Chapter 37: Boss that rocks
Stones from all over the gate were gathering next to the raid team. The pile of rocks quickly grew reaching even the roof of the cave.
Before the stone giant even realized what was disturbing his sleep Mark covered the group with a barrier, spanning the height of the entire cave.
It looked at the shield of mana with unexpected curiosity, touching it gently with its massive palm.
One of the rangers shot an arrow. It flew through the air accompanied by a whistle. It was left embedded inside the boss´ eye socket.
However, the stone giant didn´t react negatively. It brushed off the arrow as if it was just a speck of dust that flew into his eye.
It leaned on the barrier and with its enormous mass the barrier caved in and proceeded to shatter.
'Man, that´s some bullshit. That thing didn´t even try.'
With every step it took, the whole cave shook. The creature was reasonably slow for its size, giving the team enough time to react.
After seeing it easily shatter the shield that protected them the whole raid the tanks gave up on trying to block its attacks and started backing down towards the gate.
The rangers were shooting without caring about the number of arrows they had left, but to no avail since most of them bounced off or straight-up broke when making contact. Arrows aren´t very suited to fight against an opponent made of stone.
'Page 11, Waterjet, mode: extreme, diameter: 5cm'
Despite being very mana-costly the extreme modifier on Mark´s spells just pushed their attributes to the highest point. It was a good option for situations like these when thinking about the precise value of pressure wasn´t the best use of time.
The water shot out of Mark´s hand towards the monster´s foot digging deeper and finally through. He continued this process a few times until its leg broke due to the mass it was carrying.
Several rocks broke off from the cave walls and started rolling towards the giant. In a moment its leg was replaced.
'I wanna be a monster. What am I spending my time on when I could be born with abilities like that.'
Although the team´s desperate attacks weren´t effective they gave enough time for their only S-rank hunter to prepare a finishing spell.
[Pit of no return] said Olivia with dense yellow-colored mana surrounding her.
The ground under its feet began turning into a slime-like mass. Curious as before the creature scooped up the corrosive ooze with its hand even as it sunk into it. The stone giant watched the acid slowly dissolve its hand without showing any pain.
"Hmm" a deep reverbing noise sounded from the monster.
"This should be enough to immobilize it for the time being, but this time we´ll have to stay and watch. This boss is way too strong for its mana signature. Jack, tell the teams to come in."
The team´s assassin ran towards the gate, leaving the group alone with the submerged monster.
"Mark, cover the thing with a barrier, just to be sure." said Olivia, and Mark did as he was ordered.
Because of the golem´s unexpected strength, the team had to wait a solid hour before doing anything. This wasn´t much of a problem since Mark didn´t have anything planned anyway and the other hunters also didn´t seem to mind. Olivia was constantly watching over the boss during its time in the acid bath.
When the collection and mining team finished their jobs it was time to finish off the monster. It had been marinating for quite some time, but its size changed by a measly meter. However, it at least revealed the core.
Olivia dispelled the spell lifting the monster up in the process. As soon as it came out of the acid one of the tanks jumped up to its body and smashed the crystal into dust.
Finally, the boss monster fell apart into a pile of rubble as every one of the golems before. The team´s porter rummaged through the pile for a minute before finding the essence stone. This one was purely blue like the sky.
"Thank you, guys. This was an exhausting raid for sure." said Olivia heading out of the gate.
Several small stones came out of the monster´s remains. The tiny golem watched the hunters leave.
"Hmm" sounded from the curious creature once again.
[Next day]
After seeing how the big guilds deal with their raids Mark decided to recruit more lone hunters to amass the funds required for a building more quickly. Lucy also supported this idea since they were losing quite a lot by not selling the monsters they killed.
Without Mark himself clearing any dungeons, the guild was making 5k a day passively after deducting all the wages and taxes. That number could double after finding some more solo-hunters.
Mark was browsing the FBH archives on his laptop once again and he came across another great name that caught his attention.
[Eleanor Blackheart]
[A-rank magician]
[Guild affiliation: none]
'We´re gonna look more like a psych ward than a guild at this rate. Well, she is an A-rank so it should really be worth a try. She even has a gate reserved for today.'
Mark put on his robe stuffed the automaton into his pockets and headed out to recruit another maniac.
'If she has purple hair I´m gonna burst out laughing.' Mark thought when he left his apartment.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Esposible
Esposible Your power stones, they´re useful. I´ll take them.
Stop by at the discord. (link in the synopsis)
https://discord.gg/MTJbUThzMk
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