The Gravelclad Golem advanced. Its bulk shifted forward with a falling mountainside weight. Its colossal limbs swung down in a motion that carried more inevitability than speed.

When the first fist came, the air bent away from it, a low-pressure wave surging ahead of the impact. Arlok met it without hesitation. His boots dug into the earth, body sliding sideways at the exact moment the stone knuckles pulverized the spot where he had stood.

“Gah damnit!!”

The ground split, fissures spiderwebbing outward as dust geysered up around him. The second strike fell, and then a third… each one faster, heavier, angrier, but Arlok was already gone each time, weaving between the crushing arcs with a hunter’s rhythm.

His poleaxe flashed in reply, tracing quick, clean cuts across the golem’s limbs.

“Taste my metal!”

The steel bit, but only just scoring faint grooves in the stone skin. The scars were shallow. The damage was cosmetic at best, a scratch upon a fortress wall.

Pivoting lightly on his heel, Arlok glanced up at the looming figure. “Damn,” he muttered, the grin still hooked to his mouth.

“The fuck? My attack didn’t do anything?”

His voice rose into a bark of laughter, ragged with challenge.

“Aight, you wanna play it hard, eh? Fine. I’ll fuck you hard then!”

The next movement was not evasive. He leapt forward, poleaxe clutched low, and brought its head down with a bone-deep slam into the ground. Mana surged from him, threading through the stone underneath his boots. The earth rose in a sudden, brutal swell that shot upward beneath the golem’s chin like the fist of some ancient titan. Rock met rock in a thunderclap, and the Gravelclad staggered, its colossal frame pitching backward two heavy steps.

Arlok grinned wider.

“How’s that, huh? Getting punched by your own skin?”

His brow furrowed mid-sentence, the thought skidding sideways.

“Or wait… should it be—by what you’re made of… ah, damn it!”

“I really need to stop forgetting my line!”

He slapped his own temple in mock frustration, even as he stepped backwards, coaxing the sentinel forward.

The golem obeyed the bait, lumbering after him with its mechanical weight, its steps leaving deep craters in the path. Dust swirled in their wake, curling around Arlok’s ankles as he retreated.

The beast stretched itself further from the narrow mouth of the pass entrance.

“That's it, fella. I know you want me, so come and get it!”

Then, when the distance was right, Arlok stopped.

The poleaxe fell again, its impact rolling like a drumbeat through the ground. This time, the stone did not rise to strike. Instead, it surged upward around the Gravelclad’s feet, splitting into jagged pillars that coiled inward like the teeth of some subterranean predator.

In the space of a heartbeat, the golem’s lower limbs were encased in a cage of solid rock, locking its massive body in place.

“Now!”

Arlok’s roar cracked through the air.

‘Good work.’

Ruvian moved the moment Arlok’s roar cut the air, his hand dipping into the satchel at his hip to draw forth a small glass vial no larger than his thumb. Within, liquid shimmered in layered hues—deep amber at its heart, shifting outward into a sickly green.

He held it only for a moment before his arm swept back and forward in a fluid arc, the vial spinning end over end as it sailed toward the golem’s blind side. It struck just beneath the creature’s left shoulder joint, where the thick armor of stone met a thinner plate shielding the hidden core’s conduits.

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A place Ruvian knew from Yerin’s earlier description to be dangerously close to the vital channel that fed mana into the Gravelclad’s chest. The glass cracked on impact, its contents spilling into the seams. For a moment, there was only a soft hiss as the fluid seeped inward.

Then, the world turned violent.

BOOM!!

A blossom of light erupted—bright, blinding, and tinged with the deep gold. Heat tore outward in a rolling wave, searing the air. The sound was not a single explosion but a chain of concussive reports.

The alchemical mixture ignited the golem in one devastating pulse.

Shards of rock burst away from the point of impact, whistling like thrown blades as they ricocheted off the surrounding cliffs. The pass filled with the scent of scorched earth and acrid smoke, the heat clinging to their skin.

Ruvian did not waste the precious seconds that followed. The vial had been one of Corwin’s explosive potions—rare and lethal if prepared correctly. Its power only awakened when combined with a pinch of serpent’s ember powder and a direct channel of mana, both of which Ruvian had done before his throw.

