The sun was starting to wane as a corrupted golem trudged toward the edges of the village. They passed by dozens of semi-destroyed buildings until they noticed a small hole in the ground. Curious, they approached the hole and glanced at it. Suddenly, the hole widened and swallowed the golem into the ground. Right before they could send out an alert, Amara slapped her hand on their core and purified them. The golem's core promptly turned from black/red to white/blue.

  "A... Amara? What's going on?" The golem asked as the two of them were carried out of the village by earth magic before popping up in a spot covered by bushes. Ryder waved at the golem while Brown simply stared at them.

  "The others will explain the situation to you." Amara led the golem to where the other rescued golems were staying. Once the golem calmed down, she returned to the dragon rider and kneeled next to him.

  "Should we do more?" he asked.

  "No, this is enough. We'll distract the rest of them with the explosion. Try not to damage him too much if you can."

  "Will do. Time to get this show on the road." Ryder stretched his body, activated his draconic arm, and synthesized a bomb in his palm with all three of his dragons' magic.

                                                                                               X

  The corrupted Guard was standing vigilant in front of the glowing, sickly core. While he resembled his rocky predecessors in terms of appearances, he also had distinctive humanoid features. Overall, it made him look like a vague sculpture of a smallish, buff giant with a claymore. Even in his miasma-filled state, he was still lucid enough to realize the golems in the village had decreased significantly. He knew an attack was coming, and he was ready to use all his strength to protect his new manipulating master.

                                                                                         BOOM!

  Guard immediately entered into his defensive mode as he scanned for the origin of the explosion. When he saw a large puff of smoke and a destroyed gate, he directed all the golems there to prevent any attackers from sneaking in. After zooming in his vision, he identified a lone figure standing in front of a swarm of mostly small-sized golems. The figure smiled smugly and dodged all the golems' attack in a dance-like manner.

  Unbeknownst to all the golems, Ryder, Green, Brown, and Amara were rapidly approaching the core from behind silently. Since it was planted at the top of one of the tallest and biggest buildings in the village, there was no way Guard could've seen them.

  The paladin bit her lips as she climbed the miasma-coated building unprotected. Her holy magic could dispel the miasma, but that would also instantly alert Guard to their arrival. The darkness was penetrating her armor and slowly worming its way to her flesh, yet she persevered and didn't make a single peep.

  A few grueling minutes later, both of the Goddess' warriors arrived at their positions and nodded to each other. Amara took a deep breath, raised her arm, and slammed her hand directly on the surface of the core. The purifying light that followed enveloped the entire village and promptly drew Guard's attention to her.

  Before the golem could take a step forward, Ryder, in his full draconic armor form, leaped out with his two dragons. Their sudden presence was a successful distraction as Guard, who was overflowing with magic thanks to the miasma, unleashed hellfire with a swing of his claymore at the dragon rider.

  All three of them hopped back as Brown and Green summoned sticky mud and vines respectively from the ground to hold the golem down. It didn't work as he lifted his leg and took another devastating swing. Ryder sprung into the air, landed on the golem's gigantic claymore, and ran upward. When he reached the golem's shoulder, he used an absurd amount of mana to coat his sword with a layer of diamond-like substance and slashed downward. Even with all the human's draconic strength, his sword only made it halfway through.

  "How's the progress, Amara?!" Ryder roared as he bounced off of Guard's head to dodge another slash of black flames.

  "90 seconds!" The paladin shouted in pain as the spherical core turned halfway clear.

  Green planted his feet into the ground and summoned thick, flexible trunks to hold Guard's arms down. Meanwhile, Brown turned the spot he was standing on into quicksand. The dragon rider hopped from one destroyed roof to the next while using a combination of plant and earth magic to jam the golem's massive joints.

  The combined attacks of the dragon rider posse worked and Guard was successfully restricted. Of course, that didn't mean all three of them stopped reinforcing those bindings.

