The colossi moved towards her, but Quylla's next move froze them on the spot. Instead of infusing her armor with mana to better defend herself, she shapeshifted it off, remaining in her underwear.
The Golems' first priority was her safety, they couldn't harm her. They stepped back as she advanced until they had their backs against the wall. They couldn't touch her without being deactivated but there was no spell in their arsenal weak enough to not kill a half-naked normal human.
Constructs had no access to first magic, only to the spells that they had been imbued with and Flesh Golems were war machines. Quylla placed her hands on them and turned the normally unstoppable dreadnoughts into huge piles of stone in a split second.
Only when she was sure that they posed no threat to her did she put her armor back on. Then, she used a Float spell on the Golems and brought them to the Reactor's upper floor.
"How the heck did you manage to capture two constructs without a scratch?" Morok's genuine surprise at the sight of the Golems made her sigh in relief. Quylla was afraid he might have been following her and peeped the whole scene.
"Finesse." She replied. "Now our question is if it's better to throw them both at once or one at a time and study how the Reactor behaves before making a final attempt."
Quylla used both Scanner and her Forgemastering spell to search for a self-destruct mechanism. As a Forgemaster, she knew how important it was to not give the enemy the opportunity to study a masterpiece.
Once she found the mechanism, she placed the constructs on the hatch before triggering it. The people grafted inside the Golems looked at her with eyes filled with gratitude, almost making Quylla feel guilty.
In any other time, she would have worried about finding a way to save them from their destiny and give their body back to them. Almost. She was now at war, and no matter her oath as a Healer or how innocent those people were, they still remained her enemies.
The hatch opened, making the Flesh Golems fall on the inner metal door that unlocked as soon as the outer door was closed. The constructs fell down into the pit the Mana Reactor was, filled with world energy, elemental forces, and the emerald green light of mana.
Their flesh was instantly consumed while their stone bodies withstood the maelstrom around them long enough to almost reach the bottom of the Reactor. The following explosion broke the balance between the three energies at work, forcing the machine to a stop.
The Reactor was still full of mana, but no more would be produced until the emergency wasn't solved. The world energy was now free to return where it belonged, making the shaking of the ground increase as a silver pillar of light descended from the sky, right above Lith's position.
***
There was a reason why the Odi had been forced to merge all in one body, why they had abandoned their research in a hurry, and why almost no trace of their passage but ruins remained.
During the great war, while the people of the Galen continent fought for their freedom and the Odi did their worst to prolong the existence of their dying race, Mogar had passed its judgment on them, deeming them unworthy.
The Guardians had mobilized, ending the war that would have lasted a few more years in a matter of hours. The Odi knew about the Guardians, as well as that the only way they had to fight against such powerful creatures was to use the Guardians' best weapon against them.
By trapping the world energy in the Mana Reactor, not only did they achieve the key to unlimited power, but they also hid from both Mogar and its Guardians. Even in the case that Kulah where to be discovered, the Odi believed that they had enough weapons to take the Guardians on and beat them at their own game.
As long as the Mana Reactor was operational, the Guardians would be diminished, while the Odi would be unstoppable and the God's Will array would allow them to trample even Mogar's will over the elements.
As long as the mana Reactor was operational, which wasn't the case anymore.
The world energy flooded Kulah's underground floors, triggering the world tribulation that had been forcefully stopped since the moment Lith had listened to the words of the dying Golems.
\u003c "Oh shit!"\u003e Rizo said, unaware that now both humans were finally capable of understanding his language and vice versa. He had fought his whole life on the front lines, he could never forget the feeling that was now covering his whole body in a cold sweat.
The feeling of the presence of a Guardian.
A silver pillar descended from the sky while the normally hidden black one emerged from the ground, as if the fingers of two opposite gods were connecting right in the space Lith occupied.
Finally, the thing inside of him stopped clawing and erupted from his whole body, covering it in red and black scales, while two curved horns emerged from the sides of his forehead.
Phloria was so shocked that she almost forgot about Rizo. She had seen Lith transformed, but never like that. She had never seen the four upside-down wings on his back, the tail, the horns, nor the seven eyes all opened at once.
An inhuman roar erupted from his fangs-filled maw as his body grew past the two meters (6'7") and the whole room turned pitch-black. Countless eyes opened on every centimeter of the walls, ceiling, and floor, staring at Rizo in hatred.
Fearing for his life, the Odi decided to give his all, releasing a tier three spell from his sword. Even though the God's Will array was weakened, it was still capable of turning the simple lightning into something that exceeded even a tier five magic spell cast by a genius on Manohar's level.
The magical formation had been devised as an anti-Guardian weapon for a reason. The spell was faster and stronger than anything Lith had ever seen. It moved so quickly that even if he had seen it forming with Life Vision, even with his body infused with air magic, he couldn't dodge it from so up close.
It pierced through the layer of Orichalcum covering Lith's head, through the thick scales and bones protecting his brain.
Realizing that nothing was enough to stop such a force of nature, Solus did the only thing that she could. She used the split second the spell needed to overpower so many layers of protection to slip inside Lith's skull and cover his brain with her stone body.
Lith's armor vaporized, his skull caved in, and Solus was turned into small pebbles.
Yet not a single spark of electricity nor bone fragment damaged Lith's vital organ, allowing Invigoration to rejuvenate him in only one breath, thanks to the massive amount of world energy enveloping him.
'That was damn close. Thank you so much, Solus.' Lith thought, yet only silence ensued.
'Solus?' Lith could feel an immense void inside of himself where Solus's light usually was. He could still manipulate the glove, his pocket dimension, everything. Yet his best friend was lost to him.
An all too human scream of grief made the cave tremble so much that both Phloria and Rizo, who were still shocked at seeing Lith alive, thought that the whole of Mogar was about to collapse above their heads.
