Infinite Mana - Chapter 193: The First Guardian (Thank you for your support, pluto ca!) (Patreon)

The chamber beyond the cracked archway was considerably larger than the passages leading toward it, broad enough that the soldiers could spread into formation without immediately scraping their hammers against the surrounding walls.

At first, Sieghart almost failed to identify the Guardian. A massive metallic-gray boulder rested near the center of the chamber, surrounded by fractured mineral formations and several shallow craters left across the floor. Then the boulder moved. Several overlapping plates separated with a grinding sound as thick limbs unfolded from beneath the mass. What had appeared to be an irregular rock slowly rose until a proper humanoid structure towered over the soldiers.

The Guardian stood nearly five meters tall, considerably broader than every golem they had encountered during the descent. Its entire body possessed the dull metallic gray of unpolished iron rather than ordinary dungeon stone.

Its arms were disproportionately thick, ending in fists large enough to cover Sieghart’s entire torso. Heavy plates protected the knees, shoulders, elbows, and upper chest where ordinary golems normally exposed their smaller control nodes. A narrow head emerged between the shoulders, little more than a reinforced wedge containing a horizontal slit. The light inside that opening burned dark red rather than the familiar amber glow of normal constructs. The torso was even worse.

A faint red radiance pulsed between overlapping chest plates, illuminating cracks around the metal as though something hot and unstable had been buried beneath the Guardian’s body. Sieghart’s expression hardened immediately. He had seen that color too many times. Magic Vision confirmed what ordinary sight had already suggested. Dark-red mana circulated through the Guardian’s central structure, contaminating the pathways extending toward every limb.

“Corrupted core.”

“Formation. Defensive pair forward.”

The soldiers moved with considerably more urgency than during previous encounters. Two broad fighters advanced first and positioned their hammers horizontally, their bodies settling into the defensive stance Sieghart had studied during the earlier floors. The remaining four spread behind them, leaving enough room to attack from the sides without crossing each other’s swing paths. Nobody stepped farther forward than the defensive pair.

Aldren remained beside Sieghart near the rear.

“Treat this like a line that cannot break. You do not let it pass you, and you do not chase it if it gives ground.”

The soldiers tightened their grips.

“You fall back only if you can no longer move one of your limbs properly. If that happens, Sieg repairs you and you return when you’re functional.”

Aldren rested one hand near his hammer.

“If you require my assistance, consider the exercise a failure.”

Nobody complained. The irritation several soldiers had shown toward Sieghart earlier had vanished completely. Every face visible beneath the helmets now carried the same focused tension while the Guardian stared toward them. Sieghart appreciated the determination. He still suspected this would become unpleasant. The corrupted mana flowing through the Guardian looked denser than anything he had observed inside the previous mineral golems.

Its internal pathways also appeared broader, carrying significantly more energy toward the limbs with every movement. Even before the fight started, Sieghart could tell the creature had not simply gained better materials.

Whatever corruption had reached the core was forcing more power through the entire structure. The Guardian moved first. Its enormous body leaned forward. The floor cracked. Then five meters of metallic golem crossed the chamber far faster than something that heavy had any business moving.

“Brace!”

Both defensive soldiers planted their feet and brought their hammers across their bodies. Aura surged through their legs, hips, shoulders, and arms moments before the Guardian’s fist reached them. The impact sounded like a siege weapon striking a gate. Both men slid backward simultaneously. Their boots carved deep trenches through loose mineral dust while the hammer shafts bent visibly beneath the force.

One soldier grunted through clenched teeth as his rear foot nearly lost contact with the floor. Those were the defensive specialists. Sieghart had watched them absorb blows from ordinary golems with barely more than a few steps of displacement. The Guardian had pushed both backward despite them sharing the impact.

“That’s bad.”

The offensive fighters moved immediately. Two rushed around opposite sides while the Guardian’s arm remained extended, aiming their hammers toward the exposed knee joints before the creature could recover. The first hammer struck the left knee. Metal rang through the chamber. A shallow indentation appeared. The second soldier attacked the opposite leg with both hands, sending Aura through his shoulders and weapon before the hammerhead crashed into the joint.

Another dent appeared without anything breaking. The Guardian rotated, and it did not move slowly. Its entire upper body spun with enough violence that the extended arm became a massive horizontal club sweeping around the chamber.

“Back!”

The first attacker ducked. The second failed. The Guardian’s forearm caught him across the chest and launched him sideways like a kicked stone. He crossed several meters before striking the ground shoulder-first, rolling twice before finally stopping near one of the mineral formations. The other offensive soldier barely escaped the sweep, but the Guardian continued rotating until its opposite fist threatened the defensive line from the side.

The two frontliners separated. One blocked. The other stepped away. The impact drove the blocking soldier backward again, although this time he redirected part of the force by angling the hammer rather than receiving everything directly.

The Guardian seemed almost offended by the inconvenience. Its red-lit head turned slightly toward Sieghart, something the ordinary golems had rarely done when he attacked them from beyond immediate reach.

“That’s new.”

He had not seen ordinary golems acknowledge the source of his spells so directly. Those constructs attacked whatever stood closest, rarely displaying enough awareness to distinguish support from immediate threat. The Guardian understood. Maybe not completely. Enough to dislike him. One offensive soldier exploited the distraction and struck the back of its knee again.

A second hammer followed into the exact same dent before the Guardian could rotate. The metal finally cracked, and a thin line spread across the outer plate.

