Vin could only stare at the Witch, his mouth and brain seeming to fall out of synch for a moment as he struggled to get out everything he wanted to say all at once. Finally, he managed to pull himself together, glaring at the infernal.

  “Why didn’t you tell us that from the beginning?!” He demanded. “You don’t think we should have known from the start that this all might be for nothing?”

  “Would that have changed anything?” Madam Trebella asked, rolling her eyes. “Now, take off the spatial bag and get into your circle. The longer we wait, the weaker your friend becomes and the greater the chance she won’t be able to overcome the golem’s innate defenses.”

  Vin wanted to say more, but in the end, he had to admit she was right. Even if they’d known there was only a slim chance of all this working, that wouldn’t have stopped them from risking their lives in order to steal the golem from the library. Alka was their friend, and they’d risk whatever it took to get her back.

  Scowling at the Witch as she took her place in the ritual, Vin poked his pocket, waking Scule up.

  “We’re about to start the ritual Scule. Mind grabbing your bag?”

  “Can do,” Scule yawned, hopping out of his pocket. Stumbling on the landing, Scule walked gingerly over to the golem, giving it a careful look as he undid the rope keeping the bag secured. Taking a deep breath, he yanked the bag off in one smooth motion, immediately fleeing to the edge of the room. Reginald jumped down as well, offering Vin a small squeak of encouragement before running off to join the Rogue.

  The moment the bag was removed, the electric blue balls of light making up the golem’s eyes flickered back into existence and swiveled around like loose marbles, taking in the room and the people surrounding it in an instant before landing on Vin.

  “Why am I disconnected from the library’s matrix?” It asked, and Vin could easily imagine the confused tone despite the construct still speaking in its preprogrammed, weirdly upbeat voice. “Where is the librarian?”

  “We needed to borrow one of the library’s golems in order to save our friend,” Vin explained, a pang of sadness spiking through him as he took in the immobile golem. Despite knowing it was little more than a magical machine, he still felt bad about what they were about to do. “If you can understand any of this… I’m sorry.”

  “Stop talking to it and get into position,” Madam Trebella snapped. “And make sure you have the broken sword pieces with you. Because it was her original anchor and she had such a strong connection to it, there is a good chance parts of her are still clinging to that as well, so we’ll want you and the sword in the same circle.”

  Giving the golem one final look of regret, Vin walked over and accepted the two sword halves from Shia before finally taking his own position within the runic array. Taking a deep breath, he nodded toward the Witch.

  “Ready when you are.”

  “Okay then…” she said, cracking her neck and flexing her fingers a few times. “Just like before, don’t leave the circle until I tell you the ritual is complete. It very well might appear done to you, but my eyes can see traces of magic far beyond what yours can. Understand?”

  “Yes, I’ll stay in the circle,” Vin repeated, frowning. After emphasizing how time was of the utmost importance, he felt like every second they wasted was only increasing the odds of the ritual failing.

  Scanning the array one last time, Madam Trebella nodded, seemingly pleased with her handiwork. Throwing one last glance at him as if triple checking he was in fact still in his circle, she crouched down and slammed her hands into the ground.

  Immediately, bright red energy pulsed out from her circle across the floor, lighting up the massive array of runes and connecting all three circles to one another. Unlike the ritual of purification, rather than crackling blasts of red lightning, this time hundreds of small glowing red and black orbs began rising up from the various materials, swirling around them and obscuring his vision. Vin had to resist the temptation to reach out and try touching one of the glowing orbs, knowing full well he’d probably either kill himself or destroy the ritual.

  As the number of orbs grew and began swirling about even faster, Vin was suddenly jerked forward by some unseen force, and he barely managed to catch himself before getting yanked out of his protective circle. Planting his feet and fighting against the pull, he gasped as a tiny green ball of light no larger than a pea was drawn out of his core, slowly drifting forward until it left the protective circle.

  The moment it crossed the boundary, the closest red orb shot down, fully engulfing the weak, flickering light and dragging it over to the golem. Vin was startled by the realization that the circle around the golem clearly wasn’t any sort of protection, as the orb flew directly into it, slamming into the head of the golem like a bullet and rocking it back.

  “Foreign presence detected,” the golem announced loudly, its electric blue eyes flickering for the briefest of moments as though they’d lost power. “Please return this unit to the library matrix for recalibration.”

  Vin only vaguely heard the golem’s request as his attention was entirely upon the green lights slowly pouring out of his own core. Light after light drifted out of him as the ritual picked up speed, each one of the tiny glowing balls being sucked up into the maelstrom of red orbs and blasted into the golem. The storm grew stronger, and Vin stared at the golem as it was buffeted from all angles; the red orbs not letting up in the slightest as they continued impacting the immobile construct again and again. The construct continued to try and call for assistance, but every orb that collided with it caused its power to flicker.

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  “Foreign presence detect… Foreign presence d… Foreign pre… For…”

  As the green lights began streaming out of Vin in earnest, the golem quickly got to the point where it wasn’t even able to utter a sound, its glowing blue eyes in a constant flickering state as it was bombarded without end. When the green lights began pouring out of the two halves of Dancing Leaf as well, the golem became overwhelmed, its head swinging back and smashing into the basement floor under the glowing onslaught.

  For the faintest of moments, its electric blue eyes flickered to a familiar bright green.