  Out of nowhere, the golem's core glowed brightly in red and was accompanied by a loud screeching. A few seconds later, the golems Purple was distracting turned around and waddled back to the Domain's core.

  "Where do you think you're going?." The dragon spoke as he enlarged his hand and slammed the ground, creating a huge crater in the main road so none of the golems could crawl out of it.

  As a final desperate attempt, the Domain's core recalled all the miasma inside the village and poured it all into Guard. The golem roared as he grew to the size of an actual giant and set himself on hellfire. With a fling of his arm, he tore apart all the burning trunks around him and severely damaged the building Amara was standing on, causing her to slip. Since the core was affixed in the air, she didn't immediately fall as she grabbed onto it.

  Ryder jumped between the buildings, summoned a couple of rock pillars that converged beneath Amara, and threw a fast-growing seed that turned into a wooden platform on top of the pillars, allowing her to regain a proper foothold. Seeing how the core had almost turned entirely transparent, he performed a Dragon Link with Green and Brown. Their eyes suddenly glowed bright red as their magic synced with each other and grew in power. Moments later, gigantic trunks as well as mud pillars burst from underneath Guard and pinned him down once more.

  Even though he was immobilized, the hellfire on his body was rapidly spreading to all nearby structures along the trunks and pillars, including the platform Amara was standing on. When Ryder noticed the hellfire was about to come in contact with her legs, he extended the length of a rock pillar to shoot past the platform and launch her into the air.

  The moment the paladin felt her body was propelled into the air, she let out a loud warcry and pumped the core full of her holy magic. The moment her hands left the core, a blinding flash of light exploded from the sphere. It instantly vaporized all the miasma and hellfire in the village. Guard fell to his knees while his size rapidly decreased after letting out a pained screech. The dragon rider ended the Dragon Link and, with the use of wind magic, caught the paladin with the core in her palm midair. They then landed safely in front of Guard.

            Amara tossed the crystal clear core to Ryder before rushing to examine Guard's injuries.

  "Guard, are you alright? Guard!" Her palm glowed with white-gold as she smoothed it over the cracks on his body, mending him with her healing magic. The golem's core flickered for a few moments before it turned completely dark and steadily lit up again.

  "A... ma... ra...?" A deep, magnetic voice rang out from the core in his chest.

  The black woman let out a sigh of relief. "Yes, I'm here. How are you feeling right now?"

  "Like... a bag... of bricks..." Both of them chuckled as he tried to get up.

  Brown 'dissolved' all the mud on his body before extending a rock pillar behind his back at an angle to push him up. Green removed all the plants on his body as well.

  "Dragons...?" Guard stood back up and rested his arm on the building behind him.

  "They're with the Dragon Rider. I'll explain the details to you later, but for now, is there anything you need? Any mental or physical discomfort?"

  "None that I can tell, though it does hurt my heart to see you so... exhausted." Guard gently rubbed his thumb across Amara's face before looking around at the destroyed buildings. "Did I-"

  "It's not your fault, Guard. Remember what I told you before about the Moros Domain? We're extremely lucky that none of the golems or villagers died."

  The golem stayed silent for a few seconds before replying, "I see. Where are they, then?"

  "A safe distance away from the village. I'll go and get the rest of the golems here." She turned to Ryder. "Can you help me summon the villagers back?"

  "No problem." The dragon rider deactivated his draconic form and made his way to the gates with Brown and Green.

  "Gonna call the villagers back now?" Purple asked as he sat on the edge of the crater.

  "Yeah."

  "Tell them I'm expecting dinner in..." The dragon glanced at the sunset. "...three hours."

  The human opened his mouth, but relented before the argument even started. "No guarantees."

  Purple snorted.

  Ryder turned to Brown and asked, "Can you repair the village's ground in the meantime? Thanks."

  Brown nodded and started filling up the crater with nearby earth.

  "Let's go, Green. I can already feel things are about to get messy." The human trudged in the direction of the shelters.

  Green nodded and used his vines to pat his rider's back.