Infinite Mana - Chapter 194: Call For Allies (Patreon)

The Guardian endured another concentrated hammer strike across its damaged knee, but instead of losing balance again, the corrupted construct planted both feet and released a metallic grinding sound that vibrated through the entire chamber. Red light pulsed beneath the overlapping plates covering its torso. The cracked joint remained damaged, yet corrupted mana continued forcing the fractured metal together while the surrounding soldiers struggled to create another opening before the repair finished.

Aldren finally stepped fully into the formation with his hammer lowered beside one leg. His earlier decision to remain an observer had disappeared now that the Guardian was healing faster than his men could safely dismantle it. The soldiers noticed immediately and adjusted around him without receiving detailed instructions. The defensive pair widened their positions while the remaining attackers shifted outward, leaving enough room for their captain to reach the center whenever necessary.

The Guardian struck first.

It drove one fist toward the front line, forcing both defensive fighters to raise their hammers together while Aldren moved diagonally toward its damaged side. The impact pushed the pair backward several meters, but Sieghart placed a Mana Barrier behind their weapons just before contact. The boundary shattered instantly, reducing enough force that neither soldier lost his footing completely.

Aldren exploited the opening and swung. His hammer struck the Guardian’s damaged knee with a sound considerably deeper than anything produced by the other soldiers. Metal folded inward around the impact before a network of cracks spread through the reinforced joint.

Sieghart’s eyes narrowed. That was different.

Aldren had not simply used more Aura. The captain’s entire body aligned behind the strike for only an instant, concentrating everything into the hammerhead before immediately releasing the tension afterward.

The Guardian dropped half a step. Two soldiers attacked the same location. Another hammer connected. Then another. The entire left leg finally buckled enough that the creature needed to plant one massive hand against the floor to keep itself upright.

For several seconds, the fight looked manageable again.

Then the Guardian became violent. The red glow inside its chest intensified until the surrounding plates looked almost translucent around their edges. Its head snapped toward the nearest soldier before the entire torso rotated with frightening speed.

“Back!”

Aldren’s warning came just before the Guardian spun. Both enormous arms extended outward. The first struck one soldier’s raised hammer and launched him across the chamber despite the defensive Aura wrapped around his body. The second arm swept through another pair before either could retreat completely, clipping one man across the chest while the other barely ducked beneath the moving fist.

Aldren planted his hammer and lowered his body. The Guardian’s forearm collided with the reinforced shaft. The captain slid backward. Sieghart immediately created Mana Barrier behind him, preventing another several meters of uncontrolled movement before the boundary shattered beneath Aldren’s momentum.

The Guardian continued rotating.

Dust and fragments of ore blasted outward as its feet carved trenches into the chamber floor, turning the enormous construct into something closer to a spinning siege weapon than a humanoid fighter.

Sieghart used Impulse once to move beyond the sweeping range while keeping his apparent reaction restrained enough that nobody focused on him during the chaos.

Eventually, the Guardian stopped. Its damaged knee had worsened during the rotation.

That did not seem to matter. The creature lowered its arms. Then its entire body began shaking. Sieghart initially assumed the corruption was forcing another repair cycle, but Magic Vision immediately showed something he had not seen during any previous encounter.

Mana was leaving the Guardian.

Dark-red energy leaked through the seams around its chest before spreading outward through the chamber floor, walls, broken mineral deposits, and even loose fragments scattered from earlier fights.

Sieghart’s expression changed. That was never a good sign. Every corrupted core he had encountered previously behaved badly when its mana started interacting with the surrounding environment.

“Captain!”

Aldren turned slightly while keeping his hammer raised.

“Something’s happening.”

“What?”

“The mana is spreading.”

That was all Sieghart had time to explain. The chamber shook. Not from the Guardian. From everywhere. Small cracks appeared across the floor. The surrounding walls groaned. Several piles of broken mineral material began moving while red mana passed beneath them through invisible channels. Aldren looked around sharply.

“Formation!”

Too late. The ground erupted beside the nearest soldier. A smaller golem pulled itself upward from beneath the stone, barely reaching the man’s waist before raising two compact mineral fists.

Another emerged near the opposite wall. Then three more. Then ten. Sieghart stared as the Guardian’s scattered mana awakened dormant material throughout the chamber, assembling rough humanoid bodies far faster than the dungeon’s ordinary reconstruction process.

Some looked like compressed stone children. Others resembled crude mineral skeletons with disproportionately large arms. Several possessed no visible heads at all, carrying only small red-lit cores embedded inside their upper torsos.

The numbers kept increasing. Aldren looked genuinely surprised for the first time since Sieghart met him.

“Those weren’t here before.”

Sieghart almost responded that this observation was extremely helpful, but another crack interrupted him when two additional golems emerged near the blocked wall. Within seconds, more than thirty smaller constructs surrounded the formation.

The Guardian straightened in the center. The damage across its knee had stopped being everyone’s biggest problem. Aldren reacted immediately.

“Full retreat! Back to the corridor!”

The soldiers moved without hesitation. Two defensive fighters positioned themselves between the Guardian and the others while the remaining men turned toward the archway they had entered through.

Sieghart started moving with them. The ceiling cracked. Everyone looked up. A section of stone larger than the carriage broke loose directly above the corridor entrance.

“Move!”

The boulder fell. It struck the floor with enough force to shake the entire chamber, shattering its lower edge while completely sealing the archway beneath several tons of dungeon stone. Dust exploded through the room.

