Escape

Even if he failed, the reckless use of the tyrannical Primordial energy being mixed with such a sensitive energy store, it would never have a good result.

Yes, it was based on some far-fetched reasoning and a few assumptions about the effects of primordial Energy.

But could you blame Leon? His back was truly against the wall this time.

The stone golem would require at least another 2 to 3 minutes before it could open the gate

And the army of golems would probably be on them in just 1 minute

Leon needed to buy some time in whatever way he could!

Handing the bow back to Jessica, Leon drew his spear and took a deep breath.

Gradually, a crazed look appeared in his eyes, one that could only be borne from utter desperation.

And with this desperation in his heart, Leon charged straight into the horde of constructs.

But before Leon could reach the iron golems came the overwhelming sea of wooden puppets.

Leon simply didn't have time to be caught with these guys and weaved past them.

With his ghostly level of agility, Leon's figure could be seen flickering within the crowd of wooden constructs

Leon's exoskeleton skill was fully activated, so any lucky blows that managed to land simply brushed off his blue barrier.

But even after weaving through the barrier of wooden puppets, Leon's struggle had only just begun.

Next, he faced the true challenge, the iron golems!

As Leon broke through the crowd of wooden puppets, he suddenly saw two iron giants step out in front of him.

Their red glowing eyes locked onto him as two humongous goats crashed down onto Leon's location.

Without thinking, Leon leapt into the air, weaving past the approaching fist, but after that Leon wasn't done yet.

Mid-air Leon's body rotated, allowing his feet to land on the arm of the attacking golem and, thanks to his special boots, it was like he was on the ground.

Using the boots, Leon rapidly scaled the giant.

But as all this was going on, the golem to the side wouldn't just watch.

Despite the fact Leon was attached to an allied golem, it didn't hesitate to launch a devastating blow towards Leon.

Sensing this threat, Leon didn't hesitate and lept off the golem and, in doing so, landed on the head of its nearby compatriot .

"Bang!"

The golem's fist was too fast to pull back and crashed into the golem, sending it collapsing.

But Leon wasn't able to admire the sight as he was too busy skipping across the heads of the approaching golems as Leon went deeper and deeper into the horde of golems until he found the one he was looking for.

As Leon saw it, his eyes lit up.

The brown rust still couldn't conceal the blue glow of the power core.

Dropping down, Leon didn't hesitate and plunged his hand straight into the golem's chest.

Sharp cuts of rusted metal scratched and cut his arm, but Leon didn't care.

The very moment Leon's hand touched the core, he activated his new skill

<Primordial inscription>

In that instant, the cloud of purple energy in his mind began to swirl as it followed Leon's inscription

Swirling around the core in a strange pattern but merely moments later, Leon received a notification

[your inscription has failed]

The instant he received his notification, Leon could feel the Crystal in his grasp begin to tremble.

Leon didn't waste another second and quickly turned around and began to flee.

An ominous sensation began to swell in his heart.

Leon knew he wouldn't be able to completely escape the blast radius in time

"Take cover behind the Stone golem!"

Leon could just make a last ditch cry to warn the others before it was too late.

After the warning, Leon activated his exoskeleton skill to full effect.

"BOOM!!"

Just as he activated his skill, Leon heard a deafening explosion and his world went white

A piercing ring sounded in his ear, leaving Leon with a skull splitting headache

Gradually Leon's blurry vision began to clear, allowing to fully see the aftermath of the explosion.

Looking around him, Leon could see metre long fragments of metal shoved deep in the ground.

He could even see one metre long fragment inserted deep in the ground, just a few inches in front of him.

The moment Leon saw this, he instantly broke out in a nervous sweat.

He had quite literally just kissed death!

If that piece of metal was just a few inches lower, then he would have lost his head and then he could say goodbye to any dreams about saving humanity.

Seeing the explosion was over and he had survived, Leon quickly tried to get up but as he moved his he suddenly felt a cold sensation near his lower waist and it wasn't just Leon's lower waist that was experiencing this sensation, all over his back Leon suddenly felt a searing pain as what felt like countless needles were pricking into his back.

Suddenly Leon realised something horrifying.

His Exoskeleton had been broken!

Looking at his waist, Leon saw a giant shard of metal protruding out from it.

"Fuck" cursed Leon

Leon also glanced at his back to see countless small shards of metal stuck inside him that managed to break through his exoskeleton and price his back.

Unable to move, Leon shakily reached for the superior healing potion that was still in his pocket.

He looked at the golden glowing liquid that now only filled half of the vial with bitter regret.

If he had an option, he wouldn't want to waste such a lifesaving healing potion here, but right now, he had no choice.

A wasted treasure was still better than death.

