Clean Sweep Homerun

Freya felt as though she were submerged in ice water and crushed beneath an invisible boulder, every breath laced with bone-deep cold.

Her body wouldn't obey her at all. Only her eyes could move, turning helplessly to catch the golden light fading from Uncle Baroque beside her.

"No... This wasn't how it was supposed to be..." Ever since she was little, the ballads of bards and legends of knights had woven one fantasy after another for her: heroes saving the world, justice triumphing over evil.

She had dreamed countless times of becoming the heroine of a story herself, sword in hand, slaying dragons and protecting the innocent.

But what about reality? In reality, she couldn't even move. All she could do was watch Uncle Baroque fight desperately to protect her, covered in blood, as that terrifying stone monster drew closer and closer.

"Goddess Sasu..." Freya called out in despair in her heart, praying to the goddess of art, beauty, and love whom she revered most. "If you can truly hear the voice of your humble follower, please send down a miracle! Send a hero to save us! Just like they sing about in the ballads—a hero bathed in golden sunlight!"

Perhaps her prayer really had touched some passing deity. Or perhaps it was simply a coincidence of fate.

Just as the stone monster Agnos dragged her broken body toward Freya, about to reach out and strike, a dark-haired figure suddenly appeared at the edge of the ruins not far away.

The sunlight, a little too bright, happened to shine from behind him, outlining his silhouette with a fuzzy golden halo. Freya couldn't make out his face. She only saw him grin, revealing a row of white teeth that gleamed dazzlingly in the sunlight.

He's here?

A hero... had really come?

Time slipped back a little.

The earth-shaking explosion was like a depth charge dropped into a still lake. The roar, mixed with the trembling earth, rang clearly through the depths of Agnos's main burial chamber.

Xia Lin and Sera were facing the stone coffin, whose lid had opened a crack on its own.

"Sounds like something's happening outside! That was quite a blast!" Xia Lin's ears twitched.

"Mm." The eyes hidden behind Sera's veil flickered. "There's an unsettling presence here. We shouldn't linger. Let's go." She urged him on, seemingly not the least bit interested in whatever treasures might be inside the coffin. She just wanted to leave this troubled place as quickly as possible.

"We're already here." Xia Lin glanced at the opening in the coffin. His hand had already slipped inside, snatched something, and quickly pulled back.

An old-fashioned ring set with a deep blue gem lay in his palm.

He immediately activated [Item Appraisal].

[Thousand Faces Cantrip]

[Quality: Excellent]

[Effect: Once per day, the wearer can designate a cantrip and choose an enhancement similar to a metamagic feat. This enhancement can be triggered up to 3 times per day.]

[Evaluation: For a warlock, this ring can make your little tricks no longer so "little."]

"This is amazing! Here!" Xia Lin's eyes lit up when he saw its properties. Without hesitation, he pressed the ring into Sera's hand. "Put it on. Let's see what's going on outside!"

Sera took the ring and paused for a moment. Seeing Xia Lin's confident expression, she quickly put it on. A faint Arcane Energy resonated strangely with her own eldritch power.

The two wasted no more time. They hurried back the way they had come, making for the tomb's exit.

After winding their way through the passages, they stumbled out of the underground tomb and back to the surface. When they saw smoke billowing from the center of the graveyard in the distance, they were both taken aback.

"Looks like a lot of trouble," Xia Lin said, wiping the sweat from his forehead and panting.

Sera frowned. "That burst of divine power... and this chaotic Arcane Energy... It has nothing to do with us. We'd better go around."

Xia Lin looked over the surrounding terrain. The exit to this Old Graveyard happened to lead right through the center of the commotion.

If they went around, it would probably take several times longer. Who knew what else might crawl out of this cursed place?

"Going around will take too long," Xia Lin said through gritted teeth. "Let's be careful and make our way through slowly. We'll do our best not to get dragged into their trouble." Sera fell silent for a moment, then nodded.

The two of them silently crept toward the chaotic battlefield.

As they drew near, they saw the scene before them: the three people they had encountered earlier were lying on the ground. The middle-aged bodyguard's chest had caved in, and it was impossible to tell whether he was alive or dead. The unfriendly young man's face was ashen; he seemed to be dead as well. The only one left was the little blonde girl, lying motionless like a broken doll.

Not far from the three of them stood a battered stone statue of a mage. Cracks covered its body; its left arm was severed at the shoulder, and only half of its right arm remained. Blue Soul Fire flickered in its hollow eye sockets, as if it might go out at any moment.

"We just got here. Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy?" Xia Lin asked earnestly, taking in the scene.

Sera burst out laughing at his utterly random question. "Your sense of humor is still as... unique as ever. But if you ask me, that Stone Lump doesn't look like good news."

Xia Lin immediately activated [Item Appraisal].

[Ancient Mage Statue (On the Verge of Collapse)]

[Status: Energy core severely damaged, structure on the verge of disintegrating, Soul Fire weak]

[Evaluation: It's like an old computer with a broken cooling fan and a CPU that's half burned out. It could conk out completely at any moment.]

