For a frozen instant, the creature held her there before wrenching its arm free with a sickening wet sound that echoed throughout the room, leaving Esmerelda collapsing forward as Deacon's world seemed to shatter around him into fragments that he couldn't piece back together, no matter how desperately his mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
"NO!" Deacon shouted, his voice raw and breaking as his entire reality fractured at the sight of the three-meter-tall blue, humanoid antlion creature standing there with its clawed arm stained with blood after having impaled Esmerelda through the chest.
His legs gave out beneath him as if all the strength had been drained from his body in an instant, sending him stumbling forward into an uncontrollable roll that ended with him sprawled on the ground.
Lifting his head, his eyes locked on Esmerelda's raised form as she struggled for breath, while blood spilled from her mouth and splashed across the sandstone platform and painted the Antlion Prince's upper torso crimson.
The massive chamber they had all fallen into became deathly silent for a brief moment that felt like eternity, the only sounds being the distant chittering of antlions still falling past the platform's edge into the abyss below.
Then the silence was shattered with the anguished shouts of Jass, Bonehead, and Sam, who had finally processed what they were witnessing — the death of their friend unfolding right before them while they had been too far away and unaware to stop it.
A roiling chittering noise, disturbingly like laughter, rumbled from deep within the Antlion Prince's chest as its other hand, the one not piercing Esmerelda's body, reached toward her right hand, which still clutched the Amulet of Solomon in a grip that hadn't loosened even as life fled from her body.
However, with the last vestiges of strength that remained in Esmerelda's rapidly bleeding out body, a golden-green charge of mana suddenly arced from just beside where her heart should have been—
Her mana core, Deacon supplied in disbelief, and traveled down her arm in crackling waves that burned afterimages into his vision as it poured into her palm and connected with the Amulet of Solomon she still held.
Its… gold?
The instant the golden-green mana made contact with the ancient artifact, the amulet shattered in her grasp with a sound like breaking glass, and golden-green motes of light exploded outward from her hand in an upward cascade that contrasted sharply with the blood dripping down from Esmerelda and puddling beneath her dangling legs.
A brief, weak chuckle slipped from Esmerelda's lips, barely audible yet tinged with satisfaction. In the next instant, the Quest Panel materialized before everyone's eyes — not only for the members of the Ravenlight Party, but also directly in the Antlion Prince's line of sight, where it froze mid-reach at the realization that the object meant to elevate it had just shattered before him.
The Temple of Solomon:
Description: Beneath the Dunes of Sun'ar, where the sands have long since swallowed oceans of blood, flesh, and magic, lies Solomon's Fourth Temple. It was not forged as a place of worship for the great mage of old, but as a vault: a prison meant to seal away one of King Solomon's most dangerous artifacts, and out of the hands of the Ars Goetia.
You, a being who has yet to fall for the temptations of the Ars Goetia, have crossed the Boundary Line of Solomon's Fourth Temple during its most tumultuous time. Delve within Solomon's Fourth Temple and sequester the Artifact of Solomon before it falls into the hands of Aamon's Mortal Champion.
Task Objective:
▸ Retrieve the Amulet of Solomon ✔
Optional Objectives:
▸ Kill the Antlion Queen Sun'ar ✗
▸ Kill Antlion Prince Αλλάσσων ✗
Time Remaining: COMPLETED
Reward: Ownership of the Amulet of Solomon
The Antlion Prince stared at the Quest Panel hovering before it, pure shock radiating from its posture as its head tilted down to the golden motes of light still drifting from Esmerelda's palm, where the Amulet of Solomon had been seconds ago.
Chitin-plated muscles along its neck swelled as it stared at the half-lidded, satisfied expression frozen on Esmerelda's face, its rage building in the taut stillness of its stunned frame. The air seemed to thicken with the weight of that fury before it finally broke, erupting in a baleful roar that thundered through the chamber.
The creature twisted with violent fury, whipping its arm in a savage arc that tore Esmerelda's body free from the clawed appendage, impaling her and sending her flying across the platform like a discarded rag doll.
Deacon's body moved before his mind could catch up, legs pushing off the ground in a desperate lunge that sent him sliding across blood-slicked sandstone with his arms outstretched, and he caught Esmerelda's body against his chest just before she would have slammed into the platform.
