The golem crashed forward like a moving wall.
Each step shook the field beneath our feet. Clumps of dark soil fell from its shoulders, and stones ground against one another inside its massive body with a deep, ugly scrape. It had no face, no eyes, and no mouth, only a rough head shaped from packed earth, yet somehow it still felt as if it was looking down on us.
Arad stood directly in front of it.
The white-haired man planted his boots into the dirt and raised both arms again. The muscles across his shoulders tightened beneath his worn clothes. He did not look back, nor did he ask for help. He simply placed himself between the golems and the people behind him, as if that position already belonged to him.
The golem swung.
Whoosh!
Its fist tore through the dim air of the Silent Domain, dragging a storm of dust behind it.
"Arad!" Hana shouted.
Arad moved half a step to the side instead of retreating. His shoulder twisted, his arms crossed, and the massive blow crashed into him.
Thud!
The impact struck with enough force to send a shockwave across the ground. Several former slaves cried out behind me as the dirt beneath their feet jumped. Arad's boots sank deeper into the field, carving two short trenches under him, but he remained standing.
His jaw clenched. A thin breath escaped through his teeth, and then he pushed back with a roar.
"Haaah!"
Arad forced the golem's arm away and drove his fist into the creature's chest.
Crack!
A web of fractures spread across the packed soil. Pieces of stone broke loose and fell, but the golem did not collapse. It only staggered back one heavy step before another golem rose behind it, its barrel-sized fist already lifting over Arad's head.
My eyes swept across the field.
Inside the black dome, three golems had already fully emerged, and more hands were pushing through the soil behind them. The ground trembled again and again, as if the field itself had become a grave trying to spit out giants.
The former slaves, workers, and weaker mercenaries clustered behind us in a trembling mass. A few held tools like weapons—shovels, wooden poles, short axes—but their grips were loose with fear. Their eyes kept darting between Arad, the golems, and the black wall surrounding us, searching for a way out that did not exist.
Above the field, Amonn hovered in his black robe and white smiling mask. He was not attacking directly, and somehow that made him worse. He was watching us the way a noble might watch dogs fight in a pit.
"Bahahaha!" His laughter echoed through the dome. "Good! Struggle more. I love it when ants pretend their little legs can hold up the sky."
My fingers curled at my side.
Do not look at him. Not yet.
The real danger was obvious, but we could not touch Amonn while the golems blocked our path. If I allowed everyone to keep panicking, the formation would shatter before he even needed to lift another finger.
Arad blocked another blow.
Thud!
This time, one knee bent.
The sight sent a wave of fear through the people behind us.
"Sir Arad!"
"He can't hold them alone!"
"We're going to die here!"
The words spread like cracks through glass. Arad heard them. I knew he did, because his shoulders stiffened for the briefest moment. But instead of turning back, he stood straighter. Dust rolled from his arms, and though his breathing had already grown heavier, his voice remained steady enough to cut through the fear.
"Do not step back."
The field fell slightly quieter.
Arad raised one arm and wiped dust from his cheek with the back of his hand. His pale hair had fallen across one eye, and his clothes were torn at the shoulder from the repeated impacts, but his gaze stayed fixed on the golems.
"If you step back, the people behind you will be crushed. If you drop your weapon, someone weaker than you will have to stand in your place." His voice deepened. "I do not care whether you were slaves, mercenaries, workers, or farmers yesterday. Today, you are standing in Constantia. So stand properly."
A strange silence followed.
Even I felt the weight of those words. Arad was no longer speaking like a broken mercenary. He was speaking like a commander.
The nearest golem lunged again.
Arad moved forward to meet it.
"Come!" he roared.
The golem's fist came down. Arad ducked under it at the last instant, slammed his shoulder into the creature's leg, and hooked both arms around its knee. His muscles tightened, and the ground cracked beneath his boots.
For one breath, the golem resisted. Then its massive body tilted.
"Hana!"
"I know!"
Hana stepped forward with both hands raised. The air around her changed at once. Flame burned around her right hand, bright and violent, while frost gathered around her left, white mist spilling between her fingers. At the same time, a thin ribbon of water curled from the moisture in the air, circling her wrist like a living serpent, and wind began to turn around her feet.
For the first time, I saw a glimpse of what it meant for her to be an academy-trained mage. She was not merely throwing fire and ice. She was controlling four elements at once.
"Get down!" Hana shouted.
Arad released the golem's leg and dropped low.
Hana thrust both hands forward. A spear of compressed wind struck the cracked joint first, cutting through the dust and forcing the opening wider. Water followed immediately, flooding into the gap between the stones. Then ice spread through it in an instant.
