The Golem Mage

While the others created long metal lances from their bodies to impale their opponents, that wasn’t even the scariest part, the truly horrifying thing was what happened after.

The bodies of the humans they pierced began to look malnourished and drained of life force the moment the sentinels pulled their weapons back out.

Then the metal sentinels themselves seemed to glow slightly, almost as if they had leveled up, the most obvious one was the metal golem at the front, after killing three humans at once, it opened its palm toward their corpses, and every piece of metal on their bodies, including their weapons, rose into the air, compressed into a small metal ball, and was sucked straight into its outstretched hand. That was when the real change began.

At first, a steel helm formed over its head, complete with two horns at the sides, while a long two-handed sword took shape from its wrist, then the armor started to spread across its body, but it seemed to run out of energy before the transformation could fully complete, so it stopped midway.

Meanwhile, the other two that had also made kills pushed all their gained energy into forging their own unique weapons.

With those three leading the Steel Legion, Magnito’s forces became unstoppable, as every swing of the one at the front, the captain-rank steel golem called Magna, carried overwhelming force.

The other two were called Ferro and Warden.

Ferro wielded a chained greatsword linked directly to his right hand, while Warden used a magnetized war chain. At first glance, it looked like a curved sword, but because of the segmented breaks along its structure, it could also be used like a whip or a chain, making it a very tricky weapon.

With his minions now summoned, Magnito simply waltzed into the throne room while they carved a path open for him.

_ _

However, the moment he finished entering, his silver board still keeping his feet off the ground, he heard a sharp sling-like sound, and from the side, a sword light slashed out a moment later.

A large slab of the wall had a triangular section carved clean out of it, and the cut portion came crashing down, sending smoke and dust rising into the air as Saint walked in through the opening.

“Quite the entrance you’re making, I thought you said the king was mine?” Saint said.

“Well, I thought about it some more and felt like you might need help, so here I am, gracious enough to lend a hand,” Magnito replied.

“Who the hell are the two of you? Whatever you’ve been paid, I can double it. You just have to tell me the name of the lord who hired you,” the human lord said, his face not showing even the slightest trace of fear.

And that was because he was feeling incredibly confident in the number of warriors around him, he had the strongest members of his force gathered there, about a hundred peak Tier 6 mages.

The moment the bell had rung, he had ordered them all into the throne room to protect him but then he had heard that the attacking force were only two figures.

But as time passed, he began hearing reports that more enemies had appeared out of nowhere, clearing the path for the two main figures who had caused the bell to ring in the first place.

In his mind, he had already assumed that the two intruders would act overconfident and walk into his throne room thinking they could kill him easily. So now that both of them stood before him, he was convinced victory was already within reach.

But the answer to his question was Magnito laughing out loud, he pushed out his left hand, and the coiled metal wrapped around it shot forward like a snake, piercing through the skull of the first mage standing guard.

The man died instantly, and with a tug of the chain, his corpse was dragged backward before the killing hook retracted into Magnito’s hand again.

“We are not things for hire. Look at us properly. We are the ones sent to deal with you after you attacked our master’s land,” Magnito said as he pulled loose the rope of his own coat, revealing his body for the first time.

He was a plain-looking humanoid golem riding on a floating silver surfboard.

That was, until he pushed the board down to the ground. However, instead of the silver board disappearing, Magnito’s body began to absorb it.

And then his body started to change. He grew a little taller and came to resemble those ancient samurai clad in full battlefield armor, complete with the helm, only in his case, his entire body and equipment seems to have been forged completely from metal, and not just any type of metal.

_ _

Two minutes later, the hundred peak Tier 6 mages the human lord had been so proud of were all massacred.

He could only stare at the two golems before him with a face full of fear, even he, a Tier 7 mage, would not have been able to defeat a hundred peak Tier 6 mages. Even if their numbers were cut in half, he still wouldn’t have been confident of taking on fifty.

But he had sat on his throne and watched how the metal one controlled his steel blades with ease, killing his mages with nothing more than flicks of his hands as the weapons mirrored his moves, while the second one used the fewest movements possible to kill, each swing carrying a terrifying sword Qi aura.

And the human lord had also noticed something else. Saint’s sword could seamlessly change form into whatever type of blade he wanted.

At the start, he had been using two broadswords, fighting more like a European swordsman, by slowly killing through sheer domineering strength. However, midway through the battle, he switched forms, with one blade turning into a katana while the other became a wakizashi.

That was when things truly turned wild, even his sword Qi shifted into a blood-red hue, though he fought with more finesse and skill while wielding those two blades, his killing power also shot through the roof as he moved through the battlefield, casually slashing through necks.

And now they had climbed the stairs and were staring at him as though he were an insignificant fool.

It was only in this moment that he truly understood—they had never taken him seriously from the beginning, he wanted to regret it all so badly, wanted to curse the greed that had pushed him this far to act on the Tier 6 lands instead of just waiting for the other lord to try first, but his thoughts were cut short the moment he realized that the world around him had started to turn upside down.

He still hadn’t seen the sword move, nor did he realize he had already been struck, it was only a few seconds later, as his body finally registered what had happened, that regret filled his heart.

Then he slowly closed his eyes and let the darkness of death embrace him.