His arms closed around her with as much gentleness as he could manage despite the urgency of his movements, cradling her against him as he stared down into her golden-irised eyes while her lips moved, struggling to form words through the blood filling her throat.
"I- I did what… I could," Esmerelda whispered, her voice so faint that Deacon had to strain to hear it over the roaring in his ears, and there was a soft smile on her face as she looked up into his eyes that were already streaming hot tears down his cheeks without him even realizing he was crying. "I'm… sorry."
The light faded from her golden-tinted eyes as the words left her lips, returning them to their natural green for a single, cruel second before life abandoned them entirely.
A thunderous impact rocked the platform as the Antlion Prince lunged toward Deacon, its claws carving deep furrows into the sandstone while its mandibles spread wide, unleashing a shriek that set the bones of every member of the Ravenlight Party vibrating.
Just as the Antlion Prince began to unleash its shriek, dozens of Sand Golems crashed down from the ceiling in response to some signal or trigger that Deacon couldn't identify through the haze of shock and grief clouding his mind.
Three of them landed directly in front of where Deacon knelt with Esmerelda's body, their massive forms interposing themselves between him and the charging Antlion Prince, absorbing the creature's attack with their bodies like living shields.
At the same time, the remaining Sand Golems spread out across the circular platform, rushing the Antlion Prince from multiple angles.
Deacon couldn't hear anything over the roaring rush in his ears. He couldn't see beyond the narrowing edges of his vision, which had tunneled down to Esmerelda – her weight in his arms and her lifeblood seeping into his armor.
I…
Everything became hollow and distant except for the growing itchiness that was spreading across his entire body like fire ants crawling under his skin, starting at his heart and working across his body, and his mind went completely blank with the only thing he could see being Esmerelda's corpse in his grasp, her blood on his hands.
I..Why would you apolo–?
A harsh slap connected with his face, hard enough to snap his head to the side and leave a stinging impression on his cheek. He looked up in dazed confusion to find himself enclosed within a Manashield dome, shielding him from the Sand Golems outside. He had no memory of when it had been cast, nor of where the Sand Golems had come from at all.
"Deacon!" Sam was suddenly there, grabbing the collar of Deacon's armor with both hands and physically hauling him to his feet while Esmerelda's body slid from his grasp and hit the ground with a met thud.
Four Sand Golems slammed their fists against the Manashield barrier from outside, the impacts reverberating through the dome like hammer-strikes against an anvil, and spiderweb cracks started spreading across the magical construct's surface from the points of impact.
Spittle sprayed across Deacon's face from the force of Sam's shout, and he felt like he was burning from the inside out, as if gripped by a sudden fever. Everything seemed to be happening at once, his senses overwhelmed, but through the haze he managed to piece together the chaos beyond the dome: Jass and Bonehead were somewhere outside, fighting for their lives against the Antlion Prince, while the Sand Golems were also engaged with it in a bizarre three-way battle that made no tactical sense, yet was unfolding all the same.
"Deacon!" Sam shouted again, his voice cracking as he struggled to break through whatever shock had seized his party leader.
Heavy thuds suddenly slammed into the barrier as four of the Sand Golems apparently decided the people inside the dome were more interesting targets than the giant blue insect monster. Their hardened sandstone fists battered the Manashield with enough force for Deacon to see cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
"We need you to focus!" Sam shouted as he strained to keep the Manashield up without using his staff.
[Sand Golem Lv 24]
"...Not dead," Deacon muttered under his breath as he glanced to the side and saw Jass and Bonehead being attacked by a large number of Sand Golems. "...make them survive."
Make sure they live.
He swallowed back the immense emotions that were flooding through his system — the grief, rage, and guilt all threatening to tear him apart from the inside — and forcibly shoved them down into a place where they couldn't interfere with what needed to happen next.
"Their cores are kept in their sternums!" Sam shouted at Deacon as a Manashield dome sprang to life around them, the barrier flickering into existence just as four Sand Golems began hammering their stone fists against its surface with enough force to send spiderweb cracks racing across the magical construct.
Make sure they live.
Reaching behind his back with movements that felt like part of a lucid dream, detached from conscious control, Deacon closed his hands around the twin hilts of Echoform Reliquary's dual short swords and in a blur of motion he slashed outward in flawless arcs that bisected the elemental cores binding the four Sand Golems battering at their shield, the glowing yellow crystalline cores shattering under his blades as the constructs immediately collapsed into piles of lifeless sand.