Crack-crack-crack!
White frost hardened inside the cracks Arad had made. Hana's eyes sharpened. The flame around her right hand suddenly flared, then condensed into a narrow, burning lance.
"Break."
The fire lance shot forward.
Boom!
Steam exploded from the golem's leg. The sudden shift from ice to fire tore the damaged joint apart, and the creature's massive body lost balance. It crashed sideways into the dirt, shaking the entire field.
For the first time, one of the golems fell.
A cheer almost rose from the people behind us, but it died before it could fully form. The fallen golem immediately began dragging itself back together. Earth crawled toward it from the surrounding ground, filling the broken sections as if the field itself was repairing the monster.
Hana clicked her tongue. "Of course. Why would it be that easy?"
Amonn clapped lazily from above.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Not bad, little girl." His mask tilted slightly. "But do you have enough mana to keep entertaining me?"
Hana's fingers twitched. Her expression remained fierce, but the strain was already showing. Sweat gathered along her temple despite the cold darkness of the dome. Using four elements in rapid sequence had cost her more than she wanted to admit.
Another golem charged.
This one did not aim at Arad.
It aimed at the people behind him.
"Move!" I shouted.
The group scattered in panic. A former slave slipped in the dirt, and one of the workers reached for him, but fear slowed his hands. The golem's foot rose above them, heavy enough to crush both of them into the ground.
Before Arad could reach it, a thin figure moved.
Bredt.
The same man who had mocked the former slaves. The same man Arad had beaten into the dirt. His body was still bruised, his face pale, and the rusty sword in his hand looked almost too heavy for him.
For a moment, he froze. I saw the fear in his eyes, raw and honest, the kind of fear that made the body beg to run while the mind struggled to remember why it should stay. His fingers trembled around the hilt as the golem's shadow swallowed him.
"Damn it," Bredt whispered.
His gaze moved toward Arad. The white-haired commander was still standing at the front, still facing the strongest golem, still refusing to fall even when another strike drove him back. Dust covered his clothes, and his arms shook from the repeated impacts, yet he did not retreat.
Bredt's jaw tightened. The fear in his eyes did not disappear, but a stubborn force pushed through it, rough and desperate. He was still weak, still bruised, and still terrified, but his fingers closed harder around the sword hilt as if he was forcing his own body to stop running.
"Damn it!" he shouted louder this time. "If that old monster can stand there, then I can stand for one second!"
He threw himself forward.
His sword struck the golem's ankle with a dull clang.
It did almost nothing.
The impact nearly tore the weapon from his hands. Bredt staggered, teeth clenched, and for one horrible instant it looked like he would be crushed under the golem's next step. But he did not run. He swung again.
Clang!Clang!
Then again.
Clang!
"Move, you useless rock bastard!" Bredt screamed, his voice cracking with terror and fury. "Look at me! I'm right here!"
The golem's head turned slightly.
Only slightly.
But it was enough.
The former slave beneath its foot scrambled away with the worker's help. Bredt saw them escape, and a wild, almost disbelieving grin flashed across his bruised face.
Then the golem swung its arm toward him.
Bredt's grin vanished. "Ah."
A wall of wind slammed into his back.
Hana had moved.
The gust shoved Bredt out of the path just before the golem's fist smashed into the ground where he had been standing. Dirt burst upward. Bredt tumbled across the field, rolling twice before crashing onto his side with a pained groan.
"Idiot!" Hana snapped. "Do not stand still after getting its attention!"
Bredt coughed and pushed himself up with shaking arms. "I was improvising!"
"Then improvise better!"
Despite everything, a few people laughed. It was short, nervous, and almost broken, but it was laughter. Somehow, that mattered. Fear had not disappeared, but it had cracked.
I looked at Bredt, then at Arad, then at Hana. One by one, the people around them were beginning to move. A worker grabbed a rope from the supply pile. A former slave lifted a shovel with both hands. Two mercenaries who had been trembling near the back exchanged a look before stepping forward—not bravely, but forward all the same.
The pieces were there. They were simply scattered, and I needed to make them a formation.
My chest tightened.
Amonn's domain pressed down on us. The golems were regenerating. Arad could not hold forever. Hana's mana was limited. Bredt's willpower could inspire, but inspiration alone would not stop a stone fist.
I opened the System.
A translucent blue screen flickered before my eyes.
[Current Points: 100P]
My gaze moved rapidly through the skill list.
Fire. Ice. Water. Sword Techniques. Enhance. Dimensional Slash.
None of them were right.