The command cracked like a whip.

Kogar and Kima Ramsey reacted without thinking. Their bodies moved before their minds could process the terror.

Kima rushed forward, slamming his massive tower shield down into the stone floor with a heavy THUD.

Kogar, his hands empty after Ray had commandeered his primary shield, didn’t hesitate. He reached over his shoulder and unslung his heavy backup shield that was strapped to his back. It wasn’t as large as the tower shield, but it was thick steel. He slammed it down next to his brother, bracing it with his shoulder.

Darian slammed his shield into the gap between the brothers, interlocking the edges.

“Brace!”

Darian bellowed, his voice raw.

CLANG.

Team SIS formed a phalanx, a wall of steel against a wall of living magma.

The Centurion attacked again and swung.

CRASH.

The impact was earth-shattering. The Golem’s spear slammed into the center of the shield wall. The ground shook. The Ramsey brothers groaned, their boots sliding backward, carving deep white grooves into the black obsidian floor. Sparks flew as the enchantment on Kogar’s shield flickered and died under the assault.

But the line held.

“Now!”

Darian roared.

Seeing the Golem recoil slightly from the impact, Darian saw his chance. He didn’t just hold the line; he struck back. He thrust his mace through the gap in the shields, driving the heavy flange deep into the Centurion’s exposed obsidian knee.

CRACK.

The blow was solid. It shattered the stone plating, exposing the roiling, bright-orange magma core beneath. Darian grinned, thinking he had crippled the monster.

Meanwhile, in the Noble’s Box…

Lord Varrus, the patriarch of House Varrus, sat with his arms crossed, his face a mask of stone. Beside him, other Valor families whispered. They had seen Darian struggle. They had seen him falter.

The crowd watched as Ray Croft grabbed a shield and blocked an attack shielding Darian. They watched Darian, the heir to a proud, stubborn house being protected by a smaller student from a minor house.

But then, the audio from the screen boomed through the stadium.

“KOGAR, KIMA! GET YOUR ASSESS OVER HERE! SHIELD WALL! NOW!”

A lesser man might have been ashamed to see his son being protected by a weaker looking student. But Lord Varrus leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.

He saw the discipline. He saw the formation holding against a monster that should have crushed them. He saw his son finally stop acting like a hero and start acting like a soldier.

“Good,”

Lord Varrus grunted, a rare nod of approval breaking his stoic facade.

“Stay strong. Hold the line boy.”

For the first time all day, the murmurs mocking House Varrus ceased. They weren’t watching a brute anymore; they were watching a unit.

“Got him!”

Darian shouted.

But the victory lasted less than a second.

The magma didn’t bleed out. Instead, it bubbled up, hissing violently. In the blink of an eye, the molten rock cooled and hardened, reforming the obsidian plate perfectly. The damage wasn’t just repaired; it was erased.

The Centurion didn’t even limp. It simply roared louder, pressing its weight back onto the shields.

Ray watched the rapid regeneration, his eyes narrowing.

Scholar: “Damage to structural integrity was significant, yet restoration was instantaneous. The mana efficiency of that repair cycle is impossible for a standard combat construct. It’s not using mana to fight; it’s using mana to reset.”

Veteran: “It’s a sponge. High defense, infinite regeneration. It’s not trying to kill us, kid. It’s trying to keep us busy.”

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Ray remembered that they only had a three-hour limit for the whole scenario. This thing was designed to eat every second of it.

“Stop attacking!”

Ray shouted from behind the line, his voice cutting through the noise.

“It’s a Time Sink! You can’t kill it!”

Darian gritted his teeth, smoke rising from his pauldrons as the heat intensified.

“What do you mean I can’t kill it? Anything dies if you hit it hard enough!”

“It heals faster than you can damage it!”

Ray yelled back.

“It’s a stall tactic! Don’t waste your energy on strikes! Just hold the line!”

The Centurion pressed its weight against the shields. It radiated an aura of intense, suffocating heat. The metal of the shields began to glow cherry-red. The air around Team SIS turned into a convection oven.

“We’re cooking!” Kima screamed, his face turning a blotchy red as his helmet heated up. “My armor is burning me!”

“Just stall it!”

Ray ordered, raising his glove.

“I’m cooling you down!”

Ray stepped back. He couldn’t fight the Golem’s mass, but he had to fight the thermodynamics before his tanks boiled alive inside their own shells.

Scholar: “Ambient temperature critical. Air displacement is insufficient. We need a phase-change coolant. Active thermal venting is required immediately.”

Ray didn’t yell orders. That would take too long. He reached out with his mind, activating the Resonant Link open to Eliza.

Eliza! I need a coolant! Channel a continuous stream of frost directly in front of me! Do not aim at the Golem; aim at the air!”

Eliza didn’t question him. She stepped out from cover, her staff glowing with pale blue light.

“Glacies!”

A beam of concentrated cold energy, a sustained Ray of Frost, shot toward Ray.