Sieghart raised one arm while Protection kept the worst debris away from his face. The soldiers stopped. Their escape route was gone. Aldren clicked his tongue and immediately abandoned the retreat order.

“Tight formation! Center of the chamber!”

The men turned and moved together, creating a compact defensive circle while smaller golems advanced from every direction. Aldren finally gripped his hammer with both hands.

“No one gets isolated. If you lose sight of the man beside you, you’re too far apart.”

Sieghart moved into the rear of the formation while studying the surrounding constructs with Magic Vision. The smaller golems possessed much weaker cores than the Guardian. Their bodies looked unstable too. That was useful. He raised both hands.

Water formed around him.

Not one large sphere. Many smaller ones. Sieghart compressed each into a dense ball slightly larger than a fist, keeping enough weight and pressure inside them to strike hard without requiring the destructive precision of Water Jet.

He launched them.

The first water ball struck a small golem directly in the chest.

The impact lifted the construct from the floor and threw it backward into another approaching body.

A second projectile slammed into a different golem’s head. The creature staggered sideways. More followed. Sieghart fired a rapid barrage into the surrounding ring, targeting knees, chests, and exposed cores rather than trying to destroy anything completely.

Water exploded across mineral bodies. The chamber floor became slick. Several smaller constructs lost their footing simultaneously, while others were physically knocked backward before recovering their balance.

More importantly, Magic Vision showed the impacts briefly disrupting the unstable mana channels holding their hastily assembled bodies together.

They were stunned. Not for long. Long enough.

“Smash the small ones while they’re down!”

One soldier looked toward Sieghart.

“What?”

“You  won’t pay me if all of you die. Move!”

That apparently provided sufficient motivation. Three soldiers broke just far enough from the formation to strike the nearest disabled constructs. Hammers crashed downward. One small golem’s torso exploded into mineral fragments.

Another lost its upper half. A third shattered completely when two fighters struck it from opposite directions. Sieghart launched more water balls. Every impact created another brief opening. The soldiers caught on quickly.

Instead of wasting heavy Aura-enhanced swings against moving targets, they waited for Sieghart to knock the constructs off balance before committing their hammers. The efficiency improved immediately. Water struck.

Golem staggered. Hammer fell. Core broke. Next target.

The Guardian charged. Whatever question he intended to ask disappeared immediately. The corrupted construct crossed the chamber with both arms lowered, using its sheer mass and speed to force everything between itself and the captain to move or be crushed.

Aldren turned. His posture changed instantly. The remaining soldiers scattered just far enough to avoid standing between them. Sieghart watched the Guardian’s momentum build and quietly decided that allowing the captain to receive that impact without assistance would be extremely inconvenient.

If Aldren fell, the formation would probably collapse. If the formation collapsed, Sieghart would eventually need to fight seriously. If Sieghart fought seriously, everyone here would learn far more than he wanted them knowing.

Therefore, helping Aldren was technically self-defense. Sieghart liked that reasoning. He gathered White Mana without announcing anything. Protection settled around Aldren first. Sieghart kept the spell subtle, forming the reinforcement close enough to the captain’s armor that its glow became difficult to notice beneath the Aura already surrounding his body.

Then he added Muscle Reinforcement.

The spell entered Aldren’s muscles quietly, strengthening the physical structures already prepared for impact without creating an obvious external effect.

Aldren stiffened for half a second. He noticed. His body had just become stronger without him doing anything. There was no time to ask why. The Guardian reached him. Aldren swung.

Hammer and metallic fist collided. The chamber erupted with sound. A shockwave traveled through loose dust and water spread across the floor, creating a circular burst around the impact point.

Aldren slid backward. One meter. Two. Then stopped. His boots remained planted. Sieghart raised an eyebrow. The captain looked equally surprised. The Guardian apparently expected the same result as before and continued pressing forward, forcing its damaged leg harder against the ground while red mana surged through its body.

Aldren gritted his teeth. His arms held. Protection absorbed part of the force. Muscle Reinforcement supported the rest. The captain twisted his hammer suddenly. Instead of continuing the contest, he redirected the Guardian’s fist downward and stepped sideways.

The enormous arm crashed into the floor. Aldren swung immediately afterward. His hammer struck the Guardian’s wrist. Metal folded. The corrupted construct recoiled.

The captain looked toward his own hands for perhaps half a second before turning his eyes toward Sieghart. Sieghart was already firing another water ball.

No explanation.

Not now.

Preferably not later either.

Two smaller golems approached Aldren from behind. Sieghart hit both with water. They staggered. A nearby soldier destroyed one while another crushed the second beneath his hammer. The formation tightened again. Sieghart continued supporting them from the center, alternating Mana Barriers, Water Magic, and healing whenever someone received enough damage to lose function.

His role was becoming considerably more active than the simple healer Aldren had hired.

That was annoying. Also useful.

White Magic reacted strongly whenever Protection prevented injuries. Muscle Reinforcement on Aldren remained stable.

Even the summoned support he had been considering earlier no longer sounded theoretical. This was exactly the environment his progression paths wanted. Sieghart simply wished it involved fewer witnesses.

Another wave of smaller golems emerged from the floor. Aldren saw them and cursed.

“More!”

Sieghart looked toward the Guardian. Red mana continued spreading from its chest. As long as the corrupted core remained active, the reinforcements would probably keep coming.

That meant the small golems were not the real problem.

They were a distraction.

A very effective one.

Sieghart followed the dark-red mana through Magic Vision and finally saw the connection clearly.