SETH: The Blind Architect

The metal golem halted its advance exactly seven meters away, standing motionless amid the wreckage of the fallen titan. Its pristine silver surface caught the glare of the overhead electrical lamps, reflecting fractured beams of sterile white light across the ruined fourth floor.

Beaumont stood frozen in place, every muscle locked in absolute focus. His chest heaved, lungs still raw from the earlier inferno. Mud and ash caked his clothes, and the lingering heat made the air feel thick enough to chew.

It hasn’t even been thirty minutes, he thought bitterly, hazel eyes narrowing. And this happens. I thought I was finally going to get a shut-eye. What a joke.

His expression hardened into something grim and unyielding. The cocky grin he’d worn moments ago after shattering the titan’s core had completely evaporated.

This just keeps getting worse the deeper I go. The way I see it, it’s not normal…

He paused, breath steadying as his mind raced.

...I forgot. This dungeon hasn’t been normal from the very start. His gaze drilled into the motionless silver figure. But I don’t think this one was part of the dungeon.

That feminine voice still echoed in his memory, it was utterly untraceable. It had risen from the very air itself, commanding the rubble with flexible authority.

That voice I heard earlier must be the sole reason for its making… I see. From the very beginning, I’ve been monitored. A chill ran down his spine despite the exhaustion. It must be the Dungeon Lord. Since I couldn’t trace the source, they’re clearly a powerful magic caster. They didn’t just summon this thing, they forged it from the remnants of my battle, using the remains of the colossal Golem. They must have studied my techniques mid-fight. His jaw tightened. Likely a sorcerer at best.

Beaumont still hadn’t moved a single muscle. He continued staring at the golem with a mixture of wary curiosity and building fury.

Why hasn’t it attacked yet? It just stopped seven meters away. Is it waiting for me to make the first move? That would be bad. I don’t know how fast it is, if I make one wrong step and it’s the end of my lifeline. But…

A dangerous smirk slowly crept across his mud-streaked face.

“If you think you have the full knowledge of my skills and how to anticipate them,” he murmured under his breath, voice low and venomous, “you’re dead wrong. I’ll make you choke on your doubt!”

His mind sharpened into lethal clarity.

First things first, I need multiple layers of magical defense. Then I’ll decelerate its movements and finish it in one decisive go!

Beaumont took a single cautious step backward, boot scraping across the jagged. That was all the invitation the golem needed.

In a blur of silver, it dashed forward. Its left arm swung wide at its side, the blade humming with a high-frequency edge that sliced the air itself. In the time it took Beaumont to complete that one retreating step, the construct had already covered five sprinting strides, closing the distance with terrifying acceleration. Its footwork was fluid, nothing like the lumbering brute force of the previous titan.

Beaumont’s eyes widened in shock. Ohh no!

He thrust his right arm upward. Warm amber sigil circles flared into existence around his forearm, spinning rapidly. An oval-shaped crystalline glass wall surged upward from the ground in an instant, thick and reinforced with layered mana. The barrier shimmered with golden-amber light, promising protection.

The golem didn’t slow. Its blade arm came down in a merciless diagonal cleave. The edge met the wall with a screech of tortured crystal. Sparks and mana fragments exploded outward as the barrier split cleanly in two, then the golem’s follow-through hewed through the lower half without losing momentum.

But Beaumont was already gone.

He had launched himself off the very tip of the collapsing oval wall, twisting mid-air. His arms extended straight, amber sigils blazing brighter than before. A barrage of drill-tipped boulder javelins manifested around him, spinning violently as they launched forward with explosive force. The projectiles screamed through the air like living artillery, trailing dust and golden light.

The golem dodged each one with eerie perception. It weaved left, then right, bending its sleek metallic frame in ways that defied its rigid appearance. Every javelin either missed by centimeters or was sliced apart mid-flight as the construct pressed closer, relentless.

Beneath Beaumont, the golem suddenly leaped upward with terrifying power, closing the vertical gap in a single bound. At thirty-two inches apart, the distance closed.

“Good heavens!” Beaumont muttered in raw shock.

The blade came down in a devastating overhead cleave. Two of Beaumont’s four damaged defensive slates, emergency barriers he had frantically summoned, slammed together to intercept. The metal edge sheared through both layers with contemptuous ease, splitting them like parchment. A back kick from the golem’s leg followed immediately, only to be met by the final two slates. The impact still sent Beaumont hurtling backward.

He hit the ground hard, rolling twice before springing back to his feet, boots skidding across loose rubble. The golem landed gracefully and dashed in again without pause.

“This is bad,” Beaumont growled.

As usual, it isn’t giving me any time to react.

He ran backward while firing another volley of boulder javelin drills. The projectiles whistled past, but the golem danced through them, weaving left and right, cleaving one that came too close, ducking beneath another, then hewing a third that nearly took its head. Its movements were precise, and impossibly fast for something born of raw earth minerals.

It crouched low on its right leg, then exploded forward with sheer force. Suddenly they were one-on-one again, barely ten inches apart. The blade arm swept down in a lethal arc aimed at Beaumont’s upper torso.

His right arm flared desperately. From the ground directly beneath the golem, a massive boulder drill erupted upward like a geyser of stone fury. “Fit your face on this!”

