be the one taking two of the Golems this time. This was because Qing Shan was going to give the Golem cores to the girls anyways, and he did not want to have to deal with two of them at once in the process. Because Qian Yong was Qing Shan's role-model in practicing spearmanship, he had full confidence she would be able to pull it off.

"Alright, if you want to, you can take the two. Just make sure that you keep them as far away from the gold sapling as you can. I am betting that the Golems are only coming after us to try to get to the sapling anyways."

"Got it."

Once all of the Golems entered the illusory golden dome, Qing Shan quickly began to dispatch his Golem.

"Ming Bai! Switch for a sec! I opened up this one's head!"

Qing Shan ran over to receive Ming Bai's Golem while she absorbed Qing Shan's Golem's core.

"Okay!"

Qing Shan switched back over to his Golem and dug down to the central core, before similarly switching with Qian Yong. After his and Ming Bai's Golems were fully taken down, they went to join Qian Yong.

While Qian Yong had managed to repel both of the Golems for this long, she had not dealt any considerable damage. This was only to be expected because she had to focusing on dodging both of their attacks.

After the Golem's had their heads opened up, Ming Bai and Qian Yong each absorbed a Golem core, and Qian Yong absorbed the remaining two.

"I think that worked pretty well. For now, whoever is facing only one Golem should finish up as quick as possible before helping whoever has two or more. Once they are taken down, those two will help the remaining person with the rest."

"That works."

Suddenly, everyone noticed five Golems in the room. They had emerged from each of the four cardinal directions, in addition to the large tunnel. It seemed that they were starting to arrive faster and faster. The trio had missed these ones because they had just finished with the previous wave.

"They arrived earlier than we expected, but let's just do this as planned."

*Flicker*

On top of the Golems appearing ahead of schedule, it seemed like there was another problem now facing the trio. The gold dome flickered, disappearing completely, and the Golems regained their flame.