Chapter 32: Royal Obsidian Colossus

The four massive stone guards didn’t awaken slowly. There was no groaning of ancient gears, no sluggish stretch of limbs waking from a centuries-long slumber. One moment they were statues covered in the ash of the forgotten city; the next, their halberds were sweeping through the air with terrifying, wind-tearing speed.

Ding!

[Monster Detected: Royal Obsidian Colossus (x4)]

[Level: 26]

[Type: Elite Construct]

[Innate Talent: Resonant Armor (Shared damage mitigation across all active constructs)]

Leon barely had time to read the floating text before a halberd the size of a fallen oak tree crashed into the obsidian floor exactly where he had been standing.

Boom!

The impact sent a shockwave of shattered black glass and concussive force rippling outward. But Leon wasn’t there.

"Gale Weaver," Leon commanded calmly.

A vortex of compressed wind had violently erupted beneath his boots a fraction of a second before the strike, launching him thirty feet into the air. With his Agility now sitting at an absurd 35, and the C-Rank wind manipulation talent reducing his air resistance, the world seemed to move in slow motion.

Hanging suspended in the air above the four towering colossi, Leon’s eyes flared with the golden light of his SSS-Rank talent.

Ding!

[Origin Eyes has activated!]

[Analyzing target: Royal Obsidian Colossus (x4)]

[Perception threshold met. Displaying available information.]

[Weakness Detected: The constructs share a resonant mana core network. Damage dealt to one is distributed among all four. Breaking the runic tethers connecting them will drastically reduce their physical defense.]

"Shared damage," Leon muttered, twisting his body mid-air to avoid a second halberd thrust aiming to skewer him from the sky. "So if I hit one, I hit them all. Convenient."

He raised Stormcaller’s Conduit. His 75 Intelligence flared into the Gold-Rank staff, causing the air around him to violently crackle with blue lightning.

"Arcane Requiem."

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Four massive, concentrated bolts of swirling green poison, black decay, and erratic lightning blasted from the tip of his staff in rapid succession. Leon didn’t aim for their heads or their chests. Origin Eyes had highlighted the faint, translucent tethers of mana linking the four constructs together.

The bolts slammed into the space between the giants.

The resulting explosion was deafening. The decay effect instantly latched onto the runic tethers, treating the pure mana as a physical substance and rapidly eating away at the energy. Blue lightning arced wildly between the four giants, scrambling the ancient magic that animated them.

The constructs staggered, their red eyes flickering erratically as the Resonant Armor effect shattered.

Leon didn’t give them a moment to reset. Gravity began to reclaim him, but he used Gale Weaver again, creating a localized pocket of high-pressure wind behind his back to propel himself downward at the speed of a fired cannonball.

He aimed directly for the nearest staggering Colossus.

"Gorgon’s Decree!"

His eyes burned with a sickly, pale grey light. The B-Rank petrification talent erupted from his gaze in a wide, sweeping cone. The colossus didn’t have biological flesh to turn to stone, but the Deathless effect fused into the talent didn’t care. The supernatural petrification bypassed the construct’s immunities, targeting the animated mana within the obsidian joints and violently calcifying it into brittle, dead rock.

The giant’s raised arm froze mid-swing, the dark obsidian turning an ashen, lifeless grey.

Leon landed on the construct’s massive shoulder, bringing the Bloodfang Edge down with both hands in a brutal, sweeping arc.

"Verlimon’s Judgment!"

Slash!

The Platinum-tier crescent of compressed wind energy cleaved directly through the petrified joint. The Corrosive Edge of the blade hissed as it ate through the outer layer of the armor, but it was the Tremor Impact that finished the job.

A massive shockwave erupted from the point of impact. The brittle, petrified stone couldn’t handle the localized earthquake. The Colossus’s entire right arm, halberd and all, shattered into thousands of pieces, raining down onto the throne room floor like a meteor shower.

The giant let out a sound like grinding tectonic plates and stumbled backward.

Leon leaped off its falling chassis, triggering Gale Weaver to glide across the chamber.

The remaining three Colossi recalibrated. Realizing their halberds were too unwieldy to catch the impossibly fast human darting through the air, they dropped their weapons. In perfect unison, they raised their massive stone fists, the runes on their chests glowing blindingly bright.

A localized gravity field suddenly clamped down on the room.

Leon felt his weight multiply by a factor of ten. The wind currents supporting him instantly collapsed, and he was dragged out of the air, crashing hard into the obsidian floor.

Before he could even push himself up, three colossal stone fists descended toward him like falling meteors.

"Obsidian Carapace!"

Leon’s skin instantly darkened into a flawless, light-absorbing black. He crossed his arms over his chest, bracing himself against the floor.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The entire throne room shook violently as the three fists struck him simultaneously. The concussive force was enough to flatten a small building. Dust and pulverized black glass exploded into the air, completely obscuring the center of the room.

Silence fell over the chamber.

The three colossi slowly pulled their fists back, their red eyes peering into the crater they had just created.

From within the thick cloud of dust, a voice echoed out, completely devoid of panic.

"Is that all?"

Leon stood in the center of the crater. His boots were sunk inches deep into the solid floor, and his Fanghide Battleplate had several new cracks in it. But his skin, still coated in the dark sheen of Obsidian Carapace, was entirely unbroken.

His 50 Constitution, combined with the B-Rank defensive talent, made him a walking fortress.

But Obsidian Carapace didn’t just absorb damage. It reflected it.

The three Colossi suddenly lurched backward, deep, jagged fissures exploding across their stone knuckles and traveling rapidly up their forearms as the kinetic energy they had just unleashed was violently rebounded back into their own bodies.

"My turn," Leon said coldly.