Debuff Master

Chapter 348

“H-Hey! What’s wrong with you guys? Aim there, not here!” Seung-Gu screamed in horror.

Why did the Iron Golems stop listening to him all of a sudden? It was Seung-Gu’s first time experiencing something like this.

“Hey, you punks!” he shouted as he infused more mana into his Mechanic Force and tried his best to control his Iron Golems.

Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain.

Whiiiing… Clack!

The Iron Golems were now completely out of his control, and they no longer responded to his commands as they aimed their cannons at their allies.

The Golem King’s voice reverberated from the distance. “Three! Two!”

“Hey, Seung-Gu! Get those golems out of here! Hurry!” Siegfried shouted.

“Yes, hyung-nim! Cancel Summon!” Seung-Gu waved his Mechanic Force and returned his Iron Golems to his inventory.

“One! FIRE!” the Golem King shouted.

Fortunately, the Iron Golems were nowhere to be seen now, and Golem King Reventon’s command fell on deaf ears.

“Whoa! That was close…!” Seung-Gu exclaimed while sweat was raining down from his shiny bald head. The thought of his Iron Golems firing at the soldiers and wreaking havoc before even fighting the golem army made his heart drop.

“Hey, Seung-Gu. Don’t summon your golems for this one. I think that guy’s better at controlling golems than you,” Siegfried said while pointing at the Golem King.

“T-Then what should I do…?”

“Hmm… Make some popcorn?”

“Popcorns…?”

“You’re a piece of trash without your golems, right?”

“T-That’s harsh…”

Seung-Gu was on the verge of tears, but he couldn’t retort at all. He knew better than anyone that he was useless without his Iron Golems, and watching the battle while munching on some popcorn was probably the best thing he could do at this point.

“Go sit in a corner somewhere and enjoy the show. Don’t worry about your quest,” Siegfried said.

“Okay…” Seung-Gu replied as he walked to a corner with his shoulder drooping.

Siegfried had teased Seung-Gu and called him a piece of trash, but he was actually frustrated that the Iron Golems couldn’t join the battle.

‘Ah, it’s a shame the golems can’t be used this time. Tsk…’

The Proatine Kingdom’s cannons installed on the Iron Golems possessed enough firepower to deal extremely high damage to the targets, which meant that the upcoming battle would become extremely difficult for them without those Iron Golems.

“Lay down your arms and surrender, humans. You cannot win against us,” Reventon’s voice boomed powerfully across the air.

“Hey, don’t you think you’re being too greedy? You already got six territories for free, yet you want more? Do you have no shame?” Siegfried retorted.

“What did you just say?”

“Just cut the crap and let’s start this war.”

Siegfried went as far as provoking the Golem King to attack, but he knew that this was where they had to make their last stand.

‘Our backs are against the wall now,’ he drew the line in the Magnus Territory, which was going to be their Maginot Line to stop the invading golem army.

The golems did not require any supplies and were capable of marching day and night without rest. Failure to stop the golems at the Magnus Territory was going to result in them spilling throughout the entire Lexus Kingdom.

“How foolish.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon.”

“Charge!”

It seemed that the Golem King was the type to get straight to the point as it commanded its golems to charge instead of arguing with Siegfried.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The one thousand golems rushed toward the Magnus Territory.

Their thunderous footsteps signaled the start of the Siege of Magnus Territory.

***

“Haa…” Siegfried let out a sigh after seeing the army of golems rushing toward the walls. The golems were at least three to four meters tall, and the sight of a thousand of them marching at once was quite scary.

It felt like he was standing smack in the center of an oncoming stampede of bison.

‘Oh well, here goes nothing!’ Siegfried kicked off the fort walls and jumped high up into the air.

Fwaaaaah!

Shwaa!

He placed down Blaze Field and Shadow Swamp.

Bam!

He slammed his +15 Gaia’s Fist into the ground and used Splitting Heaven and Earth as soon as he landed.

Boom!

The Splitting Heaven and Earth shattered the ground and split the skies, engulfing the golems. However, the resulting casualties weren’t that impressive. Siegfried looked around and found that he seemed to have killed only a hundred golems.

The golems' Defense was high enough to withstand Splitting Heaven and Earth.

“Hamchi! Buff me!”

“All right! Kyuuu!”

Hamchi summoned his magical wheel and hopped onto it. He then started running on the wheel to cast his buff.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

Siegfried activated Overclocking to further increase his attack power.

What followed was a one-man show.

Siegfried swung his +15 Gaia’s Fist like a madman against the nine hundred remaining golems of various types and sizes.

“Oh!”

“W-What display of power!”

“Oh my god! Who would have known that the King of Proatine was so strong?!”

The feudal lords were astonished by the display of power Siegfried put on.

He was fighting all alone against an army of golems without an ounce of hesitation.

How could he be so fearless when he was surrounded by enemies?

Siegfried was the incarnation of the God of War in the eyes of the feudal lords. Of course, Siegfried didn’t really care about what they thought of me. He only had one thought in mind…

‘I need to reduce their numbers as much as I can.’

Siegfried smashed the heads of the golems with his +15 Gaia’s Fist.

Bam! Puuuk! Bam!

Debris from the golems would scatter across the battlefield whenever Siegfried swung his +15 Gaia’s Fist, and it didn’t take long for a pile of debris to form in front of the fort walls.

“…!”

The Golem King’s eyes shone brightly before shooting out a ray of light.

“Arise, my golems! Have you forgotten our cause?!”

Woooong!

A shockwave of aura shot out from the Golem King when it shouted, and the debris of the golems absorbed the aura.