Flames erupted along both blades as he wordlessly cast Flame Armament, burning with an intensity far beyond anything he'd ever managed to produce before.
Even if its the last thing I do…
His eyes were no longer maintaining their illusory state that disguised his Jötunn heritage, and they'd sharpened into a much more feral version of themselves, the pupils contracting into vertical slits while the irises shifted into a burning crimson red.
I will make sure they live, Archie repeated the mantra in his head.
"Help Jass and Bonehead!" Deacon barked at Sam as he exploded forward out of the Manashield dome, casting Flame Art: Flame Steps, his legs carrying him across the platform in a dead sprint toward where the Antlion Prince was currently locked in combat with a cluster of Sand Golems that were trying to overwhelm it through sheer numbers. "Use your Leave Tickets and fucking bounce - fuck the Floor!"
Sam didn't waste time acknowledging the order. He turned and sprinted in the opposite direction from Deacon, toward where Jass was barely holding off a dozen Sand Golems, her mangled left arm hanging useless at her side while Bonehead hurled alchemical bombs from behind her defensive stance.
Though the alchemical solutions that struck them did little real damage to the living sand constructs, they wetted their forms, which slowed their movements.
As Deacon reached the next Sand Golem blocking his path to the Antlion Prince, he didn't slow or try to dodge around it. Instead, he drove both flaming swords straight through its sternum, where Sam had said the core would be, feeling the blades cut effortlessly through loose sand before it could harden into sandstone and shatter their cores within.
Using the momentum of his charge, Deacon slammed his shoulder into the collapsing sand golem, shoving it aside as he surged forward.
"Get the fuck out of my way!"
Two more Sand Golems turned toward him as he closed in, their featureless faces shifting to take on their facial appearance of the Antlion Prince, and they swung their massive fists toward his head and torso.
Deacon ducked under the first swing without breaking stride, feeling the displaced air ruffle his hair as the stone fist passed inches above his head, and he twisted his body sideways to slip past the second attack while simultaneously bringing his right sword up in a rising slash that caught the second golem's arm at the elbow joint and sheared clean through the stone limb.
Buy them time to escape.
The sand golem staggered backward from the damage but was already reaching for him with its remaining arm, and Deacon planted his foot and pivoted to drive his left sword through its chest, the flaming blade punching through to the core and destroying it in a burst of light and heat that left glowing slag dripping from the wound.
The first Sand Golem had recovered from its missed swing and was coming at him again, but Deacon was already moving, his enhanced speed from Flame Art: Flame Steps was letting him stay ahead of the construct's ponderous attacks as he circled around behind it and drove both swords through its back, angling the blades to converge on where the core should be and feeling the satisfying crunch as they found their target.
Three down—and through the remaining Sand Golems still trying to dogpile the creature, Deacon finally saw the Antlion Prince clearly. What he saw made his blood run even colder than it already was.
The Antlion Prince had transformed, its once lithe, swimmer-like form swollen into a hulking mass of corded muscle and thick chitinous armor, looking like an entirely different creature. It was ripping through the Sand Golems in their sandstone-like state as if they were paper rather than animated sand.
A Sand Golem lunged at the Antlion Prince from the side, but the Antlion Prince caught the construct's arm mid-swing, its clawed hand closing around the sandstone limb with enough force to fracture it. Twisting its massive body, the Antlion Prince swung the captured golem like a flail, smashing two more constructs into sandstone rubble before hurling the broken body off the edge of the platform.
Another Sand Golem rushed in from behind and latched onto the Antlion Prince, but the hold barely lasted more than a few seconds. The muscles beneath the Antlion Prince's chitin bulged, creaking audibly as corded strength swelled beneath its armor, and it tore itself free from the golem's grasp.
In the same motion, the Antlion Prince spun and drove a clawed fist straight through the construct's chest, ripping out its glowing core and crushing it in its palm before the rest of the body could even begin to collapse.
Deacon's gaze never left the Antlion Prince's form, his boots pounding against the cracked sandstone as he carved through another Sand Golem that stepped into his path without breaking stride.
As the Prince finished crushing the Sand Golem's core and let the remains sift like glittering sand through its clawed fingers, it seemed to sense Deacon's approach. In the same instant, its head snapped around, locking eyes with him across the final few meters between them.