Vin had just enough time to register Lumel’s panicked cry before the first of the golems reached them. Whipping his staff off his back, Vin gestured toward the railing right beside them.

  “Stone Wall!” Throwing together the runic formation in an instant, a large, slightly curved wall erupted out of the ground at their backs, blocking any of the climbing golems from coming over the railing directly behind them. That done, Vin turned back to the swarm already on their floor.

  Just in time to see three of the golems leaping straight at him, their arms outstretched.

  “Mighty Cleave!” Drintus cried, his axe seeming to glow for a moment before whipping around with inhumane speed and slamming into the three golems mid-jump. To Vin’s shock, rather than get split in half from the minotaur’s powerful blow, the golems were instead sent flying backwards, their flailing bodies taking down another dozen golems like bowling pins and temporarily halting their advance.

  “What are these things even made out of?!” Vin cried, turning and firing off a few choice Stone Shots. Not even his empowered stone missiles were enough to crack whatever strange white material these golems had been built from, and he quickly began focusing on blasting the ones attempting to crawl over the railing to the sides of his stone wall, knocking them back off their floor.

  “I don’t know, and I’d rather not let them get close enough to find out!” Shia called back, doing her best to block off an entire half of their floor with a massive wall of thorns and thick branches. It looked like it was taking everything she had to grow the plants out of her staff fast enough to counter the speed at which the golems were shredding their way through. While her jagged thorns weren’t enough to even scratch the attacking golems, they were at least able to slow them down.

  “They are mighty foes indeed!” Drintus laughed, using his incredible strength to send another small handful of golems flying backwards. “Though I fear we may be in trouble if we need to keep this up for too long!”

  “Lumel?!” Vin called over his shoulder, glancing back at the still shaking Dimensional Mage. “Can you figure out how to bypass whatever broke your spell?”

  “It… It’s something with the golem itself,” she said, running a gloved hand along the golem’s white carapace. “I’ve never seen anything like it, but somehow it has a resistance to having its physical form shifted between dimensions. It’s a miracle your bag even managed to work!”

  “Well, I didn’t risk my life for a poor-quality bag, that’s for sure!” Scule said, still holding on tightly to the bag’s drawstrings and making sure it stayed firmly sealed around the golem’s head. Him and Reginald were stuck waiting on the table as everyone fought for their lives, neither of their fighting styles able to do anything to the hardened golems. “More importantly, can you break it?”

  “I don’t know!” She cried, looking up at them. Vin missed his next stone shot as Lumel’s hood finally fell back and he caught his first glimpse of her face. Just like her exposed hands, the skin on her face was almost entirely transparent, meaning she looked like one of those muscle-mannequins you’d find in a science classroom.

  “You’re a goddamn Dimensional Mage!” Scule cried, flinching as another golem nearly got close enough to grab him before Drintus smacked it away with his axe. “Stop freaking out and dimensionally do something!”

  Seeing as they couldn’t actually harm any of the golems, the swarm was rapidly growing larger and larger as more golems continued to crawl up onto their floor, and it was taking everything they had to try and keep them at bay. Vin’s mana was already nearing half from supercharging so many Stone Shots in a row, and he felt the telltale signs of fear beginning to well up inside him as their odds of escaping this library alive seemed to dwindle by the second.

  “I… I…” Lumel flinched back from Scule’s shouting, glancing between their kidnapped golem stopping her spell from working and the rabid swarm trying to tear them apart. Before Vin could offer any encouragement, the pulmon wrapped her arms around herself and cried out. “Dimensional Shift!”

  Instantly, the black robed woman vanished in a flash of purple, as if she’d never been there in the first place.

  And just like that, their escape plan was gone.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Scule screamed. “Vin! What now?!”

  “Are you serious?!” Vin asked, his arm screaming as one of the golems got past Drintus and he was forced to bat it away with his staff. He would have given just about anything to have Alka and her sword here with them right now. “I have no idea!”

  “We have to make a run for the entrance!” Shia shouted, reaching into her seed pouch and throwing something at the hole a few dozen golems were just about to finish making in her makeshift wall. The moment the tiny seed landed, it quickly blossomed into a gigantic flower, the petals of which shot out and wrapped around the closest golems, using their own pinned bodies to reinforce the living wall.

  “We’ll never make it! You say how many of those big ones she has guarding the entrance!” Vin called back, changing tactics and summoning a few smaller stone walls to try and break up the golems’ relentless charging.

  “If we stay here, we die!” Shia answered.

