Chapter 1911: Statues

Hephaestus's aura changed significantly.

"You might be the only human in the history of time that made me fight like this. And I am still unsure whether I would beat you. If you survive today, I wish we could meet in person one day in the future."

As he spoke, his hammer came smashing down. Sam tried to meet with the attack with a strike of his own.

*BOOM*

But this time, his usage of force didn't really work out. As soon as the hammers met, Sam felt fire energy and metal energy invading his hammer and before he could react and counter, the hammer already broke down into several pieces.

He looked at Hephaestus in surprise. He hid the thunder prison back in his storage and barely dodged the next swing that came at him.

*BOOM*

The swing landed on the formation behind him. The formation fluctuation like crazy. Sam felt like there is a great chance the formation wouldn't even make it if it takes five more of those hits continuously.

He looked at Hephaestus and as he tried to close in the distance a little bit, he could already feel that oppressive aura bearing pressure on him.

Sam gritted his teeth and sent a mental message to Dia.

Dia who just dealt with a Cyclops ran through the air while neighing.

Sam hid his wings back and mounted Dia as he looked at Hephaestus. He took reaper out and let the spirit act a bit wilder than usual. He still had metal elemental fusion and so did Dia.

"Let's go conquer this guy. Or he might just beat the crap out of the formation."

The hammer swing came crashing down.

*WHOOSH*

*BOOM*

Another hit landed on the formation of the city.

Sam and Dia dodged and then landed on the upper surface of the hammer. When Hephaestus raised his hammer, Dia jumped off the surface and directly landed on his arm.

The magnetic force burst out of both Sam and Dia and Sam concentrated all of his force into the reaper sword while Dia concentrated all of hers into her hooves.

*NEIGH*

Dia neighed and started running with every stomp, cracks appeared on Hephaestus' skin who was dumbfounded by this development. He hurriedly shook his hand off, but Dia looked like she is operating on a completely different gravitational field.

And as she ran across the arm, everyone could see that the whole arm is breaking down bit by bit with the cracks appeared out of nowhere and then fire elemental energy leaked out of that arm.

Hephaestus gritted his teeth and held the hammer with his other hand before he swung his arm as forcefully as he can.

But to his surprise, not only did Dia and Sam are unfazed, his arm dropped a bunch of its pieces away. They landed on the formation, but he noticed that he is losing mobility on his arm.

Before he could comprehend what is happening, Sam and Dia are already on his shoulder and Dia took a single leap straight to his head.

"I should have done this from the start."

Sam said as metal energy surged.

Blood Line Art of Dia using metal element. Magnetic Storm.

He channeled the art through his sword and stabbed the sword into the crown of the head. At the same time, Dia used the same attack but through her hooves.

*BOOM*

An explosive sound rose as cracks appeared all over Hephaestus' body and the magnetic force manifested visibly. Hephaestus' body froze on the spot as the cracks deepened. The raging volcanos quieted down and everything became silent. The golems froze on the spot like statues.

Sam looked at the massive status under him and didn't have the heart to destroy it. It looked beautiful for some reason. He and Dia retracted their magnetic force and got off of it.

The disaster is over.

Sam didn't wait for long. He collected his puppets and together with his beasts, he decided to leave right away.

The Ruby clan leader of course asked him to stay, but Sam didn't want. Up on further insistence, he decided to have a drink before leaving with the rest of the young masters. Since the young masters are tasked with cleaning the city up, Sam would have to wait for a while anyway.

He waited with the Ruby clan leader and some young masters.

"Young master Sam.."

"Please don't call me that. You can just call me Sam. I don't really like the term young master."

Sam immediately cut him off as soon as he heard it.

Everyone was intrigued.

"May I know why?"

"I don't know. Maybe a lot of people that I don't like are associated with the term. I don't have a particular reason, but it is not a label that I am very fond of. And I like my name. You can call me that. Don't worry, I won't take it as a sign of disrespect just because you called me my name without any stupid titles."

"Then I won't stand on ceremony. Forgive me for being bold, are you looking for a marriage partner? I know it might seem like I am trying to cling to your thigh, in a way you are not wrong. But I would like to further our relationship and if you are interested we can discuss a marriage proposal."

All the young masters from other clans froze for a second. They didn't expect the Ruby clan leader to be this bold. He didn't even mask his desire with some fancy shenanigans, he was straightforward without beating around the bush.

"You are pretty straightforward."

"There is no point trying to run circles around a person like you. I figured it might even leave a bad impression. I decided to lay my intentions bare. If you reciprocate my approach, I will be happy, even if you didn't, we can still have this amicable yet professional relationship."

"Well, sorry to disappoint you. But I am not looking for marriage and I doubt it will change any time soon."

"If you don't mind me asking, is it a matter of status? You look like you belong to a very large power."

"I do belong to a large power, but I didn't inherit it. I built myself. And I don't need to depend on love of a woman to add to my status.

As I said, I am just not looking for a partner it is as simple as that. And even if I did, the things I look for in a woman are completely different and Status wouldn't even be the last one on the list."

After some time, the group left.

The Ruby clan leader looked at the large statue of the Hephaestus and the small statues of the golems all over the city. The small statues were collected and are now in his possession, he is sure that some young masters sneaked a couple of the to give them to their clan, but he didn't mind.

He called for artisans of his clan and said.

"Let's repair that statue of Hephaestus. Reinforce it to the best of the ability, fill up the cracks, but make sure that they are still visible and if possible let's create a statue of Sam and his horse on top. Recreating the situation.

This is going to be part of the history of our city."

He is very excited. The formation that Sam made was not removed. He was really impressed and desired that formation.

But he is also worried, Sam would take it away, but he was actually surprised by Sam's reaction.

"I can't be bothered."

He left such a world-class formation back because he cannot be bothered to dismantle it.

Just from the looks of the young masters, he is sure that every one of them would have gladly did the dismantling for him, but it is not their place since Sam couldn't be bothered.

Now Ruby City has that extra layer of defense that could be very hard to penetrate.

Sam went back to the mountain temple with the beasts.

"You guys said, you wanted to check something out right? Go ahead. Don't get into trouble though."

He let the beasts do whatever they wanted to do before he entered the temple.

Priestess is waiting for him.

"This disaster ended faster than I thought. Congratulations."

"Thank you. Even I felt like it ended faster than the one before. The first time, I was very confused as there is no reference point to work on, but now I have a better idea and made preparations according to that."

"That is good to know. That means the next disaster would be much more smooth sailing."

"I hope so. I am sure I will try to make it happen like that. But if it happens or not, is a different thing altogether."

"Alright, I hope you have an appetite. Let's have a meal and talk."

"Thank you."

Sandhya who was beside them felt so invisible at the moment.