Chapter 23

Chapter 23

“Insane! Khehehe!”

When something was too painful, or when one felt as if one was going mad, laughter came out.

That was Zeon’s state right now.

Zeon was sitting with his back against the wall.

He did not even have the strength to stand on his two legs. All he could do was lean against the wall and breathe in ragged gasps.

His face was broken and torn in several places, blood flowing down, and he had suffered ominous wounds all over his body.

It had only ended at this level because the breastplate made from the Queen Wolf Ant’s corpse and the robe made from the Sand Angler’s skin had protected his entire body.

If even one of the two had been missing, Zeon’s life would have ended long ago.

“Haa!”

Once the pain faded to a certain degree, breathing became much easier.

Zeon drew in a deep breath and looked around.

Finely shattered stones filled the dark space.

They were the remains of the Centaur Golems.

Zeon had fought with truly everything he had.

He dodged, threw punches, dodged again, and threw punches again.

He fled, then turned back to launch surprise attacks, and when he was surrounded, he slipped out like an eel, repeating the process again and again.

After fighting like a madman that way, when he finally came to his senses, all the Golems resembling Centaurs had fallen.

“Damn it! This hurts like hell.”

Zeon grabbed his trembling legs and stood.

After fighting enemies of this level, his grade should have risen, but there was no change in his Rank Insignia.

He thought perhaps it was because he had not used sand.

Zeon walked with difficulty and muttered,

“Is there no potion around that restores stamina when you drink one bottle?”

This place was called a temple, so he wondered if there might be at least one thing like that.

Even if there was such an item, there was no way it would be in a corridor like this.

There was a high chance it would exist at least in a place where a divine statue was enshrined.

Since he did not know when more things like the Centaur Golems might appear, Zeon advanced as carefully as possible.

A large door appeared before him.

It was an enormous door that could not even be compared to the doors in the passage where the Centaur Golems had appeared.

“Damn it!”

He knew without needing to confirm it with his eyes.

Behind that door, there was a gigantic Golem that could not be compared to anything until now.

From experience, the size of the door was proportional to the size of the Golem.

But he could not turn back now.

“Phew!”

Zeon drew in a deep breath for a moment, then put his strength into opening the door.

The space beyond the door was enormous.

It was hard to believe such a vast space existed inside the temple.

It was a hundred meters across, and its height alone exceeded thirty meters.

In the middle of that enormous space stood a stone statue.

From the part assumed to be the statue’s head grew two massive horns reminiscent of a water buffalo.

The gigantic stone statue, over five meters tall, emitted tremendous pressure.

He knew without needing to check.

That thing was the master of this room.

Perhaps because it had not noticed Zeon entering, the giant Golem did not move in the slightest.

Zeon’s gaze turned toward the small door behind the giant Golem.

That seemed to be the exit.

‘If I run in all at once before it notices, I might have a chance......’

Zeon thought the Golem would be as slow as its huge size suggested.

Originally, Golems’ movements were bound to be sluggish.

Except for cases like the Centaur Golems, which had specialized entirely in mobility.

TAP!

Zeon kicked off the ground and ran with all his might.

He gathered all the strength he had left and ran with desperate resolve.

In an instant, he passed the giant Golem and nearly reached the door on the other side.

Just as a light of joy was about to rise on Zeon’s face,

“I did......”

CRASH—!

With an explosive roar, Zeon’s body was thrown backward.

Before him, the giant Golem was suddenly standing there.

“Cough!”

Zeon coughed blood and barely raised his head.

The giant Golem was blocking the door like a gatekeeper.

Zeon had not noticed such a gigantic Golem moving. That meant it had moved with that much stealth.

Without making even a single footstep, at that.

A black force field was being emitted from the giant Golem’s entire body.

The black force field meant one thing.

“Grade B or higher?”

Even Grade C would have been too much to handle, but Grade B?

Deioden tore apart Grade B monsters like toys, but that was only possible because Deioden was an Awakened outside the standard.

Zeon was now Grade E.

And his main authority had been forcibly sealed.

Fighting a Golem that gigantic in this state was no different from suicide.

If only he could use sand, things would not feel this bleak.

Zeon wiped the blood from his mouth and stood.

He knew he could not be its match, but he could not simply sit and wait for death.

“Fine! Let’s do this. I can only die once, not twice.”

One thing he had learned from Deioden was never to give up under any circumstances.

If he somehow endured, an opportunity would surely come.

The problem was whether he could survive until that opportunity came, and whether he could seize that hard-won chance.

“First, I start by finding where its core is.”

The first Golems he met had cores in their necks, and the Centaur Golems had them in the center of their chests.

He had to find the core that existed somewhere in that giant Golem’s body.

That was when it happened.

FLASH!

A flash seemed to burst from the giant Golem, and it appeared before Zeon before he knew it.

“Blink?”

Zeon’s eyes widened.

Only then did he understand how the giant Golem had attacked him moments ago.

The giant Golem was freely using Blink, a Skill that teleported it anywhere within sight.

Zeon urgently rolled across the floor.

WHOOOM!

The giant Golem’s fist passed above his head by a hair’s breadth.

If Zeon’s reaction had been even slightly slower, he would have been crushed like fish paste by that attack.

Cold sweat ran down his spine.

At that moment, a human voice flowed from the giant Golem’s mouth.

―Gigarein will eliminate the intruder.

“Gigarein? Is that your name?”

Zeon asked, but the giant Golem Gigarein did not answer and attacked.

A flash burst again, and Gigarein’s gigantic body appeared before Zeon. But this time, Zeon did not simply suffer helplessly.

