The Golem Mage

Despite having the two golems charge at him, Takeda didn’t seem to care all that much, he swung out two swift slashes, sending sword Qi racing through the air toward them before they could even meet in the middle.

After releasing the slashes, Legion fell back, dropped to one knee, and raised his sniper rifle weapon which he had constructed earlier. Titan, however, didn’t stop, he kept dashing forward, his hands trailing behind him as he moved in low.

The moment the slashes reached him, he tilted his body slightly and bypassed them, finally entering Takeda’s attack range, but Takeda already had a smile on his face.

With a quick back hand jab, he drove the hilt of his sword straight toward Titan’s neck, however; before it could land, Titan’s left hand had moved to intercept it, as a small thud rang out after he was finally able to block it, this was followed by a shockwave that rippled across the ground beneath them.

Though it looked like a casual exchange, however; the attack carried far more power than anyone would have expected.

Titan had managed to stop it, but he wasn’t strong enough to hold Takeda in place, because the moment Takeda saw the first strike fail, he followed up immediately with two swift kicks that forced Titan to his knees.

The first hit his shin, and the second struck his knee. Takeda clearly understood that with Titan being a golem and all, just knocking him off balance would never disrupt his combat performance, so he made sure the second strike was enough to drive him down.

And the moment that was done, he attacked again, this time, it became a third strike, Takeda raised his knee sharply, slamming it into Titan’s upper jaw which caused him to snap his head backward.

Bang!

At that exact same moment, Legion who had been waiting for his chance finally fired, and the result was nothing like Takeda had expected, as he was blasted into the air, his body flying backward until he slammed straight into a rocky mountain wall nearby.

A split second later, he forced himself out of the mountain wall he had been embedded in with his face facing down as he tried to clear his vision.

He gritted his teeth and looked up, only to see Titan’s fist already right before him, he barely had time to curse at Titan before the punch slammed hard into his face, he had tried to shift slightly to evade it, but this time there seemed to be a small circle of icy domain surrounding Titan, as though Titan himself was the center of the domain’s universe.

And the closer Titan got to him, the more Takeda found himself under the effects of that domain, though he thought of combining his elements to gain some level of ice manipulation, but a few seconds later after trying that he was finally able to tell that trying to do so would bring him no benefit at all.

Because the domain had clearly marked him as an enemy, so he was being afflicted with debuffs the closer he got to Titan, which was making his movements slightly slower than usual.

“Did I not just deal with you a moment ago?!” Takeda said, but he was still speaking when another punch landed squarely on his face.

“It’s just my turn now!” Titan responded

Before the crowd could even process it, Takeda’s katana slashes were already being deflected by Titan’s fist style, at the same time, Titan manipulated ice to reinforce his defense, raising ice walls to avoid getting K.O and using Ice spikes whenever needed, with each one forcing Takeda to step back.

Though Titan was still not Takeda’s match in raw overall power, however; the threat of Legion’s sniper rifle firing from afar had pushed Takeda into a very precarious situation.

As he didn’t want to bypass Titan only to run straight into a bullet that might already be waiting for him, and with each passing second, he was getting slower and slower staying in Titan’s mini domain.

He knew a prolonged battle would bring him no benefit at all, as if it dragged on, he would lose, the moment that thought crossed his mind, his eyes widened, and he used Titan’s latest attack to force himself backward and create some distance.

Bang!

The instant that small gap appeared, Legion, who was already kneeling on one knee with his right eye pressed against the scope, didn’t hesitate for even a second.

He fired the moment Takeda moved just far enough away from Titan, however, this time Takeda was ready, he tilted his neck slightly, letting the bullet graze past it instead of striking clean through.

But it wasn’t as if Legion was going to give him any breathing room, he kept pulling the trigger, his eye fixed firmly on the scope, regardless of the recoil from the sniper rifle slamming into his right shoulder, he endured it all without complaint.

In response, Takeda had no choice but to keep swinging his sword, deflecting the bullets to his left and right. Even so, he wasn’t gaining any advantage, because with every bullet he knocked aside, he still found himself sliding backward, even after digging his boots deep into the ground.

“We can do this all day, and a winner still wouldn’t be decided. When you said you wanted to end this, I thought you would come at me yourself, don’t tell me you’re nothing but a scaredy-cat,” Takeda said after finally breaking free from Legion’s barrage while the golem had to reload.

Alec, who had been silently analyzing everything while advancing one step at a time, was finally stirred by those words, while Takeda acted all arrogant, Alec didn’t really care.

He had wanted to see just how far his two strongest golems could go against a genius Tier 8 human mage without their captain ranked golems support.

Because in the Beast Forest, they had never fought the Tier 8 Demonic Beast alone, they always had their unit of captain ranked golems to help augment their strengths, which made it easier for them to gradually gain the upper hand against those Tier 8 opponents.

But against a genius like Takeda, all of that had changed, and since Alec had zero interest in trying to reveal the true power of his golem army he just had his main golems hold back a lot when fighting, since he doesn’t want to have to explain how they were that strong.

On the contrary, he was fully confident he could defeat Takeda himself, and from what he had seen so far, Legion and Titan together could force Takeda into a stalemate, but they didn’t quite have the edge needed to win except they used some specific powers of theirs he had forbid them from using.

That was what made Takeda different from an ordinary Tier 8 mage to him, because even though his current strength was borrowed through the fusion of all his avatars, his exceptional talent was still impossible to ignore.

“Legion! Titan! That is enough.”

Titan had already closed the distance again on Takeda and was about to strike him with the levitating ice axe at his side, but the moment Alec’s voice rang out, he stopped immediately and stepped back. Legion also did the same.

Alec then slowly walked into Takeda’s attack range, his eyes calm, seeing only Alec Gordons standing before him left Takeda baffled.

All this while, he had believed Alec was too afraid of him to come forward, which was why Alec had stayed in the back the entire time.

He had been certain Alec would never dare attack him without relying on his golems, but Alec’s actions now told a completely different story.

Yes, he had heard that Alec was a great fighter, he had even watched his last match. But he had always felt that if that was all Alec had to offer, then there was no way he could win, at least not until Takeda saw the number of Tier 7 realm golems under his command.

So for Alec to now stand before him without the slightest trace of fear stirred all kinds of emotions within him.

“Here I am, man to man. Make your move,” Alec said as he slipped into a stance, drawing his right leg back while his left moved forward in a half-circle motion.