Chapter 887: His Own Path

Chapter 887: His Own Path

‘Alright, it’s off balance,’ Alex’s thoughts came through his link with Claygon. ‘You’re up, buddy.’

“Everyone!” he shouted. “Claygon’s gonna be with me! Get ready!”

“Here’s to success!” Theresa shouted, leaping over a cluster of Spawn Knights, to slash a living core. “You can do it!”

“We got this, big guy!” Cedric called to Claygon. “Do your thing!’

“Thank...you!” the golem said, raising his spear.

This was it.

He would be leaving their friends to go help his father. All the suffering and killing the Ravener was causing had to end for his father’s sake, for Selena’s, Theresa’s, the Lu’s and ...everyone from Thameland. This would be the most important battle of Claygon’s short life so far.

And he hoped he was ready for it.

‘I...have to be...’ he thought.

His father cast Summon Construct, and all of a sudden, Claygon was gone, flying through space, heading toward...an energy that kept drawing his attention.

The energy within the Ravener...so different, yet so similar to his own, was coming closer by the instant, seeming to be calling to him as he travelled toward it.

‘There is an elementto...that power that feels...connected...to me...’ Claygon thought. ‘It feels like...’

The golem thought back to past battles.

His first evolution, which had happened unexpectedly.

He had not been sapient then, and so he couldn’t be certain if his memories of that time were actually genuine or the result of a strong imagination, fed by his father and others telling of the events.

But, he thought he had a recollection of the petrifier’s energy pouring over him, hardening his clay, turning it to stone. He did remember his first feelings, his first thoughts and first actions. He remembered his body was healed, he’d grown stronger...and he’d gained his own mind.

And with it, he could think, he could plan, he could defend his father andthose close to them; family and friends.

He could remember the second time he’d evolved, he could remember that vividly. He’d been beaten, broken and tossed aside like trash by the First Apostle. His stone body was crumbling, and everyone was struggling against monsters who wore the form of people, taking lives as easily as breathing.

He’d been close to helpless in the face of the first Apostle.

But the chaos energy had saved him, washing over him, and empowering him, forging stone to iron, tempering him into the force that he was today.

Yet, for all his power, it still wasn’t enough.

He couldn’t protect his family and friends as much as he wanted to; his father had nearly died in the snow because he hadn’t been fast enough to stop the First Apostle. Even now, Cedric’s divinity was responsible for keeping his friends from dying at the claws, poisons and deadly magics of the Ravener and its monsters.

Long ago, he’d promised himself that he’d find a way to evolve on his own terms. To find an energy that would take him to a strength beyond that of an iron golem. An energy that would bring him to a new peak of power, where he could defend his friends and family from the greatest of threats.

A peak he would reach by his own doing...and...maybe that opportunity was here.

Each evolution he’d gone through had had something to do with the Ravener. Even his very life was tied to it.

His golem core was forged from dungeon core essence.

He had been turned to stone by a Ravener-spawn’s magical beam.

He’d been tempered into iron by an explosion that was caused by chaos essence and the remains of a dungeon core.

All of those events had something to do with the Ravener.Updated chapters at novelhall.com

And now?

Now he was on his way to the source of the Ravener’s power; the inner core of Uldar’s construct. That power was drawing closer as his father used the Traveller’s energies to guide him through the Ravener’s multitude of defences.

‘There is...an opportunity...here,’ Claygon thought, passing between the death beams, while being teleported past the walls of lethal energy. ‘If I can grasp it...on my terms...then I can protect father...my family and friends. Then I can go beyond where people like Shale think I can go...then I can be...me. Not just an iron...golem...but...me.’

With this thought, he gripped the war-spear he’d torn from the claws of a greater demon, and charged his fire-gems.

Claygon suddenly appeared on a battlefield that was in chaos.

All around, death and destruction reigned.

Ravener-spawn flew, leapt, crawled, and sprang at Alex as he teleported through a world of darkness punctuated by strange lights, crackling crystal, and the light of crimson forceballs.

Death beams rained from the sky.

Towers of black crystal warped and twisted in the distance, as waves of hungry energy ripped through the air.

Alex was summoning monsters to defend him, but they were instantly wiped away in the chaos and destruction.

Within heartbeats, two death beams struck Claygon in the side, heating the iron.

‘Beyond iron. I feel something...coming from the energy in those towers...father...please. I think I can do this...the energy...it can help me be better...at protecting all of us. I am not asking this lightly...It’s important.’

Silence hung heavy in their link.

‘Do you really think doing this can take you to another level? And is that what you really want?’ Alex thought.

‘Yes...father...I truly do...’

‘Well, I’d be a pretty bad father if I denied you when you’re asking so earnestly,’ his voice held a nervous smile. ‘Alright, but we’re going to have to move real carefully. So, you go ahead and shoot as many fire beams as you can in as many directions as you can. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be able to dodge them.’

‘Yes...father...’

The golem turned, channelling power into his fire-gems then releasing beam after beam of the deadly fire magic.

Rays struck true, hitting everything the fire-gems pointed at, streaming from his forehead and two palms, directly into Ravener-spawn, the ground, sky, empty air and everything between. He didn’t have to aim; he simply spun in place, firing freely.

The Ravener retaliated, releasing a wall of lethal energy that burned stark white. “Begone, interlopers!”

That energy struck Claygon first, heating metal, steam rising.

But the attack had little effect and he just kept firing as the Ravener shot a dozen death beams at him.

Alex joined in, casting his own magic, further distracting Uldar’s creation.

Annihilation.

The spell sent a column of flame leaping into the sky, then raining down, annihilating monsters, cracking the crystalline ground, lighting up the darkness.

A scream ruptured the Ravener’s inner world.

‘Now!’ Alex thought.

Claygon was suddenly teleported to a distant tower just outside one of the many tunnels. An instant later, the tunnel snapped shut, as did every other one.

“That’s not going to stop us,” Alex told the construct, putting his hand against the crystalline surface and closing his eyes for a moment. “Got it, Buddy! Used my mana to find the node!”

He and Claygon abruptly teleported, and the golem found himself no longer in a world of darkness, but in a world of colour, shade and hue; a vertical crystalline cave of cords, stalactites and stalagmites, glowing with inner power. Energy crackled between them, spreading.

The crystals began buzzing like swarming wasps, inner lights gleaming bright.

‘Don’t like that,’ Alex thought. ‘Don’t like that one bit.’

Claygon thought fast, his gaze now drawn to the vast source of energy he’d been feeling.

There it was. A massive crystal glowing with all the colours of the rainbow.

Alex followed his gaze. ‘That’s the central point where most of the energy is made,’ he thought.

The golem flew to it.

The buzzing grew louder.

‘Father...do not interfere...’ he thought.

There came a pause that felt like an eternity.

And then...

‘I trust you,’ Alex’s thought sounded apprehensive.

‘Thank...you.’ Claygon sounded relieved through their link.

His attention turned to the Ravener’s crystal.

‘This is...for my friends...my family...’ Claygon thought, floating in front of the crystal’s sharp edges. ‘...and for me.’

He flewforward, reached for the crystal, andsmashed it against his chest with his full strength.

Alex teleported away.

The energy within the crystal exploded, filling the space with a rainbow of light, bathing the golem in multihued radiance.

Claygon wrapped his limbs around the broken crystal, letting the energy flow into him.

New power awakened, rushing through the golem, his mana pathways blazing.

Fire-gems gleamed and flashed, light washed over his entire form.

...and...Claygon began transforming.