Chapter 257 Gargoyle
“Stay by my side.”
Moria’s voice echoed through the chaos, calm and steady. He stepped forward, the longsword in his hand glowing faintly again, shielding the three survivors behind him.
Li Wen didn’t move. She merely tilted her head slightly, her gaze beneath her hood calmly analyzing the flight paths and attack patterns of the construct guards. They didn’t charge forward without order, but rather formed a three-dimensional, intersecting attack network, blocking all possible escape routes.
The first gargoyle had already swooped down from above. Its monstrous stone face contorted terrifyingly under the reflection of the ethereal blue glow, its claws, shimmering with magical luster, possessed the power to tear through steel as they lunged fiercely towards Moria’s head.
Moria neither dodged nor evaded. The longsword in his hand swept upwards from below, tracing a simple yet precisearc.
Clang!
A dull, teeth-grindingly loud noise erupted as the blade collided with the stone claws, sparks flying. Moria felt a tremendous force transmit from the blade, numbing his arm slightly and causing the stone slab beneath his feet to crack inch by inch. The gargoyle was also repelled upwards by the recoil, but on its claws, which were harder than steel, only a shallow white mark was left.
The physical defense was astonishingly high.
Moria’s heart sank, and more gargoyles began to swarm in from all directions. Those on the ground stomped forward with heavy steps, their claws slashing as they charged; those in the air constantly adjusted their angles, searching for attack openings.
Li Wen’s figure finally moved at this moment.
Her movements were agile and swift. The Raven Feather Dagger drew silent arcs as she weaved through, her target not the gargoyles’ hard bodies, but their relatively fragile hand joints.
Screech——
The dagger grazed the stone surface, emitting a piercing friction sound and trailing a streak of sparks, but only leaving a negligible scratch. The gargoyle’s movements didn’t even pause for a moment.
It seemed the weakening effect of the Raven Feather Dagger still had an impact. If it were the Raven Feather Dagger of the past, Li Wen would have been confident in destroying a gargoyle’s joint with a single strike.
With her attack proving ineffective, Li Wen lightly tapped the ground with her toes, quickly creating distance from the gargoyle, evading a sweeping claw strike from its counterattack. She frowned slightly; the physical resistance of these construct guards was more troublesome than she had anticipated.
“They have magic enchantments on them!” Moria’s shout came. He was fending off two gargoyles with his exquisite swordsmanship, each clash of his sword against their stone claws forcing him back half a step, clearly under immense pressure. “Ordinary attacks are hard to get through!”
The battle gradually intensified. Moria managed to maintain a small safe zone for the three people behind him amidst the gargoyles’ encirclement with his superb combat skills and strength, but as more gargoyles joined the fray, his defensive perimeter was constantly being compressed.
Li Wen, using her speed advantage, weaved around the edges of the battlefield, continuously attempting to attack different parts of the gargoyles’ bodies, trying to find their weaknesses. She had tried using curses to weaken them, but both Dark Word Curse and Spell-less Arc Light were nullified by an invisible magic shield the moment they touched the gargoyles’ bodies, yielding very little effect.
These things not only had astonishing physical defense but also possessed extremely high magic resistance.
This couldn’t go on.
Li Wen’s gaze swept across the entire battlefield. The number of gargoyles continued to increase, with more stone guards awakening on buildings further away. They would eventually be worn down and killed here.
The stalemate had to be broken.
Without any hesitation, Li Wen changed her actions. She summoned the Original Text and began a short, obscure prayer.
Poem of Paradise!
A faint light invisible to the naked eye emerged from her palm, silently spreading outwards from her as the center.
The gargoyles within range suddenly stiffened as if seized by an invisible force. The magical glow in their eye sockets flickered violently, and the invisible magic-enhanced shield on their bodies, like a popped bubble, instantly rippled outwards before quietly collapsing.
“Left.” Li Wen’s voice was calm and clear.
Moria responded almost instinctively. He quickly sidestepped to avoid a direct lunge from a gargoyle, spun his longsword, and instead of blocking, transformed it into a sharp slash, precisely striking the gargoyle Li Wen had applied “Gift of Temperance” to.
Whish!
This time, it wasn’t the dull sound of metal colliding, but a muffled thud like a blade cutting into rotten wood. The flame-engulfed longsword cut through like butter, easily severing one of the gargoyle’s arms. The massive stone arm, carrying spraying gravel and sparks, smashed heavily onto the ground.
The gargoyle with the severed arm let out a piercing, inhuman roar, its movements becoming noticeably sluggish and chaotic.
“Gift of Temperance” could remove all status effects on a target, naturally including that “outer layer” of extremely high resistance granted by magic.
The breakthrough was found, but the situation remained far from optimistic. Her casting of “Gift of Temperance” required time, and its range and mana were limited, making it impossible to deal with such a large group of gargoyles.
They needed a chance to escape this place.
Li Wen’s gaze swept over the chaotic plaza, finally settling on a relatively narrow street leading from the plaza into the city’s interior. The space there was insufficient for the gargoyle horde to fully deploy, making it their only path to survival.
“Withdraw into that street!” Li Wen’s voice rang out again, and simultaneously, a black candle that seemed to absorb all light appeared in her hand.
Candle of Giving Darkness.
Hearing the command, Moria didn’t hesitate. He swung his sword to push back the gargoyles in front of him, then turned, grabbed the almost petrified believers on the ground, and said, “Follow.”
Li Wen lightly tossed the candle in her hand towards the densest concentration of gargoyles. The candle ignited mid-air without fire, and a darkness purer than the deep sea and deeper than the night erupted from the candle as its center.
Light was devoured, sounds were distorted, and a large area in the center of the plaza was instantly plunged into a realm of absolute darkness.
The gargoyles’ formation was thrown into immediate disarray. Although they were magical constructs, their vision was also severely affected. The magical light in their eye sockets flickered on and off in the darkness like candles in the wind. They began wildly swinging their claws, with a few even colliding with each other, emitting dull thuds. The continuous mixed damage within the Candle of Giving Darkness domain caused small cracks to continuously appear on their stone bodies.
“Go quickly.”
Taking advantage of this brief moment of chaos, Li Wen rushed out first, her figure flashing past the edge of the dark domain. Moria, half dragging and half pulling the three survivors, followed closely behind.
