The sand attack only lasted for a few seconds before a huge gust of wind rose up, circling around them all and pushing the sand back toward the door, which was now halfway open. After it had sent most of the sand flying back through the opening, the wind died down again.

There was a brief silence, which was broken by a loud, guttural growl. 

Ariom started at the sound and instinctively took a step away from the storm hound standing next to him. The usually placid Kino suddenly looked like a completely different creature. His hackles were sticking up through the gaps in his armor, and his teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl. His yellow eyes shone eerily in the light coming from inside the research center as he stared intently at the widening gap.

An even louder growl answered him from the other side of the door, then rose into a deafening roar that sent chills running down Ariom's spine.

A huge, dark shape appeared in the doorway, distorted by the cloud of sand still hanging in the air. Ariom could see it had a cat-like body, but he didn't have time to make out any more than that before the creature shot toward them with terrifying speed.

He felt Red grab his arm and drag him backwards, away from Kino, who let out a loud, deep bark and leapt fearlessly forward to meet the approaching beast.

The two of them scuffled for a moment, snarling and snapping their jaws while sand and wind swirled through the air around them. Then they broke apart and stood glaring at each other, both of them half-crouched and ready to attack again.

This pause in the fight allowed Ariom to finally get a decent look at the other magic beast. It was larger than Kino and Sala, with a feline body covered in dark gold fur and a thick black mane. But its face was bald and ape-like, and the large black tail that curved up over its back was segmented and had a nasty-looking barb on the end of it.

A manticore.

Manticores had sandstorm affinities, but the sand attack from earlier looked like human magic, so this was probably the sandstorm mage's familiar. And almost definitely an illegal one, since forming a legitimate contract with a manticore was nearly impossible. 

Not that it was so difficult to get permission to keep one—they were only Class C magic beasts. But they were proud and aggressive creatures who were almost never willing to form familiar contracts. The only proven method was to capture one as a cub and subject it to extremely harsh training so that it grew up broken and submissive.

Obviously the Magic Beast Office didn't give handling licenses to people who did that kind of thing.

But before Ariom could feel too much pity for the creature, the manticore snarled and lunged at Kino again, whipping its tail toward his face. Kino pushed it back with a burst of air and twisted to the side so that the tail bounced harmlessly off his armor. Then he tried to bite at the manticore's shoulder but merely got a mouthful of sand that the manticore had caked over its fur like armor.

He jumped backward, growling and shaking his head to get the sand off his teeth.

The small bit of compassion Ariom had felt evaporated almost immediately. There was no time for pity when that beast was trying to kill one of Iggy's friends....

He reached for an arrow to try to help, but before he could pull it out of his quiver, a glowing orange ball hit Red's mist cloud and exploded, splattering molten rock across Ariom's vision.

Apparently there was a lava mage, too....

None of the flying lava droplets reached him, but the explosion made Ariom realize that he'd gotten distracted by the manticore and lost track of what was happening around him. He hurriedly looked around.

There seemed to be a group of Order guards just inside the entrance to the research center, because a flurry of magic attacks were coming out of the doorway, flying in all directions. 

Silverwater still had his shield up, protecting himself and Ironfish. 

Ziryi had gotten to her feet and was slowly moving toward the open doorway under the cover of Aunt Kat's Rockbrawler watermimic, while Aunt Kat and Namyis were both hiding behind the real Rockbrawler. 

Red was looking around, seemingly monitoring everyone's status, while he continually put out more red fog to protect himself and Ariom.

Everyone seemed to just be focusing on defending against the enemy attacks. Why? Weren't they going to fight back? Was something wrong?

An angry roar pulled Ariom's attention back to the manticore, and he saw that Sala had come over to help Kino. She had increased the weight of its tail until it was dragging on the ground. The manticore was howling in fury and trying to attack her, but she'd decreased her own weight and was easily leaping out of the way every time it swiped at her with one of its huge paws. It looked like she was deliberately drawing it away from the rest of the team.