But before Leon could down the potion, he saw a figure rapidly approaching him through the smoke.

Leon looked up to see a cold pair of eyes looking down at him.

"Lucas," said Leon, confused at the boy's sudden appearance.

"It's not safe yet. You're still supposed to be hiding behind the stone golem."

But the boy didn't speak much and wordlessly supported Leon of the ground

"You've saved my life. I'm only repaying the favour."

Leon just looked at the stone faced kid with a complicated expression as they slowly stumbled towards the golem .

"Boom!"

The second they arrived, the golem let out a powerful punch, causing the ground they stood on to shake, but this time the results were different from before as this time a large hole was blasted open.

All of a sudden, a ray of light burst through, entering the strange laboratory hallway

"The outside!" exclaimed Jessica in pure joy

Never in her life had Jessica thought that she'd be this excited to see the simple sight of growing greenery, but there was always a first for everything.

With the exit now opened, the group along with the golem scrambled outside of the dungeon.

But just before he left, Leon turned around to look back at the origin of his new class but was shocked when he saw the sight of Arovier floating far down the hallway

With Leon's newly strengthened physique it was easy to clearly make out Arovier's face and that's why he'd been able to see the words he mouthed

'You'll never truly escape me.'

As Leon heard this, a shiver ran down his spine and he didn't dare waste another second in the damned place and jumped out.

Suddenly, as Leon jumped out the exit, he was bombarded with an array of strange notifications

[ Ding! ]

[Unfortunately warriors, you have failed in completing the Instance- Dwelling of the Mad Mage]

[Due to the complete failure to complete any of the instance missions, no rewards will be granted by the system.]

Despite hearing this rather unpleasant notification, he wasn't the slightest bit disappointed.

The rewards they had personally gotten from the instance were enough to make up for the loss of mission rewards.

Leon had got an actual hidden class, for crying out loud.

Leon even wanted to laugh at his good fortune. But just as he was getting into a good mood, his body seemed to have other plans as searing pain shot across every one of his nerves.

Leon took a deep breath to prevent himself from roaring out in pain and brought out all the low tier healing potions he had on him.

Since they were out of danger, there was no point in wasting his superior healing potion that could instantly heal almost any sort of mortal wound.

Instead, he would just slowly heal himself back up with the potions he had on hand.

Slowly, Leon began to pick out the pieces of metal lodged inside of his body and as for the pierces of metal stuck in his back, Leon just called Lucas to remove them.

He was the only other person who wasn't squeamish and wouldn't mind tearing out the pieces of metal stuck in Leon, even if it meant chunks of his flesh had to be removed in the process.

Leon had tried to get Jessica to do it, or even better, Lucy, who had an actual healing skill. It's just that neither of them could stomach the sight of ripped and torn flesh for long before they eventually backed out, leaving the stone-faced Lucas as the only other available option.

After around 30 mins of resting and recovery, Leon had completely gone through his low tier healing potion reserves but as a result of this most of his wounds were fully dealt with the exception of the giant wound that used to be on his waist.

Although the wound had been completely closed up due to the fact Leon had only used low tier potions, the treatment was only at the initial level and wasn't quite complete yet.

Leon could quite clearly feel the mobility of his body in the surrounding area of the wound had been noticeably reduced. If Leon's guess was right, then he would need anything from 3 days to a week's worth rest if he wanted to regain his full mobility but since he was still able to keep a modest amount of his mobility Leon decided it was time to move.

After checking everything, Leon just looked to the side to see the hulking figure of his stone golem.

It was greatly damaged, with scratches all over its body. Some parts even had chunks of stone straight up misting.

But regardless of its damaged state, the blue eyes still stared right back at Leon with a cold, emotionless loyalty that had saved his life many times in that dungeon before.

Leon just reached out his hand and patted the giant on its shoulders, or at least he attempted to.

"Thank you."

After Leon said this, For a second there was a flash in the golems eyes but it quickly reverted back to its original state.

Unfortunately nobody was paying enough attention to realise the strange state of the golem.

After healing himself back to full health, Leon and the others didn't spend much time lingering around the location. They escaped to and quickly began the journey back towards the temple.

….

Minutes later,

Leon and his group could be seen

"How long until we make it back?" Asked Jessica with concern

She had asked this question before but only got a plain response in return. But now that the group had been travelling for almost 30 minutes now, she was starting to feel uneasy. The journey to enter the Instance had even taken up to a quarter of this time and yet she still couldn't see any signs that they were begging to approach the temple.

Hearing Jessica's now repetitive question, a slight frown formed on Leon's face.

"I've told you before, we are heading in the right direction. In just a few more minutes we'll be there-"

"Roar!"

Before Leon could finish his sentence, a terrifying roar shook through the forest.