UNDER THE OAK TREE

281 Chapter “My lady!”

Elliot rushed over to Maxi and helped her to her feet. Straightening, she glanced around in confusion. It appeared she was not the only one who had been drained of mana. Just a few steps away, Sidina and Anette were also being helped up.

“W-What on earth is happening?” Joel murmured in a terrified voice.

Streaks of light branched out of the rune-like cobwebs, seeping into the statues scattered through the room. Maxi felt her blood run cold. Imbued with mana, the stone sculptures clattered to life and slowly began to move. Immediately recognizing the danger, one of the Temple Knights swung his sword.

Blue flames burst from his blade, blasting the stone trolls charging at them into a thousand pieces. However, like pieces of steel drawn to a magnet, the broken fragments rapidly reassembled.

“We must retreat!” the Temple Knight cried.

The petrified mages darted toward the doorway. Clinging to Elliot’s side, Maxi stumbled along behind them. As they rushed forward, the colossal head of the stone snake appeared in their path. Elliot swiftly brought his sword down and sliced off the upper half of the snake’s gaping mouth in a single stroke. Unaffected by the loss of its head, the massive golem slithered forward to block their way.

Urging Maxi behind him, Elliot swung as the snake’s massive tail flew at them like a whip. Maxi felt fragments of stone lashing her cheeks. They felt strangely hot.

Reaching the doorway first, Joel cried out, “Max! Hurry!”

Maxi stumbled across the chamber under Elliot’s protection. The stomping golems rushed forward, cutting off their escape. Elliot scattered them with his sword, but the smashed stone figures reassembled themselves every time.

A thought sprang to mind as she watched the scene in horror. Her eyes flew to the light spilling from the rune. All at once, she understood the rune’s complicated mechanisms. Though there were slight differences, she realized it was similar to the golem rune she had spent months researching.

“Sir Elliot! W-We must go over there!” Maxi cried to the knight, who was keeping the golems at bay. “The rune will continue to create golems if we don’t destroy it!”

The knight firmly shook his head. “It’s too dangerous, my lady! We must get out of here.”

Before she could say any more, Elliot grabbed her arm and sprinted toward the entrance. However, in less than four steps, stone trolls again blocked their way.

Behind them was the giant snake, which had slowly regained its form, and sculpted monsters of the Ayin race hemmed them on either side. Cursing under his breath, Elliot pushed Maxi behind him and began swinging his sword with lightning speed.

Seizing the opening, Maxi sprang toward the rune. Elliot called after her, but she did not have time to look over her shoulder. She shot past a stomping statue of a drake and halted before the rune. Removing her gloves, she was about to place her hands on it when a stone werewolf lunged at her from the shadows.

“Max!”

Anette cast a shield in front of her. There was a dull thud, and the stone werewolf went flying back. Maxi released a shaky breath and tried to stop her legs from trembling. Rushing to her side, Elliot crushed a stone torso and booted the rubble away.

“Please hurry!”

He had evidently concluded their only option now was to break through the wall of golems.

Maxi jumped and dropped her gaze back to the rune, only to find that all the chaos seemed to have frozen her brain. Biting her lip, she placed her hands on the rune and slowly infused it with mana. When she felt it drawing her mana out, she resisted the great force. She desperately tried to wrap her mind around its labyrinthine pathways — the external and internal makeup of the golems, the complicated formulas to supply and amplify mana…

Her back broke out in a cold sweat. She was quickly running out of mana. Though she was not yet depleted, using too much in a short period had made her slightly woozy. It required considerable concentration to stop the rest of her mana from streaming out.

Maintaining the shield she had cast around Maxi, Anette yelled from the entrance, “Max! Hurry!”

A Temple Knight held back the monsters at the doorway, but it was clear a single knight would not be enough to fend off the endlessly regenerating golems.

Maxi bit her lip until it bled and pushed her mana through every part of the rune. Much to her dismay, her knowledge fell short of understanding the mana pathway built into the complex machinations of the golems.

When she could not trace the formula responsible for controlling the monsters, she shifted her efforts to finding the formula that supplied mana to the stone. Destroying that would at least stop the golems from regenerating. In one swift force of will, she disrupted the mana flow. Sparks erupted around them as if the rune were fighting back, and the golems began thrashing about.

Maxi screamed. The massive snake twisted violently and began slamming into the walls and pillars. A thud resounded somewhere, and the cave shook. Another thud, and the ground started to tilt.

She whipped her head aside as an intense light blinded her. An ice-cold wind lashed her face, and biting snowflakes clung to her lashes. She turned around and lifted her gaze to the overcast sky. The blizzard outside was coming in through the crumbled wall.

“Max! Hurry!” Anette yelled.

Elliot yanked Maxi to her feet and began sprinting to the entrance. He slashed his sword at the golems blocking their path, smashing the stone monsters to pieces. This time, the fragments lay motionless.

There were still ten or so golems in the way. Fiercely muttering under his breath, Elliot began a ruthless attack on the stone monsters, cleaving through them with his sword. Maxi stuck close and looked around for other possible dangers.

All of a sudden, a dark shadow loomed over their heads. She instinctively pushed Elliot out of harm’s way as something shot down from above. However, with the knight’s bulk and her limited strength, she could only move him so far. He narrowly escaped the stone harpy that swooped at them from above, but its hooked claws struck the back of Maxi’s head.

Though Elliot whirled and smashed off the harpy’s wing, the blow had already sent Maxi flying. She rolled over the floor until her back thumped against one of the pillars. For a moment, her breath was stuck in her chest. Gasping for air, she tried to regain her senses when she heard Elliot’s urgent cry.

“My lady!”

Jolting awake, she saw the huge snake winding toward her at a frightening speed. She scrambled to summon a barrier but did not have enough mana.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Out of nowhere, black chains shot out like a web and whipped around the stone snake, binding it in a tight coil. Her chest heaving, Maxi stared at the massive golem, which was mere inches away. She heard Kuahel Leon’s commanding voice boom across the room.

“Get to safety!”

She looked anxiously at the doorway. The mages who had escaped earlier had brought reinforcements. When Maxi saw the Temple Knights rush into the cave, her body went slack with relief. Barely managing to stand on her wobbling legs, she was staggering toward the entrance when the snake began to thrash against its chains.

The ground cracked beneath and tilted to one side. Losing her balance, Maxi fell backward. The debris from the crumbling golem rained down, sending her tumbling through the hole in the wall. It all occurred in such rapid succession that she could not make sense of what was happening. She shot outside into the blizzard and hurtled down a cliff, tumbling along with the rubble of the cave floor.

She was too disoriented to think of using a levitation spell. Distant shrieks and screams reached her before the howling wind ripped them from her ears. All she heard was her stomach churn as nausea and vertigo slammed into her. Though her body sought oblivion, she clung to consciousness and stretched her arms toward the rock wall to latch onto anything she could find.

She slid down the cliff, her palms burning as they chafed against the rocky surface. She reflexively flailed her legs in search of a foothold that would break the fall. Out of nowhere, a dark figure swooped down and wrenched her by the waist.

She gasped at the sudden force. For a moment, she could not comprehend what was happening. It took a while before she could register the powerful arms around her. A second later, she realized that the ragged breathing was not hers.

Maxi slowly looked up, her chest heaving. Riftan dangled from the rock wall at the end of a long, hooked chain. His arms were locked around her so tightly it made breathing difficult. Unable to believe her eyes, she could only stare up at his sculpted features.