  Cursing, Vin tried to come up with an alternative plan that didn’t involve them having to fight their way through a few dozen golems each the size of a house. Every minute they fought, the golems they were knocking back were reinforced by a few dozen more, and it wouldn’t be long before they were completely overwhelmed.

  What was it his golem had told him?

  Nearly five hundred golems total in the library?

  Think, Vin, think! Vin wracked his brain, desperately trying to come up with a way for them to get out of this situation alive. Unfortunately, there was no high-level Divine Druid to swoop in and save him this time. Keeping so many golems at bay was taking up Shia’s entire concentration, and Scule was vibrating so hard Vin feared he’d pass out any second now. It was up to him to figure a way out of their current predicament.

  The biggest problem of course, was that Vin also didn’t really have time to think. It was taking everything he had to help Drintus keep the ever-growing swarm of golems from tearing them to shreds. And if things weren't bad enough, Drintus wasn’t looking so hot either. Despite the fact that his physical stats had to be leagues better than Vin’s, the large warrior had taken on the brunt of their defenses, and it was beginning to show. Even as Vin watched, the minotaur was beginning to sweat and pant, and he almost staggered as he sent another half dozen of the golems soaring backwards with a second Mighty Cleave, the constructs arcing lazily through the air due to the odd gravity of the fragment before crashing down hard.

  And just like that, Vin thought of a way to save their lives.

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  Or get them all killed. It was kinda hard to tell.

  “I have an idea!” He shouted, nailing another golem with a Stone Shot right before it could collide with Shia.

  “Thank the Gods!” Scule practically wept, the still vibrating Rogue clearly not a fan of being unable to do anything to help.

  “Fair warning, I’m not sure if it will work!”

  “When are you ever?!” Scule shouted back.

  “What do you need?” Shia called, the elf having dropped to one knee under the strain of her spells. Even with her staff acting as an additional source of mana, Vin could feel the constant mana radiating from the elf beginning to waver. Keeping half the floor sealed off on her own was proving to be too much as the golems just kept pouring in, and Shia had to be running on fumes at this point.

  “We need to get to the top of the tower,” Vin called, pointing up toward the roof. “…and I need about five or so minutes!”

  “That’s oddly specific, but okay!” Scule said, his grip tightening on the bag. “Ready whenever you guys are!”

  “Drintus, can you help us clear a path to the edge of the railing?” Vin asked, realizing the giant wall he’d made earlier was now an obstacle to his crazy plan.

  “Of course!” The minotaur grinned, banging a fist against his chest plate and letting out a battle cry that sounded a little too close to a cow’s moo to be all that intimidating. “I’ve been saving this until things got really crazy!”

  Knocking a few more of the golems back, the warrior stepped forward and slammed the pommel of his axe into the ground, bellowing up at the ceiling.

  “Second Wind!”

  As the words left his mouth and echoed across the entire tower, Vin started as he felt a powerful surge of energy erupt from somewhere deep inside him. All of a sudden, he felt as though he’d spent the last few hours relaxing in a luxurious spa rather than fighting for their lives, and he grinned at the newfound strength flowing through him.

  It even replenished a portion of his mana somehow, and he found himself almost unconsciously joining the minotaur in his battle cry, having to restrain himself from rushing forward into the throng of golems and swinging his staff like a cudgel.

  “Come friends, to the railing!” Drintus shouted, using the sudden influx of energy to forge a path for them. Not wanting to miss this chance, Vin helped Shia to her feet, firing off three quick Stone Shots to stop a trio of golems mere inches away from reaching them before rushing with the elf right after Drintus.

  Vin was shocked to find Scule and Reginald already racing right behind the large warrior; Scule dragging the golem’s limp body along behind him like it weighed absolutely nothing. He had no idea what the Rogue’s strength had to be right now after channeling Eyes On The Prize for so long, but it was clearly enough for the current job.

  Their ragged group made it to the edge of the floor, and Drintus called over his shoulder as he switched from offense back to defense once more. “What next?”

  “Hold on!” Vin called, making sure they were all standing together. Seeing the golems already climbing directly at them, he took a deep breath, aiming carefully. “Stone Wall!”

  Unlike the previous walls he’d made, rather than making a wall tall and thin, this time he made one short and wide. Wide enough to erupt underneath all of them at once, and adjusted with Runic Recalibration to be at a specific angle.

  Aimed directly over the fourth floor railing.

  “Vin, what are you-” Scule was cut off as Vin’s wall erupted upwards underneath their feet, sending them flying over the railing and sailing across the center of the tower. Screaming, Vin glanced down and paled as he saw the sheer number of golems swarming along underneath them. There had to already be hundreds covering the ground floor of the second tower alone, and the walls of the lower floors were absolutely covered in golems, their creepy joints allowing them to crawl along them like misshapen spiders.

