The Flesh Golems were close enough that a small array was enough to cover all of them, shortening the length of Neshal's chant and requiring less mana.

As soon as it was complete, their power cores became visible despite the darkness shrouding the Golems. A wave of Neshal's hand deactivated her arrays and sent the three nails flying at their targets at such a speed that the air deformed at their passage.

The enchanted items made short work of the construct's protections and pierced through their cores. Then, they absorbed the lingering energy of their master's arrays and injected it inside the Golems, killing them on the spot.

"Feel free to leave me here." Neshal said while collapsing on the floor.

Lith had no time to ask her what she had done exactly and why she hadn't done that earlier. First, he had to treat Quylla and Morok, who were in a desperate condition. The massive dose of darkness element at point-blank range had aggravated their wounds and crippled their vitality.

After stabilizing them, he and Phloria were the only ones still conscious, and that only because Phloria had left most of her wounds untreated. Without her shield, she couldn't block the Golems' attacks, which had resulted in her taking quite a beating.

Several shards of ice were still edged in her left side, a fireball had burned part of her hair and turned the right side of her face red. She had no more eyebrows and her right eye was veiled.

Under her armor, her skin was a collection of burn marks due to all the electricity she had endured, yet she was still standing.

"Oh, fuck it." Lith said, placing his hands on her shoulders while chanting gibberish. He fully Invigorate her, making Phloria feel as if she had just woken up from eight hours of sleep.

All of her wounds had disappeared and even her hair was back. Phloria was too tired to be shocked, so she simply accepted that blessing and waited for an explanation.

"I need your help." Lith said instead. "I can't carry them all by myself and take care of the security measures at the same time. I'm not leaving Quylla here and these two are needed for our survival."

"Just one question." Phloria replied. "What use could they possibly have in such a state? Wouldn't it be better if you recharged everyone now? What good are your secrets if the Odi get their hands on our bodies?"

"I'll take my chances." Lith said.

Before they moved towards the research area, Phloria put her rocks back inside her pocket dimension. They advanced slowly, destroying the cameras on their passage to prevent the Odi from spying on them.

***

Quylla wasn't the only one who had thought about playing possum. Manohar's reckless act to find out Thrud's hidden fortress had been a hot topic for quite some time.

The moment the Golems had surrounded them, Yondra knew that struggling was pointless, so she had used her resources to not lose consciousness and had let the construct take her.

'We are too much at a disadvantage, fighting can only buy us so much time. This way, instead, I can find out what happened to Rainer and get behind the enemy lines in a single move.' She thought.

Quylla had explained to her how to defeat the Golems, so Yondra had used that time to Scanner her captor and the moment he had brought her in front of the cells, she had struck at its runes with Chisel.

It was enough to paralyze but not to kill it. To do that, she needed to employ much more crude methods. Time was of the essence, so she just stabbed with her most powerful enchanted blade all of the Golem's stone parts until she cracked its power core.

It was a feat that would have been impossible if the construct wasn't completely helpless. Knowing that she didn't have much time, Yondra used her detection spells to check for the presence of surveillance systems and study the cell's door.

Her aim was to rescue Rainer and then find a way out of there. She would have loved to help Lith and the others as well, but Yondra wasn't so naïve to think that she could manage to do everything by herself.

Like everything else, the underground prison was made of metal and its doors were made of some kind of reinforced glass to allow to look inside. The cells clearly weren't meant for prisoners so much as for specimens.

There was no bed nor bathroom, only glowing red chains from which the Odi's victims were hung to the wall. Yondra looked at Ellkas and Gaakhu, lying unconscious at her feet, wondering if they could be of any use to her.

It took her just a second to decide to heal them just enough to wake them up.

'I can't read the Odi language and if things turn for the worse, I can always use them as a diversion.' Yondra thought.

She didn't wait that her colleagues recovered and started looking around for her beloved Assistant. Each cell was made to contain up to four specimens, so the missing members of the expedition were held into two different cells.

One for the soldiers and the other for the Assistants.

After disposing of the security cameras, Yondra was quite surprised to discover that there were no protections on the doors. The only thing restricting the prisoners was the same chains that had been used to imprison the Abomination-disease hybrid.

The youths were all awake. Some were pale from the fright, while others had their eyes red from the crying. Rainer was among the former, yet his face regained color when he saw Yondra.

"Seriously? I get that you are scared but with your hands and mouth free how could you have chosen to remain here?" She loved Rainer like a son, but the idea that terror had led him to sit idly enraged her beyond what words could express.

One thing was being meek, being stupid was another thing entirely.

"I tried to escape, but these goddamn chains block my magic." Rainer conjured a small wisp of light before the chains started to glow. They emitted an ominous pulse of energy that made Rainer's veins bulge as waves of pain ravaged his body.

Yondra felt guilty for her rushed judgment. Rainer had willingly endured that pain to reveal the nature of the magical artifact to his mentor.

"This explains why the hybrid was unable to use anything but physical attacks." Yondra mumbled. Even though she had no time to waste, her scientific curiosity made her cast a few Forgemastering spells to analyze the chains.

'Such knowledge might come in handy in case we get captured again.' She thought in an attempt to justify her actions.

Curiosity was what separated powerful magicians from a mediocre one, just like the brush they used allowed to distinguish between a painter from a whitewasher.

'What in the gods name is this? The chains are able to lock on the life force of their prisoner to nullify their mana flow and to heal them in case of injuries. That's why the magical beasts the Odi captured didn't manage to commit suicide nor the hybrid to escape from the chains. Even amputating your limbs is not an option.'

Yondra was amazed by the cruel ingenuity of such a device, but luckily, it was older than her first diaper. A simple tier four Clean Slate made the red chains open, freeing Rainer.

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