"Lord Vehnkir is exceptional, of course. He's the most amazing necromancer. Yes. Absolutely incredible. You can't even imagine the things he's able to do. So of course he has no need to listen to someone at my level. Of course not.

"But...well...it's just that his mind is always focused on his research, you see. Such a brilliant researcher. The Order is so fortunate to have him. So it's understandable that he sometimes can't spare attention for extraneous details, isn't it? Quite understandable."

What was wrong with this guy?

He didn't seem surprised or frightened to see the group of combat-ready battlemages in front of him. He just kept staring at them with that sorrowful expression on his face, rambling on about someone he called 'Lord Vehnkir.'

Ariom wasn't aware of any Kafron nobles named 'Vehnkir.' Was it the name of the Old One who'd kidnapped Thenio and Focilo? Was this guy his servant or something?

The man looked relatively harmless, and he seemed to be a life mage, which should mean that he was lacking in offensive capabilities compared to the team of elite battlemages.

But something about him made the hairs on the back of Ariom's neck stand on end....

The familiars seemed to feel the same way. Both of them were glaring at the man with their teeth bared. Sala's tail was puffed up to twice its usual size, and Kino let out a soft growl.

"And the unfortunate timing wasn't his fault, now was it? Who could have known that the Magic Corps had already gotten wind of this place and would be able to attack us so soon? Lord Vehnkir didn't do anything wrong. Of course he didn't. He was just unlucky." The man let out another depressed sigh.

"Who are you?" Aunt Kat asked in a loud voice, before he could continue his strange monologue.

"Ebihan Ileus. Director of Special Research Projects." To Ariom's surprise, the man willingly introduced himself, although he still looked very unhappy.

"Three people were abducted from the Royal Guard headquarters a few hours ago, and we believe they were teleported here," Aunt Kat said sternly. "The fact that you mentioned Focilo Sephior seems to support that. We want to search the area ahead. If you cooperate with us, you'll be given fair treatment."

"Fair? No, it's not fair," Ebihan complained. "Even if this isn't Lord Vehnkir's fault, it still looks bad, doesn't it? It looks like the base was attacked because of what he did. So I'm afraid that the rest of the Old Ones are going to be angry with him.... What if they punish him? What if they lock him up on the other side again? That would be terrible. I might have to go years without receiving his guidance. Years! How is that fair?"

The rescue team members all exchanged uneasy looks. This guy was clearly a bit unhinged....

"It's even more unfair that you were able to get into this area," Ebihan went on, scowling. "You shouldn't have even known to look here. And you especially shouldn't have been able to break through Lord Vehnkir's enchantment so quickly. Modern enchanters can't even compare to him. What kind of dirty trick did you use?"

To the team's credit, they all had enough sense to not look at Ariom right then.

"I don't think we're under any obligation to answer that question," Aunt Kat said evenly. "The important thing is that we had good reason to suspect that the three kidnapping victims are being kept here, and we have authorization from General Obarin to search this place. Are you going to cooperate with us or not?"

"Cooperate?" Ebihan's miserable expression finally lightened a little, and he actually let out a small chuckle. "Now why should I do that?"

"The numbers aren't exactly in your favor here. Do you really want to pick a fight with a team from the Magic Corps' first squad? All by yourself?"

"No, not by myself. But I'm not by myself, you know?" Ebihan gave a small, sad smile. "I'm sorry to say that Lord Vehnkir is out at the moment. But he never truly leaves me alone. No. He's a good master. The best master. He wouldn't leave his faithful student unprotected."

Aunt Kat raised an eyebrow. "Really? I don't see anyone else with you, though?"

She didn't say it with a mocking attitude. On the contrary, her expression had become even more wary, and she was watching Ebihan closely. Ariom noticed the other team members scanning their surroundings. They obviously took the threat of hidden enemies very seriously.

