Hearing Asenna speak, Aiden couldn’t help but feel surprised, "What?"

"This thing is beyond what I can handle," Asenna explained while distancing herself a bit from Aiden.

At the same time, the mercury began to boil and surge, rapidly taking on a humanoid shape.

"As expected... there are theoretically only two ways to animate mercury like this," Asenna explained concisely, "One is to use the most meticulous alchemy to make the mercury into a drivable golem, and the other is to impart life to the metal directly. In the first case, my necromancy is useless against an object that has neither life nor soul, and in the second... it’s completely beyond the limits of black magic; too high-ranking, and necromancy can’t kill it. I advise you to look out for yourself."

"Not going to try it first?" Aiden glanced at her, "And why are you getting farther and farther away from me?"

"It seems to be targeting you. As long as I keep my distance from you, I’ll be safe," Asenna analyzed rationally, "Standing too close makes it easy to get caught in a simultaneous attack."

"..." Aiden realized bringing this Necromancer along might have been a mistake.

The mercury finally coalesced into the form of a woman, whose long hair waved anti-gravitationally like seaweed in water.

Just as Asenna had analyzed, it immediately locked onto Aiden, assuming a tense posture ready to attack, and even let out a low growl with a metallic timbre.

It was a golem sent by Vila—Aiden discerned the truth about this creature.

That witch had actually brought out a new trump card, a metal slime—no, much more advanced than that, this thing was practically a liquid metal robot.

When he saw the mercury change shape, Aiden did feel a bit dumbstruck; the technology leap from rune-powered wooden puppets to the T-1000 from "Terminator" seemed incredibly off-script, didn’t it?

It seemed to have entered through the sewer system. This creature could probably navigate the sewer pipes in its transformed state and break through pipes to infiltrate the crevices in walls. Once close to its target, the golem would burst forth from the walls.

After a brief consideration, Aiden decided to try to kill it; escaping might not be possible, and as the jail’s warden, he couldn’t allow such a dangerous beast to roam freely in his prison.

He drew his gun and fired decisively. His gun was loaded with Magic Devouring Bullets, ammunition made from Anti-Magic Stone, which was more precious than most gems. If he hit his target, whether it passed through or remained lodged within, it would seal the target’s magic power. It was known as the "Mage Killer," a tool used by Judge agents of the Inquisition to deal with all spellcasters and magical constructs. Its only downside was its expensive cost.

However, as he drew his gun, the mercury golem in the cell rapidly responded, transforming its right hand into a shield that covered its front; the bullet sparked as it hit the shield.

Aiden was taken aback for a moment. Liquid mercury could not possibly deflect a bullet with sheer hardness; the golem must not be made entirely of mercury, and it likely included some special material mixed in to allow it to harden quickly and freely.

The next second, the golem growled lowly and lunged straight at Aiden.

Aiden dodged swiftly; he had to avoid it. Mercury’s density was over thirteen times that of an average human body, nearly double that of iron. This golem, roughly the size of a slender adult woman, weighed at least half a ton. The impact of its charge was akin to that of a rampaging bull, not to mention the possibility that the golem could infiltrate and tear him to shreds from the inside out through his mouth and nose.

After a brief hesitation, Asenna, having already increased the distance, pointed her magic wand toward the golem, unleashing the high-level necromancy "Netherworld Ghostfire".

The green flames instantly enveloped the reformed golem, but they had no effect on it, and the golem didn’t even glance back at her.

"Hmm, as expected, it’s ineffective," Asenna nodded lightly with an expected expression.

"Netherworld Ghostfire" is a spell that burns souls, and the temperature of the flames isn’t very high, so it’s unrealistic to think of instantly heating such a large volume of mercury to its boiling point.

"Stop heating it, do you want to give me mercury poisoning?" Aiden spoke up to stop her, "If it’s of no use, just fall back to the gate."

The golem’s pounce had completely separated him from Asenna, but this had no influence on him; he had never counted on the Necromancer anyway. To deal with this golem, in the end, he could only rely on himself.

Aiden was still relatively calm inside, the golem was just a creation of dark magic after all. Since the mercury golem had only moved around in the regular prison area and hadn’t directly invaded the core area to find him, it showed that the golem was still restricted by the sealing barrier. Therefore, the divine words of "Order" should still be effective against it. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Thinking thus, he quickly retreated backwards.

The mercury golem, too, approached closer, although it had transformed into a human form, it didn’t seem to walk on two feet like humans do, but rather used the mercury connected at its ankles to move in a flowing manner along the ground.

Aiden then turned and ran deeper into the corridor, and the golem immediately reacted, changing its mode of movement, chasing after him with direction-changing leaps and bounds.

Soon, a dead end appeared ahead; the inmates of the prison wing were already cleared out. Confident that he had put enough distance between himself and the entrance, Aiden cast his body transformation spell, turning to speak the divine words towards the golem that was in hot pursuit.

He executed this set of actions as smoothly as flowing water, masterfully. During his days in the prison, he had been studying this particular divine word, his trump card, practicing it numerous times—only he hadn’t expected to be able to use it in actual combat so soon again.

The divine words took effect swiftly, and the golem, which was about to pounce on its cornered prey, came to an abrupt halt, then shrunk into an oval shape, churning unnaturally.

In the end, accompanied by a strange roaring sound, the golem deflated like a balloon losing air, slowly dissolving, like a piece of butter being heated, as Aiden’s divine spell dispelled the dark magic’s effect on the mass of mercury.

That was settled... the end came too simply, so Aiden actually felt a sense of loss for a moment.

But he promptly reflected on it, realizing that being able to resolve the situation simply should be a good thing. After all, this wasn’t a game, and he wasn’t the type of person who could handle the pressure of narrowly escaping death in an intense battle.

Speaking of which, this witch named Vila really had some skills, being able to create even a "Terminator". Given time to further explore this technological tree, could she end up creating a magical Gundam?

Aiden thought whimsically, cautiously stepping around and preparing to bypass the pool of mercury to go out and call someone to clean up.

But just as he took the first step, the mercury, which had been slowly spreading out, began to gather back together as if awakening.

Aiden immediately stood stunned—was this thing still "alive"?