Ray didn’t dodge. He raised his left hand, the Theorist’s Glove pulsing with chaotic light. He raised his right hand, fingers splayed to catch the wind.

“Ventus!”

Ray cast Gust. But he didn’t aim at the enemy. He aimed his spell directly into the path of Eliza’s frost beam.

Ray slammed the high-velocity wind into the magical ice.

CRACK-HISS.

The two spells collided and shattered. The focused beam of frost was instantly pulverized by the wind, expanding outward into a super-cooled, high-pressure mist.

Ray thrust his hands forward, driving the combined spell, a localized blizzard, through the gaps between the brothers’ legs.

The freezing fog rushed over the superheated armor of Team SIS.

HISSSSSS.

Steam erupted violently as the magical frost met the burning metal. The thermal energy was stripped away in an instant. The cherry-red glow faded from the shields. The air temperature inside the phalanx dropped from ‘oven’ to ‘brisk autumn day’ in a heartbeat.

Darian gasped, sucking in a lungful of cold, wet air. The agony of his burning skin vanished.

“Better!”

Darian choked out, his strength returning now that he wasn’t being cooked.

“Keep it coming!”

The Centurion roared, responding to the sudden drop in temperature. It pulled its spear back and wound up for a massive overhead smash, a breaker move designed to crush the shields from above.

Veteran: “Overhead swing. High stance. The center of gravity is shifting upward. He’s vulnerable at the base.”

Activating The ‘Fulcrum Principle,’ Ray dropped the spell connection. He moved. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the Drafting Spool. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the weighted end of the silver wire skittering across the floor, looping it around the Golem’s massive, magma-dripping ankle.

Ray didn’t pull it; he wasn’t heavy enough. He scrambled to the side and jammed a spare Runic Chisel into a crack in the floor, wrapping the wire around it tight.

The Centurion stepped forward to deliver the death blow. The wire tightens.

It didn’t trip the massive construct, it was too heavy for that, but it snubbed the movement. The Golem’s foot jerked, stopping six inches shorter than intended.

The overhead smash came down, but because the footing was off, the aim was off. The spear missed the center of Darian’s shield and glanced off the curved edge of Kogar’s backup shield.

SCREEEECH.

Sparks showered the room, but the wall didn’t break. The blow was deflected.

Now, Eliza!

Ray commanded via the Resonant link, pointing at the Golem’s exposed knee joint, where the magma was brightest.

Freeze the joint!

Eliza stepped out from behind a pillar.

“Glacies!”

The Golem saw her. It began to turn its head, the burning blue eyes locking onto the threat, preparing to raise its shield to block the spell.

Ray didn’t have a spell to stop it. But he had alchemy.

He reached into his pouch and grabbed a handful of loose Flash Powder, a mixture of magnesium and oxidizers he usually needed a spark to ignite.

He didn’t need a spark here. The enemy was the spark.

Ray threw the handful of grey dust over the shield wall, aiming directly at the Golem’s burning face.

The powder hit the superheated air around the magma head.

FZZZ-POP!

The reaction was instantaneous. The magnesium ignited on contact with the heat, detonating in a brilliant, blinding sphere of white radiance right in the construct’s eyes.

The Centurion recoiled, its head snapping back as its optical sensors were overloaded by the sudden flare. It flailed blindly, missing the block.

Eliza’s Ray of Frost struck the exposed knee. The magma hissed and blackened, hardening into brittle stone. The construct stumbled, its movement stiff and jerky.

Ray was everywhere at once, cooling the tanks, tripping the boss, blinding the eyes with chemistry. He wasn’t doing damage, but he was controlling the chaos. He was the conductor of the battle.

But it wasn’t enough.

“Ray!”

Darian yelled, spitting blood.

“We can’t hold this forever!”

Ray looked. The blackened stone on the Golem’s knee cracked and fell away, revealing fresh, hot magma underneath. The damage Eliza had done was already gone.

Scholar: “Regeneration rate exceeds damage output by a factor of three. We are in a negative feedback loop. This is a stalemate we will eventually lose.”

Ray looked at the squad. Kogar’s shield was buckling in the center. Kima was weeping from exhaustion. Darian was swaying on his feet, kept upright only by stubbornness and the shield wall.

They were buying him time. He had to use it.

Ray disengaged, stepping back to the central pedestal. He wiped sweat from his eyes and looked at the plaque again.

The way forward is not always ahead.

He looked at the open North wall where the monster had come from. A trap. He looked at the South and East walls. The chisels were there, tempting them.

It’s not a choice of doors, Ray thought desperately. It’s a choice of perspective.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the roar of the fire and the clang of steel. He dove into his mind palace, searching for the one variable he hadn’t used.

Rina.

He replayed their conversation in the study. He heard her voice, clear and distinct.

A construction apprentice told me… they were tasked with building a small, ‘pointless’ hidden room behind the main entrance archway.

Behind the entrance.

Ray’s eyes snapped open.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep