Chapter 21: An Exception

Luca, as usual, stood at the furthest corner of the room.

Mun looked at the Golem as the words, Retrieval time: 20 sec, appear; the amount of time he needs to look at the Golems health and power.

The golem runs towards Mun, The same style as the last golem he fought.

15 secs remaining

The Golem strikes Mun with its massive fist, Muns turns his body, barely avoiding the monster's fist. The ground shakes from the sheer force of the rock creature’s strength.

I should definitely avoid its hits, Mun thought as he turned his skeletal hands into metal blades.

10 secs remaining

Mun lunges forward, attacking the golems back, using his blade to chip the monstrous creatures stone but instead of making a dent on its body, Mun hears a strange soft sound barely audible but it was there. The Golem was fine, it was as if something invisible stopped his attack.

5 secs remaining

The golem twists its body in an unnatural way, hitting Mun with its stone arm, the force of it flings Mun to the other side of the room hitting the stone wall.

Disoriented, Mun lifts his metal body of the ground, each motion more difficult than the last. the golem had other plans, it was already making a run towards him, Mun remembers his wooden body being crushed under the heavy weight of a golem, a similar situation was unfolding, but this time it would be different.

Mun rolls to the side but doesn't do it quickly enough to dodge the golem's body. Fear eats at him, in that moment, not for his life, but for Aura and Yeo, they need him to be alive. He had never been frozen by fear of death. He had to do something but the more he thought of a way to escape the more he felt it was hopeless. He wanted to give up, as he always does when things get hard. Give up, he tells himself, as he tries to deny any responsibility for his predicament.

In the same instant he looked at Luca, she looked afraid, she was too scared to move. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"I," Mun said to himself.

Information received

"can't die here" Mun tears the metal, the part that had been trapped by the golem and the wall, and slithers like a snake up the creatures neck. Mun sharpens his snake body into a sharp blade and begins to run circles on the Golems body, slowly grinding it down.

The golem runs towards a wall in an attempt to break his body, but Mun wasn’t going to let go so easily, he grinds the left arm, then goes to the right.

"It isn't working." Despite grinding the stone golems body, it sounded strange, different than it should have. Instead of hearing the sound of metal grind against stone, he could hear a low, barely audible, dull shhshshs sound. he let go of the golem's body and slithered to make some distance.

Race: Golem Rank: Devil Level: 25 Age: 25 Health: High Mana: High Stamina: High Skills: recovery, Magic shielding, Stonewal

He could finally see the golems status. The golem runs towards Mun, a thump thump sound echoing with each step it took. Mun runs to one side to avoid it. He can’t hurt it, it had a special ability to protect itself, “Magic shielding!!” Mun thought and as he did a screen appeared before him, blocking his view of the battle.

Skill: Magic Shielding Type: Protective Complexity: Simple Level: 5 Magic shielding is an ability that most creatures beyond a certain ability are capable of using, the user can create a magic aura around them that protects them from all damage as long as the user has mana to spend. Mana consumption: Varies

“Get out of my way!!” Mun Screams, as he attempts to move away from the screens way, but it follows him, even his line of sight. Mun hears the golems Thumps first.

“shit!!” a moment later he hears the agonizing screams of a woman. “AGH!!!!” Luca!! Mun screams internally. The screen before him finally dissipates and he sees Lucas tail, crushed against the golems large body and the stone wall.

Her eyes wet with tears fall on her naked body as she tries to pull her tail from the monster. The golem, in turn, began to pound her body with its fist, Mun could here her body being ground into nothing. She screamed in pain.

Mun Runs towards the golem sharping its arm into a blade to pierce the Golems stone arm, a soft thud sound. It protected itself with magic. Worse yet, it ignored him and continued its assault on Lucas body.

“PLEASE SAVE ME!!” she began to spit out blood as she begged, and yet she didn’t fight make, she didn’t know how, she only ever ran away and now faced with battle, fear paralyzed her. So she screamed and begged to be saved.

