Chapter 34: Stone Golem

As the floor below them began to shake violently, nearly throwing Steven off the branch.

And with a slow movement did the floor below him open up as a giant mass of stones started moving.

It was some kind of ancient stone golem, Steven thought while watching it slowly rise to at least ten meters tall.

Its arms were made out of thick boulders, nearly resembling some kind of gorilla.

Its head, like stone, slowly turned around, seemingly searching the surroundings. Steven held his breath, not sure how something like this was searching for a person.

It could use some kind of heat vision so even after hiding his body, his breath would still be visible after exhaling.

As its face moved past him, it suddenly stopped, having found a target, as it started moving forward, not caring about anything in its path.

As one of its arms hit the tree Steven was staying on, it splintered the wood into thousands of pieces, making it fall forward.

The group of students also seemed to have found the danger, as a scream from one of them echoed through the air.

Steven watched as they barely had enough time to react before the first stone hand shattered the floor.

Steven jumped from the falling tree, landing softly on the floor not too far away from the action, his invisibility having been turned off by a piece of wood activating the barrier.

He should really learn the new type of invisible spells like Lucy used.

Staring at the group panic was more than obvious; one was already running while the others were just shooting some low-level spell, barely even tickling the monster.

And with its second hit arriving, their formation was shattered, with one of them even being hit.

A student fell heavily against the trees, falling unconscious. Steven got a bit closer, but the monster attacks didn’t stop.

Sending another one flying through the air.

"Isn’t that a bit too much power for people of their calibers?" Steven whispered to himself as he stared at the man still lying in the tree.

As blood flows down his body. The monster also turned its head back to the unconscious student moving towards him.

The last standing student tried standing in its way, sweating hard. "We surrender; we don’t want to participate anymore." He yelled towards the monster that only stopped for a single moment.

As it lowered its head towards the surrendering student, seemingly curious.

As if out of nowhere, its giant stone arm swatted him away like a fly.

Finally having removed its target, the golem moved forward to finish the first target off for good.

Raising its stone arm just before it could move it down, a lightning bolt filled up the entire sky, hitting directly on its stone’s fingers and shattering two of them.

As it turned its head to find the attack, Steven was already on it as he delivered a powerful kick directly to its head, sending it crashing to the floor.

The golem flew at least another twenty meters, shattering tree after tree in its way, only coming to a hold against the ancient trees.

"They said they are surrendering Ms. Trellen." Steven yelled in the air to hopefully get the watching staff’s attention.

But no answer came from medical staff for the unconscious students. Something was wrong; why weren’t they answering?

Watching the golem rise again, barely damaged Steven started to grow worried about what kind of pets Ms. Trellen had let into this forest.

Or if that had been the work of somebody else? He positioned himself between the Golem and students, forced to act as their protector.

As he finally realized something about the golem, just in the middle of its head was a dark blue symbol in the form of a sapphire.

"So this is another way to get points without fighting students." He was already summoning an ice shard in his hand, letting it spin quickly.

"Take this stone dick!" As he sent it flying toward piercing the chest of the monster completely through at the spot where its core should have been.

But it only hit stone, barely pushing it backwards, still continuing to move despite the small hole in its chest.

Stevens’ gaze turned dark as he could still feel one of the marks of the fingers around him, so he couldn’t fight with full strength.

He had to act like only a diamond-class student with a focus on physical power.

Steven could only scoff as he raised his hand slowly in the air, waiting for the right moment.

Which arrived quickly after, as the stone golem tried to hit him with its arm, but Steven just sidestepped it.

As the arm passed beside him, he brought down his own, cutting the stone like butter and slicing its head off entirely.

But the second arm had already made its way to his backside, and with not having enough time to jump, he was hit hard.

Sending his body flying away, letting it crash on the floor. Steven continued lying on the floor, debating if this was the right way to handle such things.

Spitting out some blood, he rose to his feet again. He stood face-to-face with the golem once more, who tried to put his hand back in place but couldn’t.

"Oops, it seems like I severed your connection to it." Steven spoke, laughing at its actions, only maddening the monster, who let go of its hand.

Storming forward toward him, Steven lowered his body just a bit to jump.

As he flew over the raging Golem, it quickly turned its head but was still too slow.

With a single strike of his fists, he shattered the torso of the monster into pieces.

As its body slowly started to break down.

Until only rubble remained.

Steven only cleared himself of dust.

As he made his way towards the blue gemstone from the golem’s head.

’’That seems like a fitting reward."