"About to conk out? Looks like that last blast did a number on it, too." Xia Lin narrowed his eyes and signaled to Sera. "Let's wait a little longer and see what happens."

He didn't want to invite trouble, but kicking someone while they were down was another matter.

The two of them silently retreated behind a huge toppled gravestone and began their "pre-battle preparations."

"Too bad we didn't bring a good mace or a heavy warhammer." Sera looked at the statue with a hint of regret in her voice. "Against a Stone Lump like that, simple, brutal physical attacks are the most effective."

Xia Lin chuckled and turned the long sword in his hand around, pointing its hilt toward the statue. "Isn't this a perfectly good hammer? It's a little light, but if I get the angle and force right, I should be able to crack its stone head."

Sera glanced at the sword hilt he planned to use as a hammer. "A hammer alone won't be enough. We need to add a little something to it."

She pulled a strip of cloth from the wide sleeve of her robe, which was undoubtedly hiding any number of secrets, and asked Xia Lin for a bottle of holy water. She poured the water evenly over the cloth until it was completely soaked.

Then she carefully wound the wet cloth, which gave off a holy aura and a pungent smell, around the metal hilt of Xia Lin's sword, layer after layer.

Xia Lin took a pair of reinforced iron gauntlets, their joints strengthened, from the Space Bag. He had picked them up earlier at a blacksmith's shop in Orlando, and he slipped them on deftly.

Then he gripped the "hammer sword," its hilt wrapped in holy-water-soaked cloth, and took a deep breath. He lowered his body slightly, spread his feet apart, and struck a standard batting stance.

"Ready?" Sera watched his ridiculous pose, covering her mouth to hide her teasing smile.

"Ready anytime," Xia Lin said with a grin. "Just waiting for this 'statue' to wake up from its nap."

Time passed, second by second.

The graveyard was quiet, with only the rustling of wind through dead branches and the occasional caw of a crow in the distance.

About ten minutes later, just as Xia Lin was beginning to wonder if the statue had already kicked the bucket for good, a faint scraping sound rang out. "Crack..."

The Agnos statue, which had been standing motionless, suddenly flared with blue Soul Fire in its eye sockets!

Its broken head slowly turned with a creaking sound, as if searching for something.

Xia Lin activated [Item Appraisal] again.

[Ancient Mage Statue (Energy Nearly Depleted)]

[Status: Structural integrity below 15%, Soul Fire extremely unstable, last legs]

[Evaluation: It's awake, but it won't be resting in peace much longer.]

"Now!"

Xia Lin sprang out from behind the gravestone. His "hammer sword" whistled through the air at a tricky angle and slammed into the back of Agnos's unsuspecting head!

THUD—!!! The heavy impact sounded like a ripe watermelon being smashed!

The back of the statue's head instantly filled with spiderweb cracks under the blow from the metal sword hilt wrapped in holy-water-soaked cloth. Chunks of stone and some kind of foul-smelling black powder flew in every direction!

A double blow of physical and holy energy—highly effective!

"Ugh... Who..." Agnos's broken head jerked around. The two flickering flames in her hollow eye sockets fixed on Xia Lin.

Strangely, she looked bewildered, yet somehow nostalgic, at the sudden sneak attack—as much as a stone statue could show an expression.

She parted her cracked stone lips, seemingly about to say something. Her dry voice had barely begun to form a syllable when she said, "It's..."

"Don't let her cast a spell!" Sera's cold, urgent voice cut through the air like an arrow.

The silver runes on the ring on her hand suddenly lit up. A darker, denser shadowy energy than she had ever summoned before gathered and compressed in her palm!

A [Eldritch Blast] nearly twice as thick shot from her hand and slammed into the cracked chest of Agnos's statue!

BOOM—!!!

A huge hole burst open in the statue's chest. Stone fragments flew everywhere, and the blue Soul Fire flickered violently, nearly going out.

Xia Lin didn't hesitate for a moment.

He roared and poured all his strength into the "hammer sword" in his hands.

"From the Toremo strike zone! Xia Lin at the plate! Clean Sweep Homerun!!!"

The metal sword hilt wrapped in holy-water-soaked cloth swung in an unstoppable homerun arc, striking Agnos's half-gone face with brutal precision—

WHAM—CRACK—!!!

This time, it wasn't a dull thud.

It was like hard ice being smashed by a hammer.

Agnos's already battered head couldn't withstand the devastating blow.

Like a target struck head-on by a high-speed cannonball, it exploded into pieces in an instant.

Chunks of stone, large and small, mixed with black powder, flew in every direction.

The largest piece still carried a thread of the dying blue Soul Fire from its hollow eye socket. Like a kite whose string had snapped, it spun high, higher and higher into the gloomy sky...

Then, like a firework that had burned itself out, it silently dissolved in midair and vanished.

The will of Archmage Agnos, along with the stone body that had housed her for thousands of years, finally met its ultimate and complete end at the hands of two obscure little adventurers—in a manner that was almost comical.