Twelve large creatures that were made of hardened soil moved in the darkness. It the shape of a human but was around seven feet tall.

These were the golems.

The golems were walking and marching. Suddenly, the Shadow Familiar of Kyros rushed out and slashed one of the golems. The shadow had a sword just like Kyros, and the shadow blade struck and barely left a dent at the golem.

The golem immediately punched the shadow.

Its fist passed through the shadow, and the shadow retreated.

The golems began to chase the shadow. For creatures made of hardened soil and rock, it could move fast.

Soon, Kyros appeared. Even in the darkness, the stone creatures could see him and roar.

“So it’s not using eyes. If these are creatures of magic, it could probably see me through my life source.” Kyros smiled as he retreated.

“Let’s hope my plan works.”

Kyros ran back, and the golems were now chasing him.

“They’re coming!” Kyros alerted.

Aron and the mercenaries had covered themselves with dirt. They were lightly buried in it. Aron was hiding behind a large rock.

“Be careful! They might detect you! If I see them going for you, I’ll warn you, and you have to fight immediately. If not, then our ambush might work!” Kyros shouted as he ran.

The golems were drawing closer to the hiding mercenaries. Kyros was observing them through the shadow familiar.

The golem kept chasing Kyros and ignored the hiding mercenaries.

“Ambush them! Now!”

The mercenaries burst out of the light layer of dirt that hid them and suddenly attacked when several had already run past them.

Aron was the first as he jumped out of the rock and performed his Knight skill.

[Knight’s Charge] gave Aron the boost of speed as he smashed one golem at the tail end of the rush and knocked it back.

With a quick cinder, the torches were lit up, and the mercenaries began to attack the golems that were left. Aron was fighting one alone, two pairs of mercenaries attacked one each, and a trio attacked another.

The ambush was successful as these four golems were struck and had critical wounds.

Two golems kept on chasing Kyros, who disappeared in the darkness, and when Kyros had traveled some distance, he immediately released the Shadow Ghouls and the Shadow Familiar that began to attack the golems.

Kyros immediately retreated when the golems were distracted by Kyros’s summons.

When Kyros returned, Aron and his mercenaries were dealing with the six remaining golems. The four that the group ambushed were already wounded.

The insides of the golems weren’t just dirt or rocks. The mystery of rising magic made these golems had certain magic channels that connected and allowed the golems to move. Their very body is alive.

While the attacks caused no pain to these creatures, the damage still caused the body parts of the golems to halt or fall off since the golems had a body that followed humans, the mercenaries aimed for parts that would sever the limbs of the creatures. The parts that were hacked and sliced off kept on squirming about. While it couldn’t move like before, it was clear that these parts still had some life in them.

Aron was facing another golem and fought it one-on-one. He would block the punches of the golem with his shield, and these massive punches left dents that damaged the shield he carried.

The mercenaries were using their advantage in numbers to attack the five remaining golems, but they were unable to attack them properly.

One of the mercenaries attacked the golem on the chest with his ax. The ax couldn’t penetrate deep enough to cut the torso of the golem. The golem was quick to counter and punched the mercenary on the chest.

The mercenary was knocked back and sent flying.

“No!” One of the mercenaries charged.

“Stop! Don’t be reckless!” Kyros dove right in and stabbed on the golem’s chest, which had a small wound due to the previous attack of the mercenary.

The golem suddenly trembled and appeared to be in great pain.

Kyros felt it. Darkness was found in the golem.

“A soul?” Kyros recognized the sensation. He had encountered the energy of the same kind before. The Prince of Darkness only had a wisp of this.

Kyros channeled the dark energy that was in the stone and began to siphon it.

The golem suddenly lost its strength and fell down. It fell into the same state as the other golems who got ambushed and received numerous damage. But unlike the rest, which was hacked to pieces, this golem only had a wound on the chest.

Kyros realized that his ability to absorb the darkness weakened the best.