But it was true that there was no one else visible in the hallway. Ariom couldn't even see anything using his magesight, which was still enhanced by the remnants of Ket'shiu's magic.

"Of course you don't see them." Ebihan's smile widened. "They're still sleeping for now. But they're good children. They'll come as soon as I call them."

Ariom frowned. He really didn't like the sound of that.

Hadn't that guy just called himself Vehnkir's student? Then if Vehnkir was the Old One who'd taken Thenio and Focilo...the same brilliant necromancer who'd created the flesh golem and the teleportation array and all the barriers on this place....

This might be a bit dangerous.

"Oh?" Aunt Kat's eyes narrowed a little. "Go ahead and call them, then. We're not leaving until we get our people back."

Ebihan sighed, and his expression became gloomy again. "Of course it's like that.... You military types are always so troublesome."

Aunt Kat scoffed. "We're troublesome? You're the ones who kidnap innocent people and perform cruel experiments on them. Do you think we didn't see the victims you've been keeping prisoner here? Or the sorry state of all those poor magic beasts...who almost certainly ended up here via illegal trafficking? What right do you have to call us troublesome?"

Seeing the occupants of those holding cells had clearly been upsetting for her, too. For one thing, there were quite a few feline magic beasts in there, and she'd always had a soft spot for cats.

Just like Thenio....

"That's a necessary sacrifice for the sake of our research," Ebihan said calmly. "What are the lives of a few magic beasts worth compared to a chance to unlock the secrets of this world? But I don't expect you to understand. People like you never understand. You were born with power. So how could you understand the feelings of the weak? Our research is for the benefit of the common people. Why should they tremble in fear of demons when they could be harnessing the power of demon magic instead?"

"Pretty words to try to justify your horrible actions." Aunt Kat gave him a look of deep disdain. "Yes, we were born with power, like you said. That's why we take responsibility for keeping the demons under control. To protect the common people so they don't need to tremble in fear. Thanks to the military's rift warning system and containment procedures, it's been more than half a century since Kafron last suffered from a major demon attack. We don't need your disgusting research, and you know it. What 'benefit of the common people'...? You only care about gaining power for yourselves. Stop making excuses."

"Tsk, tsk...." Ebihan clicked his tongue, shaking his head sadly. "As I said, you simply can't understand the greatness of the Old Ones' vision."

"No, I can't," Aunt Kat said flatly. "And we're in a bit of a hurry, so let's stop wasting time with this nonsense. Either stand aside, or we'll move you aside. It's your choice."

With a sweep of her halberd, she reformed her group of water tigers, which all lashed their tails and bared their teeth threateningly.

The rest of the team also prepared to attack. Rockbrawler brandished his enormous, stone-covered fists. Ironfish began creating a swarm of metal shards behind the cover of his brother's silver shield. Ziryi's hair stood up even more than usual as tiny flickers of purple lightning ran up and down the blade of her dagger. And Namyis held her crystal staff at the ready as the air around her sparkled with bits of frost.

If Iggy were here, he would have been cowering in fear at the magic emanating from the group. Even Ariom felt rather intimidated by it.

He took his green bow out and held it ready, but he didn't take out any arrows yet. It was better to wait and see what was needed once the fighting started.

Besides...he had a guess about the identity of Ebihan's 'children.' If it was correct, then he would probably be able to contribute more as an enchanter and necromancer than as a magic archer.

"Very well," Ebihan said with a sigh. "As you say, if it's impossible for you to understand our purpose, then there's no point wasting time on useless discourse. I need to hurry and clean up the mess you've caused to help Lord Vehnkir avoid any negative repercussions." Then he smiled, looking rather proud. "So I'll let you have the privilege of meeting the beautiful soldiers that my master has generously granted me."

He waved his hand casually in front of him, and the floor of the hallway began to ripple and distort. Figures started rising up from it. A moment later, the hallway was filled with three columns of what appeared to be completely identical combat wizards. They all stood perfectly still in exactly the same pose, wearing black armor with gold trim and holding gold staves covered with decorative black magic formations. Perhaps the most uncanny thing about them was that their eyes were covered with solid golden masks, also decorated with black inscriptions.

