CHAPTER 830: A MOMENT OF ABSURDITY

Adam pressed toward the hall’s main entrance, steady steps echoed by Desmond’s. He pressed a finger against his lips the moment they emerged from the staff corridor.

His pace slowed, his clenched fists plunged into the pockets of his somber robes, and his lips twisted just enough to resemble a smile—cold and determined—reflected by the polished floor as he passed between the reward counters.

Magi gazed at him for a heartbeat before lowering their faces back to the materials they had been sorting through with exaggerated interest or, more likely, disinterest in him. Thirteen days of watching Louis try to catch him and Desmond red-handed had turned annoyance into indifference, especially on his last day of punishment.

Though he knew the magi were eager not to see his face disturb their work, he kept his pace natural until he pushed the door on the other side of the hall.

The familiar corridor stretched for a few steps before darkness devoured what lay ahead in a soundless world.

As soon as Desmond stepped inside, he closed the door. They exchanged a glance. Then, silence was no more.

Their feet thundered against the stone floor, wind whipping their uniforms in a cacophony of rustling fabric. Light erupted from the grooves in the walls to reveal storages and treasuries.

He ignored them to halt before the metallic door of Louis’ storage. The crudely studded rim groaned when he gripped the handle. "Ready?" he asked Desmond.

"No." The teenager shoved air into his lungs, chest puffing out, before he blasted everything out. "But I’ll manage." Even as he answered grimly, a shudder jolted his head. "You’re making it worse. Open the damned door."

"Wait for the perfect opportunity." With a solemn nod, Adam forced his shoulder against the cold frame and lowered the handle. He burst inside, red carpet muffling his stomps, torches crackling on the walls.

The four square pillars flashed in his vision while Desmond slammed the door shut. He wrung his fingers against his stomach, the five elements flaring in dancing hues at their tips. With a sound like breaking chains, his dan tian roared to life.

Life force flooded his starved meridians, fueling muscles with terrifying raw might. The hilt of his chronoscar formed in his free hand before he reached the sphere at the end of the mysterious room. The somber, crystalline edge extended from a shroud of light as he swung it at the inactive golem.

Yet the sphere shifted to the right.

CLANG

Adam’s blade met the silver broadsword planted into the golem’s torso. Sparks showered in front of his swaying hair. Before he could strike again, a mechanical arm and a helmeted head erupted, the cold depths of the visor flashing red.

It split the wind, fingers larger than his head curling around him like walls.

The outline of his figure blended with the surroundings—just as the crushing form wrapped around him. He faded, blinking through space to materialise behind the golem, blade already hacking down.

Only for his pupils to constrict.

After two confrontations, the golem had prepared for the final showdown. Its legs burst out of the sphere, hurled not down, but at the side of Adam’s descending blade with soul-chilling accuracy.

The impact was as if a thousand mad stallions had crashed into his right arm. The sensation of muscle torn from bones ripped a groan from his clenched jaw. His arm was flung aside, joints popping, his own blade now the tool of his demise. And since the pressure turned it against him, he did what no textbooks, no teachers would ever suggest to a warrior.

If it turned against him... he didn’t need it.

He loosened his fingers. The blade shot up, digging into the wall, which cried dust particles made iridescent by the stuttering torches.

The golem’s second arm burst out, palm finding purchase on the ground. It lifted itself in a handstand, its legs’ momentum repurposed into a circular, mauling strike.

Adam spun on his clenched toe, shattering the momentum that would have hammered him into the wall as well. As his muscles squirmed back into place, he saw them—two arcs like saws about to ravage his torso. But he was ready.

Ready to go beyond the predictions of the golem.

Gritting his teeth, he threw himself into the whirlwind of steel, dark layers of gravity distorting space around his hands. The golem’s left leg came first; his back rumbled with mana and life force as he spun his hip.

He hurled a left fist. The skin on his knuckles exploded into a red mess on impact, but before the pain registered, he fired his right fist, then his left again. His arms blurred in a flurry of punches against the armored leg of the golem.

BANG BANG BANG

The sounds echoed louder than the impact of thousands of mana bullets grinding metal. His feet dug trenches into the ground, his arms wept searing blood through bursting veins, and his lips pursed over his teeth in agony suppressed into a defiant grimace.

He would destroy the golem’s momentum.

His bones’ immense weight, coupled with the gravity fueling his strikes, scratched at the leg’s momentum, one punch at a time.

And when the leg finally halted, the golem froze for a split second, protocols confused by the absurd cost Adam paid to parry instead of simply dodging.

That split second didn’t escape Adam. The moment the leg came to a halt, he lunged at the mechanical arm that supported the golem’s handstand. His foot flew off the ground, pants pressing against his chin, Qi laden with gravity blasting outward in somber waves.

BAM

The air rippled like a watery surface, and the sting of ripped skin seared his right leg. The golem’s palm slipped, tons of metal crashing to the ground. But at this moment, the light beneath its visor flickered steadily.

Before its helmet met the ground, its free hand flashed to the silver broadsword planted on its torso. Sharp edges sparkled in a horizontal arc that would decapitate Adam.

Adam weaved beneath the lethal strike, then folded to the side, gasping as the golem twisted the blade mid-strike. The horizontal arc didn’t draw a curve; it shifted down at an inhuman angle that would have split him in half if not for his mythical eyes.

The golem crashed in a cloud of dust, the mountains painted on its torso brightening. Two rushes of vapor shot from its shoulders as its enchantment redirected the energy from the collision beyond its frame.

Yet, as it rose in a shower of pattering gravel and lumbered forward like an unbreakable colossus, Adam smirked.

"Desmond!"

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AN: This is going to be hard to write...