Evolution Island: Kill to Survive

A volcanic surprise

The boulders had indeed started moving, and it wasn’t due to a tremor or vibration. Each smouldering hunk of rock was slowly starting to change shape.

“These aren’t ordinary rocks!” Aaron cautioned.

Large fiery eyes popped up all around them— the boulders rolled downhill and surrounded the group from all sides. They watched shocked and confused, as the boulders suddenly grew stony arms and legs dripping with lava. Each boulder slowly transformed into a huge rocky giant and stood upright.

Aaron held up his Z-band and activated the quick scan function. The analysis revealed that these rock giants were level 30 Lava Golems!

On Aaron’s order, the players assumed a diamond formation. In this formation, each player faced a different direction, with their backs towards one another. This was the only valid strategy when surrounded as it helped them fend off attacks from different directions. However, this particular formation prevented them from playing according to their strengths. The Defender could no longer soak hits and protect the backline and this left the support exposed and vulnerable.

“There are too many of these things,” Zach cried out.

“I count 120,” Madeline replied.

“We can’t let them get close or they’ll clobber us with their arms.” Aaron turned on his flames and prepared to cast his elemental attacks. “We need AOE skills to take them down. They are all bunched up close!”

 As the golems started marching towards them, Isabella used her skills to strengthen their defences.

Madeline was best suited for close-ranged combat, but she knew she would get pummelled to death if she went anywhere near these hulking chunks of rock. So instead of using her axes, she decided to use her wind-based skills.

“Chilling Wind!”

Madeline planned to slow down the enemy by hitting them with a blast of icy cold wind, but the golems remained unaffected. Seeing this strategy fail, she switched to a more offensive approach. Cupping her palms in front, she channelled her most damaging AOE skill.

“Channel wind element: Infinity Dagger s***h!”

The skill delivered a thousand s***h attacks on the advancing golems in an instant, but they didn’t stop. The burst damage would have decimated any low level mob of enemies, but these giants barely took any damage from the attack.

Aaron pummelled the golems with his Fireballs without any impact. When the Fire Barrage failed, he decided to use his tier 3 skill. Targeting all the golems in a straight line, he hurled his blazing spear with full force. The weapon broke as soon as it hit the first golem, dealing zero damage. Aaron repeatedly used his skills, scorching the plane with fire, but none of the golems lost any HP.

“These things are immune to fire attacks,” he declared.

“Even my wind attacks aren’t very effective,” Madeline reported.

Only Zach’s water-based attacks worked against the stone giants. He used his Hydro Ball skill multiple times in quick succession, taking out some of the golems advancing from the rear, but they just kept coming. There were too many of them and Zach could only do so much alone. Using his skills repeatedly drained his EP far too quickly. He had already gone through 10 EP potions and there were only 2 more left in his inventory.

“It’s no f*****g use! There’s just too many of them!” Zach cried out, exasperated.

The golems were slow, lumbering creatures, but every time one golem was destroyed, their speed increased. All this time, Aaron and his companions were under the impression that these giants were melee attackers, but that changed rather quickly.

When Zach had destroyed their front line attackers, the golems at the back began hurling massive rocks at Aaron’s team. Isabella had to step in and use her Golden Barrier ability to put up an energy dome over them. It could absorb the impact from all projectile attacks which dealt physical damage, but the ability only lasted for a minute.

“We can’t win here. These things are only vulnerable to water and only I can use water-based skills!” Zach took down a few more of the golems with his Hydro Ball skill and then drank the last EP potion in his inventory.

“Windward Scythe!” Madeline tried once more, but the result remained the same. “God damn it! None of my attacks are doing any damage! Only water can damage these monsters!”

“Sense Weakness!” Aaron scanned the golems to find more info. It revealed no weak points. He immediately called out to Isabella. “Your scanning skill is more detailed than mine. Maybe you will have better luck!”

Isabella did as asked and performed a deep analysis of a single lava golem. Besides revealing the name, level and anatomy of the golem, it also disclosed one additional detail—the golem was highly resistant to bladed weapons.

As soon as Aaron read the scan, he caught on to something. “f**k, why didn’t I think about this before! They are made up of rocks. And I don’t think they have any internal organs or soft tissues. This is the reason they have high resistance to bladed weapons. We cannot cut through them, but we can break them!”

“How?” Madeline asked.

 “We need a bludgeoning weapon!” Aaron announced.

“I have one!” Isabella shouted. She put her glossy silver shield away and equipped an iron mace fitted with a grooved head. It was lighter than her war-hammer, but much easier to wield. Isabella had acquired this weapon from the Diamond Loot Chest and, just like Aaron’s chain whip, this too had a special talent. The only problem was—the special talent of the Barbaric Mace didn’t have enough damage output to one-shot a level 30 lava golem. It was meant to be used against low level mobs.

Aaron knew this fact well in advance and stopped Isabella from activating its special talent. “You are the only one who has a bludgeoning weapon, but your weapon’s talent cannot take down a level 30 enemy at full HP. We need to brittle them down first.” He turned to Zach and gave him an awkward nod.

Zach understood at once what he wanted. And he wasn’t happy. “I knew it. I just f*****g knew it! f**k!”