Who designed this underworld dungeon?.

Chapter 695 The Willow Man

The Willow Man, scientifically known as the Furnace Golem.

It gets its name from the folk custom of resembling a willow stick figure, but in reality, it is mostly made of iron bars, which is why it looks similar to a willow stick figure.

Its body is designed as a blazing brazier, with a mask resembling that of a fiery evil god hanging on it as its face. Its limbs are also forged from iron bars. From its appearance alone, one cannot feel any gentleness; it is all naked malice.

Just like its name "furnace," it is engulfed in flames from head to toe.

Inside its body, serving as fuel, were countless corpses.

They still retain the posture of their painful struggle at the time of death, their blackened bones twisted and protruding from the gaps between the iron bars, representing that they wanted to escape from here no matter what in life.

The wicker man is a human sacrifice ritual in Celtic culture. The person to be sacrificed would be placed inside a wicker man and burned alive to pray for good weather and a bountiful harvest in the coming year.

With such a cult-like concept as its prototype, the Burning Furnace Golem naturally carries a strong sense of horror.

This thing perfectly suited Gong Qiying's personal aesthetic; he felt it was even more imposing than the giant eyeballs of the fire giant.

If the Golem Guardian looks like a typical elite monster found in fantasy worlds, then the Furnace Golem adds a deeper sense of terror to that. Its enormous height, which is even taller than the Golem Guardian, and its inverted triangle shape all speak to its formidable strength.

One incongruous aspect of its appearance is that the Furnace Golem is actually a tool of war, much like the Golem Guard, and abandoned Furnace Golems can be seen everywhere in the Shadowlands.

But visually speaking, this thing looks much scarier than the golem guards.

Moreover, its intensity is enough to make those who crave intensity reach a climax on the spot.

The moment the eight furnace golems appeared, they didn't stop; they all jumped up in unison.

Their jumping movements were stiff; they bent their legs and jumped straight up, their blank expressions fitting the image of a mindless tool of war.

I guess they just jumped up hoping to use their weight to hit people, right?

Right?

"Iga ah?"

The unbelievers who were praying around the cross suddenly uttered a questioning sound, and their bodies began to tremble without warning.

To offer their faith, one must first possess wisdom. During this brief period, they were endowed with wisdom by the cross, and thus, things like a premonition of danger arose.

The moment the Furnace Golem appeared, the unbelievers felt an immense threat, especially when it stiffly jumped up.

The fear reached its peak.

It could even be said that the ominous feeling exceeded the limit, to the point that it brought a sense of redemption and ascension.

The sealed creatures have limited space to move around, which is to restrict their movement and population size, so that they can be surrounded by the city lord's allied forces.

Now, the eight furnace golems perfectly surrounded the eight directions, with the cross completely encircled in the center. Even with a massive number of unbeliever guards, it seemed somewhat...
Weak and pitiful?
"boom!"

The furnace golems jumped up and landed at the same time, making a loud noise.

The faithless ones, whose speed had been increased, had already run away from the area where they would be hit. Who would be killed by such a slow movement?

But before they could even use this temporary wisdom to mock others...

A surging heat wave swept in from all directions!

There were no blind spots. A wave of flames suddenly exploded on the field, enveloping everything and forming a 360-degree circle on the outermost edge!
Not all the unbelievers developed fire resistance as they did during the battle with the fire elementals. Many more were instantly engulfed by the flames and rushed out again, their bodies ablaze as they screamed and fled. Those who escaped were the lucky ones, because those unbelievers in the center of the explosion were burned to a crisp in the blink of an eye!
The unbelievers gathered on the outermost edge were instantly wiped out!
The cross trembled violently, absorbing the waves of faith and spreading them outwards, but to no avail. The unbelievers cried out in panic.

Where did the flames come from? Where did they come from?!

Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the eruption was coming from beneath the feet of the Burning Furnace Golems.

The moment they landed, the flames within their bodies spread in all directions with the shockwave, instantly covering an area of ​​hundreds of meters around them, igniting an inextinguishable fire wherever they passed.

Suddenly, Irene crawled in the shadows to a position overlooking the battlefield, her shadow trembling violently as if boiling, and she uttered incoherent "Awaaaaaah."

She was saying, "Something this big must have cost a really, really high amount to build. I hate rich people. I hate them so much."

Chiya used simultaneous interpretation, how on earth did he translate this utter nonsense?!

Irene didn't seem to be wealthy, but Gong Qiying did remember this detail.

"Wow, what a raging fire!" Yan Huo stared intently at Gong Qiying and said, "Really not going to trade? I'll trade you two, no, three elites!"

"Holy, even holy light can achieve this effect." The follower said stubbornly before turning his head away, but Gong Qiying heard him mutter to himself again:
"Indeed, fire is the best way to purify heretics. Why do those arrogant brats in the church, who have become so powerful now, insist on abolishing burning at the stake?"

Burning at the stake? The Church of Holy Light abolished that decades ago and now uses the more merciful method of light punishment.

Simply put, it involves continuously shining a strong light on the heretic until they die, without any blind spots. Because it is not as difficult to handle as burning at the stake, it is highly praised by the executioners.

The followers seemed to realize that their large-scale release of monsters had affected Gong Qiying's performance.

Regardless of the city lords' current reactions, Gong Qiying continued to command the Furnace Golems.

Realizing what was happening, the unbelievers roared and charged at the Furnace Golems, determined to destroy them before they could cause further damage.

The unbelievers' destructive fists slammed into the Burning Furnace Golem!

