Runesmith: Chapter 440 – Golem Army. (Patreon)

“Hah! Listen to this guy? Does he still think that he has the upper hand?”

Commented Roman to Roland's reply and everyone besides Elythaes chuckled. In their eyes, this man seemed finished. He was surrounded by three Knight Commanders who had the support of a high-level magus. While their plan with the anti-magical powder failed, they still held the upper hand.

It seemed like an easy victory for them. Even though he was at a higher level and possessed superior artifacts, it made no difference. As long as the close-range fighters contained him and provided their mage with some breathing room, Ulfine and her beasts would unleash deadly magic upon him. Eventually, his mana would dwindle and he would falter. They had no doubt in their minds that they would emerge victorious.

“Be careful, don’t underestimate him, let's go at him together.”

“If you say so~”

Roman replied to Elythaes who was seemingly taking this confrontation a lot more seriously. He had already tussled with the man known as Wayland the Enforcer and knew that he could not be taken lightly. His two brothers on the other hand felt like this was over, they had him on a silver platter. However, just as Andreas was getting ready to charge a voice resounded from behind them.

“Wait, he is doing something… this mana…”

“What is it Mage?”

“Don’t call me that, I have a name!”

“Just spit it out, what is it?”

Roman turned around towards Ulfine who told them to not engage yet. She looked maddened by the tone of the knight but then quickly continued talking.

“The mana around him, it's strange, he is trying to do something!”

“Oh, you can feel it?”

Replied Roland who was getting stared at from all directions. While Thunderclaw was the biggest tamed beast there were other feline types here with him. It seemed that Ulfine tended to recruit feline monsters. Their fur sported a variety of colors and most of them resembled panthers or tigers.

“You have gathered quite a group against me but you’re not the only one that has helpers…”

He continued talking while something started to rise out of the swamp water where he had discarded his shield. The trio looked there to see a rune-covered cube rising up into the air but it wasn’t alone. A spider golem followed suit after as it had been lying dormant within the swamp.

“Golems? Is that if? What could a few measly gol…”

Ulfine commented with a smug look plastered over her face as she watched the two magical automatons rise. Everyone here knew that Roland could use golems but they didn’t think that they would pose much of a threat, not with so many magical beasts around. In their eyes, they had the numbers as well as quality behind them. However, they did not expect that the numbers of these golemic creations would continue to increase.

“Hey… aren’t there too many golems? How did this bastard get so many of them in here, you never said anything about this…”

Roman turned his head towards the mage that was also confused by the sheer amount of metallic spiders coming out of the woodwork. Some had been hidden in the swamp waters while others lay dormant behind trees and in the bushes. The fog in the swampland hid them well and now they were becoming surrounded.

“He used a few in the academy…”

“This is more than a few, did you lie to us?”

“Why would I do that? I already lost my Doppelganger, those aren’t easy to tame, you better pay what you’re owed after this is finished!”

“Stop arguing and focus, they are just stupid golems, he might be able to control a few, but the rest should be easy to destroy, Roman!”

“Fine, I’m on it!”

“Mage, lend my brother some of those beasts, the rest of us will focus on that bastard!”

Elythaes who seemed to be the leader of the group gave Roman an order. Ulfine seemed still dejected as she wasn’t given a name but after clicking her tongue she nodded. It was common sense that even a rune mage had limits when controlling a vast quantity of golems. It wasn’t wrong to assume that he would be able to only control a small group that was around him but they did not account for Roland’s true class.

‘Well, I got them here now, but will this be enough?’

Roland had let his shield fall into the swamp on purpose and that purpose was to spread his golems through the dungeon. After he was gone, his shield was activated, and the storage space within expanded to allow a vast quantity of golems to emerge. One by one they emerged and quickly hid in various places.

When dormant and without any magic flowing through them, they were quite difficult to spot even for people with tracking classes. They were not living beings but inanimate objects that moved with the help of runes. Without mana flowing through them, not even a mage would be able to tell that they were there. Only after he arrived here and jolted them awake with his own skill, did they come to life once more.

This was made possible by his weekly research into spatial runes and by his enemies underestimating him as always. He took them on a wild goose chase through the dungeon while his army rose out of the altered shield. With the help of the Institute library, he was now able to expand the exit from his spatial runes further and could even sustain it while he wasn’t there. He even knew that in the future, it would be possible to further augment this magical technology that would allow him to call his army forth without any outside preparations.

‘Good that I stored all those golems for the trip.’

