Infinite Realm

 (AN : Kindly alert me for any errors.)

*Phew*

With a loud whistling sound, two glaring red rays of flames, darted towards a stone giant from two different angles and two different directions.

*Boom* 

"Grawrrr!"

"Grawrrr!"

The two rays had shaved past the two monsters before striking the 3rd one in the middle with a resounding boom.

"Grawwrr!" 

While the 2 stone giants only went off with a shave, the 3rd one, who happened to be the main target of the two attacks, received the full blow of the two attacks giving off an loud roar that shook the place. Utter vexation and anger could be felt in its voice as the monster itself wondered who would dare to actually harm it.

Turning its head over to the spot where the one of the two beams originated from, the monster noticed a slightly pudgy figure who was smiling at it. Though the monster didn't have much intelligence, it felt that the smirk on that little figures lips was a derisive one, taunting it and mocking it for being such a weakling to have gotten hit by a smaller being. Following that, the little figure began running away.

The monster glared at the running figure, irked by the fact that this creature actually thought he could escape after having injured it. 

"Roar!" With a roar, it notified its teammates that the little pudgy figure was its target.

Immediately, the stone giant took a step forward, dashing towards the small creature. Despite having a huge frame, the monster was surprisingly able to close up the gap between it and the short figure slowly.

"Damn. This freak is actually this fast." Fudo grumbled. 'Looks like I underestimated it a lot.' 

After seeing that the stone giant was catching up, Fudo accelerated again, avoiding the clutches of the stone giant and maintaining the distance.

'Looks like its almost as fast as I am and with the way it's moving, its [Dexterity] shouldn't be low either.' Fudo had an ugly look on his face when he reached that conclusion. Usually earth class monsters had the weakness of low [Agility] and [Dexterity], however, this strange stone monster didn't have such a thing.

'It's a good thing that we aren't facing it. We just have to escape them.' Fudo sighed with relief.

While Fudo was being pursued by the monster, the other ones didn't stand idle. One of the stone giants chased after Xue Yan, while the other stood warily by the Gate as if on a lookout for anymore intruders. 

Seeing this, Sato frowned a bit before saying in the party chat, "Fudo, Xue Yan, try and bring those guys further away. Hit them every once in a while to maintain the aggro."

"Got it." Fudo replied.

"Lu Zhen, aid Xue Yan." Sato spoke again. The reason he gave that command was because he noticed that Xue Yan's speed was lacking when compared to the stone giant chasing after her. If things went on like that, it would catch up to her within 6 seconds.

"Alright." Lu Zhen replied as he darted towards the stone giant while in stealth.

"Everyone, here's the monster's info."Fudo said before uploading a file on the party chat.

[[ System interface :

Guard Golem (Elite)

Level : 9

HP : 796/1000

Physical Attack Power : 75

Magical attack power : 30

Physical Defense : 25

Magical Defense :10

Attack Speed : 30

Movement Speed : 20

Attributes 

Strength : 25

Endurance : 25

Vitality : 100

Agility : 10

Dexterity : 10

Intelligence : 10

Willpower : 10

Skills 

Elemental Blessing : Passive skill : Physical defense and attack is increased by 10%.

Earth Roar : Active skill : Release a devastating roar that inflicts 140% Magical Attack Power as mental damage and manipulates the environment. 

 Cool-down : 5 seconds

Solid Punch : Active skill : Attack with 150% of Physical Attack Power.

Cool-down : 5 seconds

Trans-mutate : Active Skill : Manipulate the earth to inflict damage worth 150% of Physical Attack power upon a target.

Cool-down : 7 seconds

Diverging Rapture : Active Skill : AOE attack that deals 120% of Magical attack power as damage. Together with a push effect.

Cool-down : 10 seconds

]]

"Indeed, it's a level 9 monster. An Elite rank at that." Sato frowned. Earlier on, Seiichi had guessed that the monsters were level 9 ones but he never would have expected them to be Elite rank. The difference between a Common and an Elite wasn't just in the titles but in strength. An Elite rank monster could handle 3-4 Common ranks on its own. In other words, these three level 9 Elite ranks were the same as nine level 9 Common rank monsters and this was just a conservative estimate.

