The Golem Mage Chapter 1103: Hunt The Hunter.

From his distant position, Alec sensed Takeda's aura intensify slightly after he devoured the dark crystal, signaling merely the start of his avatars dropping one after another.

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Shin panted heavily while glaring at the puppet right in front of him, all the while keeping a cautious watch on Beatrice, who lingered at the rear with her left hand lifted skyward.

At her fingertips, a shimmering blue-white glow danced, indicating her mana threads remained engaged, though their exact connection eluded him.

In front of him loomed a human puppet with pure white eyes, brandishing a sword ablaze with perpetual flames that refused to extinguish, encased in full red armor stained with its own blood.

This marked the first occasion Shin had witnessed a master arming their summon with a spirit equipment set despite lacking one personally.

This peculiar choice rendered Beatrice even more enigmatic to him; he recognized the human flaming puppet as likely a genius mage in life, yet he deemed it insufficient justification for outfitting it with spirit equipment.

Most aggravating was how the fight had unfolded contrary to his expectations from the outset—he had assumed bypassing the puppets to strike Beatrice directly would simplify decapitating her, prompting his initial aggressive push.

Instead, as combat erupted, she charged first, mounted atop her wooden spider puppet.

This caught him off guard, since he anticipated her cowering at the back. Nevertheless, he dismissed it lightly; with her desperately narrowing the gap, he intended to demonstrate the peril of approaching a ninja assassin so closely.

He flung his hand out, triggering a smoke bomb that unleashed a dense gray mist, shrouding Beatrice's view entirely as he slipped from her sight.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared airborne behind her, plunging down for a lethal blow with a wind-enhanced kunai clutched in his left fist.

Yet then—a piercing swish sliced the air.

Unlike typical mages, Shin avoided heavy reliance on mental sense, as even slight activation drained it progressively, particularly for those with feeble mental power.

He depended instead on his honed danger instincts and the faint currents of wind to foresee attacks, a technique refined through his exceptional wind element affinity.

That noise revealed all: a blade cleaved the air, targeting him squarely.

He hovered perilously near—just a heartbeat more and his kunai would have slit Beatrice's throat—but he grasped the tradeoff instantly.

Pressing the assault meant mutual death, exposing his rear utterly. Deeming no flawless path forward, he scrapped the strike without pause.

He rebounded off the wooden spider's back precisely as the flaming puppet's blade whistled through his prior spot, but the onslaught persisted.

A fiery crescent trailed after him; suspended in air, Shin gestured sharply, commanding nearby winds to scatter the inferno before it engulfed him.

Facing Beatrice's flaming puppet head-on for the first time, he pondered when and how she had deployed her puppets undetected.

Regaining mid-air balance, he stole a sidelong peek at Beatrice—and stiffened.

A subtle, perceptive smile curved her lips.

Her eyes fixed upon him, as though she had foreseen his retreat the instant he pulled back; that expression chilled him to the core.

An profound, eerie fear gripped him, like stumbling into an invisible, premeditated trap. Then, the flaming puppet adjusted its posture, stamping its foot onto the wooden spider's lower section.

It wasted no time.

In one stride, it drove its left foot down for leverage, launching ahead without its right leg grazing the spider, blurring into a crimson streak as it hounded Shin mercilessly.

Confronted by such relentless pursuit, Shin grinned, confident that retreating into the smoke shroud would restore his maneuverability for a fresh assault on Beatrice from obscurity.

But then—a icy prickle ascended his nape; he snapped his head aside abruptly.

“Arrrghh!” He had twisted his neck at the final instant to dodge a deadly slash to his throat, yet full evasion proved impossible—the Ice Lord Crocodile, Beatrice’s second puppet, lay in ambush within the swirling smoke.

Those enormous jaws snapped viciously onto his shoulder, ripping through with such ferocity that his armor might as well have been paper.

Boom!

Shin reacted without delay, thrusting up his right hand with index and middle fingers poised for the incantation. He sucked in a fierce breath, pulling ambient air into his mouth like a whirlpool as his cheeks ballooned from the mounting force.

In a single explosive burst, he unleashed everything—a packed surge of wind magic exploded from his lips, rocketing straight at the blazing puppet.

Bang!

The detonation hurled the puppet rearward through the air, while the backlash flung Shin himself away too, since he’d channeled the spell raw through his unprotected body.

Shin had planned this exact outcome, though—the blast’s momentum carved vital separation from the fiery puppet, granting him breathing room to tackle his urgent peril.

The battlefield’s thick shroud of smoke, which had hidden their brutal clash, got shredded by the gale, unveiling the scene entirely to the stunned onlookers.

Smoke lingered solely around the crash site where Shin had landed. Beatrice gave a gentle tap to her spider puppet’s head, propelling it toward the lingering gray mist.

Advancing steadily, the puppet watched the vapors swirl and gather into one spot. Upon arrival, Shin strode out from the haze, clutching the crocodile puppet’s severed head before hurling it down—the trophy began dissolving mere moments after hitting the ground.

Smoke fading away, Shin remained standing drenched in his own blood. Despite his efforts to appear steady, spectators easily spotted the massive tear on his left shoulder courtesy of the crocodile, crimson rivulets flowing nonstop.

Evidently, he channeled mana to staunch the flow and stave off collapse from blood loss, though this couldn’t undo the injuries he’d already sustained.

Witnessing his state, Beatrice swept her radiant fingertips across the air. In a flash, the flaming puppet blurred forward at impossible speeds, dropping into a crouch right in front of her.

A brutal gash marred its chest from absorbing the wind blast directly, yet pain meant nothing to it. Standing alone, it would’ve struggled to rise after Shin’s devastating gale, but Beatrice’s mana strings held it firm—damage level or missing limbs were irrelevant. If it could still function, she’d force it to battle on.

Right then, Shin grasped that he’d taken on more than he could handle. Even so, he steadied into a battle stance, extending his weapon with the kunai secured to the wire hook’s tip.