Chapter 22

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Dayeoden bared his white teeth and laughed.

He knew the moment he entered this place.

The things guarding this temple were golems.

He didn’t know who the owner of the temple was, but using golems as guardians wasn’t that strange a thing.

A temple was, literally, a place that served one who possessed divinity.

If one possessed divinity, it wasn’t unreasonable to regard that being itself as a god.

“A god?”

Dayeoden’s eyes gleamed with madness.

He had conquered countless dungeons while wandering the desert for over a hundred years.

He had caught many S-rank demonic beasts, as the world called them, but not once had he entered a dungeon where a god resided.

If there really was a god here, then it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

An opportunity to kill a god.

“Heh heh!”

A crazed laugh flowed out as his lips twisted.

Kkiii!

At that moment, something blocked his way.

A gigantic lifeform made of stone.

It was a golem.

A golem as large as a huge boulder was glaring with both eyes shining fiercely.

Dayeoden was not someone who wouldn’t know what that gaze meant.

“Come at me, you stone-headed bastard.”

Dayeoden pulled out Crayon and raised it.

Thud! Thud!

At that moment, other golems joined behind the giant golem.

The madness in Dayeoden’s eyes deepened just as much.

A black aura was hanging over their bodies.

It was exactly the same trait possessed by humans fused with machinery.

“Heh heh! That bratlet might croak, then.”

He knew it the moment he entered the dungeon.

That it was a dungeon with the worst possible compatibility with Zeon.

As befitted a place that served a god, there was not a speck of dust or a single grain of sand inside the temple.

It was clear that it was being kept clean with clean magic.

For a sand mage like Zeon, it was the worst possible environment.

Unable to use sand, he had to face the golems with only the strength of his true body.

It was truly a desperate situation.

But he had to get used to this kind of fight.

Most of the world had turned into desert, but there were also places that hadn’t.

The representative example was Neo Seoul.

The city beyond those walls, which the poor could never enter, was protected by an aura, so there was almost no dust or sand.

It was an environment similar to this temple.

To survive in such an environment, he had to learn how to fight without sand as well.

“If you’re going to collapse just because there’s no sand, then you don’t deserve to live.”

Either overcome the limits of a sand mage, or fail to get past them and die to the golems.

Those were the only two choices Zeon had.

Dayeoden had never thought of helping him in the first place.

He had to grow strong enough to survive on his own.

That was the minimum condition for Dayeoden to keep him by his side.

“Try surviving well, you idiot!”

***

“Why did I even come following that damned old geezer?”

Zeon muttered as he hastily rolled his body.

Bang!

The golem’s fist slammed into the spot where he had been just moments earlier.

If he had been even a little slower at dodging, he would have been turned into a well-pounded lump of meat.

Thud! Boom!

The golems narrowed the encirclement toward Zeon.

Dozens of golems were recognizing Zeon as an enemy.

At least their movements were clumsy. If they had been just a little more natural and faster, Zeon’s life would already have been over.

But he couldn’t keep dodging forever.

Although Zeon had awakened and obtained far superior stamina than ordinary people, as long as he was human there was bound to be a limit.

Once his stamina was exhausted, after that only a horrible death awaited him.

He had to find a way before then.

‘Other than sand, what weapons do I have?’

Zeon hurriedly checked his equipment.

For now, the gauntlet on his right hand. And the elves’ weapons stored in subspace.

He excluded the elves’ weapons first.

Not only did he not know how to use a bow, it was unsuitable in a cramped space like this where many enemies were crowded together.

The short sword was the same.

He didn’t know how sharp the elves’ short swords were, but he didn’t think they could cut stone golems.

In the end, the only thing left to Zeon was the gauntlet Kelly had made for him.

‘There was only one choice from the start. Nice that I don’t even need to worry.’

Zeon clenched the fist wearing the gauntlet.

Since there were no choices anyway, he had no option but to do his best with what he had been given.

Zeon avoided the golem’s attack and struck its torso.

Bang!

With an explosive sound, the golem’s heavy body shook. But only a little stone dust trickled down; the golem was fine.

Even after that he threw punches at the golem’s body several times, but the result was the same.

With ordinary attacks, he couldn’t inflict proper damage on the golem’s body.

‘Ordinary attacks won’t work!’

The fist inside the gauntlet hurt as if it would shatter.

No matter that he was wearing the gauntlet, it couldn’t completely relieve the shock of hitting a mass of stone.

Zeon realized that he hadn’t been using the gauntlet’s wondrous function one hundred percent.

Once you realize the problem, you can correct it.

‘I have to condense mana to increase the destructive force.’

Whoosh!

Even in the moment he was thinking, the golem’s fist grazed over his head by a few centimeters.

It was a moment where his head could have burst apart.

Even so, Zeon maintained his reason.

It was thanks to the many experiences he had accumulated while following Dayeoden.

He had learned how not to get excited in any situation, and to maintain his reason calmly.

Zeon calmly focused mana into the gauntlet.

Wooooong!

“Huh?”

In an instant, a strong resonance sound burst from the gauntlet.

At the unexpected situation, Zeon briefly made a bewildered expression. But he soon realized what had happened.

This was originally how the gauntlet was meant to be used.

The gauntlet, made by mixing the bones of an ironclad starfish and adamantium, was optimized for condensing and amplifying mana.

If Zeon had been a martial-type Awakened, he would have noticed that fact long ago.

‘Even if I only realized it now, it’s not too late.’

Zeon dodged the golem’s attack and threw a punch into its torso.

Bang!

With an explosive sound, the golem’s torso burst apart.

