Percy did eventually get dropped when they got to the fifth floor and the fight got far more deadly. The golems got bigger, faster, and stronger with each floor until Percy and other needed more than ten minutes to clear the floor.

A heavy crash shook the earth and sent a plume of dust rolling over him, but he kept moving, circling a stone monstrosity blocking their path to the next staircase. It was a massive golem with a circular body and six arms, which it used to chase Thalos and Hugo around.

The smaller golems were also scattered around, chasing Percy with their stone clubs, falling from the ceiling like bullets and reaching from the floor like nightmares.

You really need a small army to siege this place!

He turned and let off five shots as some golems got too close, and then threw a sticky bomb at them while they reformed. He was just stalling till George, who was fighting among a crowd of golems, was ready to cast a spell.

"I think we're ready!" he yelled. "Use the spell!"

George smashed through a line of golems, then chanted in a bellowing voice that rolled through stone.

The ground rose and flowed forward like a giant wave, carrying most of the golems away and towards the giant golem blocking their path.

Thalos and Hugo retreated from their fight, bouncing off the walls to cross the huge stone wave. The hallways groaned as the stone wave crashed into the giant golem, shaking the entire floor.

Percy jumped around, keeping his balance on the shaky ground, waiting with a trigger in his hand, while Thalos and the others regrouped and destroyed the remaining golems.

The sticky bombs he'd thrown onto those golems were connected to the trigger in his hand; they used the principle of misalignment to cause explosions. The trigger, a metallic disk, was waiting for him to pass some spirit energy into it.

But he wanted the giant golem to absorb the little ones. After all, that was how they ended up with a giant golem. It kept swallowing the little ones till it was too heavy for George to launch off the ground.

A normal explosion wouldn't harm the golems much since they were just spells using a circle and spirit energy. But an explosion of spirit energy would temporarily disrupt the spell.

The moment he saw the giant golem absorbing the smaller ones, he pushed his spirit energy into the trigger, and the disk lit up with blue lights. There was a brief moment of silence before the explosion.

BOOM!

It bloomed with multi-colored flames, red, blue, and yellow. George slammed his axe into the ground, erecting a wall as the shockwave rolled over them, and Thalos grabbed Percy off the ground.

The world shook, dust and heat flooding over them. The moment it subsided a little, George took down the wall, and Thalos said,

"Hold on tight, Percy."

Thalos' feet flared with crimson light, cracking the earth. The world shifted and blurred in Percy's eyes for a moment, and the wind kept rushing in his ears. When it stopped, they were at the stairs, and he felt like throwing up.

Hugo and George weren't far behind.

"the next floor is second to last level," Hugo sighed. "It's been very not fun, lads, let's get this over with."

"Wait, does that mean the next level will have a staircase going through the center?" George asked, looking annoyed.

The center staircases allowed the Whitemoon to attack them from the other side, and they were flooded with golems in a narrow space.

"I have a little trick that I think we can try," Percy said. "Hugo, it's time to work."

"We haven't been working this whole time?" Hugo wondered as they climbed the stairs. "Just tell me what you need."

Their battle through the next floor was just as bad as the last one, but at least this time they had a concrete plan that worked last time.

The giant golem was destroyed, and the formation of new golems was disrupted by the Misalignment bomb. They got to the staircase at the center of the hall without too much trouble.

They began running up without hesitation, tearing up the stairs without even looking left to see the army of Whitemoon agents waiting for them on the western staircase. They all fired off spells as soon as Percy and Thalos crossed the doorway.

But when the smoke cleared, the four people were still running.

"Shields?" the Captain of the fifth division questioned. "Fire at the stairs, stop them from running!"

The Whitemoon Spiritmancers lit up the world with their magic. Blue storms of ice and flames slammed against the stairs and Thalos, who was in front; the stairs were completely destroyed.

The golems were forming on the western steps to attack the Whitemoon, who were destroying the temple. But on the eastern steps, Percy and the others were still running, walking on air despite the staircase being destroyed

"Illusions!" the Captain concluded. "Slow down the golems, we'll wait for them."

Hugo had used illusory magic to create wind copies of them, which drew the fire of the Whitemoon. The stairs would regenerate, and golems would attack the western stairs, giving Percy a chance.

They couldn't stay in the corridor forever though. The Whitemoon main forces decided to wait on the stairs, using a curse disruption tool. They could stand on the stairs and wait for Percy to get there, fighting off the golems with their superior numbers.

Meanwhile they were already on the verge of gaining the Prosperity. Their superiors were already upstairs.

And Percy knew they would do that; it was only common sense. The Whitemoon knew where this temple was for weeks, yet they hadn't claimed the Prosperity. They had the numbers to break through the golems and the artifacts to deal with curses.

That meant they could leave a force on the final staircase and stop anyone from reaching the top level.

The first part of Percy's plan was for them to invoke the ire of the temple by attacking the illusions Hugo created. The next part was also his job.

Five fist-sized steel balls flew from the doorway of the eastern staircase, carried by silent magical winds. Before the Whitemoon could even understand what was happening the steel balls exploded.

BANG!

A blinding white light seared itself into the skulls of anyone with their eyes open and might have permanently blinded anyone looking too closely. Some people had shields that detected any sort of danger that blocked some of the light, but they were still left flinching.

And that was all the golems needed. A stone club bashed a man's skull in to start the soft massacre. While some people fell to the ground, clutching their eyes, the golems smashed their defenseless bodies.

While the screams of horror and pain echoed through the hollow center of the temple, Percy, Thalos, Hugo, and George ran through the door and up the stairs.

Percy was on his father's back as they went full speed once again up the stairs. Some golems spawned on their side, but it was nothing compared to what was happening on the western side.

He looked up as they crossed the door into the final floor of the temple. It was strangely small and luxurious. With a single altar under the only window in the room. It was a golden table covered with blood red covers and candles

There were three men waiting in the room, standing in front of a single golden chest on the altar.

One of the three men turned towards them, smiling. He had black hair and green eyes that shone with poisonous glee.

"Lord Thalos and Perseus? How nice of you to give us the honor of killing you."

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