The giant dead spirit, who had thrown away the wreckage that was now the golem’s head, grasped the golem's arm that had pierced its torso.
Then it broke the arm off with all of its strength.
The broken arm was flung brutally onto the rubble.
“Stop! Any more and…”
John raised his voice in panic.
The golem’s other arm, which was trying to shoot the ray, was also grabbed; its joint was twisted towards the opposite direction.
The malfunctioning ray exploded and burned the front of the giant dead spirit.
Obviously, the giant dead spirit didn’t care.
It kept striking with its fist, calmly.
The golem’s chest sank even further, causing damage to its internal mechanism.There was blue liquid seeping out of several places.
The giant dead spirit became angrier and accelerated its attacks when its opponent tried to resist.
The battle was turning into a one-sided trampling.
Is this the end?
I judged as I observed them from a distance.
The golem lost both of its arms as well as its head.
Its other parts were also being destroyed one after the other, leaving it with no room to retaliate.
It could only wait helplessly to be gradually dismantled.
Its sound system was probably broken since I couldn’t hear John’s voice.
Soon, the giant dead spirit’s movements gradually became sluggish.
The power it contained scattered throughout and its flesh was seemed to bubble.
It began to break down while releasing white smoke.
It seemed its operational limit had been reached.
I didn’t anticipated a long battle, but it got exhausted faster than I had expected.
Maybe this was caused by the several rays of light it took.
Even though it immediately recovered, their very nature made it repel itself.
It seemed a large amount of miasma was consumed with each attack it took.
Still, it accomplished its duty.
Due to the actions of the giant dead spirit, the golem was currently in a half-destroyed state.
That was quite an accomplishment.
The golem was still on the ground and silent.
Was it get stuck in that position because the severe damage preventing its movement?
It was quiet, without any signs of resistance from earlier.
No, that’s not it.
I disagreed with my own thoughts.
I needed to sharpen my nerves and concentrate on sensing it.
The power of the mystical stone hadn’t diminished yet.
It was still connected to the golem and was supplying it with power.
The magic power didn’t spread to other parts of the golem, instead it only gathered itself in the centre.
Specifically, it gathered itself towards the operator — John.
At that moment, the golem’s torso unfolded and something flew out.
The thing that popped out pierced the giant dead spirit.
The explosion echoed as flesh, blood, and bone fragments scattered throughout.
The thing that pierced the dead spirit and danced around in the sky was a small golem.
It had a spherical body with limbs attached to it.
There was no corresponding part to the head, and its appearance was simple.
However, even though I said it was small, it was only that if you compared it to the giant golem.
It was still twice the size of a common golem.
It exceeded ogres in height.
I detected both John and the mystical stone from inside the smaller golem.
There was no doubt about it.
John was inside that sphere.
It seems to be an escape pod.
I compared it to the leftover shell of the giant golem and understood that.
That spherical golem was an insurance against emergencies.
It acted as a control device at normal times but once the giant golem broke it could move on its own.
Despite my thoughts, the remnants of magic power inside of the giant golem began to move suspiciously.
They were concentrated and swirled around in a single spot.
It produced an increasing output and ignored the precision it once had had.
Right when I started to get a bad feeling about it, a large explosion occurred.
The giant dead spirit, which had been mounting the golem, took a direct blow.
In the face of this earthshaking force, the piles of corpses were crushed.
On the other hand, the giant golem exploded and turned into a metal wreckage.
It completely lost its original shape and was no longer in a state where it could be operated.
It was destroyed to the point of being indistinguishable from the surrounding rubble.
Apparently, the giant golem had a self-destruct function.
That was quite an evil method.
Had I been directly hit by the explosion caused by it self-destructing, it wouldn’t have ended with simply fatal damage.
It was the correct decision for me to let the undead keep it at bay and attack it from a distance.
“UOOOOOOOHHHHH!”
John’s roar’s echoed.
The spherical golem, which produced fire from the back of its feet, charged towards me.
It was quite fast despite how unstable it looked.
It held a spear of light in its hand.
It was a magic spear imbued with a holy element.
Its other hand held a shield imbued with protection magic.
Are you still trying to defeat me? I respect your guts.
I was honestly impressed. I reached out to my waist.
There was the keepsake sword in its scabbard.
It was hard to get into close range properly against the giant golem, but it was easy enough when it was against this spherical golem.
“Die, Demon Lord!”
The golem rushed towards me, driving with a penetrating spirit.
I evaded it at paper distance and slashed as we passed each other.
I cut the surface of the golem using the momentum.
“…”
I lowered my sword and looked back.
The golem maintained its altitude using the booster on the back of its feet.
The slashed part cracked, leaking black smoke.
—It’s shallower than I expected.
Apparently, the back of the exterior was equipped with strong protection magic.
The angle of the blade might have shifted because of that.
They had anticipated that it would be damaged, and designed a mechanism to reduce the damage as much as possible.
Despite its smaller size, the output of power coming from the mystical stone still remained the same.
Rather, the strength of the magic itself might be superior compared to before.
Its attack range might be reduced, but its durability increased dramatically.
“You’re just running away…”
The golem changed directions midair, then charged straight towards me.
He was rushing towards me once again, with momentum.
How unskillful. He’s worth even less than a fresh recruit.
I thought this as I saw him move towards me.
This wasn’t caused by the golem’s abilities.
It clearly reflected John’s skill.
Perhaps he’d only learnt the bare minimum needed to operate it.
As I deflected its piercing attack with protection magic, I stepped in and closed in the gap.
I swung the keepsake’s sword towards the golem's opening.
“Guh, You…!”
The golem blocked it with its shield, but it didn’t matter.
A slash from the keepsake sword cut through the shield that was imbued with protection magic.
It also cut down on said hand in single motion.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, you bastard!”
The top of the spherical golem opened, revealing a gun from inside.
It fired as soon as I re-positioned my sword.
“…”
Countless shots hit my whole body
In a single shot, the bullet spread itself and scattered.
It was probably made so that it would be hard to avoid or block.
In fact, even though I’d managed to block most of it with my sword, the rest hit my body.
I felt a burning pain from the areas that got hit.
It seemed that the fragments of these bullets had been imbued with the holy attribute.
Some of my bones cracked upon impact.
However, that was all it did.
It wasn’t powerful enough to incapacitate me.
It would cause me some numbness and pain for a while, but it was a tolerable amount of damage.
“You can’t kill a Demon Lord with a mere gun.”
As I said that, I squeezed the gun with an arm created from miasma.
I also threw the golem to the ground.
The golem didn’t take a defensive posture and crashed against the piles of rubble.
Since it slowly tried to stand up, I shot at it with a series of great magic.
It got burned by a fierce flame, got struck by thunderous lightning, and became relentlessly eroded by mist of miasma.
I kept attacking it without giving it a single chance to retaliate.
…This should be enough.
I stopped the magic after some time.
The smoke spread throughout the area which made it hard to see.
I pushed the smoke away with wind magic.
There was nothing left that proved a city had once existed there.
Even the rubble around had cleanly disappeared.
In that area alone — there was an empty wasteland.
“…”
There was a single exception among the recently transformed scenery.
The spherical golem.
Its internal structure was exposed and almost completely destroyed, but it certainly still existed.
Apparently, it had managed to endure storms of great magic.
I heard something unusual, which was the sound of the lid of the golem opening.
A man appeared from within.
The person who looked up at me was John Doe, and he was wearing reinforced armor.