They clearly weren't human. Or at least...not living humans.

At first glance, they seemed to be flesh golems. But then they all raised their staves in unison and did something that golems generally weren't able to do.

They started throwing out magic attacks.

"Team, attack!" Aunt Kat shouted over the sound of various magic projectiles crashing against their shields. "Red, Ariom! Figure out what those things are and tell us how to beat them!"

Her water tigers sprang forward, attacking the first row of soldiers. But they seemed to have some pretty amazing defensive enchantments on them because they completely ignored the watermimics, continuing to send out attacks in perfect coordination with their companions. They weren't thrown off balance by the tigers jumping on them, and when the mimics dissolved their forms and wrapped around the soldiers to try to hold them in place, they simply stopped moving and waited while the soldiers further back blasted them with fire, turning the watermimics into clouds of steam. Then the front soldiers resumed attacking as though nothing had happened, seemingly unharmed by the intense flames.

They weren't just using magic. They were using magic at the level of high-rank combat wizards. Not only that, but each soldier was able to use multiple magic types. The ones that had evaporated Aunt Kat's watermimics with fire sent whirlwinds flying toward Silverwater's shield right afterward, and a minute later, Ariom saw them throw a shower of rocks at Sala, who was trying to weigh down one of their comrades.

So far they'd only been using the basic affinity types. And their attacks were much more straightforward than those of the experienced battlemages. But it was still beyond the capabilities of most humans. And there were more than a dozen of them. It was like fighting a whole troop of high-rank null mages.

Their armor was by far the bigger problem, though. Between that and whatever reinforcement enchantments they had inscribed directly on their bodies, they were able to shrug off most of the attacks the rescue team was sending at them. Even Rockbrawler's heavy punches only knocked them back a little.

For now, the team's defenses were also holding strong. But Ebihan's soldiers were slowly moving closer to them. Namyis was trying to freeze them in ice to hold them back, which was helping. But there were too many of them, and she couldn't freeze them all fast enough to stop them from breaking each other out.

If the golems all had physical strengthening magic on them and were capable of melee combat, the rescue team was going to be in a difficult position before long.

They could retreat, of course. But either Ebihan would follow them and take the fighting into the corridors where the holding cells were, which would likely result in prisoners being injured or killed. Or he would stay and seal off the entrance to the hidden area, in which case they might not be able to get back in and find Thenio in time.

None of their current options were good. They needed to find another way.

"Those are definitely artificial bodies," Red said, watching the soldiers with his brow furrowed in concentration. He had the difficult task of analyzing the enemies, keeping his protective mist dense enough to repel their attacks, and monitoring the rest of the team to watch for injuries, all at the same time. "They're made of flesh and bone. But they don't just look alike. Their muscle and bone structure is all the same, and there's no way you could get that many identical corpses. They don't breathe, but their hearts are beating. No blood, though. You see how pale their skin is? They've got some other kind of liquid circulating in them. I can't tell what it is. But I don't think it's anything I can influence."

Highly-skilled blood mages like Red were capable of taking control of another person's blood and using it to either kill them or influence their actions.

That was another thing that contributed to the affinity's poor reputation....

Ariom was also staring intently at the golems with a deep scowl on his face, trying to analyze them through their armor. It wasn't easy.

"I think...it's probably demon crystal," he said slowly. "Purified demon crystals, powdered and then dissolved in a liquid base. I recently studied some Order flesh enchantments that used scribing ink made like that. I think this is something similar."

"That would take a lot of purified crystals. These guys must have been crazy expensive to make."

"Does the cost really matter right now...?"

"Only because it means they shouldn't be able to make a whole army of them. Which is mildly comforting." Red grimaced as several large fireballs hit his mist, burning away about half of it. He immediately started putting out more to replace it.