  A couple hundred glowing blue eyes tracked them as they utilized the fragment's strange gravity and sailed across the center of the tower, before coming down hard on the edge of the fifth floor.

  As they tumbled and rolled to a stop, Vin jumped to his feet, the effects of Drintus’ Second Wind still pumping through his body and making him feel like he was ready for anything. He wasn’t the only one it seemed, as everyone brushed off their nasty tumble like it was nothing, quickly readying themselves.

  “Quick, up to the sixth floor!” Vin called, directing everyone over to the ladder. A quick glance over the railing was all it took to see the horrifying swarm of golems already rerouting and flooding their way over to them once more.

  “Shouldn’t we be going down instead of up?” Shia asked, even as she followed his directions and started climbing.

  “Oh, we’ll be going down soon enough,” Vin couldn’t help but grin, turning his back to the golems and racing up the ladder as fast as his one hand would let him.

  “I don’t know what you have planned, but I already don’t like it,” Scule groaned, leaping from rung to rung ahead of him, knocking the golem around like it was a stick.

  It was a good thing these golems seemed rather durable, otherwise Alka was going to wonder why the body they’d brought back for her was so banged up.

  Once they’d all managed to climb up to the sixth and final floor, Vin raced over to the stained-glass dome. Each of the towers was topped with an incredible dome of glass that looked to be the work of some sort of master glassblower, and he absolutely hated himself for what he was about to do.

  “Drintus, I need you to shatter this window!” He ordered, glancing back at the grinning warrior.

  “Stand back!” Was all the response he got before the minotaur stepped forward, slamming his axe into the glass with tremendous force.

  And stumbling back as his axe bounced off harmlessly.

  “Goddamn it,” Vin cursed, the scratching of hundreds of golems climbing up to them growing louder. “Shia, I need the top half of Alka’s sword!”

  “Here, so you don’t slice off your fingers again,” she said, handing him her entire staff. Vin blinked as he realized the top half of Alka’s sword was currently held in place atop Blossom’s small canopy by a few carefully wound branches, turning the staff into something of a makeshift spear.

  “That works,” he muttered, grabbing it and pressing the flickering green tip against the glass. Praying that the enchantment still worked, he pushed and began carving.

  To his relief, the sword tip managed to penetrate the magically reinforced glass, and he slowly began carving a hole wide enough to fit all of them.

  “Vin! Golems!” Scule shouted frantically, his eyes widening as golem after golem climbed over the sixth floor railing and began rushing them.

  “Keep them back, I still need another minute or two anyway!” He ordered, focusing on that strange feeling deep within himself he’d been conscious of ever since having left the citadel. It was close, but not quite there yet.

  “Entangling Thorns!” Shia shouted, throwing an entire handful of seeds out and infusing them with enough nature mana to cause them to rapidly grow, transforming into a sudden field of brambles that snared the approaching golems.

  “I’m nearly out of mana!” She warned him.

  Vin did his best to focus on the task at hand, using the petrified elder wood to carefully slice through the glass. Even with the sword’s enchantment, he could tell it was only thanks to the incredible properties of the wood that he was able to cut his way through. It seemed not even whatever crazy glass the dome was made of was capable of dulling the sword’s eternal blade.

  After a few more tense seconds where Vin could only hear golems being smashed around and restrained behind him, he finished, leaping back as a large circle of glass fell inward and landed beside him.

  Despite everything, he’d done his best to make it a clean cut in the hopes that the librarian would be able to restore the beautiful dome after they’d left.

  “Everyone, to me!” He shouted, making sure he was standing directly in front of the now gaping hole in the tower roof.

  “Oh God, you’re not about to do what I think you’re planning, are you?” Scule groaned, dragging the golem behind him as he leapt onto his shoulder and made sure Reginald was tucked safely in Vin’s pocket.

  Her eyes widening as she came to the same realization, Shia wrapped her arms around his midsection, holding on for dear life. Vin expected Drintus to buy them a few more seconds, but a sudden wave of golems surged forward, forcing the minotaur back into them.

  “Wait, I still need-!”

  Vin’s words were lost as a tsunami of golems slammed into them, knocking all of them out the window and plummeting toward the distant ground.

  really likes super charging his spells with mana via Runic Recalibration). Not a huge change since the passive hadn't actually come into play just yet in the following chapters, but I wanted to make everyone aware so there wouldn't be any confusion when it eventually comes up down the line haha.

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