Ragni significantly thinned the ranks of the enemy, although the exploding golems caused her problems, it was the larger golems that annoyed her much more.
"How they have become a nuisance, and I can't fly on my wings anymore," the dragoness tried to stretch her wings, but there were cuts from the golems' blades on them, and they hardly moved. "And for some reason, I can't remove them completely now. Well, we'll fight as it is. Damn, why did they decide to join the battle right now?"
The two eight-meter golems standing next to the square finally started moving. Both giants headed towards the students.
"Werner, I hope you and Miri can handle this small fry while I deal with the big ones."
"Do we have a choice?"
"Hardly. These two won't let us get to the rest unless we destroy them. They deliberately waited until I caught my breath, and it's unlikely to be an easy battle."
The dragoness gathered her remaining strength and directed it towards transformation. Though her wings lost sensitivity, they stubbornly refused to retract, but she managed to temporarily convert her hands and legs.
"I won't be able to maintain this transformation for long, but let's see how far I can go," the dragoness smiled with a malicious, toothy grin, a side effect of the incomplete transformation, and charged into the enemy ranks.
"Ragni, stop!" Liri, who had rushed to the front, didn't have time to warn the dragoness.
"She'll be back after dealing with the giants," Werner tried to calm the sorceress, but only made it worse.
"Tsk, she won't make it alone," Leira accelerated with lightning magic and followed after the dragoness.
"Where are you going?" Werner couldn't stop the girl, and a new wave of golems forced him to retreat.
"Now let's fight for real," Ragni scattered all the small golems in her path, and the smaller ones no longer approached her. "Ha, give me space to unleash myself, Kurone!"
The possessed sorceress watched the battle from afar and now shifted her attention to the dragon, giving those fighting in the center a temporary respite.
"Then I won't disappoint you."
The majority of students were still holding the defense in the center of the square. The rector supported the shield and, at the same time, tried to heal the wounded students.
"They are getting closer," the rector said wearily but still felt the movement of students inside the Academy. "When they get here, I'll have to drop the barrier. During that time, you'll have to protect the students."
"We'll manage with that," Seleria said with pride, but she too was heavily exhausted from maintaining the barrier for so long.
"As long as the mages can't help, only our warriors will hold back the golems. It will be tough for them without support," Katrina tried to come up with a way to aid in the battle, but only one idea came to mind. "Seli, I'll step away for a moment, can you manage without me?"
"Hey, whatever," the lightning barrier vanished, and waves of golems were only being held back by two shields. Although they didn't significantly slow the golems, they allowed the warriors to fend them off in smaller groups instead of facing all at once.
"Alfred," the princess turned to the inquisitor with a serious expression, "only your magic had an effect on the golems, and it seems you know something about them. Care to explain?"
"I don't understand what you want from me."
"Don't pretend. If our magic could affect them, we could handle them. Spill it out!"
"It won't help you anyway. I can weaken their magical shields, but it would still require too much power even to destroy one golem."
"Then tell me how you do it! I have enough strength to deal with a much larger number of golems."
"These golems were created in Belenor. If you haven't noticed, we may soon be facing a full-scale war."
"I won't allow that!"
"If you can manage. But in any case, the Church won't allow the Empire to win. As the first attack showed, Verania's chances are quite doubtful. So we were developing possible solutions. Golems were one of the options, but as experience showed, not a very successful one."
"What do you mean?"
"To activate them, a considerable amount of magic was needed. Direct control was expensive. Even the strongest mages struggled to control three golems. Managing the giants with a group of five people was also difficult. So we tried using crystallized souls."
"You used a kind of necromancy that even necromancers find abhorrent!"
"Don't be so upset. The experiment failed, and we had to cover it up. The golems quickly lost control and attacked anyone nearby. However, we decided not to destroy them just in case and simply locked them in the dungeon. Who would have known that a dark mage capable of controlling them would come along?"
"Kurone is not bad!"
"Sure, but now someone else is controlling the golems. In any case, they can't move without her. But it's unlikely they will let us get close to her."
"Enough beating around the bush. How did you bypass their defense?"
"Ah, that. The golems were quite effective in fighting against warriors, but against mages, they were mere toys. So we inscribed spells onto their armor to protect them from magic. Inquisitors use pretty much the same magic, and our weapons are also enchanted to deflect magic or magical barriers. Though it requires more power than ordinary spells."
"So you can help?"
"As I said, I don't have enough power to bring them all down, but you could look for the inquisitors' staves in the camp if anything is left there."
Katrina turned towards the blazing camp behind them, where it all began.
"There's hardly anything left there,"
"Well, you see, so what? Without getting too close and risking ourselves, only I, Miguel, and Milena can break through their defense," Alfred replied.
"So what are you waiting for?"
"You are so annoying. I'm telling you, we can't do it! The golems were also imbued with the ability to self-recover. If they have enough energy, they can reassemble their bodies, and they will be larger than before. I will have a hard time taking down these eight-meter giants, and that's not even their limit for growth. I'd rather run away at the first opportunity than risk my life for nothing."
"You coward!"
"I'm just trying to think rationally."
"You won't get out of here anyway. Kurone certainly won't let you go."
"Hah, you think so?" Alfred took out a smooth eight-sided crystal from his pocket. "Not if she can catch me."