With its attention focused on her, Kino was free to circle around it, using wind magic to protect Sala from the manticore’s sand attacks and occasionally lunging forward to bite at one of its legs.

They seemed to have things more or less under control. Ariom glanced back at the others. Still just defending. Even Ziryi had stopped a short distance away from the door.

He looked at the familiars again. Then back toward the stationary figures standing around the doorway.

What was he supposed to do...?

He should be doing something, shouldn't he? They were in the middle of a fight, and he was just standing there, being protected. Surely he ought to be doing something to help.

But what? He wasn't sure what was going on with the enemies inside the building. And the familiars kept moving around each other quickly enough that he wasn't sure he could shoot the manticore without hurting Kino or Sala.

"Don't lose your head, newbie!" Red shouted over the manticore's roars and the sounds of magic projectiles crashing around them. He'd obviously noticed the confused and slightly panicky expression on Ariom's face. "Engaging the enemy isn't your job. Just be patient and wait until we need you."

Ariom grimaced and then took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

Red was right, of course. He was just here to break through barriers. He should let the experts handle the fighting. He'd only make things worse if he acted in a panic without knowing what to do.

But doing nothing in such a chaotic situation was a lot harder than it sounded....

After a few more tense minutes, Ziryi turned around and made several hand gestures to the rest of the team.

"The enemies are behind a one-way barrier," Red translated, moving closer so that Ariom could hear without him shouting. "Their attacks can pass through, but ours can't. That's why we've just been defending. Darkbolt was trying to get close enough to disable it, but they're concentrating their attacks on her, so it's too dangerous. Can you break through it from here?"

"Probably? One-way barriers are usually pretty fragile if you can find their weak point. Hang on a minute."

Red signaled to the others to pass on his words while Ariom took the stack of enchanting diagrams from Eteon out of his space pocket, relieved at finally having something he could understand and deal with. 

He shuffled through the papers until he found the barrier in question and spent a minute or two looking over its construction.

"Right. Got it," he said, nodding and putting the diagrams away again.

He took out an arrow and focused on it, frowning a little in concentration.

This was a physical version of the voidshot he'd used earlier. Physical arrows couldn't hold as much power, but they were easier on his magic reserves, since they could be charged with void magic in advance. And a small barrier like this didn't require nearly as much force to bring down as the large one had.

The arrow was already enchanted with wind magic and had a void magic crystal core inside the shaft. It just needed an enchantment on the tip to match the barrier he was breaking through.

Ariom used a thin strand of magic to quickly engrave the appropriate magic formations into the steel of the arrowhead. 

"Can we go a little closer?" he asked Red. "And a little more to the right? I don't have a clear line of fire from here."

"All right. Stay behind me."

With Red in the lead, they moved cautiously forward in a diagonal line, pausing a few times so that Red could block an attack that flew in their direction.

This brought them close to the twins, and Silverwater turned and beckoned to them.

"Come stand behind this!" he called out, pointing at his large silver shield. 

He made a spreading motion in the air with his hands, and the shield grew wider to make more room. Red and Ariom both moved behind it, and Red pointed his staff to their rear, causing his red mist to circle around and protect their backs. 

Once they were closer, Ariom discovered that the silver liquid was translucent from the back, allowing him to see through to where the barrier was, a few feet inside the building entrance. It interfered with his magesight a little, but he could still see well enough to know where to aim.

"This is also a one-way barrier," Silverwater said, nodding at his shield. "They can't see us from that side, so they won't know you're getting ready to shoot. But your arrow should be able to pass through without any problem."

"Perfect. Thank you."

Ariom nocked the arrow on his bowstring and then looked over at Aunt Kat, checking whether it was all right to shoot it. She noticed his gaze and responded with a hand signal.

"Shoot whenever you're ready," Red translated.

Ariom nodded and raised his bow. He drew the string back, took careful aim, and released the arrow. It streaked toward the barrier, its speed increased by the wind magic.

