Quote:Paul quickly snapped out of it and grabbed his two swords and headed towards the largest living creature he saw so far in this world. His heart was beating like crazy. Paul was scared.

-“Seriously…could it get any worse?”

Vol.2 Chapter 7- Darkness

As he looked at the large creature in front of him he was shocked since he didn’t see anything like this before. The creature was about 10 meters tall, it was made from earth and some stones were mixed. It was like a mountain came to life. On its back and chest it had very large rock like formations that were similar to armor. On the surface of the earth like skin there was something similar to the veins in the human body with the exception that there was no blood in them. In the monster’s veins there was something blue. It looked like water mixed with mana. The creature in front of him reminded him of what he read about golems, so he decided to call it that.

The golem wasn’t very fast but it still killed many of the people that didn’t get a chance to run. Some of them that knew how to fight attacked it. Sadly they didn’t do any damage. The golem didn’t seem to feel pain and only looked annoyed. It was very strong. With one hit he crushed one of them, breaking the sword and armor. Each hit made a loud noise like canon. Seeing that they can’t hurt it, Paul yelled at them to retreat into the forest. While they retreated Paul distracted the golem. He avoided all the attacks of the monster, but it seemed like it kept getting faster and faster.

Paul skillfully avoided the attacks and attacked the legs. Paul cut pretty deep into the legs, but it regenerated in a few seconds. Seeing that this tactic doesn’t work he used aura shift and the blades started to be covered in a blue flame. Using the enhanced blades he attacked again this time completely destroying one of the golem’s legs. The golem fell down and a large club started to appear in its hand. It attacked Paul and seeing that he can’t completely dodge it he jumped back to soften the blow. The golem’s strike was so strong that it threw him 50 meters away and breaking one of the swords.

While he recovered from the shock he took out one of the backup swords he made and prepared for the next attack. He saw that the golem completely recovered but it didn’t follow him. It kept on eye on Paul while approaching some of the dead bodies. He picked one up and a mouth like hole appeared and just consumed the whole body. Paul instincts warned him to stop the golem from consuming more bodies. He ran as fast as he could and attacked destroying both its legs. Since the golem was now on its back Paul struck the head. The head was stronger and barely scratched it. The golem struggled and Paul needed to retreat a few meters since he could get seriously injured.

Then the golem did something weird. It crawled to the small lake and put its hand in it. The water level decreased a bit and almost instantly the golem regenerated and the veins started pulsating with light. The golem then ran towards Paul with twice the speed it had before and attacked. Paul had to use his whole speed to avoid the attacks. One of the attacks again threw him quite a distance and this time the golem followed Paul. Paul knew what kind of attack was coming and this time he took almost no damage. He quickly got up on his legs and ran towards the golem too. He destroyed the club with his swords but the club reappeared again.

The golem absorbs earth from the surroundings and regenerates from any damage. Paul tried to attack just the veins but sadly they regenerated just as fast. Paul knew that he had to keep the golem away from the water but he couldn’t. As soon as he and the golem go far enough from the lake the golem somehow managed to push Paul back towards it. Each time Paul managed to seriously harm it, the golem just absorbed some of the water from the lake and regenerated. 

Each time he regenerated he also got stronger and faster. Now Paul could only partially destroy his leg. Paul tried to retreat a few times to the forest and escape but it was like the golem knew and stopped him. After successfully destroying the golem’s legs, Paul tried to stop the golem from absorbing water. He attacked the arm that was reaching into the river but it seems the golem had foreseen this situation and increased the durability of the arm. Paul could only scratch it.

This time when he regenerated his whole body started to shake. His body started to change color. Some of the grey rocks turned black and so did the earth “flesh”. He also had increased the amount of rocks in his body. After this regeneration the golem was as fast as Paul, even faster. And the strength was of the charts. Each hit created a small crater in the ground and it seemed like there were small earthquakes.

Paul used all his strength and attacked the golem and broke his swords. He used up all the backup swords and daggers. They all became useless and broke.

Now Paul had no weapons to use so he just avoided all the attacks. He used Aura shift on a hunch on his hands. The same flames that appeared on his swords were now on his hands. Unfortunately Paul didn’t know how to fight hand to hand. He still tried to strike the golem. Some of the strikes did some damage but they couldn’t compare to the damage the blades did.

As he started to wish he had more swords the flames changed shape and the flame center solidified into a blade. Surprised by this development he attacked with his new flame blades. The blades cut through the rocks and earth like it was butter. Since the blades were not long enough to cut through the whole leg Paul needed to cut multiple times to sever the leg. When the monster fell again, Paul kept attacking with his blades. This time he finally managed to stop the golem from reaching into the water.

Feeling proud he broke concentration for a second and the golem took advantage of this. He struck Paul so hard that this time he didn’t have time to dodge. Paul flew like a rag doll trough the air before finally falling down. Paul had his left hand and a few ribs broken. He could barely move.

-“I’m not even able to move properly. If I could barely fight him before, now I have no chance.”

As he stared at the golem he knew. He knew that unless a miracle happens he was going to die. The golem grabbed Paul and threw him to the ground near the lake. He didn’t die but his right hand was now broken as well. Paul crawled to the lake and drank some water but it didn’t have the same effect as on the golem. He didn’t heal. The golem grabbed his leg and started to throw him around. After barely staying conscious he saw that the golem didn’t kill him even though he could.

The golem was playing with his prey. It knew that Paul was not a danger anymore and was enjoying himself. Paul had almost every bone in his body broken. He fainted only to be brought back to conciseness by the pain. The golem was a sadist. It seems the golem liked to cause pain. As Paul finally accepted that he was going to die there was a very loud bang up in the sky.

