Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Chapter 103 - Golems

He expected the construct to shoot the icicles as soon as it created them and all of them at once, but Evin only heard the impact of one icicle hitting the pillar. 

<Should we attack it back seriously or do you want to try new things?> Evin asked.

<Go run circles around it. I wanna try something,> came the reply. <That icicle was much slower than what it could've been… I think it's going easy on us.>

Evin was a bit confused by the reply, but he still did as it ordered. But as he ran around the construct, Evin too, could see the weird behavior it was exhibiting. Even if it had the chance to shoot all its icicles for the greatest chance of succeeding, it only shot one icicle at a time, and it even seemed to wait a set amount of time between each shot. Not only that, their speed was a lot slower than any spell Evin saw before, and even then, the icicles looked dull and harmless.

The only threatening thing about the construct was its metallic body that constantly ran towards Evin, as if possessed. But even then, it could only follow Evin's back, never trying a flanking maneuver or use any other movements to catch him.

But Evin wasn't going to complain about his weak opponent, as it allowed him and the Voice to learn which attacks worked and which didn't on its metallic body. Hard Air Swords could work, but they quickly learned that Hard Air hammers, or maces had a much better effect. 

Icicles could work, if the Voice made it strong enough, but it turned out to be a waste of mana. Then the Voice tried to fill the thing's insides with water and then freeze it, but after the water got inside it, the control that the Voice had over the water was cut off forcefully. The same thing happened when Evin tried to gather oxygen inside the construct so he could set off an explosion inside it. The moment foreign World energies entered its body, they were instantly shredded to pieces, not allowing any influence from outside. 

'I can't be sure since I can't do it myself, but if a mage tried to disassemble it using the World of Earth, their control should also be forcefully cut off.'

They then tried to increase its weight using Qanatohm, and found that they could practically immobilize it if they weren't stingy with their mana expenditure. It could still use its icicles, but at least Evin wouldn't have to worry about it running towards him all the time.

Then, the Voice began to dismember the construct's limbs on by one. They learned that it couldn't control a limb that was cut off from the main body, and that the construct didn't try to reattach it in any matter. But the most interesting part was that the insides of the constructs were mostly hollow, with only Runes etched on the inside of the metal parts.

After they were finished with their tests, the Voice quickly finished it off by decapitating it. 

<I think those blue eyes are the main controlling device of this thing. It's almost impossible for me to lodge it off, but if we decapitate it, it should become useless.>

Like the Voice guessed, the body turned stiff the moment its head with the two blue gems were removed. The constant glow in its eyes also disappeared. 

Evin peeked into the fallen torso's insides, and found an unknown device, which had two lodestones attached to its side. He guessed that it was what allowed the construct to cast magic. But in its head, Evin found something much more disturbing, a small brain attached to the two eyeballs through some kind of vein-like cords.

As he was observing the product of magical engineering, a clicking sound came from his side. A tile in the wall popped up and Evin saw a document of some sorts inside it. 

[Morton Golem, Type 14 (rat-controlled) - an experimental version of the Morton Golem requested by an emissary of king Roland Arcwall (official – see kingdom's stamp).

As I have been asked to create a version that could be used as training partners for new mage students, many features of the previously made Type 11 Morton Golem have been removed, or instead limited, thus creating the Type 14. 

A rather boring project if I do say so myself. Basically, a dumbed down version of the Type 13. The only thing it can do is to run at opponents and shoot 'Ice shards' at them periodically. On top of that, the running speed of the Type 11 has been drastically reduced and also its 'Ice shards' are also quite pathetic. 

I don't really know what to write in this summary, except for it's a huge waste of good sorbothium. If our brilliant king wants to train the future of the kingdom by setting them against these things… well, I'm afraid I have bad news for him.

-Professor Heim Morton.]

Evin read through the summary and murmured inwardly.

<Heim Morton… Didn't we learn about this guy?>

<Of course we did. He's the most famous inventor and researcher in the kingdom's history. It wouldn't be weird if he holds the same title for the World. Especially so, since he was still alive only a few decades ago.> the Voice replied heavily.

Heim Morton was a researcher notorious for his disregard for human life. The man had no moral compass, buying countless slaves and animals to experiment on them in the name of science. He had no qualms about putting naked men, women, and children inside rooms made of ice to study the effects of hypothermia on their bodies. Each time, he would wait until the slaves reached death's doorsteps and then he would try out various methods of rewarming to see which worked best and which, not so much. 

Aside from the more normal ones like giving them access to warm temperatures while checking up on their bodies through the World of Life, there were more extreme ones like having them sit next to fire, or having Irratas energies infiltrate their bodies, with some survivors even testifying that Morton suggested throwing some into boiling waters. 

But hypothermia wasn't the only thing the man dabbled in. He experimented with poisons, venoms, sea waters, various studies on human blood, incendiary effects… but what he was most famous for was his organ and body part transplantation experiments. 

The man was obsessed with removing something and putting it where no sane person would ever think of putting. Of course, he began with experiments on replacing failing organs with fresh ones, but soon he tried putting in animal organs inside humans, tried rearranging the human organs in a different way, even trying to assemble one human by combining the organs of many different ones.

Each and every one of these experiments were meticulously documented and safeguarded inside the Morton household, with another copy kept inside the National Library's storage safes for private documents. 

He was eventually tried by the kingdom's law and was beheaded. He tried pleading that he didn't perform anything illegal, because by law, he could do anything to slaves that were originally criminals. But king Roland overruled the plead, saying that the lives of 4th grades shouldn't be treated so differently than normal citizens and executed him anyway.

<So why would the king's name pop up here?> Evin couldn't help but mutter.