Chapter 127 - A Cry For Help - IV

'Why didn't she start off with that attack in the first place?' Merlin thought to himself as he watched Callisto throw another punch, shattering the shield once and for all. 'I thought she was supposed to be a ranger, why is her strength so high?'

"Guild leaders are overpowered." Merlin mumbled as she watched Callisto's devastating punches rip the titan statue's defences away.

It wasn't often that you would see a guild leader in action, but seeing it now was a reminder that there was a reason they were at the top of their fields. Merlin wondered how powerful the thieves guild leader would be, as all he could see him as was an eccentric and crafty individual.

The titan statue dropped what remained of the shield and began swinging the spear around with both hands, but Callisto was nimble enough to avoid all the titan's strikes.

The two were moving around so much that the rest of the rangers had stopped shooting arrows at the statue, due to them fearing that they would hit Callisto instead.

While the titan was distracted, Merlin drew an arrow and shot it towards the statue of Despoina.

The titan statue tried blocking the arrow with its hand while it was being overpowered by Callisto, but Merlin watched as the titan's hand was shattered into tiny fragments by a single punch, causing the stone spear to fly away from the statue's grasp.

Merlin's arrow flew through the area where the statue's hand once was, and travelled in a direct path towards the statue of Despoina.

Unsurprisingly, the statue of Despoina attempted to dodge the attack, but it wasn't as nimble as the titan statue due to the stone veil limiting its movement. Merlin's arrow flew into part of the statue's veil, causing it to crack, revealing an arm.

"Target the other statue." Merlin roared as he loaded another arrow.

Fortunately, Callisto was still keeping the titan statue occupied. She had the statue pinned and was wailing on its chest, causing large cracks to form. Her angered roars sounded almost bestial, but it seemed as though she was running out of energy. Her fists weren't packing as much of a punch as the first few times, and Merlin could even see from a distance that her fists were covered in blood and torn to shreds.

'So that's why she didn't start off with that.' Merlin thought to himself, 'It must be her last resort, some form of temporary power boost probably.'

The rest of the rangers began shooting arrows at the statue of Despoina, who was helpless to dodge most of them. 

Each arrow pierced the veil, causing large cracks to appear, while others actually managed to hit body parts. But once the veil had received enough damage, a large audible crack could be heard as the statue of Despoina herself began ripping out of the veil like it was a shell.

Merlin released an arrow, aimed directly for her head, but to his surprise, the statue caught it with her hands.

A creepy grin formed on the statue's face.

And a few moments later, the statue threw the arrow back at Merlin with so much force that he couldn't dodge. The arrow pierced his thigh, ripping all the way through before digging itself into the stone floor a few meters behind him.

Pain ran up Merlin's leg, and only now did he realise how powerful these statues actually were. There wasn't any level floating above its head, neither was there a name or even a health bar, it was likely that the statue wasn't registering as a monster by the system.

The statue of Despoina charged towards Merlin, she was much faster now, even more so than the titan. She closed the distance in a matter of seconds, and like a wild animal that was hunting down her prey, the expression plastered on her face was now a mix of anticipation and euphoria.

"Is this going to be my first death?" Merlin mumbled to himself as the statue stopped in front of him and thrust her hand towards his chest.

Merlin struggled with all his might to twist his body out of the way, and had somehow barely avoided the strike. But the statue quickly twisted her body and kicked Merlin to the other side of the room.

Merlin hit the wall and slumped onto a pile of rubble. It felt like every bone in his body had been shattered, although it didn't seem to be the case as he could still move.

Instead of finishing Merlin off, the statue of Despoina started charging towards Callisto, who had just destroyed one of the titan's legs and left a hole through its chest.

Merlin quickly opened his inventory, throwing the bow and quiver in and grabbing out a kilogram of Panther meat. He began chomping down on the meat without hesitation, the taste of blood filled his mouth, and he tried his hardest to ignore the disgusting chewy feeling of raw meat in between his teeth.

As he swallowed a mouthful of the Panther meat, his wounds began sealing up, and his health was quickly returning.

Merlin watched as the statue of Despoina swatted Callisto away. She looked severely battered and bruised, her knuckles had been stripped of almost all their skin.

