Chapter 178 The Most Valuable Metal
Chapter 178 The Most Valuable Metal
Vineta and Selena, along with their subordinates, waited for an attack from the Golden Knight. However, the monster stood in one place and did not move. Its main task was to protect the treasures, the rest was of no importance to it.
Wain, meanwhile, stood aside. This battle was of no interest to him yet. First, he wanted to see what Vineta, Selena, and the Golden Knight were capable of. Each of them was a serious opponent. Wain could no longer put himself at risk.
Nor was he sure that the Golden Knight was the last opponent. Besides him, there might have been other defenders, but they had to deal with him first.
'Hmm, maybe I should try to break through the glass barrier? No, in that case, the Knight will attack me right away. Moreover, I won't have time to destroy all the Mimics.' Wain pondered.
In the end, he decided just to watch the fight.
Whooooooosh.
Vineta turned into blue lightning and attacked the Golden Knight again. He was inactive as before. For him, Vineta posed no threat.
However, the girl did not intend to attack the knight directly. She was not fighting alone, but together with her comrades, she had a plan. First, she wanted to put the knight in an awkward position and then attack all together.
Bam.
Vineta thrust her spear under the knight's legs, and the weapon's tip exploded. A crater formed under the monster, and it went down. Vineta achieved her goal and signaled for an attack. Her team included people who attacked from near and from a distance.
One of the strongest members was Selena, she attacked first. Her hands were covered in blue energy, and she put her palms together. A magic circle appeared above the knight the next moment, and a blue beam of energy rained down on the monster.
Then the knight was attacked by the others. They used their strongest skills, some attacking from afar, some punching at melee.
"Get back!" Said Vineta, and everyone immediately retreated.
She wanted to see what they could accomplish with a combined attack and how seriously the Golden Knight was wounded.
"I'm surprised, there were very powerful energy fluctuations coming from our attacks. The knight is most likely on death's doorstep." Selena said contentedly.
Thanks to one of her abilities, she could sense energy fluctuations more accurately than others. She was also able to detect them by her own criteria and judgment. She was sure that their joint attack was one of the most powerful.
Vineta smiled contentedly and nodded, "Great, so this fight will be over sooner than I thought."
Crackle.
The Golden Knight rose from a hole in the ground the next moment. To everyone's surprise, he didn't have a scratch on him. The Knight kicked off the dust with his free hand and held his spear out in front of him. He continued to defend the treasure as before.
"What the hell..." Vineta muttered shockedly.
Wain was just as surprised.
"Yeah, I usually complain when I'm fighting survivable or nearly immortal opponents because of their high regeneration, but this... Fighting an invulnerable opponent is the worst thing that can happen." Proclaimed Wain.
"That can't be!" Shouted the man and attacked the monster again.
The man's hands caught fire, and several massive fireballs appeared beside him. He swung his arm, and the fireballs flew toward the knight.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
The projectiles exploded and engulfed the monster in flames, but the knight's armor didn't even heat up. His defense was at an incredible level. Normally, the Golden Knight did not react to attacks, but he responded this time.
The monster gripped his spear tightly and threw the weapon sharply at the man who attacked him. No one expected the knight to decide to act, so the man did not have time to dodge.
The spear pierced his head, and he fell dead. Then the knight clenched his fist, and the spear returned to him. He continued to stand still as if nothing had happened.
Vineta was shocked.
"I will kill him!" A group member said in a fury, but Vineta quickly stopped him.
"Chill out. If you die from this, your friend won't come back to life. Pull yourself together! We have to come up with a plan and kill him. Everybody stay where you are!"
Vineta shared his feelings and just as much wanted to tear the Golden Knight to pieces for what he had done, but she knew that would be a big mistake.
Vineta was the kind of person who could keep her cool mind and think rationally at the right moment.
"What should we do?" Selena asked confusedly.
All exits of the hall were blocked, and an invincible enemy stood in front of them. Because of this, Selena began to worry that this place would be a common grave for them tonight.
"Maybe we should attack again." Said someone in the group.
"No." Vineta shook her head. "We can't take any more chances like that. What if he freaks out and attacks us? I hate to admit it, but the knight will kill each of us without any problem if he wants. When he grabbed my arm, he almost broke it. He's too strong."
Vineta sighed, "We must find another way out of this situation. We came here for something valuable, but maybe we should run away. No treasure is worth a few lives."
The group members nodded. Then they began discussing their ideas and plans. Some wanted to continue attacking the Golden Knight, but some decided it was worth eliminating all risks in this situation.
"I wonder what will win in their argument, greed or self-preservation instinct?" Wain said with a smile. "Because in my case, greed is the only favorite."
Wain didn't even think about finding his way out. He had to get the second part of the map and the unique reward for killing all the Mimics.
If he ran away now and did not know what the reward would be at the end, he would not be able to go on living as before. These thoughts will torment his mind for a long time to come.
'Hmm, but... what should I do? Use Beyond and try to kill the Golden Knight? But, if I don't get it? What will happen in that case? Without energy and strength, I will surely die...' Wain pondered.
Wain looked around carefully. He was lucky that the Golden Knight was a passive opponent, so Wain had time to develop a plan. However, after a while, Wain didn't see any clues.
There was nothing else in the room beside a mountain of gold and an invincible knight. Wain lit a cigarette and looked at the path from where Vineta's group had come. To his surprise, the door that closed the passage was slightly different from the others, with one small detail.