Before heading out he had stored as many golems and parts into his spatial shield. The space inside was quite large and it was previously strenuous to remove items from within. Before coming here he stashed this space to the brim with hopes of being able to expand on the removal process later. Only after further research into dimensional magic, which was very prevalent in the whole institute could this portable storage shield become a true asset.

With his golems now surrounding him Roland felt a surge of confidence. The Baskerville brothers and Ulfine, along with her tamed beasts did not outnumber him anymore. While numerous spider drones lingered around, Roland's true numerical advantage lay in the vast quantity of floating cubes comprising his golemic army. Hovering in the air, these cubes awaited the command to unleash beams of condensed magical energy upon his foes.

Sometimes, simplicity proved to be the strongest design and Roland knew that these floating squares of death would likely be the key to securing victory in the battle ahead. Soon he gave the order and they scrambled up into the air before launching bright blue rays of light at the timed beast. The battle had now started only after the Overlord had received aid from his trusted mechanical troops. As the light show took over the place, he took some time to glance at Ulfine’s status screen.

Name : Ulfine L 201

Classes

T3 Master Beast Summoner L 51

T2 Beast Summoner L 50

T2 Summoner L 50

T1 Magic Contractor L 25

T1 Mage L 25

Now that she became his enemy, there was no reason for him to follow the Institute's rules. To no surprise, she was a summoner, someone who could conjure up and tame beasts. This large pack of murderous felines had not been there before. It was clear that she had summoned them while he was battling the knights. With the floating cubes raining down beams of magical energy upon Ulfine’s tamed beasts, chaos ensued.

The powerful creatures roared and snarled as they attempted to evade the deadly onslaught, but many were struck and their bodies disintegrated into nothingness. This confirmed their status as magically summoned creatures as they would not leave behind corpses. Instead, they would turn into particles of mana and fade away to the place they were summoned from.

Roland remained focused, his multiple minds calculating and strategizing as he surveyed the battlefield. The Baskerville brothers were taken aback by the sudden appearance of Roland’s golemic army. They had trouble coming to terms with the sheer amount of magical missiles coming their way. Even though they quickly regrouped they were sill forced to retreat from the onslaught.

From above came the cubes, they fired self-homing mana arrow spells that were spiraling for added power. A few hits from those attacks were enough to destroy any of the summoned tier 2 felines. To make things worse, the golemic spiders were doing the same from the sides. Their beams were more concentrated and precise but hitting the target wasn’t that easy.

Roman, who was given the order to contend with the golemic onslaught, targeted the spiders first. Ulfine on the other hand focused on the large group of floating cubes and ordered Thunderclaw to engage as well. Elythaes also saw the army of golems as troublesome so his wind slices were focused on dispatching them first while his brother Andreas charged at Roland.

‘So this guy will keep me busy while the others take care of the golems?’

Their plan was obvious and perhaps if they were up against a regular rune magus then it would have worked. They didn’t know that battling the army of golems was quite pointless and that by sending this man after him alone, they were just weakening themselves. Just like before, he activated a skill that gave him a boost in speed and momentum. Like a train on rails, Andreas shot towards him with his shield guarding his body, and halberd pointed forward.

Roland had a few ways of going around this problem and he chose one of the more extreme ones. Instead of continuing to implement his magical shields for defenses and using long-ranged spells, he just closed the distance. In a way, he mirrored the stance of Andreas just substituting the halberd with his own magical-warhammer. Both of them gained more speed and eventually collided to create a massive collision which sent a shockwave in all directions.

“He overpowered Andreas?”

The two other Baskerville hounds were shocked as they saw their brother being flung back after the exchange. His shield had a dent as it was struck by the runic hammer Roland was using. They couldn’t fathom the combinations of spells that were used but they could generate an immense impact, not something a mage should be able to produce during a close-quarters confrontation.

They saw Andreas flying back and tumbling around but he seemed mostly uninjured. However, his opponent’s weapon looked to be damaged. The large hammer Roland used was filled with cracks and some parts were even missing. It was clear that even though the shield took a lot of damage, the weapon was unusable.

“Hah, good going Andreas, as long as his weapon is damaged he won’t be able to use it, now let us clear out these golems!”

At first, it looked like their brother had failed but the exchange was a loss. Roland’s magic hammer-staff had been damaged and looked unusable. Roman gloated from afar while dispatching multiple golems by himself, his tier above the capabilities of these simple magical automatons.

