268 Life Shard I

"Wow, this Golem is not ordinary," he said.

"Young Master, it's Peak Great Master?" It stunned Lia, looking at the magical fluctuations around the Golem.

"Unlike those broken Golems, this is in perfect condition!" he let out a burst of strange laughter as Lia inspected the Golem "Young Master, most of the runes in this Golem are complete, it only lacks the energy to move."

"can we take it?" Lia's gaze flashed as she asked.

"Of course, we are going to take it"

He flicked his wrist as the Golem flew out from the mid. After dipping it into the lake water to clean it for a while, it was placed in front of Knight.

This Golem was about eight feet tall and it held a bronze pike in its hand, making it look exceedingly tall and sturdy. Its entire body was faintly green as if it was built with a special material. There were also lines of extremely complicated patterns on its body, however, the markings near its eyes were black and did not glow.

Just from its appearance alone, this Golem looked several times stronger than the ones Knight had seen earlier.

Lia stood on her tiptoe to reach the Golem's forehead and when she touched it, a vortex quickly surfaced there. The inside of the vortex was empty and contained nothing at all.

"Young Master, the brand has already faded, and we can still use it. Come on, form a bond with the Golem." Lia said.

"And how do I form a bond?"

He didn't learn how to form a bond with Golems like Lia, and she slightly tilted her head, hearing his question like she expected him to know the answer.

"Place your hand and inject your Life Energy into it"

Upon hearing this, Knight was a bit disappointed since he couldn't use Life Energy. 

"Why don't you try it? You need that more than me, go on, I insist"

"Really? But"

She seemed reluctant to leave her imprint on the Golem and permanently take control over such a powerful, and not to mention valuable Golem.

"Go on, "

But after looking at his stern look, she took a deep breath and placed her hand on the Golem's forehead.

A trace of Life Energy was swiftly cast into that vortex, as she inscribed a brand there. And as the brand was successfully inscribed, a faint imprint appeared on that bronze Golems forehead.

"Good, now this Golem belongs to you"

Lia's eyes were filled with mixed emotions. Was it so simple to get a Golem with power comparable to a Peak Great master? she thought.

After a while, she sent out some commands in her mind, however, the Golem before her did not move.

"Young Master, these Golems seems like it requires energy to move" 

Dark lines appeared on his forehead and suddenly sensed that something was amiss,

"How can we give it energy? Also, if we want it to fight another Peak Great master, how much energy would it need?"

"I'm not a runemaster or Golem engineer, but I think we can directly inject Life Energy stones into the Golem's body. As for the amount needed to fight a Peak Great master, I guess it would take a hundred or two mid-quality stones, for a single attack"

She vaguely remembered the things she studied about the Golems from her tutor and calculated a rough amount according to her studies.

"Seriously?! Then we have to rob a bank full of Energy stones before using this damn thing!"

The moment he heard Lia's words, Knight's face was flushed red as he howled in exasperation. Two hundred mid-quality stones for one attack. Even though he was rich, he would not use the mid-quality stones on the Golem because it would be a waste to do so.

Lia was speechless, as she gazed in disappointment at the tall and sturdy Golem which stood before her. Originally, she thought that it would be a great assistant. Only now did he realize after looking at the runes it was nothing but a wealth burning object.

This thing was practically useless for someone who did not have the capital. And now he realized that powerful cultivators like Sterling would have sensed this Golem here and learning that this was basically a wealth destroyer, they left it here without taking it with them.

"Ai, fine, I'll just take it and ask Ken to do something with it" Knight softly sighed. Keeping in mind that Ken loved studying and making weapons, he decided to give all the Golems to him and have him deal with them.

With these thoughts, he raised his hand and took the Golem into his space ring. After which, he turned his head to gaze at the broken door nearby. Deeply exhaling a breath of air, Lia swiftly followed him to the broken door.

After walking through the broken door, what entered their eyes was a gigantic mess. The remains of many broken Golem limbs covered the floor, while some markings on the ground showed that an intense battle happened here. These were probably left behind by Sterling, Loretta, and the rest.

Lia and Knight slowly walked through this messy passage, although they did not find any treasures, they also did not face any obstruction. Looks like the prodigies had thoroughly cleaned this place, and anything that would obstruct them had been destroyed by force.