A crude device to some, but in his hands, it became the kind of weapon that could tilt a battle. He kept several more in reserve for moments like this, though he doubted he would find a target better suited than the rock-bound monstrosity before them.

‘This grenade-potion is very handy.’

There was nothing quite as honest as an explosion. Especially against something that thought itself eternal simply because it was made of stone. And indeed, the blast had shattered swathes of the Gravelclad’s upper frame, scattering fragments far down the pass.

But stone was stubborn, and even in ruin, its mass clung together like muscle refusing to slacken.

That was when the others struck.

Yerin came first, her flaming blade trailing a comet’s tail of fire as it swept in a clean, merciless arc. The burning edge carved deep into the golem’s right flank, obliterating what remained of its arm and shoulder.

Shima followed later, her lightning-wreathed falchion singing with a high, violent pitch as it tore through the left side.

The air snapped and sparked around them, the two attacks meeting in perfect symmetry to carve the Gravelclad’s torso open. The wound revealed the core—large, ovular, and glowing with a pulsing, sickly purple light. It throbbed within the fractured shell of the golem’s abdomen.

Horren was already in motion, his bowstring drawn, eyes locked on that exposed heart. Two arrows of compressed wind shot forward with a sound like tearing silk, their speed bending the air into ghostly spirals.

The Gravelclad’s fractured body reacted instantly, its remaining limbs convulsing as the scattered fragments around it began to roll and slide back into place, drawn by the magnetic pull of its core.

But Ruvian was two steps ahead.

His wind magic surged outward in a spiralling gust, striking the tumbling stones and hurling them away. Without its fragments, the golem could not rebuild its defenses in time.

Horren’s arrows struck true.

The core splintered in an instant, the purple light within flaring wildly before collapsing into a dull, lifeless gray.

A dying sound rose from the Gravelclad Golem.

Its limbs froze mid-motion, the veins of light across its body dimming into nothingness.

Then, the entire structure gave way, crumbling into a heap of inert stone that tumbled down in choking clouds of dust. (+150PP)

[You have purged a Wretched Voidspawn, Gravelclad Golem from this world!]

[Your Spellcore has resonated!]

[You have gained +2 Mana Resonance!]

****

The battle was over in minutes.

Shards of fractured stone lay strewn across the ground like the remnants of some long-forgotten ruin. They moved among the rubble without hurry.

“I found it! It’s a red one! A red one for wretched-rank!” Shima was already holding the gleaming fragment aloft, its crimson light flickering in the shadow of her palm. “Seventy points, just from this!”

Yerin approached, the reflection of the shard dancing in her eyes.

“There will be a few more as we follow the path.”

They all exchanged glances, a subtle current of shared anticipation passing between them.

Arlok was the first to break it. “Any more of those juicy explosions?” he asked, grinning faintly.

“There’s plenty,” Ruvian replied.

Horren, still adjusting his bowstring, turned toward him.

“What kind of vials are those?”

“An old alchemical concoction. Something you don’t come across nowadays.”

Then, they began walking again, the prize in hand and the path ahead open.

The thought came to Ruvian.

How neatly this encounter had gone, how cleanly they had dismantled a threat that, to many, would have been a costly fight. A low-risk enemy with a reward far greater than the effort spent… and in their hands, it had been executed flawlessly.

He watched them as they moved.

Compared to those first chaotic days of training, they were transformed. Back then, he had assumed this test was simply a stepping stone, something to be endured on the way to greater challenges—the Magia Spire Arc.

Where only the highest squad will get the invitation for the Magia Spire visits. To ensure the story progresses as it should without the protagonist... he needs to be there during the arc. He can't be left behind.

Well, there was another way if he failed during this test. But that one was even more impossible.

‘That spot is reserved for Julian.’

Ruvian had been prepared to move ahead alone if necessary. But now, after these weeks of travel, drills, and shared dangers, he found himself reassessing.

Yerin, Arlok, Shima and Horren…

‘They could go further.’

They could excel, carve a path no one else could follow. The thought settled in him, and for the first time in a long while, he allowed himself the faintest hint of something dangerously close to faith.

PP= 3300

ME= 515

MR= 7