It is true that the golems are becoming more powerful, and it is true that it is taking him more time to defeat them. But his greatest enemy is the lack of stamina.
Currently, he had fought and defeated 210 golems. That has been very stressful for him.
He has been pushed to his limit so much that his lungs are currently bellowing in their attempt to restore his stamina. Even his breathing technique can only go so far for him.
He fought 210 enemies in 55 minutes. That's a total of 42 rounds of golems, which has earned him 4,515 points.
In comparison, the person in second place had finished 12 rounds of the golems and earned 390 performance points for their effort.
That is an impressive achievement because at that level of power, the golems would have a total of 33 attribute points, which is three points more than the total attributes of someone at the tenth transformation of the first mortal coil.
The person in third place managed to defeat 11 versions of the golems and a little more, which earned them 352 performance points.
So all in all, he was doing very well. He could give up now without any worries that someone would overtake him.
But he said, "Let me try one more golem."
He said that, but it still took him some time to recover his stamina. It took him about 2 minutes before he felt that he could stand and fight.
He stood up and said, "The next golem should be the fast dagger golem. It should be version 43 now with a total of 64 attributes."
He was right. His next golem was the naked golem wielding two daggers in its hands. He saw it standing still more than 50 meters away from him, ready to fight.
But he didn't start the fight immediately. He first picked up his arrows from the dead golem beside him.
After doing that, he thought about getting some useful weapons from the previous golems he had killed. So he went back to pick up the spear and shield that the golems had used to fight him.
But when he walked back, he realized that beyond the two recent golems that he had just defeated, the rest had disappeared. There was only the plaque with the rules on it beyond the two golems.
He looked back and saw an endless empty white corridor. He looked forward and saw the next golem he was supposed to fight and the two golems after it. But beyond that, there was nothing in the corridor.
He said to himself, "This hallway might be endless, but it doesn't contain an infinite amount of golems at once."
Then he shook his head and said, "The hallway might not even be endless. I won't put it past these people to use an optical illusion to make it look as if the hallway is endless."
He didn't think much about the nature of the hallway anymore. He moved towards his next enemy, notched an arrow, and let it loose.
The arrow struck the fast dagger golem but didn't penetrate it. The golem didn't flash runes either. It was undamaged even though the arrow struck it right in the face.
As for the arrow, it fell to the ground after hitting the golem. It was as if it had hit something invulnerable. Even the arrowhead was dented by the collision. But the golem was unharmed.
He wasn't surprised by this outcome because he knew it was the manifestation of the fifth rule of the test. The golems can only be harmed after they move, and they will only move when he is within 50 meters of them.
This is obviously a disadvantage to him because his main weapon is a bow and arrow. 50 meters might be a far distance for an archer at the third transformation, but it is close for someone like him.
At least 1,000 meters is needed for him to take full advantage of his bow and arrows. If he had that kind of distance, then none of these golems would be a threat to him.
Unfortunately, he doesn't have the advantage of distance. Since the fast dagger golem is the fastest golem, he is sure that it will be able to cover the distance of 50 meters in a maximum of 3 seconds. That might not be enough time for him to put it down.
He sighed and said, "This is unfair, but it is the rules."
What encouraged him a little bit is that other examinees will have to bear the same rules. There is also the fact that he is not afraid of fighting in close combat.
With his mood improved, he noted another arrow. This time, he moved within 50 meters of the golem before he shot the arrow.
He let loose the arrow as soon as the golem moved. The arrow whizzed past its head because the first thing it did was to move its head aside.
The golem has learned that his favorite part to hit is its vulnerable head, so it proactively protected its head. But by the time it moved its body, another arrow had been sent flying towards it again.
This time the arrow targeted its torso. The golem blocked it with its dagger. The small dagger actually managed to stop the arrow in its tracks.
Arthur was impressed with the block, but he didn't stop sending arrows the golems way. Unfortunately, it was unlikely for him to hit the golem anymore because it had started moving at its top speed.
The golem can't accelerate like true cultivators in the second mortal coil because it doesn't have life force. But once it starts moving, it rarely stops because it doesn't have or need stamina.
With the golem being on guard against him, the combination of its speed and all the data it had about him collected over the more than 200 fights against him meant that the best he was able to manage was to injure the golem.