Chapter 321: Three versus Three
As the battle began, the agile Jungle Hunter nimbly climbed onto the head of the Oak Guardian.
The Oak Guardian, standing three to four meters tall, was broad and sturdy, its head alone the size of half a table. The Jungle Hunter stood firmly atop it, and as the tree crown grew, it unexpectedly formed a natural arrow tower.
At the same time, the alluring Flower Dancer, with her slender legs, took light steps, levitating mid-air on flower petals, also gaining a height advantage.
Owen simply smiled faintly at this, choosing to release control over his three puppets, allowing the puppets’ intelligent cores to activate combat mode and freely engage.
The Top Hat, with its intelligence activated, let out a cackling laugh. Its slender fingers plucked the red ribbon top hat from its head, flipping it gently in its hand. Suddenly, a large flock of pitch-black ravens with red eyes flew out from within, scattering and swirling like a dark cloud. While blocking the Jungle Hunter’s line of fire, they also swooped towards the Flower Dancer.
The Flower Dancer had the appearance of a female elf, petite and seemingly not adept at combat. However, since she was brought out by Kotana, she naturally possessed unique abilities.
Facing the incoming flock of ravens, the Flower Dancer danced gracefully, her jade arms and pink legs moving in rhythm with music that seemed to come from nowhere. Due to her exceptionally smooth and fair skin, she reflected the sunlight, creating a hazy glow that made her beauty even more breathtaking, completely concealing the fact that she was a creation.
Compared to the dance itself, the effect it produced was even more remarkable. Countless petals bloomed and rose with the dance, forming a barrier of flowers and gradually spreading throughout the entire arena, creating a rain of petals. The effect was far more potent than the flock of ravens, even causing Owen to frown, as he sensed illusion magic and mental interference within it.
The Jungle Hunter, unaffected by the petals and the ravens, drew its bow, aiming an arrow precisely through the gaps in the swirling ravens towards the seemingly most vulnerable Top Hat.
As a wooden puppet, the Top Hat’s defense was clearly not very high. Facing the incoming arrow, it could only open its umbrella. Unexpectedly, the arrow landed on it and slid off like raindrops, barely generating any impact force.
Seeing this scene, Kotana was taken aback. The arrows used by the Jungle Hunter were enchanted, unaffected by ordinary magic shields or distortion fields, and possessed armor-piercing effects. It was truly strange that they couldn’t penetrate that thin umbrella.
In fact, this wasn’t strange at all. The seemingly black silk surface of the umbrella was actually made of Heavenly Silkworm Silk from a martial arts world, the same material as the puppet strings used by the Top Hat. Without any enchantment, it possessed the property of being impervious to blades, guns, water, and fire. Therefore, the arrow’s magic-breaking effect was entirely ineffective.
Relying solely on the sharpness of the arrow, it was impossible to penetrate the Heavenly Silkworm Silk. Due to the difficulty in applying force, the thin umbrella surface and the resilient and elastic umbrella ribs reduced ten units of force to a mere two or three, far from enough to pierce through.
The Jungle Hunter was about to switch arrows when it suddenly froze, then curled up and rolled off the Oak Guardian’s head without hesitation. However, it was still injured by a sudden flash of sword light behind it, revealing the intricate structure beneath its artificial skin and leaking sap-like fluid.
The attacker was the Ninjutsu Assassin, who had been stealthily approaching since the beginning. Without anyone noticing, it had climbed onto the Oak Guardian and delivered a sharp slash from behind, causing the observing students to gasp in admiration.
Finding that it hadn’t killed its target with one strike, the Ninjutsu Assassin also jumped down from the Oak Guardian’s head, which was slowly raising its arm to swat it, and engaged in a close-quarters fight with the Jungle Hunter, who had already drawn its sword, preventing it from utilizing its ranged attacks. The Jungle Hunter had also anticipated this and chosen to draw its sword.
During the ranged exchange, it wasn’t very apparent, but now in close combat, Owen could discern some insights. Kotana’s golems weren’t simply golems; they were following a similar path to his.
The essence of a golem was activation and intelligence, akin to bestowing life and thought upon inanimate objects, much like the Transfiguration magic at Hogwarts.
Because bestowing true life upon inanimate objects was too far-fetched, subsequent research on golems had increasingly leaned towards combat functionality. Therefore, they weren’t intentionally made to be intricate, as even a simple stone golem wouldn’t hinder movement. Excessive intricacy would on the contrary make them prone to damage, affecting their combat effectiveness.
Puppets pursued intricacy purely to save costs, as this approach wouldn’t consume too many precious materials or magic power. The problem was that while puppets were sufficiently agile, they couldn’t withstand direct confrontation with golems, putting them at a disadvantage unless one was willing to invest heavily in materials and create extravagant creations like the Iron Monger.
Of Kotana’s three creations, only the Oak Guardian was a true golem. The Flower Dancer seemed more like a magical construct, while the Jungle Hunter’s essence was similar to the Ninjutsu Assassin, also intricately structured, agile, and versatile, capable of using ranged weapons like bows and darts, as well as close-combat weapons like swords and knives. Therefore, their battle was incredibly captivating and intense. The observing students cheered enthusiastically, while only Karl’s face grew increasingly grim. He wanted to stop the duel several times but ultimately yielded to reality.
It was evident that both Owen and Kotana had violated the rules, but the teachers’ gazes, the heated atmosphere, and the backgrounds of those two forced him to remain silent, watching the duel he had instigated develop in an unpredictable direction.
At this moment, the Monk also joined the fray. As a product of Owen’s martial arts aspirations, the tall and robust Monk wasn’t a simple, crude golem. Even though it appeared like a bronze statue, its essence was a biomimetic puppet even more advanced than the Ninjutsu Assassin, possessing a skeletal and muscular structure identical to a human’s. Even its joints, cartilage, synovial fluid, and other structures were taken into consideration. It even had five energy cores corresponding to the five internal organs and magic circuits and nodes mimicking meridians and acupoints.
This intricate and complex design allowed the Monk, after integrating martial arts techniques Owen had exchanged from the system’s martial arts games, to truly execute them, albeit driven not by internal energy but by the energy provided by the energy cores.
However, the Monk’s first opponent was the three to four-meter-tall Oak Guardian. Owen couldn’t help but feel a bit worried. But then he thought about the effort and energy he had invested. If the Monk couldn’t even handle an Oak Guardian, there would be no point in continuing.
The bronze statue-like Monk moved with surprising agility, easily approaching the Oak Guardian. As soon as it got close, it launched a fierce attack, like a tightly wound toy. Its fists, like bronze hammers, struck the sides of the Oak Guardian’s knees with relentless yet agile blows, producing loud bangs and sending wood chips flying.
As the Monk continued its merciless assault, even the Oak Guardian’s heavy body began to tremble, showing that its weak point had been targeted.
Judging the immense threat, the Oak Guardian immediately swung its massive hand to grab the Monk. However, the Monk, which had been attacking relentlessly just moments ago, suddenly leaped into the air, performing a nimble backflip to dodge the Oak Guardian’s sweeping arm. It then stretched out its body and landed on the Guardian’s arm, its feet seemingly sticky as it dashed up the thick arm and leaped into the air above the Guardian’s shoulder, its agility no less impressive than the Jungle Hunter’s.
