Chapter 633: Ravaged
The lava melted away the ancient warriors' internal energy shield very quickly. After all, these ancient warriors were only at D-tier. It was rather impossible to defend against the lava of C-tier Cinderclast Golems using a D-tier's shield.
Luckily, the lava stopped splashing after the explosion. The golem was truly dead.
"Up!"
Hou Ming dragged the aptitude users bathed by the lava away to safety with his long stick.
These aptitude users had suffered large burn areas. One of them was heavily injured and could no longer fight.
The turn of the event caught them by surprise. Hou Ming and Tieh Yuanjiu became more vigilant.
"Why do the golems turn into lavas after being killed?"
"That's right. What's there to be collected in this case?"
"Predecessor, I saw that Qin Feng's hovercraft was not aiming the frost blaster at the golem but the lava on our way here. Perhaps there's a reason behind such action?" One of the gunners chimed in and cleverly proposed.
"We should give it a try!"
Everyone fell back a little. Several gunners took out the frost blaster and promptly fired at the lava. The frost immediately vaporized the lava upon contact.
The lava pool dried up not long after. A breeze of cold wind cleared away the vapor and revealed the orange igneous rock underneath it. Within it, an egg-sized crystal beamed mesmerizingly.
Heat was still radiating from the crystal. The ice around it melted much faster than the rest of the area.
Hou Ming reached to it first. He caught the crystal core in his hand and quivered in excitement as soon as his fingers touched the warm stone.
"This core!!!"
Tieh Yuanjiu walked up to him and stared at the crystal core too.
"This is impossible!"
"No wonder!" Hou Ming exclaimed, "Now I understand why Qin Feng hid this from us."
Hou Yuanjiu understood why Hou Ming said so. The energy within the core was almost equivalent to a C-tier fire-type beast king. The price of such a core could go up to 30 billion in the market
Besides, they only needed around ten minutes to finish off a Cinderclast Golem. Though some of the D-tier aptitude users were injured in the process, it was because they still did not understand the golem's attacking nature.
Overall, the golem was relatively easy to bring down. Not only that but the return was a hundred times more lucrative than other beasts of a similar level.
For a brief instance, their eyes expressed greed. But it faded off quickly.
After all, these beasts were all over the mountain.
They quickly hid their true expression but were coincidentally having the same thought.
'It's better to work alone rather than share the loot with him.'
But Tieh Yuanjiu was unwilling to let go of the crystal core in Hou Ming's hand this easily.
"Governor Qin is rather selfish in keeping this to himself. Now that we have learned his secret, let's not waste time and keep hunting. This time, I should take the loot, okay?"
"Hahaha, naturally." Hou Ming made no objections. They were going to work independently after this so he did not mind collaborating for one last time.
Without any delay, they had the gunners lure more golems over. Unexpectedly, they simultaneously attracted one giant and two smaller golems.
The two small golems were only D5-tiers. To aptitude users, a different tier represented a different form. They believed that the two D-tiers would be exterminated quickly. They could then share the loot evenly with no dispute.
"Stall the big guy!" Hou Ming directed the order at Hou Yangjiao. They had little trouble facing the giant golem since it moved extremely slowly, to begin with.
Hou Ming and Tieh Yuanjiu concentrated on the two smaller golems. They felt confident since they had grasped the weakness of the Cinderclast Golems.
The golem would die once beheaded.
Almost simultaneously, they finished off the two smaller golems.
Boom! Boom!
Just as before, the golems exploded and turned into lava. It then spread out into a lava pool of about thirty-meter in diameter.
Both of them were prepared for the explosion this time. They used qinggong to evade the explosions and lunged agilely toward the giant golem without any delay.
The giant Cinderclast Golem growled angrily when it saw that the two small golems had been killed.
"Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!"
It paced forward aggressively and stepped onto the pool.
Boom!
A giant flame soon emerged on the golem's body. It then extended its hands and wrapped them around Hou Ming and Tieh Yuanjiu.
The giant hands that looked like fire were actually solid rocks underneath it. The fiery aura torched their internal energy shield.
Crack! A crisp shattering sound was heard, like how a bulletproof glass was being cracked into a spider web shape.
Poof!
Surprisingly, their internal energy shields were instantaneously shattered.
Everything happened too quickly. Before they could react, they were already surrounded by the fire. All they felt next was a burning sensation and enormous pressure.
The giant golem's hands were gripping on their waists.
"Argh!" Hou Ming shrieked.
The sound of fire crackling was heard. Hou Ming wore a C-tier beast king inner armor, which bought him some time to struggle.
"Let me go!" Hou Ming pulled his stick and infused his internal force in it. He then thumped the stick heavily on the golem's wrist.
But the golem was entirely covered in fire. Hou Ming's internal force was offset by the flame.
On the other hand, Tieh Yuanjiu bellowed angrily too. He gripped the giant rocks around his waist and tried to pry them apart.
It became a game of tug of war.
D-tiers around them were stunned by the development.
"Quick! Stop standing around. Save our chief with frost bombs!" Tieh Lei yelled.
The others reacted and launched the frost grenades frantically. This was not the time to worry about whether the bombs might hurt their chiefs.
"Roar!"
The Cinderclast Golem was currently unstoppable. A giant fiery ball appeared and intercepted the frost grenades midair. At the same time, he punched down and drowned the two C-tiers into the lava.
Gulp!
Bubbles fizzled up from the burning lava as if those were the last breath of their chiefs.
"Predecessor!"
"Chief!"
The rest of the users were utterly stunned.
Bam!
The two hands of the golem had detached from its main body and pinned the two humans dead inside the lava pool. The golem then turned to look at those D-tiers who had attacked him earlier and opened its maw.
This Cinderclast Golem was way more horrifying than the slo-mo golem from earlier.
Bam!
Lava poured out from the golem's mouth and drowned the D-tiers like a giant wave!