“The core is in their body! If you can wound their chest, I can use this sword to absorb the darkness!” Kyros called out.

The mercenaries began to fight.

The mercenary, who nearly charged in anger, had retreated to look at his friend.

“<Cough! Cough!> I’m fine!” The mercenary groaned as he went back to his feet.

“That hurt like hell… But the armor saved me! Amazing!” The mercenary was amazed.

“Fight!” Kyros called out, and the mercenary realized he was lollygagging.

With this realization, Aron immediately used his skills. Knowing that they had a place to heal their wounds and recover their force energy gave Kyros the confidence to use his skills in succession.

The forced energy filled his sword, and his stabs delivered deep strikes in the chest of his golem.

Kyros rushed in and made his attack, which weakened another golem. The mercenaries now had an easier advantage and attacked the golems. Knowing that their armor could give them decent protection and they could be healed at the temple made them rush their attacks at these golems.

The golems were now being surrounded and could not defend themselves from the many attacks of the mercenaries. Kyros secretly commanded his summons to return and lead the last two golems back.

Soon, all the golems were lying in pieces, and the mercenaries were celebrating.

“Another easy win! We should be able to gain a level or two from this battle!” Aron laughed.

“What are you guys doing?!” Kyros, however, cursed.

The group was stunned.

“Uncle, why are you using all your skills in succession? And you? What are you doing? Attacking without fearing for your life? Are you relying on the temple? Are we aiming to level up or drain the energy of the temple from our reckless behavior? If we fight smart and conserve our energy, we could probably save two or three rounds of these energy converting abilities!” Kyros berated.

Truthfully, he was angry because he wanted to train these mercenaries. If the Steele family had strong soldiers, it would make the Steele family’s future brighter. And so, while the temple wouldn’t run out of energy, he didn’t want these soldiers to be relaxed and wanted to drive them further to battle.

Aron was the most embarrassed at Kyros’s remarks.

“My nephew is right. We should learn from this experience. We are getting stronger here, and we are leveling up. But our skills have to level up with our level! We have to be smarter in fighting.” Aron explained.

“You are all knights-to-be. You have to live like it! This battle was very embarrassing. If the temple wasn’t here, and I, a ten-year-old boy wasn’t here to help you, you all would have died!” Kyros spoke harshly.

“It’s no wonder the Steele family has fallen so low. How can it survive when they have useless men?!” Kyros shouted.

The mercenaries grew helpless. The one who was punched was the most ashamed at Kyros’s berating.

“Uncle. For now, since we cannot waste the energy of the temple, I suggest we get back to get healed and have these mercenaries undergo formal training!” Kyros explained.

Aron was silent, but he nodded as well. He couldn’t help but clench his fist. His nephew spared the harshest words. He was to be blamed for this.

The group went back towards the temple and began to roll the body parts, which had some roundness in them. The stone parts would move around and squirm, but they were practically harmless. But as they were moving back, Kyros noted that these golems were somehow slowly recovering their core.

“What an interesting creature. This isn’t just magic. How does it live?” Kyros observed.

“That core thing is the answer.” Calaminus pointed out.

“I noticed. It seems that even without physical organs, this golem has created a means to imitate human biology and craft a human from this. This isn’t just simply magic. For this to happen, the battle that involves mages deep within this temple would be so strong that their remnant souls created life from the ground itself!”

“Indeed. Their body seems to be made of soils and rocks, but in fact, it isn’t. I even think it’s edible. It’s something in between stone or soil and the flesh of humans.”

“This temple is indeed interesting. I never heard my family talk about this place in the past. Which means this area may have never been opened. But how? The lizards should have been able to dig their way out of here. The only explanation is that there is another barrier. Perhaps made of magic that is stopping these creatures from stepping out of their prison.”

“It must be the temple. Somehow, when you broke out of your prison, it also opened the prison of these beasts.” Calaminus answered.

“Regardless, I should scout this area first. I just hope the rewards I get for killing these golems would be good enough to help me…” Kyros sighed.