Chapter 152: Needle of Ember

Once Charles walked out of the underground cave, he went away from the waterfall and cast his gaze on a single volcanic mountain.

It was a conical-shaped mountain, and lavas and ashes were constantly spewing out from the summit.

He stared at the volcano for a moment before entering the dense woods and advanced in the direction of the volcanic mountain.

While walking, he encountered many wild creatures like fire wolves, Red Salamanders, etc., but he chose to avoid them. Mostly, he would go in a different direction, made a few detours from time to time, and focused his attention mainly on removing his foot trails. Although the chance of Miners' Den scouts finding his secret location was close to zero, he didn't dare to leave any clues at all.

That underground cave's location must not be exposed to others.

Nodding his head, he checked the surroundings constantly and reached the volcanic mountain's base after an hour of travel.

Then, Charles glanced at the base areas and noticed that vine-like plants, weeds, and black glassy and aphanitic rocks were the only ones that appeared in the mountain base.

He soon turned his gaze towards the mountain's shoulder and saw red lavas were covering them.

'Where is the Ember Golems' settlement?' He furrowed his brows and soon turned his gaze towards the left side of the mountain.

There, he saw a large number of sliced rocks arranged in orders and became suspicious.

Without any hesitation, he took a step forward and went in that direction.

Once he reached there, he searched the surrounding areas and soon found some foot trails.

It looked more like a smaller version of an elephant's footprints!

Those trails soon led him into a large rocky hole.

No, it was an underground tunnel!

As he arrived near the underground tunnel, he suddenly heard loud footsteps from the tunnel.

Without any delay, Charles went near a sizeable rock, hid behind it, and then waited. After a few minutes of waiting, a total of five 2 meter tall humanoid creatures walked out of the dark rocky tunnel. They appeared to be made of molten lava and were yellowish in color.

Except for the face-like structures, and humanoid shapes, their bodies appeared to be made of pure lavas!

But what made him more surprised was the metal armor around their bodies.

'Those armors and their weapons are forged by blacksmith experts. These creatures are not dumb ones.' His face turned serious as he carefully started studying their movements.

He also noticed some core-like thing on their chests and became more curious about their origin.

Then, he focused his attention on a particular short Golem and cast [Cryptic Analysis] skill on it.

The next instant, a row of information about Ember Golem appeared in front of his eyes.

'Rank-2 Carrier Golem... It also has some powerful innate spells like Elemental Shield, Fire Breath, Unyielding Fire, High Regeneration... An evolved Golem, is it?'

'How these creatures are born?' He thought for a moment and soon cast [Fire Seed] spell on the same Golem.

At that moment, the particular Golem suddenly halted its footsteps and stood in confusion.

Meanwhile, Charles's expression froze.

The reason for that was that the information he received from the Carrier Golem was not simple at all!

'An underground giant settlement... Wait... More than 30,000 Golems are staying in the underground? A unique language... They are worshiping a statue of a horned woman called Mother Goddess... Moreover, three Rank-4 Ember Golems are the one who controls this strange religion and is gathering more golems from the nearby settlements for some reason!' Charles instantly knew that something suspicious was going in this Golem settlement.

'Should I search for other settlement? Nah... This one is the right choice to earn Exp points in bulk amount.' He muttered inwardly and get ready to attack.

In the meantime, other golems also stopped their footsteps and looked at the particular Golem in confusion.

Soon, they made some rattling noises.

But Charles understood that they were asking what had happened to the short Golem.

Taking the opportunity, he shifted his attention to the spell model and cast the [Needle of Ember] spell.

A moment later, a thin reddish needle appeared in front of him.

It hovered in the air and already formed a deep link with his mind.

Under Charles's will, it suddenly moved towards the confused Golem and appeared in front of its head the next second.

Then, the needle directly pierced into the lava-like head and appeared on the other side!

In an instant, the short Golem fell on its knees!

'Interesting.'

Charles's lips started to curl up and formed into a smile.

'Explode.' He then muttered inwardly.

A moment later, the needle suddenly started to shake fiercely, followed by a cracking noise.

Before the other golems could understand the situation, a cloud of dense reddish flame came out from the broken needle and began to expand like a wildfire.

Whenever the reddish flame touches something, it began to seep into the object and corrode at a visible rate. The ground, rock, Golems' armors, and the nearby weeds also started to get affected by the strange red flame.

The five Golems soon noticed that their yellowish flame bodies also started to turn red and began to panic.

Simultaneously, the Chaos reddish flame also seeped deep into their bodies and started to corrupt their souls!

All of a sudden, an unknown pain assaulted those five golems' minds!

They couldn't endure the pain and started to fell on their knees.

Then, their bodies also started to bulge abnormally and exploded one by one.

Chaos flame swept the nearby areas and even turned the nearby rocks into powders!

By the time the chaotic fire disappeared from there, a small crater had appeared in the area.

'This spell really is terrifying.' Charles muttered with a dumbfounded look on his face and then glanced at the notification.

...

[Target Eliminated! 860 Exp points obtained!]

[Target Eliminated! 1,230 Exp points obtained!]

[Target Eliminated! 910 Exp points obtained!]

[Target Eliminated! 740 Exp points obtained!]

[Target Eliminated! 1,050 Exp points obtained!]

...

'Good.'

Nodding his head, Charles stayed behind the rock and waited for the search team to come.

Soon, eleven armored Golems came out of the small tunnel and then turned their gaze towards the large crater.

'Hmm, there are two Rank-3 Golems and nine Rank-2 Golems. Killing all of them is not possible.'

Furrowing his brows, Charles once again cast the [Needle of Ember] spell, moved it near them, and made it explode.

Explosive sounds echoed one by one, causing the nearby ground to vibrate continuously!

Only two Rank-3 Ember Golems resisted the Chaos fire for more than 30 seconds before they started to stagger.

But their bodies didn't explode like other golems, though. Although the chaos flame seeped into their bodies, they still maintained their rationality and hurriedly ran back to the underground tunnel.

"They ran so quickly." Charles let out a disappointing sigh as he came from the hiding area and soon smiled.

'There are 4,790 Exp from the Carrier golems and 8,200 Exp from the second massacre. It's not a bad place to earn exp.' He took one deep look at the dark tunnel and return to the underground cave near the waterfall.

After that, he isolated himself from the outside world and started to comprehend the [Needle of Ember] Spell model.

It took only 40 days for him to comprehend the spell model completely!

'I actually thought that it would take more than 2 months to comprehend a Rank-3 spell model.' He muttered to himself as he opened his jade eyes and then glanced around the slightly illuminated rocky underground cave.

'Hmm, more than 25 days have passed in Edhen's time. I should go back now and check if everything is alright.' He nodded as he took out the Twin Leaf, placed it on the rocky wall, and then recited a short chant.

A second later, his figure turned blurry and soon disappeared from there!