The construct hewed the drill in two before impact, but the force still slammed it backward, buying precious space. Beaumont landed, sweat pouring down his forehead and stinging his eyes. Damn! That was close.

The golem hurled through the air, slammed into a jagged rock outcrop, and rolled across the floor. For a split second, it lay still.

Good. Now I have time to cast my defenses...

It rose on all three limbs; right arm, legs, and the bladed left, swung its weapon arm upward in a gleaming arc, and sprinted forward again with horrifying speed.

“Come on, stay down, will you?!” Beaumont roared.

He planted his feet in a wide, rooted stance, arms spread wide. Warm amber sigil circles materialized not only around both palms but orbiting above him, twenty in total, spinning like a constellation of golden fury. Mana surged through the broken floor beneath him.

“Barrage, Boulder Lances!”

A continuous, rapid storm of heavy earthen projectiles erupted toward the charging golem. Each lance was thicker than a man’s thigh, tipped with spiraling crystalline drills and propelled by immense kinetic force. The sprinting construct couldn’t fully dodge. It cleaved through the volley with savage efficiency, silver blade flashing in a deadly rhythm. Sparks and stone shards filled the air as it pressed onward, sleek mobility allowing it to slip through gaps in the barrage even as impacts rocked its frame.

What on earth is this thing? Beaumont thought, teeth grinding. Is it because of the magical energy that made it this strong and fast? Golems aren’t supposed to be this fast!

Before he could adjust, the golem had closed the distance once more. Beaumont canceled the ranged assault with a sharp gesture. He stepped backward as the construct leaned in aggressively. In response, he thrust both hands upward, manifesting a massive rectangular earth slab directly above the golem. It dropped like a falling building.

Due to the golem’s accelerated forward momentum, the slab only scraped its trailing foot, slammed uselessly against the floor.

Now up close, the blade hewed again. Beaumont’s remaining defensive slates rose to counter, but the golem’s enchanted edge sliced through them with contemptuous ease. A faint cut opened along the side of Beaumont’s neck, blood trickling down his collarbone. A follow-up cleave came immediately.

He miscalculated his footwork on the uneven, debris-strewn ground and slipped. The blade whistled past his face by a hair’s breadth. He dropped to the ground, heart hammering, and glanced up to see the golem already committing to a dropping slash.

A few inches from his body, powerful glass-like earth spikes erupted violently from the ground. They grazed the golem’s metallic frame with screeching sparks, slowing its pace for a critical instant.

The construct reluctantly leaped over the spikes, blade already sweeping in a wide arc. Beaumont crouched low, then launched himself sideways using a hastily summoned thick slab as a springboard. The blade chopped into empty stone where he had been.

It looked up, locking onto him mid-air, and leaped in pursuit.

Beaumont manipulated the thick slab beneath his feet with raw will, compressing it violently with concentrated mana until it tightened into a high-velocity drill javelin. He fired it downward with bullet-like force.

The golem’s blade met the tip head-on. The collision produced an explosive shockwave that drove the entire construct straight back into the ground with cratering force. Dust and stone fragments blasted outward.

Beaumont dropped down, landing heavily, chest burning. The golem slowly rose from the jagged crater, silver surface now bearing faint scratches but still terrifyingly intact.

Stay down!

He thrust his hand forward. “Cocoon!”

Loose soil beneath the golem surged upward like living serpents, completely wrapping its frame. The earth hardened instantly into a dense, restrictive casing, locking joints and limbs in place.

The golem struggled, internal whining. With sheer, unnatural power, it began shattering the cocoon from within.

Beaumont landed solidly and followed up without hesitation. “Triple Prison Dome!”

The ground beneath the golem erupted in thick, heavily reinforced layers of polished marble-like earth. The first dome formed instantly, trapping the construct inside a seamless sphere. A second, larger one encased the first. A third, even more massive, sealed the previous two. The triple-layered prison hummed with concentrated mana, glowing with amber veins.

Beaumont dropped into a solid defensive stance, palms pressed together. Warm amber sigil circles bloomed around his wrists and shoulders.

“Petrifying Rust!” An abrasive, corrosive aura coated his clothing and skin in a gritty, mana-infused layer. Any metal weapon that struck it would begin degrading aggressively, growing brittle and shattering on subsequent impacts.

“Tectonic Shock!” Additional mana flooded his frame, compressing deep within his muscles and bones like a geological spring under immense pressure. Upon any heavy impact, it would violently rebound, channeling a devastating concussive shockwave directly into the attacker’s limbs, strong enough to shatter bones and hurl the enemy backward.

He channeled a vast amount of his mana directly into the jagged floor around him, turning the battlefield itself into an extension of his will. The air grew heavy with earthen power.

Beaumont glared at the triple dome, his voice stiff with exhausted resolve.

“Come at me,” he growled, “and I’ll show you why I’m called Beaumont ‘The Earth-born!’”

For a moment, silence reigned broken only by the faint creaking of the domes under internal strain.

Then came the quaking sounds from within the outermost dome. A large crack suddenly erupted across its surface, sending a cascade of pebbles and dust falling to the floor.