For a second, Ariom was sure it would hit. Then a cloud of sand spewed out from behind the barrier, enveloping the arrow and pushing it up and off course.

"Tch." Ariom clicked his tongue in annoyance. He'd have to try again.

But he'd barely had time to finish that thought before the arrow suddenly spun around in midair, turning back toward the barrier. It flew down through the sand, weaving back and forth like a fish swimming against the current.

A shower of sparks went up as the arrow hit its target, and several shouts of alarm came from inside the building as the barrier collapsed, revealing a group of Order guards.

"Nice save, Fish!" Aunt Kat shouted. Then she pointed her halberd toward the entrance. "Vanguard, forward!"

Silverwater waited just long enough for Red to move his protective mist back around himself and Ariom. Then both brothers headed toward the enemies, following closely behind Rockbrawler.

Ariom blinked a few times, trying to figure out what had just happened. 

Apparently Ironfish had taken control of the arrow's flight and directed it back toward the barrier? The arrows that Ariom used had metal in both the head and shaft, so it made sense that a skilled metal mage would be able to manipulate them. 

The impressive part was that Ironfish had known what point on the barrier to aim for. No one had mentioned that he had any kind of enchanting expertise. Which meant that during that second before the arrow was blocked, he had been able to read its trajectory and figure out exactly where it was headed.

Scary guy....

Shaking his head a little, Ariom looked back at Aunt Kat. She had sent her Rockbrawler watermimic charging into the building ahead of Ziryi. With a smooth sweep of her halberd, she created another one to continue protecting herself and Namyis and then pivoted around and sent two water tigers over to help Sala and Kino.

The manticore saw them coming and turned to face them with a fierce snarl. 

But Sala was able to use that brief distraction to slam the beast down with her gravity magic, allowing both of the watermimics to jump on top of it.

With a quick wave of her staff, Namyis froze them solid, pinning the manticore to the ground. 

As it thrashed and roared, trying to get free, Kino produced a large leather collar from a space pocket built into his armor and used his wind magic to expertly move it through the air, slipping it around the manticore's neck and fastening it tightly.

The collar obviously had a strong suppression enchantment on it because the manticore stopped struggling almost immediately. Its maned head lolled around drunkenly for a moment before slumping down to the ground and lying still.

Ariom watched the process in silence, listening to the magic explosions and screams of the Order guards going on in the background.

As expected of an elite team from the Magic Corps' first squad. They were a bunch of monsters....

He found himself feeling a little sorry for the manticore once again.

 

---

 

Focilo had been sitting quietly inside the holding cell for the past couple of hours. 

But just because he was quiet didn't mean he wasn't doing anything.

He was still monitoring Thenio's condition, of course. The boy had been sleeping peacefully ever since Focilo had created that cluster of leaves for him. He seemed to find the scent of them very soothing. His body had relaxed, and his breathing and heart rate had slowed down.

He'd had a similar reaction to the potpourri earlier. During his naps, the scent had put him into a deeper, more restful sleep. And it had noticeably calmed him down when he was worrying about Ariom and the others. 

Most people found Ket'shiu's scent pleasant, but it was unusual to see someone respond to it so strongly and consistently. Especially someone who'd never met the Forest Lord in person.

It was interesting. But it was hard to say if it actually meant anything or not.

Much more important were the startling new revelations about the boy's magic. Focilo had spent quite a bit of his time in the holding cell trying to understand them. 

Knowing that Thenio was a chimera would definitely change how they approached his stability treatments in the future. But that raised a very important question: Why had the Consort kept that information hidden? 

There was no way he didn't know. And if the previous chaos morphs had also been chimeras, then the Wizard Association's Research Center was probably aware of it as well. So it was presumably among the information that the Consort had told them to withhold.

But why? If stabilizing Thenio's magic was so important, why would they hide something that could have such a significant impact on the results of his treatment?

