Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Evin was then escorted to the door that lead to the Laboratories (which, as always, was located underground), and opened it. Without delay, he entered under the watchful eyes of the guards and closed the door behind him.

"Are you sure we should've have told the boss?" one guard's muffled voice could be heard from behind the door. "Sure, he has all the required cards and items, but he could've just stolen it from another student."

"If there were any problems, then Headquarters would've informed us already," Aksan was saying. "Although the kingdom expects some deaths during the test, it's not like them to just let some lone kid croak inside the Labs. Especially this year, which included the students that only awakened half a year ago. Accident control's much more capable this time with the rescue team including four times as much people."

"You're right… Didn't this place used to get at least 20 guards?"

"Yes, but the strength of the Castles are basically the same, since they told us to take things a bit more seriously this time around… They even promised to let us choose what we want to get from the mainland as a reward, he-he. You think they'll let us get some Lochra-flower seeds? Damn, I'm getting excited just thinking about it."

Evin was curious about the guards' talk, but they soon got too far for Evin to hear anything.

<Are they serious about the kingdom letting some students die?> he couldn't help but ask inwardly. <Did you know that? Is that why you're so calm after killing Byron?>

<They probably do allow some deaths on the Island. It explains a lot of things, like why we're not arrested yet for what we did, and why the teachers even let things reach that point in the first place… For now, let's focus on the Labs.>

Though he still felt guilty for Byron's kill, Evin allowed himself a sigh of relief. He then walked forward through the ketricite stairway, holding the map in his hands. It was pretty useless for the time being, because he didn't know where exactly he was on the map, but he hoped to find out soon enough. The drawings on the map didn't have any explanations, but there were a few rooms which stood out from the rest quite sharply, like a room which was supposedly filled with large glass tubes, and a room that looked full of heavy machinery. If he came upon such a room, Evin would be able to find his location on the map quite easily.

As Evin walked, the walls eventually turned to normal stones, and Evin came upon another door. Experience on the Island told him that he would find an enemy beyond the door.

<What do you think we'll find?> he asked the Voice.

<Only one way to find out,> it replied. <Let's prepare.>

Evin changed the Apdenul energies inside his body to mostly Seyethe's and let the Voice prepare its air bullet accelerator. It was the newer version that the Voice used to deal with Decatur's siege. It was very useful since the Voice didn't have to use the World energies to create air particles, he just had to chuck in existing ones so it didn't dissipate upon contact with ketricite, or if it entered an area that had ketricite's magic negating properties.

Taking a deep breath, Evin opened the door.

'At least this time I don't have to carry around a spear that I won't be using…' Evin thought as he remembered Albin's gift, which he left with the guards.

Like always, he quickly scanned the room for enemies and saw a tall, very detailed and well-made metallic construct standing motionlessly between two large pillars. Its most defining feature was its humanoid appearance and two blue colored stones that were located in its eye sockets, which started to glow when Evin entered the room.

It then turned its head towards Evin and designated him as its enemy, with the way its body assumed a more threatening pose.

Its layered body reminded Evin a lot about Aran's metal prosthetic, which had so many small joints and details that it was basically no different than an ordinary arm. This construct was the same with how easily it seemed to move its body.

The Voice didn't allow it any time to do anything and shot two strong air bullets at it, but the attack had no effects whatsoever. The two blue eyes didn't budge at all from their spot, and the metal exterior just brushed off the air bullets. But thanks to the sound it made, Evin noticed that the construct was made of the same material his spear was made of, sorbothium. Since Evin worked with metals a lot, he could easily recognize the special traits.

'It's pretty bad, if that's the case…' Evin thought.

Evin didn't know everything about the metal, but he did know that it was able to absorb World energies inside it and exhibit some of its powers. This meant that the thing in front of him might be able to use magic.

<Pull out some stone bullets,> the Voice ordered as it changed its accelerator's shape.

As the two were preparing stronger ammunition, the construct also began to move towards Evin. It wasn't so fast, but its heavy footsteps crashing onto the floor and its eyes that glowed brighter and brighter each second worried Evin, but he pushed down the fear and dashed sideways. The room was big enough, so the construct wouldn't be able to catch up to him so easily. But if he ran back to the corridor, he would quickly reach the ketricite, so that was definitely a bad idea.

As Evin was running around the room, the Voice began to shoot stones. They left dents and scratches on the surface, but they weren't enough to break it.

<Should we hit it with explosions?>

<Not yet,> the Voice replied. <Let's first try out our other methods and then we can take excessive measures. We should use this chance because it's moving around so slowly.>

The next two minutes, the Voice managed to confirm that fire didn't have any visible effects on the construct, but his Hard Air swords could definitely damage the thing if the Voice wasn't stingy with mana and imagination. The Voice consistently attacked its neck and managed to create about a two finger wide cut and revealed some of what was behind the construct's glossy exterior.

But when they were about to test out ice and water, the construct stirred the mana in the room and created an array of long icicles around itself.

'Shit, I knew it!' Evin thought as he quickly ran behind a pillar.