“It’s one of the people who reached the island before us,” a guard muttered. An older guard with more experience stepped forward to inspect the body. His expression turned grim.
“He’s been dead for less than a month,” he said. “But these wounds… It doesn’t appear to have been killed by an ordinary weapon or a wild beast. Looks like he was instantly pierced by some kind of incredibly fine, sharp energy beam ”
Suddenly, Dustin’s head jerked up. His sharp eyes locked onto something behind a half-buried, cauldron-like bronze structure.
“Watch out!” he shouted.
Before the warning finished leaving his mouth, several thin, translucent gray energy beams shot out from behind the wreckage with a sharp hiss. Their speed dwarfed that of any crossbow bolt as they aimed at the guards who had cried out in alarm earlier.
Dustin reacted instantly. After sensing the danger a split-second earlier, he formed a sword finger. A curved blade of sword aura shot forward, intercepting the gray streaks with pinpoint precision.
A soft, sizzling sound, like water dripping onto fire, echoed as it clashed with and annihilated the beams. However, Dustin could feel a corrosive, alien energy within them that felt icy cold.
“What the hell is that?” the guards shouted, shaken but drawing their weapons as they stared nervously at the bronze wreckage.
The ground behind the ruins began to bulge slightly. Several small mounds of earth ruptured, and three grotesque creatures emerged from the dirt.
Each was about three feet tall, their bodies a fusion of dark brown earth and stone. Glowing blue lines, like veins of light, pulsed across their surfaces.
They had no discernible heads, only a single, massive red-crystal eye on top of their bodies. Below it, several fleshy tentacles writhed and flexed. The gray energy beams had fired from the tips of those appendages.
“Are those… some kind of mechanical golems? Or maybe alien beasts?” Grace asked as she had never seen anything so bizarre
“They’re neither living nor dead, but a fusion of alchemy and vengeful souls,” Dustin said, seeing through their nature at a glance.
He went on, “These are ‘echoes’ left over from an ancient battlefield. The lingering resentment of this place, combined with an old, still-functioning mechanism, has formed a type of creature to eliminate anyone who trespasses.”
The three cyclop-like creatures clearly identified Dustin’s group as invaders.
Their red eyes locked onto him in unison, as the blue patterns across their bodies flared brightly. Tentacles whipped upward, and a barrage of gray beams came pouring out like deadly rain.
They moved with a clumsy but startling speed in unison and tried to encircle the group from different directions.
“Form a defensive formation. Protect Ms. Linsor!” the guard captain roared.
Though terrified, the surviving guards were well-drilled. They immediately raised their shields to form a tight circle around Grace.
The shields rang with a deafening clatter as the gray beams struck with incredible force, denting the steel and etching corrosive marks along the edges.
Dustin blurred forward, reappearing right in front of one of the cyclops. The cyclop reacted instantly, and its red eye flashed as it fired several beams directly at his face at point-blank range.
Dustin didn’t flinch or evade. His left hand snapped out in a blur, and a faint cyan glow wreathed his fingers. He caught the intangible energy beams mid-air. With a slight squeeze of his fist, they were snuffed out in his palm.
