The golem roared—a deep, rumbling groan—and charged forward like a siege engine.

It grabbed one of the creatures mid-leap and crushed its skull with a wet, meaty snap. Another tried to climb the wall, only to be smashed flat with a stone palm. The rest hissed and tried to scatter, but there was nowhere to run.

Mia's eyes flared with mana-infused light. "You dared harm my brother? You dared lay a finger on us?"

Her voice echoed unnaturally. She hurled a compressed mana sphere into a group of them.

BOOM!

It sent cracked limbs and black blood flying in different directions.

She looked around in rage. "Where's that fat, bald bastard? Come out, right now. You dare to ambush us?"

She kicked a table over, her eyes scanning the shadows.

"Come out right now, or I swear I'll rip this entire inn apart! I'll skin you alive and feed you to my golem!!"

More scuttling above—scrapes and thuds from the ceiling.

Mia turned her head slowly upward, breath steadying, ready to burn the entire place down.

During the next ten hours, the stone golem's fists slammed down again and again. Mia continuously consumed mana potions over and over to recover her mana and continue to fight.

CRUNCH.

SMASH.

THUD.

Each impact shattered bones and split flesh, sending pale bodies flying across the ruined tavern.

The floor was a battlefield—splintered tables, shattered barrels, broken glass, and black blood smeared in chaotic streaks.

Mia stood at the center, her hair matted with sweat, her robes torn and stained from battle.

Her mana flared with every breath, swirling around her like a wild storm.

The creatures were weak individually, but their numbers were unnatural—they just kept coming.

Dozens turned to hundreds over the hours. She had lost count.

And worse, they regenerated.

Twisted necks cracked back into place. Severed arms twitched and reattached. Ripped skin pulled together, and burned flesh hissed as it healed. Every time the golem crushed one, two more skittered in from the shadows.

Their pale faces were blank. Animalistic. Rabid. Their claws left deep gashes in stone and wood alike as they crawled on ceilings, walls, and even under the floorboards, bursting out in eruptions of dust and splinters.

Still, Mia did not falter.

She hurled another barrage of [Mana Bolts], searing holes through skulls. Her golem crushed waves of them, its stone fists now stained black. One lunged at her from the side—she ducked, twisted, and burned it to ash with a compressed fire spell released point-blank.

"How many are there!?" she growled, sweat dripping from her brow. Her chest heaved with exhaustion, mana now running low. She took out another mana potion and gulped it down.

Outside, the forest remained deathly silent, but inside the tavern, it was chaos incarnate.

A full night passed.

Moonlight turned to gray.

Then, finally… the sunlight breached the farthest window. A golden hue cut across the bloodied floor.

The moment it touched the tavern's center, the creatures froze.

Then, as if controlled by some unseen force, they all recoiled and hissed, vanishing into cracks, fleeing into cellars, crawling under floorboards and behind walls, disappearing as fast as they came.

By the time the sun fully rose, the once-vibrant inn was a ruined carcass of itself. The walls were cracked. The floor was blood-soaked. Tables were splintered debris. And the air was thick with the smell of mana-burnt flesh.

Mia leaned against the golem, chest rising and falling rapidly.

Her voice was a dry whisper. "A night… without end."

She looked around. No sign of the fat innkeeper.

Letting out a deep sigh, she slowly climbed the stairs with her shoulders drooped in tiredness. For the entire evening and night, she continuously fought and fought, not letting one such monster pass her.

As she was slowly stepping up the staircase, from the rotted rafters of the inn's broken ceiling, a tiny bat clung upside down, its beady scarlet eyes glinting, watching her figure.

Once Mia is out of its sight, a puff of dark mist enveloped it, and in the next moment, Sith stood atop a broken beam. Her arms folded under her chest, face sharp and unreadable.

She narrowed her eyes at the trail of blackened blood and shattered furniture below.

"Master's sibling is indeed quite tenacious," she muttered. "Master only told me to protect her if she was in danger…" she said softly, almost like reasoning with herself. Her tone lacked concern, more like calculating apathy. "And it doesn't look like she was."

Her eyes flicked to the blood-stained floor again.

But something bothered her.

Her fingers slowly curled as she dropped from the beam and landed silently amid the wreckage, her boots untouched by the blood or dust.

She crouched and touched one of the corpses that had failed to regenerate fully, burned to a crisp by Mia's spell.

"No necromantic aura," she said aloud. "No soul-tether. Not even puppet runes..."

Her brows drew in slightly… "These weren't vampires either. No thirst, no blood frenzy, no elegance… Just raw hunger. Dead—but not dead. Almost feral… Should I investigate it first or report Master first? Hmm… "

At the same time.

Deep below the silent village of Lira, past layers of damp soil and ancient stone, a hidden chamber pulsed with strange, suffocating energy.

Dozens of villagers sat in perfect formation, kneeling on the cold floor, their heads bowed low. Their hands were placed flat, palms down, one atop the other, in eerie symmetry, as if part of a ritual.

A low hum echoed across the underground hall.

Whispers.

Muttering prayers.

Before them, a mound of ancient skulls, bleached and cracked with age, formed a pyramid stacked with unnatural precision.

A thick, red cloth was draped behind it, nailed across the wall, displaying a jagged sigil—a circle split by three vertical lines, with one spiraling eye in the center.

The insignia of the Head God of their cult/religion.

At the front of the chamber, the fat innkeeper, now dressed in ceremonial dark robes, stood with a carved stick in hand. Strange runes glowed faintly along its length, as if alive.

His eyes gleamed under the flickering torchlight. "She was stronger than expected," he said, voice calm, almost amused. "I didn't think a girl of that age could summon such a destructive golem... I sensed Tier-6 when she entered… but she's at least Tier-8."

The gathered villagers stirred slightly, casting uneasy glances at one another.

"But…" he raised a finger, "…that changes nothing."

He turned toward the skull pyramid, walking around it slowly.

"The inn is our sacred site of Nirvana, seeded with the Head God's presence."

He tapped his stick on the floor once.

Thud.

A deep vibration echoed beneath the stone. The pyramid of skulls gave off a faint red pulse.

"The Head Bane is already in place. All that's left for them is to touch the head bane. And strong warriors like those will not run away but will definitely try to investigate it. You all remember. You continue to stay indoors and don't invite them into your homes, but make sure to give them the answers they need."

He smiled.

"And once they were broken by the headbane, then… they too will join the Head God's army. As so many travelers have, over the years."

"But if they're that powerful…" one of the villagers whispered with a dry throat, "what if they destroy the Bane? Or… they kill us?"

The innkeeper's eyes turned cold as he looked at the speaker. For a moment, the candlelight seemed to darken.

"We are not soldiers," he said softly. "We are shepherds. The true warrior will wake soon."

He gestured behind the banner.

A wall slowly slid open, revealing a long, vertical crypt, where something or someone lay wrapped in a cocoon of black vines, suspended in air.