Ariom raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. It was an unnecessary tangent, but he could understand it.

And it was a little comforting....

"Hey, give me another bottle of tree blood," he said after Red had replenished his mist and breathed out a small sigh of relief that no more large attacks had hit them while it was weakened. "You have extras, don't you? I'm not going to take it now," he added when the medic hesitated. "It's just in case. I can use it to boost my magesight. It's worth getting a little sick if it helps take down these brutes."

"Fine. But be careful. Drink it a little at a time."

Red reluctantly pulled out a bottle of neutralizing tonic and handed it over. Ariom stored it safely in his space pocket. The magic he'd gotten from the second bottle was more than half gone now, so he'd probably need the third one soon.

But he'd try to drink it when Red wasn't looking....

He focused his attention back on Ebihan's soldiers. He'd seen how the Order used purified demon crystals as a conversion catalyst and stabilizing agent in the magic circuit enhancement that he'd originally been studying for this job. If it was being used for the same purpose with these golems, then he could make a rough guess about how the enchantment was designed.

The enhancement matrix had used the purified crystal to help convert external magic into a type that matched the person's magic signature before feeding it into their magic circuit.

These soldiers were probably using a process that was more or less the reverse of that. There should be a large magic crystal that acted as a power reserve somewhere in their bodies. The magic was drawn from the crystal and fed through one of several conversion formations to change it to the desired type before releasing it as an attack.

Normally this would be a very unstable design, since different types of residual power would build up inside the body and start clashing with each other. That was part of what made Thenio's magic so unstable—his ever changing magic circuit tended to create power clashes.

But with the liquid demon crystal acting as a filter.... Well, it would still be difficult to get the balance just right, but it should be possible.

That might be the key to dealing with these horrible things: If they were running on a delicately balanced system, then logically, it shouldn't take much to throw them off balance. Ariom could probably do it with one of his void arrows, if he could just find the right weak point to hit.

That would be the difficult part. He could guess at the basic construction of the enchantment matrix, but there were several different ways it could be arranged inside the body. And that impenetrable armor made it impossible to see the inscription directly, so he had no way of knowing exactly which arrangement it was. Even Ket'shiu's magic couldn't help him if he didn't have a direct line of sight.

Well...even if he knew where the weak point was, there was a good chance it would be protected by that stupid armor anyway, so maybe it wouldn't help....

Ariom scowled. He was going to have to change his approach.

And he needed to hurry. The golems were slowly moving closer, pushing the rescue team back against the wall of the corridor. And while the others were able to hold off their attacks for now, it was clearly taking its toll. Aunt Kat had just downed a bottle of moondust.

Seeing that, Kino went over to her and let out a soft whine. She took out a bone-shaped object and handed it to him. He took it in his mouth and quickly chomped it down. As he swallowed, Ariom could see magic power starting to spread through his body.

That bone must have been one of his doses of recovery medicine. The medicine that magic beasts used often came in solid forms like that to make it easier for them to consume quickly.

Trying to ignore the tense looks on the faces of his teammates, Ariom took a deep breath and turned back to the golems. But rather than continuing to analyze them, he started carefully examining their armor, scrutinizing every seam and joint and going over all the magic formations he was able to see.

There had to be a weakness somewhere. If he could get at least one piece of armor off one of those golems, he might be able to learn enough from the exposed part to figure out where to go from there.

Finally, he found a likely target. The golem's golden masks had enchantments holding them securely in place, but a portion of that enchantment was exposed on the sides of the head, just in front of the ears. Places that could be triggered to take the mask off. It looked like they were locked, so they would only respond to a specific magic signature.

But a nice shot of void magic in just the right spot should be able to take care of that.

Ariom took a void arrow out of his quiver and held it ready on his bow, waiting for an opportunity. He got one a few minutes later. Rockbrawler hit one of the golems, making it turn to one side as it stumbled back a few steps. Then Namyis froze it in place.