The golem froze at the noise and looked up. He saw nothing then looked around. Still seeing nothing he got back to playing with his new toy. As the golem approached Paul he stopped. He was stopped again by that loud bang. However this time the source of the noise was closer and also there was a large dust wall from the source. Paul barely conscious saw that there was a person in the dust cloud. The shadow of the man gently walked towards the golem and when the dust settled there was a large crater and the ground was burned from where the man came. It was like a meteorite struck the ground. 

The meteorite however was a man with a cloak on. Paul couldn’t see him well. He only saw a black figure approaching the golem.The golem seemed to consider that man a threat and attacked him. However the man easily avoided all the attacks. It was like the golem was a child trying to attack an adult. The cloaked man then lifted his arm slowly and flicked the golems arm. The arm was instantly vaporized. The golem had no chance and tried to run towards the lake to heal. Unfortunately for the golem that cloaked man stepped in front of him and jumped, or floated more likely. He pushed his hand into the golem’s chest and the golem froze.

The man pulled out a crystal like egg with his hand. The crystal was blue and pulsating just like the veins on the golem did. The moment the man removed the crystal the golem instantly turned to rubble. The man then looked at the crystal. Paul didn’t have the concept of time anymore. He kept fainting. For him it seemed like the man stared at the crystal for a minute when suddenly he crushed the crystal with his bare hands and yelled out loud.

-“DAMMIT!!! THIS ISN’T IT EITHER!!!!!”

The loud voice shocked Paul and tried to speak up. The man noticed him and approached him in the blink of an eye. He picked up Paul by the collar and stared. Paul still couldn’t see his face. Then the man with an angry voice asked Paul

-“Do you know where the source of the golem power is?”

Paul could barely speak but managed to answer

-“N….No”

-“Do you know what the FAINO is then?”

-“No….” cough, cough

Paul coughed out blood. The man then with a calm voice said “You are useless” and pierced his chest with his hand. Then the man threw him into the lake. While Paul was in the air he saw that the man suddenly disappeared. As Paul fell into the lake his heart stopped but he his mind was still “alive”. He couldn’t believe what just happened. He thought the man had saved him. As he slowly drifted to the bottom of the lake his heart started slowly beating again. It seems that the water does have healing proprieties even for humans.

Paul tried to move but his body didn’t listen to him. The water was healing him but very slowly. The only thing that the water healed so far was his heart that barely started beating again. All the other wounds were still there. As he kept getting further and further away from the surface he realized that he wasn’t drowning. It was like he was floating in something different and not water. He didn't bleed anymore but his wounds weren't closing.

As he kept going deeper and deeper even the light stopped reaching him. Paul was surrounded by complete darkness. He couldn’t even see his own body. His body was still hurting so he knew that he was alive but he just couldn’t move. Each time he tried to move his mind received a painful shock.

Surrounded by darkness he started to think about all that happened so far. How he got into this world, Jonathan, Nori, the other people who helped him, all the events that he went through, the golem and the man in the cloak. Each time he remembered the man in the cloak he felt anger and confusion.

He still kept fainting from time to time and in that complete darkness he didn’t know how much time passed since the event. It seemed like days went by and Paul was still unable to move. He didn’t know anymore which way was up and which way was down. Sometimes he felt that there was something around him that moved the water or whatever that was that in turn caused Paul’s body to move. He tried to activate his skills multiple times but failed each time.

Suddenly he saw something, a small light in the distance. His body was slowly moving towards it. Paul was very curious as to what was giving off light. He ruled out the surface since the light was sometimes blue, sometimes green and sometimes pure white. As he got closer to the source of the light he saw an orb of some sort of liquid that sometimes lost it’s perfectly circular shape. The light wasn’t strong enough to blind him, but just bright enough to not be able to look at it directly.

As soon as he was about 5 meters away from the light liquid he saw that the liquid orb was about the size of his head. When he got closer the orb stopped spinning and some small tentacle like things started to head towards Paul. When the liquid reached Paul’s body it went straight to the open wounds and mouth. As the liquid entered Paul’s body, he started to feel warm. As more and more of the mysterious liquid entered Paul he enjoyed the feeling of warmth more and more.

After the whole liquid entered Paul’s body, there was no more light source so he was again surrounded by darkness. The warmth in his body spread to every part of him and then suddenly disappeared. Instead of warmth, Paul’s whole body started to scream in pain. The pain was worse than all the pain he felt before. He could even feel, and hear his bones break, his skin being torn apart. He didn’t faint and the pain only increased. It was like all the pain he felt until now came all at once.

Then after what seemed like forever the pain suddenly stopped. Paul then relieved that the pain was gone, started to drown. It seems that the liquid made it possible for him to not need air underwater and now since it’s gone its effects are gone as well. Paul somehow after the liquid entered his body he could feel the direction of where the surface was and with a simple movement of the leg he turned into a underwater rocket. He reached the surface in a few seconds. As soon as he reached the surface he jumped out of the water like a fish.

He then breathed relieved and fell on his back looking up at the sky. Even the air that he considered natural he now considered precious. There were some dark clouds in the sky and not long after it started raining. Paul didn’t care and just laughed out loud as hard as he could as he kept watching the sky, feeling the rain hit his face and skin. Then suddenly the laughing stopped as he fell asleep. Paul was very tired everything he went trough. He was even more tired mentally from all the pain and emotions he felt.

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It's back! I hope you like the new chapter.