Mun with all his might tried to abide by her wishes pounding the rock again and again but to no avail, it was too strong, its magic barrier was too strong. Mun wanted to scream in anger, he was weak, he was too weak to save anyone. What made him think that he could save Aura or Yeo. Mun cursed his weakness as Lucas screams grew softer with each fist.

Then finally after seven hits with his arm blade, he heard a crack, the sound of the golems stone body breaking. His barrier was gone. In that moment the golem stopped its attack on Luca and twisted its body to attack Mun, but Mun had already made some distance as soon as he saw the move coming.

“ATTACK ME!!” The Golem, doing as it was told, run towards Mun. Mun quickly reforming his body into a large spike against the wall, He will use the Golems strength against it. It wouldn't work on any other monster than the dumb golem, incapable of thought, only ever doing what it was programmed to do, destroy anything in its perimeter.

It didn't even see it coming, its own body shattered against the metal spike that attached itself to the wall. Its body began to shatter into thousands of pieces, it's core falling to the stone ground.

Mun breathes a sigh of relief as he sees that he has managed to defeat the golem. It was strong indeed. Then turned his head, he saw Luca, she lied on the other side of the room, limp and motionless. As mun runs towards her he begins to hear the sound of stones moving.

It was the door to the next floor. Mun looks back to Luca, to find that a large hole had appeared on the ground next to her, her body slowly began falling into the deep darkness.

“Where did that!!” it was a trap for when someone beats the boss room, for an unfortunate person to fall even after successfully winning their battle, A cruel dungeon, Mun thinks to himself.

He runs to Luca, grabbing hold of her tail, most of her body had already fallen inside. She was heavy too heavy for Mun to lift up. He pulls, trying to save Luca from the dark pit.

“Wake up Luca!!" He screamed, but he already feared the worst, she was most likely already dead. Her body was crushed to a pulp, even now he could smell the blood that covered her.

Greshh, the sound of stone began to resonate in the room. Mun’s heart stops as he turns to see the golem begin to reform itself back into one piece, with its recovery, its mana drops to a depleted state. He could already hear the door closing behind him, even the large hole that Luca was in began to close.

She is probably dead, right? Mun tells himself as he begins to loosen his grip on Luca. She falls into the hole as Mun looks at his hands covered in her blood.

"I can't," Mun makes his decision and slips through the shrinking hole losing more of his body in the process. He changes in his body in that of a spider, embedding his legs into the side of the walls.

I have to catch up to her, he tells himself as he skitters down the side of the wall, his dark vision allowing him to see in the darkness he chased the falling tail.

In his spider form, he tries to extend a tendril to her but to no avail.

“Damn!!” He ran faster and faster, faster than he thought possible, grabbing hold of her body as it fell alongside him. As soon as he has her in his tendril he begins to wrap as much of her body as he can in his body, he extends his body as much as he can, acting as a shield for her. In the same moment, an immense pain begins to overwhelm him. It didn’t make sense, Mimics don’t feel pain.

“AHH!!” so why did it feel like he was losing his kidneys, the pain was unbearable but he didn’t stop wrapping her body, he fought the desire to lose consciousness and began to slow their decent by clawing the walls with the little metal that he had left.

How far did the hole go he wondered? As he slowly began to lose consciousness. The pain began to consume him but he didn’t let himself fall unconscious in fear that his body would shift, causing him to drop Luca.

He wrapped her tightly the next 10 minutes were one of longest moments he had ever felt. Through the entire descent, not once did he loosen his grip on her, he promised her he wouldn’t do it again, he wouldn’t let her fall. Not the kind smiling woman. The one who had been all alone.

The two had finally reached the end, the last 10 feet were a free fall, Mun hit the ground with loud metallic sound, holding Lucas head up, making sure to hold her head to prevent it from hitting the ground.

“I’ll make an exception for you.” He thought as he his heart beat with as fast it could to keep Mun conscious.

“I’ll make an exception”

“I’ll promise to protect you.”