'I'll have to trust Quylla as much as I trust Solus on this.' Lith thought while his tier five spell, Scanner, enveloped the construct that was grabbing him, allowing Lith to put Solus's theory to the test.
'What the heck can I do?' Phloria thought as the first Golem was dismantling her Torment Guard as if it was made of paper, ignoring both her spells and swordplay. To make matters worse, after kidnapping her soldiers and the Assistants, the constructs were now free to focus on killing the Professors and the Rangers.
Phloria hadn't missed that the Golems seemed to have a different approach based on their enemy, yet she had no idea how to exploit it.
A third and a fourth construct were about to reach her, their arms already extended.
"Phloria, trust me, dammit!" Quylla yelled. She was so focused using Scanner on her future opponent that she couldn't afford to Blink out of her cage. It would make her lose her concentration and waste both the tier five light spells she had prepared.
Phloria snapped her fingers, releasing Quylla and used all the earth she had at her disposal to block her enemy. Alas, hundreds of kilograms were required to stop a Golem. Just a few dozens of them were merely an annoyance.
It was one of the reasons Lith hadn't brought any with himself. Even if he had used his entire pocket dimension, he would have barely enough to stop a single construct at the price of losing everything he had.
Besides, he had many strings to his bow.
The Golem tried to zap him, but the Orichalcum deflected the spell. Then, it tried to lift the Ranger, but by coming this close to him, Lith's spirit magic was a raging river that the creature could barely stand.
'Okay, ignore its life force. To do any damage to whatever is left of its human side, it would take us too much time. Focus on the runes. Find and damage them.' As if Solus was speaking to both of them, Lith and Quylla performed the same task.
One was protected by her beloved sister, who was facing three Golems at once, while the other only had spirit magic to prevent his opponent from Warping him away.
It was an incredibly hard task for both Healers. Quylla had to ignore Phloria's battle screams and set aside her fears as the unliving monstrosity grabbed her, while Lith had to manage many things at once.
Yet he wasn't alone. Solus examined the Golem's complex life force, searching for the runes hidden inside the many building blocks and energy bridges that once gave life to the man in front of them.
'There, under the heart.' One thought to herself and the other to her partner.
Quylla's Chisel scraped the rune engraved in the creature's life force whereas Lith's Cleaver split it asunder. Until that moment, the Golems' movements had been relentless.
No matter what kind of attack they were under, the constructs had followed their orders with no care for the consequences. Their bodies healed the moment they suffered any damage.
Even Lith's and Phloria's combined attack had barely left a mark on them. Yet as soon as a single rune was damaged, they both stuttered. Lith and Quylla found another rune in the Golems' head, crushing it with their respective spell.
A Golem was a complex machine, but a Flesh Golem was in a league of its own. Damaging their runes was akin to removing random gears from a clockwork marvel, destroying its perfect balance.
The constructs froze, but while Quylla could only search and destroy more runes to make sure it wouldn't come back to life, Lith had other options. Solus's glove covered his hand and the Orichalcum covered Solus.
Life Vision showed him their power cores, so after using fusion magic to boost his physical prowess, he was capable of piercing through their stone shell and ripping the still pulsing power core from the creature's ankle.
\u003c "Thank you."\u003e The man said as his flesh turned to mush and the Golem collapsed.
A split second later, the Golem in front of Quylla was dead too, letting her focus on the two that were seconds away from overpowering Phloria.
***
"That's impossible!" Jiira said watching at the Golems control panel. Two lights had just gone offline. "Flesh Golems are perfect, immortal creatures. Not even us could take them down if not for the slave control engraved into their very being!"
"If only we still had the cameras." Rizo was tempted to bite his fingernails out of stress, but ruining his perfect body would be considered as a sign of weakness from his peers.
"It must be the non-human's work. Emperor Beasts drove us into corner one time too many to underestimate them." Leela said. "We must kill all the remaining invaders."
"What? And lose the only semi-decent looking woman of the herd?" Veiga was outraged. She had her eyes on Quylla from the beginning. "Also, we need the old ones to learn their language, otherwise spare bodies or not, we'll not last a minute outside."
"Veiga is right. We can always make more Flesh Golems whereas powerful mages are hard to find." Guuna had been a powerful mage back in her days. She didn't care if her body was male or female, as long as it was powerful.
"I have a better idea." Jiira smiled. "We order the Golems to kill only those that managed to destroy their comrades. After all, what makes the Flesh Golems truly perfect is the fact that they are not mindless machines.
"Their human side allowed us to train them in the use of the spells we bestowed upon them, to getting used to their peerless physical prowess, and more importantly, to properly follow orders."
All the Odi nodded at those words. They believed that if Kulah hadn't been cut off from the rest of the empire during the Great War, if only they had received enough supplies and specimens, an army of Flesh Golems would have guaranteed their victory.
The Odi could already picture the entirety of Mogar on its knees in front of the true and only master race.
***
Once the order was given, the Golems focused on Lith. All twenty of them.
"This is bad." He said.
The Professors could finally catch their breath. Up until that moment, the four of them had kept at bay the entire horde of enemies, but each time one of the constructs managed to slip through their barrier, someone had been kidnapped.
Now they were holding back seventeen Flesh Golems, the others were the one that had been frying Morok up until that moment, and the two that had almost cornered Phloria.
They all turned towards Lith, ignoring their old marks and readying their spells. Morok's body slid down the wall and on the ground, but instead of falling to a side, his feet stood firm.
"Thanks for nothing, you frigging bastards!" Morok's skin was almost black, yet he seemed to be more pissed off than wounded. "I almost got roasted because of you. Is it too much to ask for a little help?"
It was hard to tell who was more surprised if the Golems or his own allies.
"Magna!" He yelled as his hammers turned orange and his body swelled. Every muscle in his body was now as tense as a bowstring.