Then, the iron bars binding the furnace golem's thighs bent at just a tiny angle, only a tiny angle.

This damage is negligible to the Furnace Golem.

The unbelievers began frantically climbing their enormous bodies, but after only a few steps they fell down with a crash, because it was too hot; the high temperature of the iron bars could directly peel off their flesh.

Their attacks had no effect on the Furnace Golem, and at that moment, Gong Qiying's order came.

Three, two, one.

Take off.

With a bunch of unbelievers still hanging on their bodies, the Furnace Golems jumped up in unison once again.

"Coo-coo-caw!!!" The panicked cries of the faithless gathered into an ocean. "Boom—"

The Furnace Golem landed perfectly, and the flames erupted once again, instantly wiping out all living beings in the vicinity!

The feeling of clearing out a large chunk of food at once is incredibly satisfying; just looking at it makes you feel relaxed and relieves stress.

Of course, the untrustworthy individuals involved only felt immense psychological pressure.

Because they discovered that after the Furnace Golem landed, it seemed to have moved a few meters further than when it jumped.

These guys are moving!
Wait, could it be?!

At this moment, Gong Qiying had transformed into a conductor leading an orchestra. As he raised his finger, the furnace golems jumped up in unison.

As the finger fell, the Furnace Golem landed and exploded in a spectacular burst of flames, advancing several meters forward.

The booming explosions echoed through the Mad Faith Dungeon, causing the entire dungeon to tremble violently.

With each flick of his fingers, the Furnace Golems held hands and hopped and skipped together, filling the dungeon with joy.

The encirclement kept shrinking, and the flames burned everything that came near to the ground.

The unbelievers launched a desperate charge towards the Burning Furnace Golem, but Gong Qiying timed it perfectly.

So good that every time a large number of unbelievers rushed in front of them, it was just as the Furnace Golems landed.

Life lies in movement.

The burpees of the Burning Furnace Golems caused the unbelievers to die in droves.

Rise, fall, rise, fall.
Under Gong Qiying's command, the Furnace Golem turned into a zombie, and did absolutely nothing except hop around.

The Furnace Golem also possesses many other wide-area destructive skills, such as erupting meteor volcanoes from the fire pit, kicking out missile-like magma blocks, and even spewing out fire vortexes with extremely large range and area of ​​effect from the fire pit.

Gong Qiying could even modify it, for example, by directly applying the behavior pattern of the Flame Giant to the Furnace Golem, creating an ultimate dung monster that rolls away when adventurers get close and spews flame vortexes when they are at a distance.

However, it's always fun to keep repeating a grade.

You have to keep practicing useful skills to experience the thrill of victory!

If you can unleash your ultimate attack simply by having eight Burning Furnace Golems slowly shrink their encirclement as they rise and fall, what's the point of having other skills?

He's not here for fancy tricks, so let's get straight to the point!

The cross is clearly self-aware.

It's numb now.

Even the Believers who have evolved fire resistance are helpless against the Furnace Golem, because the opponent not only deals fire damage, but its own weight is also enough to crush anything.

The remaining unbelievers are evolving rapidly, trying to find a way to resist the Furnace Golem.

But this thing is advancing too fast!
They were killed before their evolution even had a chance to take effect!
As expected, all the sealed artifacts were inherently weakened.

If the Unbeliever were outside, it could hide and evolve slowly, and would definitely find a way to kill the Furnace Golem. This thing is not so powerful as to be overpowered, and the sealed artifact is not so weak as to be destroyed by the Furnace Golem.

However, in this narrow, sealed land, they could only watch helplessly as their evolutionary speed could not keep up with the speed at which the Furnace Golem was shrinking its encirclement.

This is hopeless.

Irene, who had been furious, fell silent as she watched the disbelievers charge again and again only to be wiped out by divine justice. Her body trembled slightly from time to time.

Are you scared?

"Hehehe, the sealed artifact below looks like a piece of trash, hehe."

Just as Miyazaki was wondering if his appearance had frightened the other person, Irines let out a sinister laugh.

She smiled like a typical villain from an animated film.

The personalities of these city lords are all quite different from what I imagined.
When living beings develop intelligence, they will experience emotions, and these emotions are not always positive.

As the all-purifying flames surrounding the area shrank, the unbelievers felt fear.

They continued to charge towards the Furnace Golem, but this time their goal was not to kill it, but to escape the encirclement and survive.

They fled in a sorry state amidst the flames!

The cross was both shocked and enraged. A wave emanated from it, instantly reclaiming the wisdom of the unbelievers, who immediately reverted to being mindless zombies.

The cross, acting as the mastermind, appears to be making a desperate last stand, unleashing a massive amount of faith. A gigantic unbeliever is slowly taking shape, seemingly preparing to clash head-on with the Burning Furnace Golem—

Before the giant faithless one could take shape, it was knocked to the ground by an elbow strike from a furnace golem that strode forward.

"Crack!"

The golem that arrived then dug up the cross with one claw, leaving a deep pit in the ground.

Then, he threw the cross directly into his brazier.

The next instant, the Forge Golem burst into flames, and the open-air brazier spewed a towering vortex of fire into the sky.

Even the city lords, who were floating in the air and in an unattackable state, were enveloped within it, making the scene quite fantastical.

The cross burst into flames instantly, and before it could even resist, it turned into ashes and debris that shot straight into the sky along with the vortex.

The disbelievers froze instantly.

Gong Qiying's raised finger fell at that moment.

This brought the battle to a close.

(End of this chapter)