And what exactly were those two magic circuits? One of them seemed to be a life affinity. It felt similar to Focilo's own magic. Which should mean that Thenio not only had a life affinity but was also a phoenix child.

That would make a lot of sense, actually. It wasn't common knowledge, but Focilo was aware that phoenix children were simply humans who were able to absorb the tiny fragments of the phoenix's power that were present in the world's mana supply, which altered their magic frequency over time. And if anyone could absorb such fragments, it ought to be a chaos morph.

Did that have something to do with why Thenio was able to purify demon magic? Very likely. The phoenix was the only mythic beast in this world who had that ability, so it was hard to believe it was a coincidence.

Most phoenix children only absorbed enough fragments to give them a somewhat higher resistance to demon poison. But if it was Thenio, who was even able to absorb demon magic itself....

Then what about the second magic circuit? Vehnkir had called it a null affinity, and it did resemble one. But that couldn't be right. A null affinity circuit would have simply merged together with the more dominant life affinity one, especially with how the two were fused together. 

And a null affinity wouldn't account for Thenio's unusual abilities, such as absorbing magic power and imitating a mythic beast's magic skills. Null mages could learn to use a lot of different magic types, but they were strictly limited to human magic.

The most obvious conclusion was that this unknown circuit was the real chaos affinity circuit, and the life circuit was simply an add-on. It was even possible that previous chaos morphs only had that one circuit, and that Thenio was the only chimera among them.

But that didn't really make sense, either. He was too similar to the others. There was no reason to think his magic was fundamentally different from theirs. And the Consort probably wouldn't have been involved with so many of them if Thenio were the only one that had developed a purification ability. The Dream Lord seemed to have been interested in chaos morphs for centuries.

Ever since the Rift Crisis.

Ever since the world started seriously needing another method to purify demon corruption....

As much as he wanted to avoid it, as much as he tried to think of alternative explanations, Focilo's thoughts inevitably arrived at a grim possibility.

What if chaos magic wasn't a naturally occurring morph at all? What if Thenio and all the others had started off with ordinary life affinities? His younger brother had turned out to have a wood affinity, hadn't he? So it was possible that life magic ran in their family, even if it hadn't surfaced for the past few generations.

Was it possible to implant a second magic circuit in someone? To create an artificial chimera? Probably, if the Consort were the one doing it. He was a dream beast, after all, with the power to reshape the world. Surely he could create a human magic circuit or two.

Or twelve....

That was the problem, wasn't it?

Certainly fighting against the corruption was a worthy cause. And Focilo could see the appeal in trying to create humans who had the phoenix's purification ability.

But the idea of allowing so many children to suffer and die like that.... It was a horrible thought. Focilo really didn't want to believe that a mythic beast would do something like that.

But he had to admit that it would explain a lot of things. Including the reason why the Consort hadn't wanted anyone to know that Thenio was a chimera.

Focilo sighed and shook his head. He could only get so far thinking about things here by himself. He'd have to try to meet with the Consort's agent and ask him about it. It wouldn't really change anything—Focilo wasn't in a position to interfere with whatever the Consort was trying to do. But maybe he could at least get a few answers.

Before that, though, they needed to get out of this place.

Focilo pushed his troubling speculations aside and turned his attention back to the thing that had been his main activity for the past two hours: trying to break through the holding cell's barrier.

He'd made several thin tree roots grow out of the branches on the bottom of his own barrier, and they were slowly burrowing down into the floor of the cell, making their way through the complex magic formations inscribed there as Focilo patiently examined and puzzled out each one.

He wasn't an enchanter, of course. No doubt Ariom could have figured it out much faster. But Focilo was a grandmaster necromancer, and the two disciplines had many overlapping principles. So he could figure out most enchantments if he studied them long enough.

Disabling the entire barrier would be difficult, but making a small hole should be doable, and it would greatly increase the options available to him.

They might look thin and weak right now, but if they were given enough time, a tree's roots could break through almost anything....