'What can I do?' Merlin thought to himself, staring at his inventory. His eyes scanned over the giant cleaver he obtained from the first dungeon he raided, the bovine butcher. He stared at the additional damage to bovine section of the cleaver's specs before shaking his head. "She's a bit of a cow, but I don't think that counts."

He glanced at the other weapons in his inventory, his eyes were glued to the goblin hexer's staff, it would have been the perfect weapon to use against the statues, but he couldn't use it for two more levels.

"Wait, I don't have to be the one to use it." He muttered, grabbing the staff out of his inventory.

He glanced around the area, noticing the various wounded rangers that had been caught in the crossfire between Callisto and the statues.

"Can anybody here use magic?" He shouted out, causing several rangers in the area to look at him.

"The guild master can, sort of." Another answered back in a pained groan, his leg had been pierced by some rubble that was flung towards him at some point, so he was limping around while firing arrows.

"Good enough for me." Merlin mumbled as he charged towards Callisto, who was being thrown around by the statue of Despoina.

The statue of the titan was laying on the floor, it wasn't quite dead yet but Callisto had dealt enough damage to immobilise it.

Callisto let out a pained scream as she was kicked in the stomach and sent flying into the air above Merlin's head. But before she had a chance to fly into a temple wall once again, she found herself caught in midair by two vine-like tentacles.

Fortunately Merlin's poison hadn't triggered, rather he felt a strange force shifting his vines around in such a way that the thorns didn't make contact with her body, and Callisto was placed down on the floor safely.

'What just happened.' Merlin thought to himself, thinking back to that strange feeling he just got.

"What the..." Callisto muttered as she watched vines retract back into Merlin's body.

"It's a long story, and I'll tell you once we're safe." He quickly announced, throwing her the goblin hexer's staff. "I got told that you can use magic, so please use that to destroy the statue. I'll try my best to restrain it."

Merlin quickly charged towards the statue, sending his vines out to entangle it. The statue of Despoina began dodging the vines as it closed the distance, until it finally stopped in front of Merlin.

The statue repeated the previous attack of trying to thrust her hand through his stomach with that same grin on her face, but Merlin had a grin of his own, something the statue didn't even pay attention to as her hand penetrated his stomach.

"Gotcha!" Merlin yelled as he wrapped his arms around the statue, before sending his vines out to wrap around the two, tying the both of them together. 

He jerked his body, forcing the two of them to fall on to their sides in such a way that the back of the statue's head was directly in Callisto's line of sight.

"Shoot now!" He roared as he watched the black sparks coalescing at the staff's tip.

Callisto made sure to line up her shot before a black bolt flew out of the staff. The bolt collided with the back of the statue's head, causing black sparks to scatter as it made contact.

Merlin watched as half of the statue's head began quickly eroding away, revealing a glimpse of a large black orb.

The statue's expression had stiffened once it realised it was actually in trouble, and it began struggling against Merlin's grip.

Merlin knew he had to hold on for at least ten seconds, enough time for the staff's cooldown to end. He believed the second bolt would be enough to finish the statue off.

The next ten seconds felt like ten minutes as Merlin could feel the statue's hand messing around with his internal organs as it struggled to free itself. His body was in pain, and he could hear the vines start to give out. 

'This would have been so much easier with Tiny here to deal damage.' Merlin thought to himself, he couldn't believe how much of a bad match-up this was. Not to mention how significantly more powerful these statues were compared to him.

Ten seconds had finally passed, and the second bolt was ready to fire.

The black bolt flew towards the statue's head, partially colliding with the black orb as it eroded more of the statue. Merlin watched as a crack formed on the black orb, and a strange wispy smoke began leaking out of the crack, dissipating as it rose into the air.

Merlin felt his grip loosen as the statue he was holding so tightly onto began crumbling into nothing. He retracted his vines and quickly grabbed another kilo of panther meat to eat, allowing him to heal once more.

Callisto went over to the other statue and began firing the staff into the titan's head. The titan statue also had a black orb embedded in its head, and like the other statue, this one crumbled into nothing as well. 

Callisto dropped to the floor once the titan was completely destroyed. Merlin was about to approach her when he received a notification.

「You have solved an issue caused by a strange phenomenon.」

'Ah... That makes sense..' He thought to himself.