"What's that?"
"A prototype of a stone that can teleport me away from here. Although it hasn't been tested in such conditions yet, it should work."
"So you're really planning to just escape!?"
"Not just escape, but take you out of here too. The crystal can transport both of us, so stop your tantrum, and it's time to leave."
"And you'll abandon your comrades?"
"Only Miguel and Milena are left of them. They can take care of themselves, and if not, it's not my fault. So, as soon as the barrier is lifted, we'll get out of here."
"I'm not going to run away and abandon my comrades."
"You were going to leave them in a few days anyway, what's the difference now?"
"It's a completely different matter! After everything that happened, do you think I'll keep that damn promise? After what you and her did?"
"You know it will only get worse."
"I'd rather die here with my friends than live with such a worthless creature like you." The princess took off her glove and removed the ring from her finger. "You can consider all this never happened. You can crawl back to your daddy, and tell him that next time we meet, he won't live!"
"Hah, you're unlikely to meet again. You'll die here with these so-called friends, whom you're connected to only by a brainwashed sister witch."
Katrina's eyes sparked with lightning, and with one hand, she lifted the insolent inquisitor into the air.
"You better get out of here quickly, or I won't give Kurone the chance to finish you off personally."
"Don't worry, nothing is holding me here now."
Having achieved nothing, Katrina returned to the rector.
The dragoness fought with two serious opponents at once. Despite their size, the giants didn't lose much in speed, but they gained considerable strength.
"We need to disable at least one of them first," the dragoness slid under the arms of one of the golems and stopped beneath its breastplate. With force, she pushed off the ground and dug her claws into the living armor. "Tch, it's sturdy."
Unlike the smaller golems, the dragoness couldn't crack the giant's armor with a single strike; there were only a few cracks on it. However, using the momentum from her attack, she pushed the golem backward, and with another leap, she knocked it down with a kick.
Having knocked down one golem, she immediately jumped aside as the blade of the second golem swept past where she stood.
"Well, I won't fall for that twice," the dragoness dodged the second golem's attacks and climbed onto its armor, trying to climb higher. "There must be a weak point somewhere around here."
While leaving only minor scratches on the armor, her blows only caused small cracks. But the armor, like that of the smaller golems, was assembled from parts, which meant there were joints.
Reaching the shoulder, the dragoness struck at the base of the helmet. The metal there was thinner, but the joint was surprisingly strong. After making a small crack, Ragni slipped her claws into it and tore off the golem's head.
"Phew, found it," there was a magical stone of immense size inside the chestplate. "What an explosion it will make... I'll have to take a risk."
Ragni gathered flames in her hand and prepared to finish off the golem, but she was knocked down by a barrage of magical arrows. Not fully recovered yet, the golem pointed one hand towards her. Unlike the smaller golems, which had only one weapon on their wrists, this giant's magical arrows shot from each finger.
"Ouch," catching a couple of shots, Ragni fell to the ground and hid behind the nearest golem's remains. "This weapon is more serious, but how long will it keep shooting?!"
The smaller golems were limited to a few shots, but this giant had fired over a hundred and showed no sign of stopping.
"I won't be able to get any closer like this," Ragni peeked out from behind the armor, but the barrage of arrows didn't allow her to expose herself for a second. "I need to get closer."
Meanwhile, the second golem had restored itself and was heading towards the dragoness' cover. Even the armor fragments dispersed the golem's shots, but if the second golem got closer, it would crush the dragoness in a trap she couldn't escape.
"Arrgh, I'll have to use this thing as a shield," the dragoness grabbed a piece of the armor by the joint on the inside and prepared to attack the golem. The plan was risky, but it was the only thing that came to her mind. "I wish someone would help me with the second one. Come on, just a little closer."
The golem stopped three meters away from the dragoness' cover and didn't rush forward.
"Why are you frozen?" Ragni cautiously looked through a crack in the armor; something was changing inside the golem. The breastplate split right in the middle, slowly spreading apart. "I spent ten minutes trying to reach your core, and now you're exposing it for me? Such a chance, but something's not right here."
Gradually, the core of the golem was exposed under its armor, and the dim glow in the dark-purple crystal grew stronger.
"Damn," Ragni crouched to the ground and buried the armor shard as deep as possible into the earth. In the next second, a beam of magical power, much stronger than any arrows fired before, burst out of the golem's core.
The dragoness tried to hold onto the armor, but it began to crack under the pressure of such strong magic. The first golem ceased its bombardment but still kept the cover in its sights, not allowing Ragni to escape.
"Ragni!" another lightning-shrouded sorceress rushed into the battle. The girl jumped onto the first golem and struck the base of its arm with her open palm. Passing the lightning through her hand, she turned it into a sharp blade, and the golem's barrier couldn't dispel the magic from such a distance. "How will you handle this?!"
The lightning palm pierced the metal and, somewhat reluctantly at first, but then deeper and deeper, severed the golem's arm completely. The second golem turned around, still not ceasing its barrage.
"At last, my chance," tossing away the armor, the dragoness leaped out of her hiding. Before the golem could react, she struck its chest with both legs. Her scales protected her from the magical beam, while the force of the blow left a deep crack in the crystal. "Time to leave."