Chapter 901: Turned Upside Down
Everyone was a little confused, but no one spoke up to ask. After all, there had been too many strange occurrences already—who knew if this path was also a trap?
Leon, however, felt nothing unusual. After entering, he had already calculated it: while it seemed they were heading upward, they were actually going down. This illusion was caused by the architecture here—special methods were used to create a false sense of direction. And as they drew closer to the true Ancient Ruins, a subtle resistance added to the effect, making the sensation even stronger.
There was another factor, one Leon brought himself: changes in air pressure.
Underground, air pressure shifts with depth. For most mages, these changes are irrelevant.
Ordinary mages trust their magic more than their eyes or bodily sensations. Naturally, they ignore anything their magic can't detect.
They walked forward for over a thousand meters, and Leon said nothing—he simply kept moving.
The others couldn't sense it, but Leon had calculated that they weren't traveling in a straight line at all. Instead, they were moving along a spiral—a winding path that led deeper underground. The combination of the walls and the floor created the illusion of a straight corridor.
The lighting here was dim, and anything beyond a dozen meters vanished into shadow. Yet Leon could sense the Stone Golem scouting ahead—the link between them always traced an arc.
After walking another one or two thousand meters, a slightly wider hall suddenly appeared ahead—a flat space a hundred or so meters across. Directly in front stood a six- or seven-meter-high stone gate. It seemed that opening it would finally let them leave this place.
As the Stone Golem approached the stone gate, an icy blue ray suddenly shot out from the side, piercing through two of the golems.
Immediately, a layer of frost enveloped the two Stone Golems. When they collapsed to the ground, they shattered into fragments.
The flat walls on either side of the gate began to ripple like water. Two massive figures, nearly 2.8 meters tall, slowly emerged from the shimmering waves.
They were humanoid Alchemical Golems.
Towering and broad, their arms thicker than Leon's waist, their bodies gleamed with metallic luster, covered in countless runes and intricate patterns. Each face bore a single blood-red eye made from bloodstone, with all the complex markings and runes converging around it. Anyone could see that a powerful spell was embedded in that eye.
Seeing these two Alchemical Golems, Leon wasn't surprised. This was the proper path to the Ancient Ruins—the gate ahead was surely the entrance. Of course, having two level thirty-nine One-Eyed Guardians at the door was only natural.
One-Eyed Guardians are the best Alchemical Golems for guarding gates—tough, resilient, made from all sorts of anti-magic materials, and packed with powerful single-target spells. Their single eye even holds an unknown ultimate spell, making them perfectly suited for the job.
"Draw their attention," Leon instructed.
With that, Leon retreated to the back.
Hubert swung his warhammer, Slaughter, and was the first to charge forward. Instantly, the two Alchemical Golems raised their arms, unleashing searing rays that formed a curtain of light, raining down on Hubert.
Hubert blocked the rays with Slaughter, his warhammer forged from the Primordial Venom Dragon’s hardest bone. The scorching beams couldn’t even scratch it.
When Hubert closed in to just over twenty meters, the two Alchemical Golems seemed to sense their spells weren’t working. Instantly, runes all over their bodies lit up in sequence.
In a flash, seven or eight Exploding Flames lined up like a wall of blue fire, their tails trailing as they erupted in front of Hubert.
The combined force of the explosions sent Hubert flying backward.
At that moment, Anderson, the Alchemical Golem, and Reina all joined the fight.
The Arcane Wheel spun slowly, endless runes seeming to spill out from it, weaving together into a torrent of spells from four elements. Tangled together, they formed a four-colored elemental flood that crashed into the two One-Eyed Guardians.
The Alchemical Golem raised its arms, runes flowing across its surface, radiating a magical force even more terrifying than the One-Eyed Guardians. Its wild barrage of spells overwhelmed the guardians with brute force.
Reina’s fighting style was much gentler. Beside her, ice spheres formed one after another, vanishing instantly with a flick of her finger.
The ice spheres exploded in front of the One-Eyed Guardians, instantly freezing an area of over ten meters. The guardians’ casting speed was cut by at least half.
Anderson and the Alchemical Golem’s elemental torrents and spell barrages crashed down, completely engulfing the two One-Eyed Guardians.