The moment the flash burst, he had thrown himself aside to dodge.

Zeon had realized that a flash erupted the moment Gigarein was about to use Blink.

If he knew when Blink would be activated, dodging was not that difficult.

Just as Zeon had expected, Gigarein appeared where he had been moments ago.

Zeon struck Gigarein’s body.

“Haaah!”

CLANG!

His blow, thrown with all his heart, bounced off with the sound of metal.

Gigarein’s hardness was on a completely different dimension from the Golems Zeon had fought until now.

Moreover, since the black force field was protecting it, not even a scratch appeared on the surface.

Zeon despaired.

He could not even begin to grasp how he was supposed to fight a monster like this.

Perhaps this was how the monsters who faced Deioden felt.

WHOOOM!

Gigarein’s fist flew toward Zeon again.

One fist was nearly the same size as Zeon himself.

The moment he was struck properly by that fist, Zeon would be finished.

Zeon flattened himself against the floor and avoided Gigarein’s fist. Immediately afterward, he rolled and stood.

Zeon poured mana into the gauntlet and attacked Gigarein.

CLAAANG!

This time as well, his attack could not damage Gigarein.

Not even a stone fragment fell.

Its hardness was truly insane.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

After that, Zeon launched several more consecutive attacks.

It was like trying to break a rock with an egg.

Even so, Zeon did not give up and continued attacking in order to find Gigarein’s core.

In the end, he could not find the core, but he did find Gigarein’s weakness.

The giant Golem’s weakness was the joint axis of its knees.

Because it was so enormous and heavy, a massive load was placed on its knees every time it moved.

Perhaps that was why it used the Skill called Blink to reduce the burden on its joints as much as possible.

That was when it happened.

CRACKLE!

Suddenly, sparks flew from Gigarein’s massive horns.

There was no way Zeon did not know what that meant.

‘An attack Skill?’

It was a Grade B monster.

It would have been stranger if it had no attack Skill.

Zeon gathered his focus and glared at Gigarein’s horns.

At that instant, a bundle of lightning poured from Gigarein’s horns.

It was Chain Lightning, lightning that spread out like a net.

Chain Lightning filled the vast underground chamber and swept through it.

Zeon instinctively realized he could not dodge.

At that instant, Zeon pulled the robe over himself and curled up.

He had no choice but to trust the defensive power of the robe made from Sand Angler skin.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

The gigantic net of lightning struck Zeon.

“Grrgh!”

Even though he had covered his entire body with the robe, he felt an enormous shock and electric current.

Zeon gritted his teeth and endured the pain.

At last, the instant that had felt like eternity came to an end.

Zeon’s revealed form was truly wretched.

Most of the robe he wore had burned or torn away, exposing Zeon’s bare skin.

The robe made from Sand Angler skin possessed excellent regenerative power, but before an impact that exceeded its limits, it was useless.

The torn robe had completely lost its function.

Even so, thanks to sacrificing the robe, he had managed to preserve his life. However, he too had not escaped that tremendous electric attack unharmed.

The currents the robe had failed to absorb or repel struck him. He was merely enduring the pain through the tough body and will unique to an Awakened.

THUD! THUD!

Gigarein approached Zeon.

Even as Zeon watched it, he could not move.

Fortunately, he had survived, but his nerves had been paralyzed by the electric current.

The paralysis was slowly fading, but not enough for him to move his body.

‘Damn it!’

Zeon gritted his teeth.

Gigarein was approaching.

As if there was no need to use Blink on prey already caught, it walked slowly.

The fact that he could clearly see that sight and yet could not move made Zeon despair and filled him with rage.

‘If only I could use sand......’

He gathered the last of his remaining mana and raised his control.

Even though he knew there was no sand inside the temple, he could not simply give up like this.

That was when it happened.

Somewhere, he felt sand faintly.

‘What is this?’

There was surely not a single grain of sand inside the temple. Yet sand was reacting.

Zeon focused on the sand he could faintly feel.

Unexpectedly, the source of the sand he sensed was inside his pocket.

‘My pocket? Could it be?’

There was the hourglass he had received after being ripped off at the Mana Stone Mine.

It had not reacted at all in the past, but unexpectedly, it was reacting at this very moment.

While Zeon focused on the hourglass, Gigarein arrived.

After looking at Zeon for a moment, Gigarein kicked him.

CRAAASH—!

Together with a thunderous roar, Zeon’s body flew.

Flying like an arrow, Zeon slammed straight into the opposite wall.

Zeon’s state was wretched.

Even the breastplate made from the Queen Wolf Ant’s shell had shattered to pieces, and Zeon’s entire body was horribly crushed as if it had been run over by a huge armored vehicle.

It was astonishing that he was still breathing in such a state.

THUD! THUD!

It was when Gigarein approached to ensure Zeon’s life was cut off.

A handful of sand flowed from Zeon’s pocket.

The hourglass that had been inside his pocket had shattered from the Golem’s kick, and the sand flowed out.

SSSSHHH!

At that instant, the fine grains of sand spilling out suddenly began to be absorbed through Zeon’s pores.

In an instant, every grain of sand was absorbed into Zeon and vanished.

The change in Zeon happened right then.

CRACK! CRACK!

All his wounds recovered in an instant, and his broken bones returned to their original state.

All of it was because of the sand absorbed into Zeon’s pores.

Though no one had taught him, Zeon realized the identity of the sand absorbed into his body.

“Exion!”

The finest grains of sand existing on Earth.

Exion, the dedicated weapon of a Sandmancer.