"This monster has more skills than I do and they are even more powerful than mine." Yato grumbled with a sour face.

"You don't need to worry. With me and my new baby, I bet I could solo him alone." Fudo laughed. The twin attack he had launched with Xue Yan had ended up taking a bit above 200 HP away from the Guard Golem and from his System interface's battle records, he discovered that his own attack had dealt more than 100 damage points to the monster; and this was with a part of the attacks might having been shaved off by one of the Guard Golems. It was only normal for Fudo to feel bloated with pride.

"Hehe. Why don't you go ahead." Yato chuckled.

"Get ready. It's you guys' turn now." Sato said to him.

Sato exited the party chat before glancing at the sole stone giant or rather, Guard Golem, by the Exit gate. He was about to make a move when he noticed that the two that were earlier pursuing Fudo and Xue Yan respectively had suddenly stopped. The one that had been chasing after Fudo glared ferociously at him and roared loud but it didn't take a single step forward anymore. The one that pursued Xue Yan only glared at her before it turned around and retreated back to its post. Fudo's 'partner' also followed through and headed back to the Exit gate's area.

"What's going on?" Sato asked in the team chat; his question being aimed at Fudo and Xue Yan.

"I don't know. Previously it was just chasing after us but it suddenly paused some seconds ago and turned around." Xue Yan replied him with a worried tone. She didn't know what went wrong hence her worried tone. 

"Same here." Fudo replied as he glanced at the retreating Guard Golem with a serious face.

Sato frowned at their reply as he couldn't make heads of the monsters.

"I think I know why." Seiichi said. Because he had nothing to do then, he had been paying attention to the entire event and had noticed something.

"What?" Xue Yan hurriedly asked.

"Did you notice before that the Guard Golems didn't go past the 15 metre radius?" Seiichi said.

"Yeah. And?" Fudo asked.The reason was simply because when the Guard Golem chased after him, they had long went beyond the 15 metre distance.

Seiichi replied him. "I think that while the 15 metre distance is the minimal patrol area, there exists a maximum. They probably reached it and so had to withdraw." 

Listening to Seiichi's conjecture, Sato felt that there was some truth to it because he had noticed that the two Guard Golems unwilling to take a step forward no matter how dissatisfied they were about the matter, especially the one that chased after Fudo.

"Let's try it again." Sato said.

At this time, the two Guard Golems were still a few metres away from the Exit gate and each other hence, there was still an opportunity to attract their aggro separately.

"Alright." Fudo nodded before he faced the retreating Guard Golem. 

"[Fireball]"

A blazing fireball with a diameter of half a meter took shape. The orange flames rampage as they blazed around the flaming ball. It was bright to the eyes and the heat could be felt even from a 3 metres away. Fudo didn't cast the spell right away but held it in place, constantly supplying mana to the glaring fireball. With the continuous supply of mana, the flaming ball increased in size as its temperature rose too. 

After 5 seconds of the holding the spell in place, Fudo directed his staff at the Guard Golem.

"[Greater Fireball]!"

*Fuuuuu*

With a strange sound akin to that of a burning gas[1], the fireball darted towards the retreating Guard Golem. It also happened to be that the spell Xue Yan used, was the exact same one as Fudo. As such, there were 2 one metre fireballs dashing towards two retreating Guard Golems.

*Gruuu*

As if sensing the mana fluctuations and the absurd heat, the Guard Golem that was targeted by Fudo turned its head backwards and saw the fireball closing in on it. 

"Roar!" 

The Guard Golem roared before lifting its right hand and delivering a punch right at the fireball. As the fist approached the fireball, a dull brown colour began to suffuse on it, overlapping the previous amber colour.

[Solid Punch]!

Within a second, the two attacks collided with each other.

*Boom*

As the fumes from the explosion cleared, the result of the encounter was made visible for all to see but it was unexpected.

"Ho, How?!"