“Same point!”

The soldiers understood immediately. The next hammer hit harder. The crack widened, but the Guardian twisted before a fourth attack could land, driving one foot backward and throwing its enormous elbow toward the men crowded around its damaged leg.

They scattered. One escaped completely. Another raised his hammer too late. The elbow hit the weapon and drove it into his own chest. The soldier folded. Something snapped loudly enough for Sieghart to hear from the rear. The man staggered backward while trying to breathe, his hammer falling from suddenly weakened hands.

Aldren’s voice cut through everything.

“Out!”

The injured soldier attempted one more step toward formation, but his left arm hung strangely. That settled it. Two companions covered his retreat while the Guardian hammered another barrier apart. Sieghart moved forward enough to meet the wounded man without entering the construct’s immediate reach.

“Sit.”

The soldier dropped heavily beside him. His breathing came in short, useless gasps. Sieghart released the armor straps and immediately found the problem. The ribs had fractured beneath the redirected hammer impact, while the left shoulder had partially dislocated under the same force.

First Aid flowed through the damaged ribs while the fight continued several meters away. Sieghart kept one eye on the injury and another on the chamber through Magic Vision, dividing Focus carefully between both problems. The Guardian drove the defensive pair backward again. A hammer struck its damaged knee. The crack widened, but it still was not enough to disable the reinforced joint.

Sieghart finished the first healing cast and shifted toward the shoulder, guiding the joint back into proper alignment before repairing the worst tissue damage surrounding it. The soldier breathed more comfortably.

“Move your fingers.”

He did.

“Shoulder?”

The man rotated carefully. Pain remained in his expression, but the limb looked functional enough to move without immediately worsening the repaired damage.

“Back line first.”

The soldier nodded and retrieved his hammer before returning behind the active pair rather than immediately forcing himself toward the front. Sieghart marked two more casts mentally.

His total was becoming expensive. Aldren probably did not care. The Guardian suddenly changed tactics instead of giving the soldiers enough time to settle comfortably into their formation again. Instead of attacking the defensive line directly, it lowered one shoulder and charged through the center. Both frontliners braced.

The soldiers blocked together. Their hammers crossed. Aura surged through both bodies while the Guardian kept moving despite the combined defense. For several terrible seconds, Sieghart watched boots scrape backward while the men were physically driven through the chamber despite using everything they had to remain planted.

One frontliner shouted. The other answered. Their Aura shifted, and rather than continuing to resist straight backward, they separated their angles slightly, guiding the Guardian’s momentum toward one side.

The creature drifted off-center. That created the opening. Three offensive soldiers attacked the damaged knee together before the Guardian could correct its direction. The first hammer widened the crack. The second drove into it. The third struck with enough force that the joint plate finally shattered inward.

The Guardian dropped. Its left knee slammed into the floor, and the chamber shook hard enough to scatter loose fragments around the soldiers’ boots. For a moment, the soldiers looked relieved. Sieghart did not. Magic Vision showed the red mana inside the damaged limb surging violently.

“Move!”

The Guardian planted one hand against the floor and spun its entire body around the broken knee. Its opposite leg swept across the chamber. The soldiers scattered again. One jumped, another ducked behind his hammer, and a third received the metallic shin across both forearms.

His right arm snapped. The sound was immediate, and he was thrown backward anyway. The soldier hit the floor and screamed while his hammer rolled away, one forearm bent at an angle that required absolutely no medical expertise to diagnose.

Aldren’s hand tightened around his weapon. Sieghart saw it. The captain had remained controlled throughout the exercise, refusing to solve problems for his men whenever they could still recover through formation and discipline. Now his hammer shifted slightly from his shoulder. He was considering entering. The Guardian pushed itself upright despite the damaged knee.

Red light brightened across its chest. The broken joint pulled together, not completely, but enough to show that the corrupted construct could recover damage much faster than the soldiers expected. Sieghart stared as corrupted mana flooded the fracture and forced damaged metal into alignment, producing a crude imitation of the self-repair used by weaker golems.

That changed the calculation significantly. The soldiers had spent substantial effort breaking one joint, and the Guardian was already undoing part of it. The man with the broken arm tried crawling away using his good hand while another fighter moved toward him. The Guardian noticed. The rescuing fighter grabbed his companion’s armor and dragged him backward. 

“You can keep doing that?”

“For a while.”

Technically forever, as far as mana was concerned. Concentration was another matter. Aldren studied him for half a second before returning his attention toward the Guardian.

The man’s broken arm remained grotesquely bent. Sieghart crouched beside him immediately while maintaining awareness of the fight beyond the defensive line.

“Don’t move.”

First Aid began repairing the fracture while Aldren watched the remaining soldiers engage again. The captain still had not drawn his hammer completely, but barely. Sieghart could tell that restraint was running out. So could the soldiers. Their next attacks became more disciplined than anything they had attempted during the first exchanges.

Nobody chased the damaged knee alone. Nobody stood inside the Guardian’s turning radius longer than necessary. The defensive pair regained formation while the remaining attackers waited for the creature to commit before moving toward exposed joints. The Guardian charged again. Both frontliners blocked, slid backward, and remained upright while the offensive fighters struck its damaged leg from opposite sides.

Metal cracked. Aldren’s hand stayed on his hammer. Sieghart finished restoring the broken arm and looked toward the battle while the soldier flexed his fingers carefully.