It looked like they were quickly turning the tide in their favor. The golems and floating cubes seemed powerful at first but they were easy to dispatch. Even when a lot of the summoned creatures were defeated in the initial ambush as long as the golems were defeated, then so would they master. With this thought in mind, the Cerberus knights continued but something was strange, their adversary wasn’t doing much.

“What's going on? Did he give up?”

“Is he giving up already? Pathetic.”

Roman gloated while Elythaes was puzzled by Roland’s lack of response as the man was being quite passive. After the initial clash with Andreas, he remained somewhat passive. Turtling behind some remaining golems while using ranged spells. These clashed with Ulfine’s and her beast but besides the lesser feline summons, no one was really getting injured. Only after all the golmes were gone and none of the summoned beasts reminded did Elythaes realize what Roland’s true plan was.

“What kind of skill is this? How is this possible?”

Suddenly, after all of the magical automatons were destroyed they all started to rise up again. The metallic bodies that were cut into smaller pieces by both Roman and Elythaes were mending themselves. The cubes came back together and continued to float, their magical batteries still mostly full.

“What is this sorcery?”

Elythaes exclaimed in shock as he witnessed the golems repairing themselves. It was as if their destruction had been nothing more than a temporary setback. Roman paused in his assault, his expression twisting into one of frustration as he realized their efforts had been in vain.

“I don’t know, I never heard of such a skill this is not something a Rune Magus should be capable of…”

“Who said that I was a Rune Mage?”

Roland replied with a somewhat nonchalant tone as there was no use hiding it anymore. He was able to keep his status screen hidden and was able to trick his enemies into focusing on the golems. They did not realize that his main targets were the summoned creatures that were now all gone. Thunderclaw was the only one that remained and finally, he had the numerical advantage.

“Look, his weapon is reforming itself? Damn, focus everything on that bastard there is no use in attacking the golems!”

The Baskerville brothers quickly redirected their focus towards Roland, realizing that he was the true threat. They launched a relentless assault, combining their skills and magical attacks to overwhelm him. At least they tried but the small golem army that had managed to restore itself blocked their way. While they couldn’t cause much damage to the tier 3 class holders, they could keep them busy while their lord did most of the heavy lifting.

The onslaught of magical attacks intensified and gave Roland some space to maneuver. An aura of purple energy surrounded his armor as he activated both the Mana Overflow skill and the Overlords Might skill. Now armed with a tremendous boost to all of his stats and an almost bottomless reserve of mana, it was time to make his stand.

His first target was the enemy's support unit, which in this case was Professor Ulfine. Defeating the enemy magician was one of the most basic tactics. With a burst of speed and coated in various buffing spells, he shot towards Professor Ulfine in a similar fashion to how Andreas charged at him. Thunderclaw her tamed liger stood in his way but he would not be enough to stop him. Even though he growled and created a torrent of storm energy to block his path, it could not stop him.

Roland's eyes narrowed as he closed in on Ulfine, his Warhammer crackling with magical energy and his shield producing a veil of mana that could not be pierced through. In a burst of speed, he appeared before her, his hammer swinging from the side and aimed directly at her body. Just like any other mage, close-ranged combat was not her forte and her only choice was to activate protective artifacts.

“Using non-runic artifacts was a good idea, but you miscalculated slightly…”

“N-no…”

With a swift motion, Roland swung his weapon which unleashed a devastating shockwave of electrical energies. Ulfine expected it to collide with a layer of magical shields but for some reason, they weren’t working. Even though all of them prepared countermeasures against a Rune Mage, he was still able to affect their enchanted equipment, it was as if all artifacts were forced to do his bidding.

Thunderclaw the liger tossed himself to protect his master and received the hit directly for her. Instantly, a massive magical discharge shook the entire dungeon and even caused the high ceiling to tremble. Ulfine watched in horror as her beloved Thunderclaw had his head turned to mush by the magical weapon. The ensuing blast caused a lot of residual damage which fully engulfed her unprotected body that was heavily electrocuted.

Roland stood amidst the aftermath, his chest heaving with exertion as he surveyed the scene before him. Ulfine lay unconscious on the ground with her body smoking from the magical discharge. Thunderclaw's lifeless form was sprawled nearby to his master who was on death's door.

“Well then… Only three remain.”

The Baskerville brothers turned in dismay at the display of magical might. Their mage helper was down on the ground and clearly defeated. The number advantage that they once held had now crumbled, leaving only the three of them to face off against the formidable Runic Overlord and his army of magical automatons…