In the center of the wall was not a golden brick but an iron one. Then Wain looked at his passage and saw a bright yellow brick in the center. It was also gold, but it was more pure, refined.
There were five passages in all, and the situation was similar in each. In the wall of the third passageway was a copper brick. The wall of the fourth aisle had a tin brick. The wall of aisle five had a bronze brick.
"Gold, iron, bronze, tin, copper, that's five metals. Perhaps I was the only one fighting an enemy made of gold, for I had a passageway marked with this metal." Wain muttered and headed toward Vineta's group.
They were wary when they saw Wain but did not attack him.
"What do you want?" Vineta said coldly.
"Nothing, I just wanted to ask. What kind of monster did you fight before you got here?"
"The iron tiger." Vineta answered briefly.
"Huh, great, then I have a plan. I might know how we can defeat the golden knight, but to do that, we need to team up."
"Why would you and I team up? There are many of us and only one of you, and what's more, where's the guarantee that you won't betray us?" Vineta asked cautiously.
"You have no guarantees as I. But, you can't pass this test without me. You need me to save time. After we deal with the golden knight, we will decide what we will do with the reward." Smirking, Wain said.
Of course, he wasn't going to share the bounty. Even if he got an item worthless to himself, he'd rather give it to someone from Last Light than an enemy organization.
"All right, tell me your plan." Vineta quickly replied.
She understood that she and Wain were not allies, but they could team up for a time to solve a common problem. Likewise, she was sure that they would deal with him easily if Wain decided to attack them.
'He's strong, but we're not weaker. This guy is too arrogant.' Vineta thought.
"Unlike you weaklings, I fought the Golden Tiger, it was much more dangerous and difficult than your opponent, I am sure of it. Look closely at the rest of the passages, and you will notice that the center brick is different in color." Said Wain.
Vineta paid no attention to his tone and did as he said. The others did the same.
"I see, you think we need to kill the remaining monsters, so we have a chance to defeat the Golden Knight?"
Wain only nodded weakly.
"Yeah, that's a genius plan you came up with... No one would have guessed that." Vineta said sarcastically.
"Yeah, but out of the seven of us, I'm the only one who could think of it." Wain said smiling. "Okay, let's cut to the chase. There are seven of us, and we can easily deal with each of the monsters."
"Wait." Suddenly Vineta stopped him. "I think we should split into teams and kill all the monsters at once."
"What? Why?"
"Since you got here first, that means you killed the monster before we did, and we were in big trouble because of it. I didn't understand it before, but now it all makes sense. When you killed your opponent, our monster got stronger. I'm sure it was because of your actions that it happened." Proclaimed Vineta.
"I see. You think that if we kill two monsters, the last one might be too strong. Okay, then how do we divide?" Asked Wain.
Vineta nodded, "There are seven of us and three doors. It would be logical to divide into two teams of two people and one team of three people."
Wain shook his head, "I don't need a burden, I'll fight alone."
"That's out of the question. What's more, I'm going with you, so you don't have to worry about your partner's competence." Vineta said seriously.
She decided to go together with Wain, as they were the strongest and therefore had to be in the smallest team. Also, Vineta wanted to keep an eye on Wain in this way, she could not trust him.
Wain frowned but eventually agreed, "Fine, but if you interfere with me, I won't hold back."
Vineta answered nothing and turned to the other members of the group. They quickly split into teams.
"There's one more question left to decide. Who's going to which aisle?" Vineta asked.
"There are three passages left, copper, tiner, and bronze. Obviously, the copper aisle contains the least powerful monster, which means the weakest team should go there." Said Wain pointing to the aisle.
"I see, that leaves bronze and tin, but which aisle has the stronger monster?" Vineta pondered.
"I think the bronze aisle has the stronger enemy." Selena suddenly said. "I'm sure of it since tin and copper are the components for melting bronze. It would make sense to have the most dangerous enemy there."
"I agree, then it's settled. Our team will go to the bronze aisle. Selena's team will go to the tin aisle and the third team to the copper aisle." Vineta concluded.
Everyone nodded and headed for the passageways. As they expected, the Golden Knight did not react in any way to their actions. He didn't care what they were going to do, as long as they stayed away from the treasure.
Vineta and Wain approached their passage.
"How do we open it?" Asked the girl.
"It's simple." Wain shrugged his shoulders and hit the bronze brick with all his might.
The next moment the wall shuddered and collapsed. Wain quickly jumped forward before it recovered. Vineta followed him.
Wain didn't know what he had to do to open the passage, but it was the only option he could think of.
They walked through the tunnel, lit by a few dim torches. They paced slowly and waited until they met their enemy.
"My name is Vineta Folks. What is your name?"
Wain didn't answer last time, but Vineta decided she had to know the name of the man she would be fighting shoulder to shoulder with.
Wain looked at her and calmly answered, "Wain Norheim."
"Where are you from?"
"I already answered that question. I'm from another world." With a shrug, Wain said. He knew Vineta wouldn't believe him, so he decided to mock him for days this way.
"Stop being sarcastic. It's obvious you're from the other side of town. There can't be any other way."
"So if you know that, then why are you asking questions? Are you stupid?" Wain said with a smirk.
"Oh, you!" Vineta became angry at him. Wain was pissing her off more and more by the second.