The Rock Crystal Golem was down on its knees, its massive body riddled with cracks from the relentless attacks, yet it was not defeated. As Kaelus prepared his final strike, the glowing cracks in the Golem's crystalline armor began to pulse violently.
The body started glowing an intense red. As the aura radiated outwards, the mana signature surged exponentially. The visible cracks began to knit and heal at a terrifying speed.
"Kaelus! Forget the training! Kill it quick!" Zane roared, his voice laced with renewed fear.
Kaelus immediately continued his final slash, but the Golem was faster than anticipated. It moved its massive arm, catching the Viridian Sword in its crystalline grasp and attempting to snap the blade. The Viridian Sword, however, glowed fiercely, rejecting the Golem's hostile mana and resisting the destructive force.
The Golem quickly unheld the blade, suffering minor thermal damage to its claws. Kaelus instantly used the momentum to fall back, channeling the vast reserves of his core.
Zane knew Kaelus needed time. "Zathis! Attack the Golem!" The two S-rank mages launched their rapid-fire range attacks—Geyser and Petrify—just to buy even a single second.
Kaelus unleashed his ultimate attack. The Enhanced Ryujin no Kaze tore through the air and slammed into the Golem.
"Yes! Direct hit!" Zathis shouted, watching the spectacular impact.
"No, no, that's impossible!" Zane yelled, horrified. The enhanced ultimate skill made a noticeable dent in the Golem's glowing body, but the crack wasn't deep. The intense red aura instantly poured over the damage, healing it completely in a microsecond.
Kaelus's eyes narrowed. "Zane, Zathis, this mana signature is now SSS Rank! This is bad." He realized his powerful ultimate skill, even utilizing the strength of two S+ cores, was insufficient against a fully transformed, healing SSS-rank entity.
"Kaelus, what are we going to do? The Golem is now an SSS Rank monster!" Zane yelled.
"Let's join forces and kill it! Let's call the others!" Zathis urged, ready to attack again.
Kaelus dashed instantly toward Zane and Zathis. "Even if the odds are lower for us to win this time, for some reason, I think I have a chance to defeat this head-on."
"But even your enhanced ultimate skill doesn't have much effect," Zane countered. "How are you supposed to defeat it?"
"Zathis, give me your dagger," Kaelus said, his hand outstretched.
"Don't break it, that's a 3-Star Mid-Rank artifact!" Zathis exclaimed, handing over the dagger. "What are you planning to do, Kaelus?"
Kaelus briefly touched the dagger, quickly refining it to be usable by his immense mana output. "I'm planning to defeat it," he stated simply.
The Rock Crystal Golem, now glowing intensely red, was a newly promoted SSS-rank threat, its healing factor operating at a terrifying speed.
Kaelus made a decisive move, adopting an unorthodox stance: Viridian Sword in his right hand and Zathis's dagger in his left. He dashed toward the Golem, meeting its charge head-on.
The combat instantly escalated to blinding speeds. Kaelus matched the Golem's acceleration by pushing his Wind Magic to its limit. The Golem's razor-sharp claws raked Kaelus's side, drawing thin lines of blood on his exposed mana skin. Kaelus ignored the damage, using his right hand to deliver a semi-long-range slash with the Viridian Sword against the Golem's arm, forcing back the brute force. Simultaneously, his left hand thrust the dagger, targeting the critical, vulnerable seams in the Golem's crystalline joints for surgical close-range strikes.
The Golem retaliated with a sequence of crushing, wide-arc swings. Kaelus spun under the attacks, using his Wind-enhanced speed to stay inside the Golem's striking radius. The Viridian Sword acted as both a continuous repulsor and a primary cutting tool, while the dagger exploited the fraction of a second when the Golem's regeneration focused on defending against the major sword damage.
Zane and Zathis watched the exchange, utterly bewildered. They could barely track the motion, only witnessing an incomprehensible blur of silver and red. The Golem was hitting air, yet Kaelus was constantly scoring shallow, precise wounds that the monster's regeneration struggled to seal before the next strike landed. The fight was a clash of speed versus healing, with neither gaining a sustainable edge.
Kaelus broke the continuous offense by summoning a focused Vortex Barrier, using the brief shield to catch his breath.
He instantly dashed again. The Golem met the charge, holding out its claw to snap the blade again. The localized explosion erupted the moment the Golem touched the Viridian Sword. The Golem screamed in pain and recoiled, its claws blackened.
"What? Have you seen it, Zane?" Zathis shouted. "The claws explode as soon as it touches the sword!"
"I see it, but how? Is that another skill?" Zane questioned, astonished.
As the Golem's hand recoiled from the localized blast, Kaelus used the opening to dash to the monster's back, targeting the vulnerable nape. He struck it with the dagger. The dagger barely scratched the crystal nape, but Kaelus used a focused Vortex Force at the point of contact to drill a deeper wound.
The Golem screamed in pain, pushing forward. Kaelus spun, freeing his Viridian Sword, and delivered a powerful Vortex Slash directly across the nape before the healing glow could fully seal the damage.
He instantly disengaged, creating distance, then settled into his ultimate skill stance. He used Mana Sense and Mana Lock to pinpoint the exact, wounded spot on the nape. He conjured his Gale Rifle using the Viridian Sword as the body, and instead of a wind bullet, he loaded Zathis's dagger into the mana channel for more piercing power. He fired. The dagger spun violently—a projectile encased in compressed Wind—and struck the Golem's nape. The Golem screamed again in pain.
Kaelus made another series of rapid strikes, but the Golem's defense was too strong, and he couldn't break through. He needed to finish it quickly. Kaelus positioned again in the ultimate skill stance. He unleashed the ultimate Enhanced Ryujin no Kaze, pinpointing the already damaged Golem's nape. The SSS-rank monster received the attack directly, and the force severed its head completely. The healing mechanism couldn't keep up with the sustained, concentrated damage. That attack finished the Rock Crystal Golem.
The Rock Crystal Golem shuddered one final time. Its body cracked profoundly, yet unlike the other two SS+ rank monsters Kaelus had instantly annihilated, it did not dissipate into mana. Its massive, fractured crystalline structure remained, exposing the core within its chest cavity.
Kaelus lowered his katana, staring at the prize. The core was different from any he had seen. It was a SSS-rank Earth elemental monster core, but instead of glowing the expected dark brown, the core's surface was dark brown yet pulsated with an intense glowing red from within.