The Golem Mage

Having fought side by side through countless battles, he and Dave shared a deep bond, as twins, their synergy was absolute, they moved in perfect unison, almost as if they could read each other’s thoughts.

So the instant Dave sensed his brother’s mana, he knew precisely what was coming after being caught in what felt like a blurring, rewinding loop.

The first thing he did once everything stabilized back in place was to swing his longsword backward aiming to use this advantage to hit Butcher, but then he soon realized that his hands, legs, and neck were instantly locked in place.

He hadn’t even realized when the intricate, thread-like strings had enveloped them, but now that he was ensnared, he could clearly see they were webs, ones that were sharp and strong enough to slice him to pieces repeatedly.

”Hive Queen, he is mine!” Butcher shouted before turning back, who had already known that Dave would attack once his position was swapped into a more favorable one.

He had already raised his left hand high to construct a lightning shield capable of absorbing most of the attacks, with so much lightning currently coursing through him, he wasn’t afraid to take a few hits, knowing he could simply absorb the remaining energy to heal himself.

However, that was where the problem lay: the Hive Queen never took orders from anyone except Alec.

With a subtle twitch of her finger, she signaled the ten children of hers that were surrounding the perimeter, and acting as anchors for her web network, as they pulled hard on the webs woven across the battlefield.

Caught in the deadly mesh, Dave felt a terrifying sensation as if his body were about to be sliced into pieces. His voice trembled as he desperately tried to cast a time-freeze or time-rewind spell, but the surrounding space felt bizarrely restrictive.

Not only were the threads harder than steel, making any physical escape look impossible, but then a strange magic nullified his spells every moment he tried to manifest them, and he believed that the web strings were the culprits.

The agonizing constriction continued as the strings cut deeper and deeper into his skin, pushing his body to its absolute limit. In the next instant, a loud rupture echoed across the field.

Causing his entire form to be completely diced, with his blood erupting outward like a pressurized watermelon bursting under immense strain.

“Noooooo!!!!!” David screamed, but he was stil being harassed by ten Storm Elementals, he whirled around and unleashed a violent surge of Time particles that blasted the Captain-rank Golems backward, before charging desperately toward his brother’s remains.

Although the other two Tudors tried their absolute best to reach his position, however the Hive Queen had already deployed the remaining five of Arachne children to keep them occupied while she also supported them with her webs.

She acted as the master controller of the battlefield, with her strings coming into play only when she willed it despite them woven aound everywhere, the moment David drew close to the scattered blood, he swung out his wooden cane and thrust his right hand forward, turning it inversely as he cast another spell.

[› High Tier Spell - Time Reversal. ‹]

Instantly, his mana completely enveloped the airborne blood mist, and as he continued to twist his hand, the body began to piece itself back together bit by bit.

However, reversing time for someone who had just been killed clearly exacted a severe toll, causing David to cough up blood violently.

Yet, completely indifferent to the cost, he kept turning his hand in mid-air as if twisting an invisible knob.

Fortunately, since he had intervened mere moments after his brother’s body dissolved into blood, he managed to preserve every single drop and successfully reconstruct the body back in place.

The newly reformed body, however, appeared exceedingly frail, with his cultivation realm plummeting and wavering unstable at the Peak Tier 7 level.

It was evident that such a miraculous temporal restoration demanded a steep toll; yet, neither he nor David possessed the strength to continue the fight against Alec and his golems.

In that harrowing moment, the gargantuan head of the Wyvern loomed before them, its presence causing their gaze to flicker with pure terror.

Alec stood firmly on top its head, slamming his ash-coated right palm against the Wyvern’s skull as he unleashed his power.

[› Mid Bloodline Spell - Spell Transfusion. ‹]

Without hesitation, the Wyvern unhinged its maw and exhaled a suffocating deluge of grey soot, creating a veil so dense it swallowed their forms entirely.

David, despite standing mere inches from his sibling, found his vision completely obscured. Had it not been for their intrinsic twin connection, he would have succumbed to the rising panic that Alec had stealthily relocated his brother during the chaos.

”Grant us mercy, we have erred!” David cried out toward the impenetrable mist, finally wiping the crimson stains from his mouth.

”I swear on my life we shall never trespass upon your lands again, just allow us to depart.”

In response, only a dark laugh echoed through the area before the space cleared slightly, revealing his brother. Looming directly behind him was a figure completely covered in ashes. It was Alec; his face remained clearly visible as the murky fog clung tightly to his body, his left hand clamped firmly around Dave’s neck as he began to speak.

”Oh, I absolutely want compensation, but what you have in mind and what I have in mind are not the same thing,” Alec said, his freezing gaze shifting toward David, who still held his hands up in a desperate attempt to placate him.

”I already told you that my goal is to send a message by executing your lot. If I don’t take both of your lives right now, what kind of message do you think that would send?”

”It would suggest to the other lords that they can attack me without facing any retaliation,” Alec continued.

”If the last two lords I had slaughtered didn’t create enough of a deterrent to make someone like you back down, then it simply means I haven’t killed enough to make my warning clear. That is precisely why I cannot accept your proposition.”

The instant Jake finished speaking, the smoke converged onto his hand and solidified into a sword. He thrust it straight into Dave’s chest, the black blade’s energy driving directly toward Dave’s heart.

A second later, Alec kicked him from behind toward David.

“Go on, let me see if you are able to revive him again,” Alec taunted, soaring slightly higher to look down upon David from a position of advantage, all while the surrounding dark fog clung to him desperately.