Chapter 706 Guardian of the Pillars
Seeing that this was the 200th floor, Shiro furrowed her brows and immediately got into a combat stance, summoning her sword by her side, Shiro panted slightly as her stamina was near bottom but since this was one of the test floors, she couldn't relax.
However, after a while of waiting around, nothing had happened which caused Shiro to frown.
Waiting a little longer, she unsummoned her sword and saw down, taking the moment to rest.
"Seems like I can do this at my own pace." Shiro muttered while glancing back at the system to check the details.
Since she entered this room and immediately saw test, she thought that she had to fight so she couldn't spare the time to check the details. Now that she knew there was no danger, she could read at her own leisure.
[Test of Ouranos – Floor 200]
There are 10 pillars in this room. Each requires a specific key and key parts. You can gain keys from the guardians that are summoned by the pillars. Each guardian has a different restriction. Such as restriction of ranged attacks or restriction of magic.
Reading this, Shiro paused for a moment.
"Oh you've got to be f*cking kidding me." She muttered.
Not only did she have to fight the guardians over and over again if she failed the combinations, each guardian had a different restriction which might make killing them a pain. Plus, since there were 10 pillars that had at least 10 keys and some parts, the possible combinations for the password exceed 1 million. Trying to figure out the passcode out of 1 million possibilities was a pain in the ass especially when thinking about her current stamina.
The only thankful thing she could think of was the fact that there was no time limit however here came the next obstacle. Food.
There was the possibility of starving/dying before she could even complete half of the combinations so it was the problem of should she do it at random or should she do it in order.
But just as she thought of this, she realised one point.
Would the sequence reset if the key is in the wrong sequence or would it continue until the sequence is finished?
If it was the first option, it was great since it eliminates a bunch of outcomes. If it was the second one, oh lord help her since she was going to die trying.
Spending around an hour to rest up properly, Shiro glanced at all ten pillars and wondered which one was the starting one. Since there was a sequence, if her first one wasn't right the guardian would reset immediately.
Walking up to a random tower, she looked at the surface and saw a few runes etched in along with some patterns. Furrowing her brows, Shiro decided to take a moment to analyse it first.
Running the text through several 'decoders', which were essentially her figuring out what each rune means after comparing them to every language she knew, she managed to translate the text.
[Guardian of the Third Pillar – Rokar]
[Restriction of Magic]
"Hm… third pillar huh? So this is probably not the first one of the lot." Shiro muttered.
Walking over to the first pillar, she looked at the text.
[Guardian of the First Pillar – Turmac]
[Restriction of Ranged Weapons]
Placing her palm against the surface of the pillar, she watched as the runes lit up and the pillar sections started to split apart, reforming themselves into a golem the form of a giant humanoid with four arms.
Shimmering slightly, the core of the golem focused toward Shiro as two of the arms launched forwards at astonishing speeds.
Widening her eyes, Shiro rolled to the side to avoid the punch.
*BANG!!!
As the fists crashed against the ground, chunks of the earth were dug up and collided against Shiro's body.
*KR!!
Furrowing her brows, Shiro could feel her bones teetering on the edge of being broken.
Clicking her tongue, she flipped herself upright and threw Nivlim towards it with all her might.
*CLANG!!!
Before the blade could hit its body, a magical barrier flickered around him and sent the sword back towards her.
Catching the sword, Shiro clicked her tongue.
"Right, restriction of ranged weapons. Melee only."
Bringing her sword back to her body, Shiro crouched down and dashed towards the golem.
Phantom Path!
Flickering for a few moments like a ghost, Shiro reappeared just above Turmac's.
Raising her sword, she slashed down before she dragged herself away from the fists that were trying to pull her off its back.
After she successfully dodged Turmac's fists, she twisted her body and swiped horizontally.
*CLANG!
Leaving a slash mark on the head, Shiro kicked off its shoulder and made some distance before furrowing her brows.
Despite having made a decent cut, the reverberations in the sword back landing the hit was quite impactful in her hands and had almost caused her to drop her sword.
Looking back at the golem, she was glad to see two stacks of Nivlim's abilities since this meant that she could finish it off with the help of the sword boosting her parameters.
However, glancing towards the third pillar, she wondered about how the hell she was going to deal with the golem that didn't give a sh*t about magic. Which meant that her stacks wouldn't show up regardless of how many times she hit the golem.
Just as she was thinking about the third golem, Shiro sensed danger ahead of her as a shadow covered her body.
Widening her eyes, she threw her sword back as hard as she could and dragged herself using the chain's passive.
Barely getting out of the crash site, she gulped slightly when she saw the caved in ground. If she hadn't sensed the greetings of death, she would have most definitely died.
Glaring at the golem, she knew that she couldn't think of anything else right now.
Even with her sense for danger, she was barely getting out of these situations.
Usually, when she senses danger, she had a moment or two to think before moving. But for the golem in front of her, she had to move the moment she senses this. If she dallied, she'd die. That was the difference in power despite her senses and experience.
The golem was fast and strong while her senses that could usually warn her ahead of time were now akin to someone suddenly shouting out duck as a branch was about to hit her head.
She had to act without thinking.
The moment her mind cries out danger she would have to throw her body as far away as she could from the source or she risked getting killed.
Taking a deep breath, she readied her sword and chain.
Crouching down, she dashed toward the death trap once more.
Dodging the initial punches with some mild scratches, she wrapped the chain around its arms and pulled herself up onto its shoulder.
Slashing at the head as much as she could before it tried to punch her, she continued to apply stack after stack of the swords passive.
Being patient till the 130th stack was placed, she was about to notch her sword into her bow when she remembered that he had a restriction against ranged weapons so doing so would be stupid.
Clicking her tongue, she consumed all the stacks and wrapped the chain around the golem while dodging its fists.
The moment the entire chain length was used, Shiro consumed the stacks and pulled as hard as she could.
"DIE FOR ME!"She roared out.
*CRACK!!!
Cracks started to form all over the golem as the chains continued to shrink, tightening around it like a snake that wrapped around its prey. The moment they exhale and their body shrink, the snake will tighten its grip.
Pulling as hard as she could, Shiro could tell that the golem was on the verge breaking.
Taking a deep breath, she gave it one last pull.
*BANG!!!!!!!!!
Once the first piece started to break, the other pieces followed.
Shattering the golem to hundreds of pieces, Shiro watched as the pieces slowly reformed itself back into the pillar only this time without runes and a key floated in front of her.
Snatching the key, Shiro huffed and realised that there were grooves in the shape of the key on every pillar.
Placing the key into the groove of the first pillar was about to walk to the second pillar when she heard a crack and the key was reduced to dust.
". . ."
The runes reappeared and she could challenge the golem once more.
*BANG!!
"F*ck!" Throwing the sword down, Shiro vented her frustration before challenging the guardian once more.