In this stillness, they walked for about five minutes as they passed through several vast and huge halls. Towards the end, the traces of battle in these places became increasingly intense. One could tell that the Golems were getting stronger and stronger and combined with their numbers, even Sterling would have to put a little effort to defeat them.

"shreek!"

When they stepped on another empty yet extremely messy huge hall, their gaze suddenly paused on a curtain of light before them.

This seemed to be the end of the passage, with only the curtain of light-emitting a faint glow. Both of them very carefully walked near that curtain of light before Lia's eyes narrowed on a shattered Golem in front of her. The color of this Golem was exactly the same as the one she had obtained near the medicine pool, and it also looked to be a Peak Great master.

From the remarkably fierce scars of battle, it was apparent that this Golem had once fought with powerful cultivators, probably Sterling and the rest. it was not a match for them and had been forcefully destroyed.

He crouched down and took a part of the broken Golem. 

"If Life energy hasn't replenished again, we would have seen human corpses instead of this poor guy"

A Peak Greatmaster Golem would have been an immense threat to the prodigies if it was a few years back. After the Life Energy started to replenish again in the world, everyone's cultivation speed got a boost thus, prodigies like Sterling quickly reached the Grandmaster level. Obviously, the Soul Strength cultivator who died many centuries ago had no idea about this, so he left a Peak Greatmaster Golem as a guard thinking that it would be able to stop anyone who enters the tomb.

"Look, Young Master, the mark of the Soul Strength cultivator on the Golem didn't fade away completely. It's because of this that whoever destroyed it was unable to take it for their own use. Even after so many years, the inscription was still not something they could erase" Lia raised her brows in shock as she exclaimed looking at the broken Golem.

While Lia was looking at the Golem, he stood up and scanned the area before going forward.

"If we enter here, we can reach the core part of the old tomb"

He said and flicked his wrist as a long needle-like sword appeared in his hands.

"It would likely be several times more dangerous inside than before, here take this, I hope you won't need to use it though" He looked at the curtain of light at their front and then Lia

Lia nodded her head and took the sword from his hand 

"I'll be careful and try not to hold you back"

As her words were spoken, he did not hesitate as he stepped forward and entered the screen of light with Lia closely following him behind. The screen of light pulsated and their figures disappeared into the light. 

*******************

After entering the screen of light, darkness surrounded them for a moment and in the next moment, a bright golden light flooded his eyes. An extremely hot wave of fire encircled them and forced Knight to quickly use the Battle Energy to him and Lia.

After forming a shield around their bodies, he finally had the time to size up his surroundings. Immediately, a small surprise emerged in his eyes, because what appeared before him was actually a red sea of fire but he couldn't tell where the wave of heat from before had originated from.

"These flames seem illusionary?" Lia furrowed her eyebrows as she inquired

"Whether it's real or fake, it seems to be rather well made and tricky" he looked for a while before his gaze locked at the center of the flaming sea: 

"Those guys also seem to be stuck."

After hearing him, Lia's gaze quickly shifted to look. Sure enough, she saw a few figures resisting the waves of fire within the flaming sea as her eyes widened in shock because those figures turned out to be Sterling, Richard, Milan, and a few other talented youths of the younger generation.

"Such a strong formation, to think that it could trap even the prodigies!" Lia softly gaped before she spoke again: "Then, this formation...I'm afraid I can't break this formation like before, Young Master"

"It's indeed troublesome but every formation has its own method of passing through" 

Looking around the area, he could see that the sea of fire before them had actually been split into countless paths of fire.

"There are so many paths before us, which one should we choose?" Lia asked in wonder while Knight also pondered about this for a moment.

"it's obvious that everyone there tried to follow these paths and instead of getting out, they ended up trapped in the formation." He looked at the group who were stuck in the formation as he said.

" Where is the real one?" He was unable to find the real path which made him grit his teeth in frustration but suddenly he heard a majestic voice in his mind.

"The road before you is the true path." in his mind, he felt someone is pointing directly towards the burning sea of fire.

"It's him"

He recognized the voice, it belonged to the golden robed man who he met in a dream world and informed him about the Life Shard in the first place.