I raise my shield as he finally places the horn between his lips. He then proceeds to puff his cheeks up, and point his finger at me. But even after a couple seconds, he still has yet to make a single sound with the horn. Rather, considering his red face and bulging blood vessels, I'm not sure he's even able to blow it.

Figuring it might just be a bluff, I turn back to tight-fit clothes lady.

As she notices my action, she starts backing up while screeching, "Green Horn! My whip's not ready yet, hurry up and do something!"

Suddenly, I start hearing sounds that I can only compare to flatulence. It seems that Green Horn has finally succeeded in blowing his horn. Other than the obnoxious, if not slightly amusing, sound it makes, it doesn't seem to do anything else. I'm about to inwardly mock him, when I start having trouble moving my left arm.

After examining it, I find that tiny green vines are starting to grow all over my shield arm. Not only are the vines starting to impede my arm's movements, they also seem to be sapping qi. I try violently shaking my arm a few times, but it's only a temporary fix. Within seconds the vines are back, grown from their roots which have dug into my qi channels.

Green Horn removes his horn from his mouth, gasping for air, "This is bad, I only got one arm."

Tight-fit clothes lady laughs, "Well, at least it was the arm carrying the shield."

'I'm completely convinced now that she's an idiot.'

I reach my arms together and transfer the shield from my left to my right hand. After chopping my left arm off to see if it might help remove the vines, I continue on my way towards tight-fit clothes lady. My left arm soon reattaches itself, with as many vines as it had before.

'Eh, it was worth a try.'

"Constrictor, hurry up and get me my sword!"

"I can't, my whip's not long enough yet! Besides, this golem is strange. They're not supposed to be this strong!"

'Shucks, I'm blushing.'

The aptly named Constrictor is backing up faster the faster I walk towards her, so without warning, I break into a sprint. She turns around and starts running away, but even with my limp, I'm quickly gaining on her.

"Green Horn! Someone! Help!"

Suddenly, before I can get close enough to attack, something flies close enough to me that I can sense it with my soul. It moves so fast that I barely even have enough time to reach my arm behind me.

Clang!

The object ricochets off my shield and then returns back the way it came from. I extend my soul in the direction of the object, and quickly find the perpetrator.

'Ruth, huh? She seems almost as strong as Iron Keep and that Lei couple. She might even be stronger...'

Surrounding her, floating through the air, are three tiny floating daggers, one of which was the object that I blocked a second ago. Before this, I've only ever seen her use one dagger. I don't think I could defend against it if she were to use all three simultaneously. That, along with Green Horn's horn, makes me wonder if the other cultivators might have trump cards as well.

The three daggers continue orbiting around her as makes her way this direction. I stop moving and turn toward her, now surrounded by three cultivators. Though, Ruth and Green Horn are the only two that I'm that worried about.

Green Horn smiles awkwardly and looks at Ruth, "Do you think you could get my sword? It's right there, in the golem."

Ruth looks at him with a completely straight face, "You only have one sword, or something? That's going to get you killed."

Green Horn snorts and then glares at the golem I'm controlling, like not having two swords is its fault.

While they have been talking with each other, I've been removing these vines one by one. The process further strains my already taxed soul, but even with just the few seconds they've given me, I've already removed about ten percent of the vines. I wind up removing a third of the vines before anyone even attacks. Without warning, all three of Ruth's flying daggers come at me at once, shooting through the air at crazy speeds.

I jump backwards while swinging my shield out, intercepting one. I wind up blocking a second one as well, but even without trying, I know that I won't be able to block the third. So I twist my body, allowing the third dagger to pierce my nearly useless left arm.

As soon as it pierces the outside, the dagger stops and switches directions, proceeding to travel up my arm toward my body. I'm about to chop my arm off, when I notice Constrictor swinging her whip, sending it straight at the sword still lodged in my neck.

'Fine, you can have it!'

At almost the same time as I chop my arm off, Constrictor grabs the sword with her whip. She then quickly wrenches it out of my neck, directly tossing it to Green Horn. I look down at my severed left arm. Even now, Ruth's dagger still remains lodged inside, so there's no way I'm going to reattach it.

'Well, that was fun while it lasted.'

There's no way I'm going to beat these three with a measly medium golem. But I can at least make things interesting. Breaking the short standoff, I initiate a mad dash towards Constrictor. To my side, I notice Green Horn brandishing his sword in an attempt to stop me, but he's too far away to do anything.

Ruth, however, is not. One of her flying daggers started heading towards my left knee, which has already been weakened by Constrictor's whip, almost as soon as I started moving. Before I can even reach her, the dagger pierces my leg, removing it from the knee down. The loss greatly affects my balance, as I nearly fall on my face, barely bracing myself with my right hand and my knees. Well, one and a half knees, at least.

Constrictor is still standing, now no more than a few feet from me, as if she already knew that all of this was going to happen. She takes a couple steps forward and looks down at me, smiling arrogantly as she lifts her whip up.

Using slow movements, I let go of the shield and sit up, reaching a height roughly equal to Constrictor's. Under her confused gaze, I reach my right arm towards my chest and pry it open. I then grab the core and hold it out in front of me, presenting it to her. She doesn't seem to know what to do at first, but after a few seconds, she lowers her whip and steps forward, reaching her hand towards it.

'Haha, I can't believe she fell for it!'

Under the mixed gazes of the three present, I suddenly flick the core in my hand at her. She's unable to react in time due to her close proximity to me, allowing the core to smack her in the middle of her forehead. Shortly after hitting Constrictor's head, the core is pierced through by one of Ruth's flying daggers.

I watch from beside Mucky as Constrictor falls to her knees, holding her forehead. I'm unable to hold back, laughing loudly as Mucky and I finish off the last golem in front of us.