They didn't struggle when they were frozen. They simply stopped moving, conserving their energy, and waiting until another golem could set them free.

Which made for a nice, stationary target.

Ariom raised his bow, took careful aim, and sent his arrow flying toward the frozen soldier. He half expected one of the other golems to intercept it, but perhaps they didn't recognize it as a threat, because none of them responded to it. A second later, it hit its target, overloading the magic formation and knocking the mask askew.

"Rockbrawler!" Ariom shouted. "Take its mask off!"

The stone mage was already attacking another golem, but he heard Ariom's shout and immediately turned, reached out one of his long arms, and ripped the mask off the first golem's face. It flew a short distance away and fell to the floor with a metallic clatter.

Everyone paused their fighting briefly, looking over at the strange sight.

Ariom had expected the golems not to have any eyes. They didn't need them, since they didn't 'see' in the normal sense of the word anyway. They seemed to be programmed to detect and attack sources of unrecognized magic. Though Ebihan was also controlling them manually part of the time.

But it didn't even have eye sockets. Or a forehead. It looked like the top half of its face had been sliced out, leaving only flat, smooth skin.

"The skull's open there!" Red called out. "It should be a weak spot! Hit it in the face!"

Ariom blinked in surprise, understanding the implication behind Red's words. Those weren't masks. They were access panels. A healer or necromancer would easily be able to slice open the skin, fiddle with whatever was inside the head, and heal the skin back up again.

Which meant that there should be an important part of the enchantment matrix in that area.

Rockbrawler did his best to follow Red's instructions, but before his fist made contact with the golem's face, a thick golden barrier had appeared over it. Rockbrawler's hand bounced harmlessly off of it.

"No!" Ebihan snarled. "How dare you try to ruin one of the precious soldiers Lord Vehnkir gave me!"

He directed several of the nearby golems to shatter the ice holding the maskless golem in place, allowing it to hastily retreat to the back of the group. When it was safe, Ebihan turned and glared at Ariom.

"You! You're a void mage? You must be the enchanter that Lord Vehnkir was wishing he could have abducted. Excellent!" He gave a twisted grin. "I'll capture you alive and present you to my master when he returns. He'll be so pleased!"

Ariom made a disgusted face. He had absolutely no intention of becoming an Old One's pet....

He took out a new arrow to try demasking another golem. But Ebihan was watching him closely and put barriers up around the heads of any golems he targeted.

"Tch." Ariom clicked his tongue in annoyance and looked at Red. "I need to move over to where Silverwater and Ironfish are."

Red raised an eyebrow but nodded and started moving carefully toward the twins with Ariom following closely behind him.

Soon they reached the shelter of Silverwater's liquid shield. He obligingly extended it to cover them, and then both brothers gave Ariom identical questioning looks.

"Ironfish, I need your help," he said in a low voice. "Did you see the spot where I hit that golem's mask? Can you hit the same place on the others?"

Ironfish nodded. "I saw. And I can hit the others if there isn't anything blocking me. But won't he keep putting up barriers even if I'm the one controlling the arrow?"

"Of course he will. But you're not limited to one arrow at a time like I am, are you?"

Ariom smirked and took a tall wooden box full of void arrows out of his quiver. Twenty-five of them. Then he took out a second box. The two void arrows he'd already used had come from this box, so it wasn't entirely full, but there were still twenty-three arrows left. Forty-eight void arrows total.

But he didn't stop there.

As the others watched in amazement, he took out four more boxes and lined them up in front of Ironfish. These were the uncharged blanks. All he had to do was charge up their cores with his magic, and he'd have a hundred more void arrows.

One-hundred-forty-eight arrows in all.

"That guy wants to play games, does he?" Ariom said savagely as he took a handful of blanks out and started channeling magic into them. "Fine. Let's play. We'll see how many arrows he can block at once, shall we?"