Imbue Light

After watching the last of the monsters pile in after the first that had the person Lake turned to his companions and asked. "Do you know what those were?" If they did he might not have to wait till the first fight to know how strong they were. "They looked like gargoyles, but they were the wrong color."

Lake knew nothing about gargoyles in this world but he had heard of them before and from what he knew they were stone monsters that lived on churches or something like that; he wasn't too sure about the part where they lived. "What color are they normally?"

"They are usually a gray color because of the fact that they're made from stone or metal. Those ones were a dark black color so they might be something we have never seen before." Lake nodded and asked the three dwarves. "Should we go after the ones we saw enter the building or move on?"

"We should try and find others before we start fighting. We might not last long alone depending on what they turn out to be." Lake nodded and started to head in the direction that the suspected gargoyles had come from. He could hear a commotion coming from this direction so he was sure that would be where they found other people fighting.

They didn't make it far before they ran into more of those gargoyles. Like the last ones they had seen, these ones were following one that was carrying a body. Lake was sure they would find a nice quiet place to eat their meal if they just stayed out of their way so he made backed himself behind the corner he had just passed.

One of the three dwarves looked around the corner and said. "They're definitely gargoyles, but why are they taking bodies with them? Gargoyles can't eat; they're a type of summoned golem." Lake had no answer for this so he just shrugged and kept walking towards the noise that he was sure was others like them fighting these apparently strange gargoyles.

Once he started to get close enough to the noise to actually tell there were in fact people fighting just a few streets over Lake stopped again to let another group of gargoyles pass with a screaming man in their hands. Turning towards the dwarves, Lake said. "I know I should have asked earlier but can you three fight?"

He was pretty sure they were mages so he was afraid that they might be dead weight since the Metal mana had been sucked away from the environment they were in. "Don't worry about us, we will do what's necessary to make sure we are helpful in the battle. We all still have our personal reserves of mana to cast spells."

Lake had kind of forgotten that you could cast spells using your own mana for a second there and nodded to what the dwarf had said before starting towards the fight that was happening just a few hundred feet from them. As they got closer Lake saw the fight, it was just a massive amount of those blackened gargoyles circling around a small number of surviving fighters.

He was sure there had been more at the beginning of the fight because he was also sure the bodies he had seen the gargoyles carrying had mostly come from here. As he was thinking this another of the fighters was grabbed and dragged into the surrounding mass of gargoyles. By the time the gargoyle got the captive man through the other gargoyles and started to run away with them, Lake could tell they were already dead.

A few of the gargoyles on the outer edge of the swarm followed the one that had gotten someone away from the fight and once they were out of eyeshot Lake turned to the dwarves and said. "Do you know what gargoyles are weak to? Like what's the best way to kill them?"

There was no good reason for them to join the people in the center of the gargoyles but that didn't mean they weren't going to join the fight and Lake wanted to know the best way for him to start killing this group that had gathered together. If he was able to get a large number of them at once it would help a lot and if people saw him do it he might get more money once this was over.

"These aren't normal gargoyles but they should still be weak to being smashed if they are made of stone. If they're metal you'll need to use magic that can work on summoned creatures to get a good amount of damage from your attacks." Lake had to ask another question since he wasn't too knowledgeable about the benefits of curtain magics over the others.

"Which magics would that be?" Lake could tell this term magics was encompassing more than just the elements most people considered to be magic so he asked using this new term. "Well an Antimagic formation would probably be the best thing we could hope to use to dispel them right now but since we don't really have any Antimagic mages around that can use formations Fire and Water will probably be the best elements to use. Water since it has a light dispelling effect which works good on golems and Fire since it can melt metal if the person using it has a decent level of control over the heat principle."

"You aren't taking in the fact that these gargoyles are of a dark color or their origins in this answer. These gargoyles have a high chance of being tinged with the Dark or Unholy element so Holy, Light, and Life magic have a good chance of being effective against them as well." It was starting to sound like Lake had a lot of options so he just went with Light since he already had the job unlocked.

If it ended up not being effective it didn't really matter since he was just planning to use Imbue on his sword in the hopes he might finally unlock Enchanter. Lake had kind of accepted that he must not be suited for Enchanter but he was sure he could still unlock it eventually if he kept trying but for now using Imbue will just make what he was about to do to these gargoyles look less crazy.

Pulling his sword, Lake said. "You three ready?" He didn't really need to ask but he felt it would be rude to just start running towards the gargoyles without giving these three the chance to cast their spells. After they nodded Lake used the small amount of Light mana he had built up to cast Imbue Light onto his sword.

The sword started to glow and the light it was giving off made a good amount of the gargoyles notice them and look their way. Lake was fine with that and while taking his first step towards the gargoyles he saw what looked like chains fly from behind him and wrap up the legs of a good portion of the gargoyles.

This was the spell the dwarves had chosen to use and he felt it made sense for them to help in this way since Metal, which was the element they specialized in, wasn't particularly strong in this situation. Like this they could use their own mana to slow down the gargoyles that would have attacked them otherwise and give Lake time to thin them out.

Lake didn't go for the ones on the ground though and chose to kill the ones that were still on their way towards them. Once he was close enough that his sword would be able to bite deep into the gargoyle, Lake used Crunch and swung towards its midsection.

He was fighting against what the dwarves had called a special type of golem so he assumed he would have more success if he cut them in half instead of decapitating them which was what he did most of the time in a fight.

He had aimed well and his strike not only sliced through the gargoyle's midsection but took one of its arms off at the elbow as well. Lake didn't inspect the one he hit past that and just went towards the next one. If it ended up being that his attack wasn't lethal to the gargoyle he would know because he wouldn't get any Exp so he could just move on.

Slicing the next gargoyle, Lake chose to do so slightly higher up on its body to see if he would get Exp right away this time. Even if they were golems they should have some sort of weakness and he might find it if he tried different spots instead of just attacking the same spot on each of them.

Not getting any Exp Lake decided he would try the neck this time. Using crunch again since he had already used it twice and needed to Lake took the next gargoyles Head off with his next attack and still no Exp. It still went down though so he moved to the next one and decided he should split its head.

Lake felt there was a good chance that it's core or whatever would be inside its head. Cleaving its head in half Lake was able to make it all the way down to its crotch and completely split it in half because of the effects of Crunch. He still didn't receive any Exp though and taking a quick look behind him and seeing the ones he had attacked still on the ground he was starting to think that there was a chance Gargoyles just didn't give any Exp to begin with.

He wasn't too worried about Leveling up so he just moved this possibility to the back of his mind and continued to attack any gargoyle that got close to him. As he was doing this his glowing sword was slowly getting the attention of all the gargoyles that hadn't paid any attention to him at first so the group he was fighting was growing giving the fighters that had been fighting for their lives a chance to breathe.