“My lady!”
Elliot ran to Maxi and helped her up.
Straightening up, she looked around in confusion.
It seemed like she wasn't the only one who had been drained of mana.
A few steps away, Sidina and Anette were also being helped to their feet.
“W-What the hell is going on?” Joel muttered in a terrified voice.
Rays of light branched out from the rune-like spider webs, seeping into the statues scattered around the room.
Maxi felt his blood run cold.
Imbued with mana, the stone sculptures came to life and began to slowly move.
Immediately recognizing the danger, one of the Temple Knights swung his sword.
Blue flames erupted from his blade, blasting the stone trolls charging at them into a thousand pieces.
However, like pieces of steel attracted to a magnet, the broken fragments quickly reassembled.
“We must retreat!” shouted the Temple Knight.
The petrified wizards ran towards the door.
Clinging to Elliot's side, Maxi stumbled after them.
As they hurriedly advanced, the colossal stone serpent head appeared in their path.
Elliot quickly lowered his sword and cut off the top half of the serpent's open mouth with a single strike.
Unaffected by the loss of its head, the immense golem slithered down to block their path.
Urging Maxi behind him, Elliot swung as the serpent's massive tail flew towards him like a whip.
Maxi felt fragments of stone whipping his cheeks.
They felt strangely warm.
Arriving at the door first, Joel shouted, "Max!
Hurry!"
Maxi crossed the chamber under Elliot's protection.
The trampling golems rushed forward, blocking their escape.
Elliot scattered them with his sword, but the crushed stone figures regrouped each time.
A thought occurred to him as he watched the horrified scene.
His eyes flew to the light spilling from the rune.
Suddenly, she understood the rune's complicated mechanisms.
Although there were slight differences, she realized that it was similar to the golem rune she had spent months researching on.
"Sir Elliot!
W-We should go there!" Maxi shouted to the knight, who was keeping the golems at bay.
“The rune will continue to create golems if we don’t destroy it!”
The knight firmly shook his head.
"It's very dangerous, my lady!
We have to get out of here."
Before she could say anything else, Elliot grabbed her arm and ran towards the entrance.
However, in less than four steps, stone trolls blocked his path again.
Behind them was the giant serpent, which had slowly regained its shape, and carved monsters of the Ayin race surrounded them on both sides.
Cursing under his breath, Elliot pushed Maxi behind him and began swinging his sword with lightning speed.
Seizing the opportunity, Maxi jumped towards the rune.
Elliot called out to her, but she didn't have time to look over her shoulder.
She passed a stomping statue of a drake and stopped before the rune.
Removing her gloves, she was about to lay her hands on it when a stone werewolf lunged at her from the shadows.
“Max!”
Anette threw a shield in front of her.
There was a thud and the stone werewolf was thrown back.
Maxi let out a shaky breath and tried to stop her legs from shaking.
Rushing to his side, Elliot crushed a stone torso and kicked the debris away.
“Please hurry!”
He had evidently concluded that his only option now was to fight his way through the wall of golems.
Maxi jumped and looked back down at the rune, only to find that all the chaos seemed to have frozen his brain.
Biting her lip, she placed her hands over the rune and slowly infused it with mana.
When she felt it was sucking away her mana, she resisted the great force.
She desperately tried to understand the intricate labyrinthine pathways – the external and internal composition of the golems, the complicated formulas for supplying and amplifying mana…
His body broke out in a cold sweat.
She was quickly running out of mana.
Although she wasn't exhausted yet, using too much in a short period made her slightly dizzy.
It required considerable concentration to prevent the remainder of his mana from being drained.
Maintaining the shield she had thrown around Maxi, Anette shouted from the entrance, "Max!
Hurry!"A Temple Knight held the monsters at the door, but it was clear that a single knight would not be enough to fend off the infinitely regenerating golems.
Maxi bit his lip until it bled and pushed his mana into every part of the rune.
To his dismay, his knowledge was not enough to understand the mana path built into the golems' complex gears.
When she was unable to track down the formula responsible for controlling the monsters, she shifted her efforts to finding the formula that provided the stone with mana.
Destroying it would at least stop the golems from regenerating.
With a single impulse of will, she stopped the flow of mana.
Sparks erupted around him as if
the rune was resisting, and the golems began to struggle.
Maxi shouted.
The massive serpent writhed violently and began crashing into the walls and pillars.
A thud resounded from somewhere, and the cave shook.
Another thump, and the floor began to tilt.
She turned her head to the side as a bright light blinded her.
An icy wind whipped his face, and snowflakes bit his eyelids.
She turned and looked up at the cloudy sky.
The blizzard outside was coming in through the collapsed wall.
"Max!
Quickly!" Anette screamed.
Elliot pulled Maxi to her feet and started running towards the entrance.
He swung his sword at the golems blocking his path, smashing the stone monsters into pieces.
This time, the fragments remained motionless.
There were still around ten golems on the way.
Muttering fiercely under his breath, Elliot began a relentless attack on the stone monsters, slashing his way through with his sword.
Maxi stayed close and looked around for other possible dangers.
Suddenly, a dark shadow hovered over their heads.
She instinctively pushed Elliot away from danger when something descended from above.
However, with the knight's bulk and limited strength, she was only able to move him so far.
He narrowly escaped the stone harpy that was charging at them from above, but its curved claws struck the back of Maxi's head.
Although Elliot spun around and ripped off the harpy's wing, the blow had already sent Maxi flying.
She rolled across the floor until her back hit one of the pillars.
For a moment, the air ran out of him.
Panting, she tried to regain her senses when she heard Elliot's urgent scream.
“My lady!”
Waking up with a start, she saw the huge serpent approaching her at frightening speed.
She struggled to summon a barrier, but she didn't have enough mana.
She closed her eyes tightly.
Suddenly, black chains emerged like a web and wrapped around the stone serpent, trapping it in a tight coil.
Panting, Maxi looked at the immense golem, which was mere inches away.
She heard Kuahel Leon's imperious voice echo through the room.
“Get to a safe place!”
She looked anxiously at the door.
The mages who had escaped earlier had brought reinforcements.
When Maxi saw the Temple Knights rush into the cave, his body relaxed with relief.
Barely able to stand on her shaky legs, she staggered toward the entrance as the serpent began to struggle against its chains.
The ground cracked and tilted to one side.
Maxi lost his balance and fell backwards.
The wreckage of the collapsing golem fell from the sky, sending it tumbling through the hole in the wall.
It all happened so quickly that she could barely understand what was happening.
She was thrown out into the snowstorm and tumbled down a cliff, rolling along with the debris on the cave floor.
She was so disoriented that she couldn't think of using a levitation spell.
Distant screams and screams reached her before the howling wind ripped them from her ears.
All she heard was her stomach churning as nausea and dizziness hit her.
Although her body sought oblivion, she clung to consciousness and stretched her arms toward the rocky wall to grab onto anything she found.
She slid down the cliff, her palms burning as they rubbed against the rocky surface.
She instinctively kicked her legs in search of support to break her fall.
Out of nowhere, a dark figure swooped down and grabbed her by the waist.She gasped at the sudden force.
For a moment, she couldn't comprehend what was happening.
It took a while before she could register the powerful arms around her.
A second later, she realized the ragged breathing wasn't hers.
Maxi slowly looked up, his chest heaving.
Riftan hung from the stone wall at the end of a long, curved chain.
His arms were so tight around her that it made it difficult to breathe.
Unable to believe her eyes, she could only look up at his chiseled features.