Since Quylla kept being useless, Morok stood up and conjured his strongest tier five War Mage spell, Wheel of Fate. Usually it had an area of effect too big to be used in a closed space, but the Reactor's maintenance room was big enough to accommodate two of such spells.
Four rings, each one made of a different elemental energy and as big as a ferris wheel surrounded the Reactor. Normally there would be five of them but without earth to manipulate, that part of the spell was just a waste of mana.
The four rings attacked the structure in turns. Darkness first to weaken the structure and all the spells it was imbued with, then fire to heat the Reactor until its metal parts were white-hot.
Then followed the water ring, to inflict a powerful thermal shock and drench the enemy in water, so that the ensuing lightning ring could seep through all the cracks that the previous attacks had opened.
Several mana crystals exploded and the lights in the room flickered while the spell relentlessly hammered the Mana Reactor, almost giving the now awake Quylla a heart attack.
"What are you doing, you idiot? If you destroy the opening mechanism, we will never stop the Reactor in time." She said.
"The what now?" Morok dispelled the Wheel with a wave of his hand.
"Can't you see the hatch on the picture?" She slammed the book under his nose. "We have no chance of destroying the Mana Reactor with normal spells. For the gods' sake, how can you think that something made to contain infinite mana can be harmed by mana?"
"Now that you point that out, it explains why my strategy wasn't very effective on the lower floor, but here the shielding is lighter. No matter how sturdy a dam is, it only takes a crack to take it down." Morok quoted his wise father.
"Yeah, too bad we are in front of the dam! I'm sure that Lith asked you to find a way to turn it off, not to blow us all in the greatest conflagration Mogar has ever seen. What part of 'infinite mana' isn't clear to you?"
"Fine, egghead. Then what's your brilliant plan?" Morok firmly believed that attack was the best defense, especially when there was nothing you could say to make you appear less moronic.
"To fuel the Reactor, the Odi need to throw living creatures down that hatch, is that clear?" She asked and Morok nodded for her to continue.
"Then if we trick the system into believing that it's recharge time but we throw inside something hard to digest instead of fresh meat, the in-built safety measures will stop its functioning.
"I doubt that the Odi planned on dying at the first misoperation and since the Reactor is powerful enough to blow its way out to the surface, there must be a panic button or something. We just need to trigger it."
Quylla walked to the Mana Reactor and started to compare the picture with the real thing in front of her. It took her but a wave of her hand to get rid of the layer of frost covering the console and the several monitors.
"Good job, jackass! Most of them are broken!" She said while using water and air magic to dry everything, in the hope that at least some of them would start working again.
"Who cares? It's not like any of us can read that gibberish!" Morok acted tough, but he was starting to realize why his father had refused to Awaken him until the young Tyrant would learn to think more with his two brains and less with his two fists.
"Yeah, but at least we could have watched the fucking images!" Quylla would have stabbed him to death if the Odi hadn't taken everything from her but her Skinwalker armor. And not for a lack of trying.
Even a Golem's level of strength was pointless against an artifact capable of switching from the solid to the liquid state at will and that only responded to its master.
It was the reason why Phloria had been chosen as a guinea pig, using an inferior specimen to check if the Skinwalker armor would interfere with the body-swapping process before attempting it on their masterpiece: Quylla.
With her slender body and her mastery of light magic, she was the closest thing to an Odi they could get. Yet now that very similarity was working against them.
"Okay, I can't read the tags above any of these buttons, but judging from their positioning I can guess what they do. I think I can open the hatch, but that would lead us nowhere." She said.
"Why?" Morok asked.
"Because even though I can open it, the system has a double access to prevent energy leaks. First, it opens on our side, then we have to throw something inside, and only then will the hatch close from our side and drop the load in the reactor."
"Well, with the hatch open, a well-placed spell could break the inner door and…"
"Blow us all to the surface!" Quylla cut him short. "We need someone to sacrifice themselves, put them in the hatch, maybe loaded with all the alchemical tools we can find, so that once we drop them inside the Reactor, they can detonate themselves while the system is SEALED and activate the failsafe."
"Yeah, two problems. One, I'm not going to jump. Second, we've got no alchemical tool. Mister blue skin groped me for good as well. I've nothing left."
"He didn't grope me!" Quylla really hoped that what the Odi had performed was just a body search. Thank Lith, the armor had shielded her from any probing and body examination.
"Sure thing, sweetheart. The bastard was so thorough with me that I almost expected he would ask me out." Morok sneered. "Back to business, how do we stop it?"
Quylla looked at Morok, calculating her odds of throwing him down the hatch. Worst case scenario, it wouldn't help Lith but she would still get rid of him. Yet she was aware that some Golems might still be on the loose and she couldn't afford being distracted.
"We need to capture a Flesh Golem or Gaakhu. That bitch betrayed us, so in my book, she's expendable." Quylla replied. To be fair, Gaakhu had betrayed no one. Just like Quylla back at the academy, she had been enslaved.
The Odi had permanently altered her life force, making the slave item impossible to remove without killing her.
"Can't we just throw a couple of Assistants inside and see how it goes? They are much easier prey." Morok proposed.
"Yes, we could, but we still need something to detonate inside, otherwise we would just add new fuel to the Reactor." Quylla's reply shocked the Tyrant. He was just teasing her, never expecting that she would actually agree to such a heartless plan.
Quylla was disgusted by her own weakness just as much as she was from that of her colleagues. The lives of her sister and her best friend were at stake. To her, a couple of rambling idiots were now a small price to pay to save their lives.
***
Lith stood up, watching at Rizo walking towards them. The God's Will array was gone and ready to be activated again at any moment. Unlike Jiira, Rizo was a master swordsman. With his strong body and the power of the elements coursing through his body, he was certain to be able to take care of Lith.