  “Alka!” Vin called out, his heart racing. As he watched, the color of the golem’s eyes began warring between Alka’s ghostly green and the golem’s bright blue. As more and more of Alka’s fragments were transferred from Vin and the sword halves to the golem, the stronger and more powerful the green glow seemed to become. Each time the eyes turned green they stayed like that for just a fraction of a second longer, until it quickly got to the point where the green and blue seemed almost perfectly balanced.

  Vin wanted nothing more than to run over and grab the golem’s shoulders, to shake it and scream in its face for Alka to wake up. But a single look at the maelstrom of energy swirling all around them was all it took to remind him of the danger he was in.

  That didn’t mean there was nothing they could do of course.

  “You can do it Alka!” Shia screamed from the edge of the ritual room, far from the dangers of the active ritual. The elf had her hands cupped around her mouth, and her braid was flapping out behind her from the severe winds coming off the ritual. “Don’t give up!”

  “Yeah, stop being all dramatic and wake up already!” Scule shouted, earning himself a light smack on the back of his head from Reginald’s tail before the rat cried out himself, letting out the loudest and highest pitch squeak of encouragement Vin had ever heard from the rodent.

  To Vin’s shock, even Madam Trebella joined in, glaring at the vibrating construct as she struggled to maintain the ritual and call out at the same time. “This ritual isn’t cheap, girl, and we have an agreement! If you give up now, I’m going to personally pick up your pieces and bind them to a lame chicken!”

  “We’re all waiting for you Alka!” Vin screamed, clenching his fist and staring at the golem as its eyes continued to war between electric blue and brilliant green; the head starting to violently twitch and shake as though it were going to explode. Just as Madam Trebella said it would, the paint on its neck preventing the golem from moving seemed to finally burn away under the ritual’s might, and the golem’s entire body began thrashing around. “That golem is basically just a magical, man-made monster! Is the world’s youngest Slayer really going to lose to a monster now?!”

  The moment the taunt left his lips, the golem seized up, and a powerful wave of energy blasted out of it in all directions, disrupting the soaring red orbs and knocking both him and Madam Trebella onto their butts. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it and stop the ringing caused by the explosion, Vin glanced over at the golem, his heart dropping as he took in the construct lying motionless on the ground.

  Its empty sockets were devoid of any sort of light altogether, showing neither blue nor green.

  “Alka!” He shouted, getting to his feet and taking a step toward the golem.

  “Wait, damn you!” Madam Trebella shouted, pushing herself up and holding out a hand. “What part of don’t leave the circle was too hard for you to understand?!”

  Gritting his teeth, Vin stood there, barely a dozen feet away from the lifeless golem as he waited for permission to check on his friend. Glancing at Madam Trebella, he watched as her golden eyes seemed to gleam under an invisible light. The Witch’s eyes were flicking rapidly back and forth between the golem and the sword, as though the two inanimate objects were locked in a deadly debate and she was the sole member of the audience. After almost an entire minute of dead silence, she finally let out an exhausted sigh, lowering her shaking arm and nodding toward the golem.

  “The ritual is done,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

  Vin didn’t need any more encouragement than that, and he practically launched himself out of his circle, dashing over to the golem and dropping to his knees beside it. Grabbing it by the shoulder, he shook it, looking down into its sculpted face.

  “Alka!” He screamed, his eyes searching over every speck of the golem’s strange, marble-like body in the hopes of seeing some hint of his friend in there. He was so panicked, he accidently brought up a few new notifications waiting for him.

  New ritual witnessed! Tier 4 Soul Ritual (Ritual of Binding). 4,000 exp gained.

  New magical affinity discovered! Soul affinity. 9,000 exp gained.

  Level up! Magical Explorer lvl 28!

  +3 Attribute points

  +1 Skill point

  Tossing his points into magic without a second thought, Vin waved away the pesky notifications and waited with bated breath for some sign that the ritual had been a success. As he stared at the golem, he recognized a few sets of footsteps racing up behind him.

  “Did it work?!” Shia asked, dropping down beside him and laying a hand on the golem’s other shoulder. “Alka, are you in there?”

  “Come on Alka, we know you like your dramatic entrances, but this is a bit much,” Scule chuckled nervously, kicking the golem’s leg and giving Vin a worried look. “It worked, didn’t it? We all saw the lights flowing from you and the sword into the golem.”

  “It worked,” Vin nodded, speaking with far more certainty than he felt. As Reginald climbed up onto the golem and nuzzled against its marble stomach, Vin leaned over its face once more, staring down at it. “Come on Alka, you gotta give us something. We nearly died getting this new body for you.”

  The four of them waited silently, not wanting to miss even the smallest indication that Alka was alive in there. After almost a full ten seconds of silence, Vin heard what sounded like a faint whisper come from seemingly nowhere.

  “…common… born…”

  “Alka?!” He asked, lifting up the golem’s head as they all leaned in closer. Despite the lack of a moving mouth, they all heard what was distinctly Alka’s voice weakly emanating from the golem’s head somehow.

  “World’s… first…. Common-born… Slayer… you… beanstalk…”

  Before Vin could decide if he wanted to laugh or cry the golem’s eyes flared to life, glowing a familiar, ghostly green. As the burning green eyes fixed themselves on him, Alka spoke once more, her voice growing stronger with every syllable.

  “Somebody get me a new sword…” She said, shakily pushing herself up and forming her new hand into a fist.

  “I want a round two against that lizard freak.”

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