Chapter 10: Water

"Seriously? What's it going to take to get these things to give up their cores?" Neo grunted before quickly jumping back to avoid the punch from the golem right in front of him.

The other one formed a huge ball of earth in its hand just as his feet touched the ground, and without hesitation, it hurled it straight at him.

This time, he didn't try to dodge it and instead turned to the ball with his sword, dividing it into two before it could touch him.

"I'm not sure a wooden sword would be able to do that in a serious fight but then again, this isn't something anyone is supposed to do with a wooden weapon."

Nicole creating the second golem didn't do much in breaking his will because he believed that he would be able to take down chunks of earth that couldn't think for themselves no matter how many they were and that was where he made his first mistake.

He was so certain that all they could do was just attack without any strategy and that was why he was shocked when the golems took advantage of a nice strategy to take care of him.

The first golem took the position of the direct aggressor, charging straight at him mostly to throw him off while the other would keep its distance and covered its fellow golem with ranged attacks.

'Nicole must be an especially skilled mage if her golems can think of something like this in her absence, either that or she's watching from somewhere.'

The golem charged straight at him just before he could properly catch his breath, however, Neo had already thought of his next move.

He equally charged toward the golem, sliding past it from in between its legs before it could throw any attack at him.

Now that he was past that golem, he continued moving forward, heading straight for the one providing cover fire.

The golem quickly turned its right hand into a cannon and began to fire cannonballs of earth at him in quick succession.

Neo was quick on his feet avoiding most of the balls and slashing the ones he couldn't avoid with his sword.

He got to the golem before it could get the chance to hit him and without hesitation, he slashed off the cannon part of its arm with his sword.

That was quickly followed by a powerful kick to its left leg, turning the entire thing to pieces of earth and forcing the golem to fall a bit to his height.

"And now for your head."

The golem tried to hit him with its other arm at that moment but he was fast enough to slash it off before he sent a powerful punch straight at its head crushing the whole thing to reveal a small ball of blue light.

"There it is."

He struck fast with his sword aiming for the blue energy ball which he had already identified as the core but before his sword could reach it, it was quickly enclosed by earth, causing him to hit nothing but hard earth.

'This would have been so much easier if the earth used to protect that thing wasn't this hard.' He grumbled inwardly before biting his lower lip.

He saw a huge shadow towering over him at that moment and clearly aware of what it was, he quickly jumped to the side allowing the golem behind him to smash the one he had already dismantled into tiny pieces.

"No matter how hard I try, going after the core directly has been nothing but futile and it's frustrating how they change their positions in their body every time I make an attempt at smashing them."

An earth spear was quickly sent flying his way at that moment but by quickly stepping to the side he was able to avoid it.

'Looks like it'll take more than brute force to win this so I'll have to think of something.'

The direct aggressor charged straight toward him as he wasn't moving, joining both of its hands together to smash him into the ground but only he needed to do to avoid that was jump back and that was exactly what he did.

This set of golems were faster than the one he destroyed when his mother and Nicole were still there but after destroying their bodies several times, he had gotten used to their speed and style of attack.

They had a strategy, yes, but that strategy was all they had and after facing it for a while it became quite repetitive for him.

'I guess at the end of the day there's something to prove they're not human.' He said inwardly before dodging another spear from the ranged golem while slashing off the wrist of the one in front of him. 'There's also the fact that I'm getting thirsty and they don't even need water or food to keep doing what they're doing.'

The golem tried to punch him with his other hand but he was fast enough to jump back and it was at that moment that something clicked in his mind.

"Water, that's it, why didn't I think of this from the beginning?"

There was a flower garden by his left that had been sealed off with a wire fence because of his training close to it, and on that side was a single tap used for watering the flowers.

He immediately took note of where the tap was located close to the fence on the other side but what he needed to make this walk wasn't installed on the pipe just like he expected, the hose was on the floor which meant that this would take longer than he wanted it to and that would decrease his chance of succeeding.

"Unless…"

He quickly turned to the golem behind him at that moment and with his hand folded into a fist he smashed it straight into the lower part of the golem's body creating a huge crack there before slashing it into two.

"Alright, here I go!" He screamed before quickly taking off straight toward the fence.

He avoided every spear and balls the other golem through at him and just as he got to the fence he jumped over it in one leap.

'If I mess this up, this garden is going to get destroyed and Emilia is going to kill me.'

He quickly grabbed the hose as soon as he dropped to the floor and installed it on the pipe before quickly turning it to maximum output.

The golem he slashed into two had already finished rebuilding itself at that moment and was charging straight at him now but that was a mistake because all it took to break the whole thing apart was a powerful blast of water.

With the golem now broken apart and dissolved, he quickly jumped over the fence with the hose in his hand, the core was exposed now and with his foot, he smashed the thing into bits.

The other golem seemed to have made things easier for him by getting closer to ensure better accuracy so he didn't have any problem blowing it with the water that was continuously flowing out of the hose.

Well, there wasn't much force in it now compared to when the water rushed out the first time so he restricted its flow for a while to create one.

Water seemed to have the effect of slowing down the golems' regenerative ability and because of that, he was standing over another unprotected core.

"Looks like we're done here then." He smiled before crushing the core with his foot.

Just after that, he let out a sigh before crashing to the floor, dropping the hose right beside him and allowing the water coming from it to completely soak him along with the wet mud.

"Finally, I'll be getting a real sword." He muttered before raising the wooden sword in his hand. "But still, you've been a huge help."

_________ ________

Just as promised, Neo got a real sword for defeating the golems and there was something Luna said to him as she handed him the sword that stuck with him for the rest of the year.

"You'll be even stronger once you awaken your ability."

Those words made him eagerly look forward to awakening his ability despite all the things that were keeping him on edge all the time. However, the year slowly went by with nothing of that sort happening.

Neo Estevao was eight years old now without an ability and he would be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed.

He wasn't a prodigy, neither was he a normal awakener, he was most likely going to become a late bloomer but even that wasn't certain.

The Telnahs were among the first to find one about Neo's failure to awaken his ability and for some reason a week later after that, they started dropping Miriam off at the Estevao household every now and then.