Even though half its torso had been blown away, the golem didn’t care and attacked Zeon.

That was possible because it was an artificial lifeform that could not feel pain.

In cases like this, he had to find the core and destroy it.

The problem was that he couldn’t know where the core was. But Zeon solved that simply enough.

He grabbed one golem and pummeled it wherever his hands landed.

Bang! Bang!

With explosive sounds, the golem’s shoulders flew off and its arms and legs detached.

Trying to raise his destructive force in a short time caused severe mana consumption, but he had no choice.

Zeon finally found the core.

At the neck of the golem whose head had flown off, there was a magic stone glowing blue.

Powerful mana could be felt from a magic stone the size of a fingernail.

It was clearly the golem’s core.

Crack!

Zeon smashed the core without hesitation.

Then the golem, which had been moving ceaselessly, stopped.

Now that he knew the weak point, from here on it was time to attack efficiently.

After dodging the golem’s attack, blow away its head.

Then destroy the core in the neck area.

It sounded easy, but carrying it out in reality was by no means easy.

The brain to predict and dodge the golem’s attacks, the motor nerves to back that up, and the operation of mana.

There was far too much he had to prepare even for a single movement.

The problem was that he had to do all of that in an instant.

If he thought and then acted, he would be too late.

Bang!

Zeon’s fist smashed into the golem’s head.

The golem’s head crumbled into pieces.

Just as Zeon was about to destroy the core, another golem attacked.

Wham!

“Kugh!”

Zeon groaned and rolled across the floor.

His waist, struck by the golem, hurt as if it had broken.

But he wasn’t given even the time to leisurely complain of pain.

Because the golems’ fists were pouring down.

Boom boom bang!

Zeon rolled along the floor and dodged the golems’ attacks.

Having slipped out of their combined attack by a hair’s breadth, Zeon briefly caught his breath.

‘The movements are too big. I need to cut off the unnecessary motions and make everything as simple as possible.’

He identified his own problems in real time.

The reason he had allowed the golem a hit earlier was also because the motion of trying to destroy the core had been too large.

“Hoo! Hoo!”

After catching his breath for a moment, Zeon threw himself among the golems again.

A golem rushed in head-on.

The heavy body made of stone was itself no different from a huge bludgeon.

If he attacked with a part not protected by the gauntlet, his bones would break and his muscles would tear.

Zeon avoided the golem’s attack by a hair’s breadth and hooked its leg.

There was no way such a heavy golem would fall just because he had barely tripped its leg.

He crushed the thing’s chest with his left hand, which wasn’t wearing the gauntlet.

Thanks to his mana control, he could topple the golem more easily.

Then he smashed the head of the flailing golem with the fist wearing the gauntlet.

Bang!

The golem’s head shattered to pieces with an explosive sound.

He then threw another punch at the core in the revealed neck area.

Only then did the golem stop moving.

The time it took until then was no more than a single breath.

It was only a brief moment, about the time it took Zeon to inhale once and exhale.

Then another wave of attacks from the golems poured in.

Roll!

Zeon rolled his body and slipped past the golems’ attacks.

It was an instinctive movement, not something someone had taught him.

Thanks to that, he was able to slip out of the golems’ encirclement by a hair’s breadth.

Zeon attacked the golem at the very outer edge.

He attacked the knee joint to ruin the drive axis, or hooked a foot to topple it.

He repeated the act of making the golem lose its mobility, blowing off its head, and destroying the core in its neck.

As he kept repeating that and fighting the golems, his movements gradually became simpler and more powerful.

The golems were the best opponents for Zeon to train his martial arts against.

He couldn’t use skills like true martial-type Awakened, but he could still properly awaken to the way of utilizing the gauntlet.

Thud-thud!

The remains of the last golem fell down.

“Haa! Haa!”

Zeon let out rough breaths.

His whole body was soaked with sweat.

The fight with the golems had squeezed his body to its limit.

Both legs were trembling, and his breath had risen right to the end of his throat.

All over his body there were wounds left from being struck by the golems. Even though he had tried to minimize the shocks, the pain was tremendous.

But he didn’t have time to sit down and rest leisurely just because it hurt and he was tired.

Even now Dayeoden would still be advancing.

If he rested here, the gap between them would grow even wider.

Zeon pulled out a piece of jerky from his arms and bit into it.

Once he slowly chewed and swallowed all of the jerky, a little strength returned.

“All right! Let’s go.”

Zeon started moving again.

Now his eyes had completely adapted to the darkness.

Thanks to that, he no longer needed to fumble while walking as he had when he first entered the passage.

After dealing with the golems a little earlier, Zeon had gained confidence.

The golems were certainly fearsome opponents.

Unlike living creatures, they felt no fear, and their destructive power was tremendous as well. But their motions were dull, and they lacked creativity, so if he stayed just a little calm he could grasp their weak points.

If all the other golems were at this level, it felt like he could handle as many as needed.

“Do I maybe have talent as a martial artist?”

It was when Zeon gave a snorting laugh.

Thud thud!

Once again, heavy footsteps could be heard.

Zeon erased the smile from his face and took a combat stance.

“Come as many as you want. I’ll put every last one of you down.”

In the next moment, the golems revealed themselves from the darkness.

But the form of the golems that appeared was slightly different from before.

An upper body in human form, and a lower body resembling a horse.

“Centaurus?”

The golems looked exactly like centaurs.

Dudududu!

They charged at full speed.

The sight looked just like an ancient cavalry unit making a charge.

“God damn it! This is cheating.”

Zeon wanted to smack his own mouth for getting excited and babbling just a little while ago.

The much stronger and faster golems swept him away like a storm.