“Huh…?” Siegfried muttered before his eyeballs almost popped out of his eye sockets as he screamed, “Resurrection?! Hey, this is cheating!”

The golems he had killed came back to life one by one.

“We will not stop until we’ve achieved our goal,” the Golem King said in a majestic voice before saying, “We, golems, will never stop!”

“But that doesn’t mean you can resurrect them! What the hell!” Siegfried retorted with tears welling up in his eyes. He seriously felt like crying when the roughly a thousand golems he had killed were resurrected.

“Go forth and break down those walls, my golems!” Golem King Reventon roared. The golems completely ignored Siegfried and headed straight for the fort walls.

Bam!

The one thousand golems smashed their large bodies against the fort walls, and the fort walls helplessly crumbled.

Siegfried’s efforts were all for naught.

***

“Hey! Damn it!”

Siegfried was in utter disbelief. Every monster had its own unique pattern, but resurrection was the worst kind of pattern in existence. Who would have known that he was going to run into a monster capable of resurrecting its allies against such a huge army of all places?

“That dirty little cheater…”

Not being able to use the newly developed cannons of the Proatine Kingdom was one thing, but resurrecting allies was a whole different matter altogether. Siegfried felt like he had just gotten stabbed in the back.

Golem King Reventon approached Siegfried and asked, “What is your name?”

“Siegfried van Proa.”

“Don’t try to stop us.”

“Do you really think I won’t just because you asked nicely?” Siegfried replied with a scoff.

“We will stop soon.”

“And you expect me to buy that?”

“All we need is a small kingdom. This war will end with us conquering the Lexus Kingdom, so don’t try to stop us.”

“Ah, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Siegfried said while waving his hand. He aimed his +15 Gaia’s Fist at the Golem King and said, “Let’s have a go at it. You and me.”

There was no point in fighting the golems because the Golem King would just resurrect them, so Siegfried concluded that killing the Golem King itself was the fastest way to resolve this mess.

“How foolish. You can’t beat me.”

“You know, I’ve heard that from quite a lot of people these days,” Siegfried said, and then he smirked and asked, “But do you know what happened to them?”

“…?”

“They all died,” Siegfried said. He jumped toward the Golem King and shouted, “Like this!”

He slammed his +15 Gaia’s Fist on the top of the Golem King’s head.

Bam!

The Golem King’s large body staggered after getting hit. Siegfried’s +15 Gaia’s Fist possessed enough attack power to even make Golem King Reventon stagger with just one hit.

Unfortunately, that was all there was to it.

“Don’t try to stop us!” Reventon roared and swung the gigantic greatsword on its back.

‘Too slow!’

Perhaps it was because the Golem King’s body and greatsword were far too big and heavy, but Siegfried could clearly see the trajectory of the oncoming attack. He was confident that he could easily avoid it.

He took a few steps back to avoid getting caught by the greatsword, but…

Whooooosh!

Sword Gust.

The greatsword swung by the gigantic Iron Golem that stood five and a half meters tall had generated a powerful gust of wind that shot toward Siegfried.

‘Huh?’ Siegfried was taken aback when the gust of wind struck him.

Bam!

The gust of wind threw him completely out of balance, and the Golem King’s greatsword struck his abdomen.

“Heok!”

[Siegfried van Proa]

[HP: ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜]

He instantly lost fifty percent of his HP in a single hit. He was lucky that the greatsword was blunt, and he had protected himself with his Blood Butterfly’s Wings in the nick of time. Otherwise, the attack would have split him in half.

“Kuheok!”

Siegfried vomited blood.

[Alert: Status Ailment!]

[Alert: Your character has been afflicted with Internal Bleeding!]

[Alert: Your organs are bleeding, and you will lose 1% HP per second!]

A single blow afflicted him with the status ailment—Internal Bleeding.

“Cough! Cough!” Siegfried coughed and spat a mouthful of blood.

“Did you say your name is Siegfried van Proa? Step aside; I do not wish to cause unnecessary bloodshed.”

“Then you shouldn’t have started this war in the first place—Cough!” Siegfried coughed up blood once again before he forced himself to stand.

Woooong!

Debuff fields sprang up from underneath his feet.

“You seem to bear the name of a royalty. Are you the King of the Lexus Kingdom?”

“No?”

“Then why are you getting involved in another kingdom’s business?”

“I’m just a passerby,” Siegfried replied with a shrug before he charged at the Golem King once again.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

The +15 Gaia’s Fist in his hand was enveloped in a tremendous amount of mana.

‘I need to finish this in a single blow,’ Siegfried thought as he prepared to use Death’s Touch to settle the war.

This was the best thing he could come up with, as the siege was already as good as lost. The fort walls had already been destroyed, and the golems had already flooded into the Magnus Territory. On top of that, he was not in the condition to fight a drawn-out battle, as his internal bleeding was gnawing away at his HP.

Strike while the iron was hot!

He no longer had any other solution other than to use Death’s Touch to defeat the Golem King.

“So you have decided to keep going?”

“Why not?”

“I guess I have no choice,” the Golem King said before swinging the greatsword once again.

Whooosh!

A gust of wind that was even more powerful than the Sword Gust earlier swept Siegfried away.

‘Let’s not resist. I need to ride this to my advantage,’ Siegfried thought.

Flap!

He spread his Blood Butterfly’s Wings and rode the Golem King’s Sword Gust.

He resembled a flying squirrel with his wings spread out.

“…!”

Golem King Reventon was surprised to see Siegfried riding the Sword Gust, and then…

Baaaam!

Siegfried’s Death Touch struck the Golem King’s left chest.