In an instant, the two One-Eyed Guardians’ spellcasting was suppressed. Their offensive spells shifted to defensive ones, runes flashing wildly as shields materialized one after another. Thick magical energy flowed through their markings, reinforcing their bodies with protective power.
Barely able to fight back, the guardians still refused to leave the stone gate’s range. Their blood-red eyes began to glow, as if stained with fresh blood.
Three seconds later, a shadowy ray blasted from one guardian’s eye, striking Hubert at the front.
Hubert’s pose, warhammer raised, froze in place—his grimacing expression locked onto his face.
With a thunderous boom, Hubert was hit head-on by Exploding Flames, sent flying backward. Yet, even midair, he still clutched Slaughter, fear flickering in his eyes.
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Less than a second later, another shadowy ray shot from the other guardian’s eye, targeting Anderson.
Anderson’s three faces twisted in horror—he immediately flew behind Wagner.
Wagner, who’d been watching from the sidelines, turned pale. Without thinking, he threw up a runic shield.
"Damn it, Anderson, you dare—"
Before Wagner could finish his sentence, the shadowy ray pierced his runic shield and struck his body.
Instantly, Wagner’s furious, shocked expression froze in place—as if someone had paused his time.
Just then, Leon—who hadn’t acted until now—somehow slipped to the side of the two One-Eyed Guardians. He summoned a Frost Elemental Avatar and instantly blinked behind one of the guardians.
His hand rested on the guardian for less than a second. Suddenly, the One-Eyed Guardian seemed to fall apart—Leon’s blurred hand twitched, and with a boom, the golem collapsed into a pile of parts.
Before the pieces even hit the ground, Leon’s ghostly form appeared beside the other guardian. He unleashed three Flame Shackles in quick succession, then added a Mana Counterspell.
He disrupted the guardian’s spellcasting for a moment, then placed his hand on its back—runes swirling around his fingertips.
Everyone watched as Leon’s hand blurred into afterimages. With a tap, the wild flow of magic inside the guardian abruptly snapped, and it instantly collapsed into a heap of parts on the floor.
"I’ve gotten too used to this—can’t help myself..."
Leon glanced helplessly at his own hand. Back in the apocalypse, aside from reading in the desolate library, his greatest joy was dismantling and reassembling Alchemical Golems. Without magic, even legendary Sky Rank Alchemical Golems were just discarded stones in the desert.
Every Alchemical Golem became a big toy—especially these distinctive ones. Every part, every assembly method, became second nature to him.
Dismantling a One-Eyed Guardian in a second—if its magic source weren’t so strong and its defenses active, Leon could’ve taken it apart in the blink of an eye if it were just standing still.
The greatest strength of the One-Eyed Guardians is the spell embedded in their single eye. Once they cast it, their magic lags for a moment—this is when their defenses are weakest, and it’s the only chance to approach their core.
That spell draws on all their power, leaving no energy for defense.
Still, their bodies are their strongest shield. A level thirty-nine One-Eyed Guardian can withstand even an eighth-rank area spell without damage.
Except for monsters like Leon, who dismantle Alchemical Golems instinctively, beating these tough brutes—tougher even than Hubert—would take a ridiculous amount of effort.
Leon clapped his hands and turned to leave. In the distance, Wagner—still frozen—had entirely forgotten the danger, his eyes wide with disbelief.
What the hell was that? Two level thirty-nine Alchemical Golems—touched once and they just fell apart into pieces? Are you kidding me?
Seeing this, Wagner felt utterly defeated. These people’s combat power couldn’t be measured by normal Title Archmage standards. Each had at least the strength of a Ninth-Rank Title Archmage—wilder, more terrifying.
A mage who could control magical artifacts to unleash a four-elemental storm, a patched-up, ugly Alchemical Golem as strong as a mage legion, and a woman whose mastery of ice magic defied understanding.
Compared to that monster, Archmage Merlin, the rest were just normal people…
Just a touch—and the One-Eyed Guardians collapsed into heaps of parts…
Now Wagner felt like the true Andalusia bumpkin, while the others were the real geniuses of the Odin Kingdom’s top factions…
His whole worldview had just collapsed…