Egor Squad continued to walk forward, and they found more and more parts of the walls and pillars scattered on the ground; some would even be massive chunks; it was strange, to say the least.

  Oran looked around, pointing his light at the debris to the side. He noticed that some of it had a strange shape. He tapped Ethan on the shoulder and pointed at the large rock.

  ‘Sarge, I think we should look at this.’ Ethan raised his voice for a moment.

  Egor looked back and noticed the soldiers pointing at a rock. He walked toward it, followed by Kurt, not noticing what they were looking at. Kurt was right before the light, but his shadow obscured the view. Now, beside him, Ethan pointed at the rock with his rifle and revealed a sizeable humanoid face.

  ‘There are no statues on the walls, anywhere for that matter; are these the golems?’ Ethan looked at Egor, his voice tinged with uncertainty and fear.

  ‘You are right, and look at the other piles of rock; they look similar to this one.’ Egor looked around, pointing his rifle at those piles. The 'golems' were massive, with rough, stone-like skin and humanoid features, but their eyes were lifeless and empty.

  ‘Kurt, give me a line to command, now!’ Egor looked at the soldier with distress in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, sir, it is already calibrated.’ Kurt gave the radio to Egor.

  ‘Command, this is pear; do you copy?’ Egor spoke while signaling his men to look around.

  ‘Loud and clear, what is the situation?’ Alon’s voice sounded calm.

  ‘Some of the debris we found has a humanoid shape, and there are many of them around us.’ Egor scanned the surrounding darkness with no luck.

  Alon was putting some pieces together in his head. The conversation he had with Edmund and the duchess at the mansion was still a theory, but it wasn’t a bad one.

  ‘Maybe you will have to deal with the demon lord's army sergeant; if what Edmund said was true, those piles of rocks should have been the enemies you were there to fight.’ Alon’s tone became more serious.

  ‘Did I hear the demon lord’s army?’ Asher's eyes widen.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  ‘How can you hear from here? You are a freak, Asher.’ Caleb shook his head.

  Egor took a deep breath and again scanned the darkness for signs of movement, but nothing could be heard or seen. His mind returned to the conversation as Alon asked again.

  ‘Spear, do you copy?’ Alon sounded apprehensive.

  ‘Yes, loud and clear, we are going to continue forward. Spear over and out.' The sergeant gave back the radio and walked to his initial position.

  As they continued to walk, the squad cleared some other entrances. The difference was that the pieces of the golems were inside the rooms, which made everyone more nervous. Given the numbers they had seen until now, Ethan thought there was no way they could face this many.

  ‘Sarge, we should return and come with a full platoon.’ Ethan was right to the side of Egor as they walked.

  ‘Why? There is nothing yet; we may be close to the end.’ Egor scanned a head with his rifle for a moment.

  ‘Look how many of these things are around; we couldn’t have possibly done this alone, so if whatever killed them is here, we will die, sir.’ Ethan looked to the side, trying to see movement between the rubbles.

  ‘No, doing this is our job. We can’t risk a platoon because we might die; we can always retreat.’ Egor walked around a fallen golem.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ethan returned to his position.

  Some more time passed, and the look of the walls and pillars was more like a battle. Parts of the walls and the pillars were blown up, which clearly should be those entrances with the rooms, destroyed, but as they walked, a sound to the right of a rock hitting the ground was heard by everyone, making everyone point their rifles in that direction.

  It was dead silent once again. Egor looked around, trying to scan for anything. For a moment, he hears something cutting through the air.

  ‘Take cover!!!’ Egor jumped to the side, right behind a pile of rocks.

  Everyone jumped to the side out of instinct, as the sight was far too familiar to forget. An ice lance landed right in the middle of their formation. They scanned ahead but could now see the light coming their way.

  ‘Scatter!!! Fireball!!’ Ethan yelled.

  Everything happened too fast, but fortunately, the fireball hit the same spot as the lance, and they had already spread out their formation. Samal pointed his rifle towards the front, and there he could see it; it looked like a mage, but it was bigger, like nothing he had seen before. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger, hitting the monster on the shoulder, but it did not do any damage.

  The others formed what looked like a line; some squad members saw the monsters ahead of them; like Samal, they too fired at them; the ones that had a hit confirmed were shocked because it didn’t cause any damage.

  ‘No damage!!!’ Samal yelled.

  ‘Here too.’ Others spoke, their voices tinged with shock and disbelief at the monsters' resilience.

  Now, the monsters approaching started to fire magic in their direction, trying to hit the soldiers. They were not close to them, so the hits were inaccurate. They overshot most of the first volley, hitting the back lines of the squad.

  ‘Are they trying to cut our escape?’ Egor talked to himself.

  ‘Command, this is Spear. We have contact with the enemy. I repeat, we have contact with the enemy.’ Kurt spoke with the radio next to his mouth.

  ‘Return fire!!!’ Egor yelled.

  'But, sir, it is not effective.’ Caleb yelled from behind a fallen part of the pillar.

  ‘You are just not trying hard enough.’ Egor aimed at one monster approaching and pulled the trigger.

  Although his shot impacted the creature's chest, it didn’t do any damage. Ethan saw the one hit by Egor’s shot and aimed at it, too. He found it odd that these creatures were also hiding behind the parts of the fallen walls.

  The battle raged on, and the monsters were still trying to get closer. Ethan, aiming at the one Egor had shot before, got his chance and took it; his shot blew up one of the monster's shoulders, knocking him back.

  ‘It needs shots to hit the bastards; we can do this.’ Ethan yelled.

  Flashes of blue light from the soldiers' rifles and fireballs from the creatures illuminated the darkness.