Hailey tenses briefly, looking up at the arrival, and lets out a breath. "Oooor, one of them could just show up right now."

Rean takes a step out of line to face the silver-haired girl.

"We're glad to see you're alright. Though... it looks like there was nothing to worry about in the first place."

"Nope," Fie agrees. "I'm small and quick. These monsters can't lay a finger on me."

She hops off the railing and strolls casually to a neutral conversational distance.

"Fie Claussell," she says lackadaisically. "That's my name. You're almost at the exit. It's that way."

She points a thumb behind herself.

"I found it ages ago, but Sara wouldn't let me leave without the rest of you there. Lame. So I've just been exploring."

Hailey rolls her eyes and grins. Figures. "Find anything interesting out there?"

"Just that other guy."

   From the hallway behind her, the sounds of a battle suddenly echo, faint but unmistakable.

"Speaking of which."

Fie pulls out a matched pair of small gunblades: gunmetal pistols each with a broad swooping bayonet that curves back around the majority of the gun, meant for slashing rather than stabbing. She spins, dropping low, moving so fast its more like she flickers and its suddenly facing the other way, then she shoots off down the hall, accelerating from nothing to holy shit in an instant.

"Well. Guess we'd best save our wayward nobleman."

She dashes down the hallway after Fie, batons in her hands.

"Right. Let's go!"

Laura checks to make sure the others are with her, and leads them forward toward the sounds of battle.

The sounds lead to a large, open chamber with a tall ceiling and a switchback staircase on the far wall, leading up to what looks like daylight.

A balcony overlooks the right-hand side of the room, and in the center of that balcony stands a massive stone gargoyle with glowing eyes. Those glowing eyes shoot out a beam of energy as everyone comes into the room, striking the floor at the other end of the room. Where the beam strikes, a crude miniature gargoyle coalesces out of nothing.

Jusis stabs out with his sword, pale bluish battle-aura flowing along the blade of his sword, concentrating in the tip as he stabs forward. The latest minigoyle reels back as his thrust cracks its scales. It lunges forward swiping at him, but Jusis darts back nimply, then pivots into a slash that takes the minigoyle's arm off.

    Fie, who is watching this from the back wall, flicks one of her gunblades into firing position. A small bolt of energy bursts out of the gunblade's barrel and slams into the minigoyle's head, smashing it into an involuntary backflip.

Jusis stabs down, finishing it off. It bursts into sepith beads.

There are... kind of a lot of sepith beads scattered all over the floor. Like, at least a dozen monster's worth, if not more. Jusis is breathing hard, sweat visible on his forehead.

"There's no end to them."

    "I told you," Fie says blandly.

Jusis grunts, glances over his shoulder to see Hailey and the rest bringing up the rear, and backs away from the front end of the room. The large gargoyle's eyes stop glowing.

Hailey skids to a stop next to Jusis, scattering some of the many sepith beads in her slide.

"Is that thing up there the source? And spawning too many little'uns to get up there and shut it down when it was just the two of you?"

"I wish," Fie deadpans.

    "The large statue seems able to summon monsters in proportion to how close one gets to the other side of the room," Jusis explains. "Step too close to the exit, and the monsters appear with increasing frequency."

"If that was the only problem, we could just run past them," Fie adds flatly, glaring up at the archway through which daylight is visible.

"Don't give up just yet, kids!" Sara's voice calls out.

She must be standing just over the threshold of the exit, out of sight at the top of the switchback staircase.

"Now that you're all here, I bet you can figure this out! I believe in you~"

She looks the room over again and then nods. "Idea. Casters and archers, get just as close as you need to for reliable shots; everyone else, keep the minis off them and throw a cast when you have a minute between wrecking minis?"

"Wait."

Rean offers Hailey an apologetic look. He looks over at Fie, then at Jusis.

"I'm guessing you already tried to destroy the statue?"

"Of course I did."

Jusis shoots an annoyed glance at Hailey.

"Each time we shattered the stone, it grew back."

"Ugh, should've asked that. Thanks," Hailey replies with a huff at the statue, then turns to Jusis and Fie. "Does anything else light up or glow when that happens?"

Not that they've seen.

However, among observed properties the class may discover by experimenting, there is this:

If anyone attempts to test the statue's "danger range" systematically, they'll discover a discretized series of ranges in successively smaller intervals approaching the statue.

There is a range in which the statue's eyes do not glow.

There is a closer range in which the statue's eyes do glow, but no monsters spawn.

There is a closer-than-that range in which the statue's eyes glow, and it also maintains the continuous presence of one monster, summoning a new minigoyle the moment the previous is killed.

Likewise, there is a yet-closer range in which the statue maintains two minigoyles. Then three. Then four. Then five.

Also observed. A closer range "activates" so long as there is one person in that range, but additional people within that range does not seem to affect the summoning behavior... but the statue's glowing eyes are... maybe a slightly different shade?

According to Fie, when she made her escape attempt earlier and was thwarted by their instructor, going past the statue produces more minigoyles than she could count. Two dozen at least. It took her ages to kill them all. So tedious.

Hailey tests all those things, then adds a few more. How fast does the statue reassemble itself when shattered? Does the eyeglow color change more if more people are standing in the zone? Does a different eyeglow shade change the reassembly speed?

Fast, according to Jusis.

It does!

It does not.

What about the entire class standing in the zone?

As soon as all ten of them are standing inside the glowing-eyes-but-no-monsters range all at the same time, Emma gasps softly, sensing a shift in the ambient mana.

"Something's happening!"

Stone creaks and crackles, with a sound like melting ice and tearing flesh.

The glowing eyes fade, but the glow spreads to the rest of the statue's bulk, creeping over it, sinking in. Soon, there is a living creature where the statue once stood, golden armor plates over reddish scales and dark blue flesh.

It roars, flaring its wings and brandishing its claws, before leaping down to land on all-fours in front of the nascent Class Seven, resembling a small dragon more than anything.

    "Is this sort of thing common in the empire?" Gaius asks, maintaining a fragile calm.

    "Not outside of old wives' tales," Jusis grunts.

Rean takes up a stance with his sword.

"This thing is the final obstacle between us and the surface. Our only choice is to defeat it."

    "I didn't expect to find the Dark Ages alive and well down here," Laura says. "I don't expect this foe to go down easily."

    "Oh A-Aidios..." Elliot gulps.

"We're in this together. And right now, that's what counts!"

    "It was annoying enough when it wasn't fighting back, but regardless this thing needs to die," Jusis says flatly.

"All together, work to make an opening and take it down. I don't think it's going to give us any more time to pla-!"

A green-tinged glow flows up along the gargoyle's wings, then it slams them forward and a powerful battering ram of wind smashes into the center of Class Seven's formation.

Rean, Alisa, and Machias are scattered like leaves... though Rean acrobatically flips around and lands on his feet, and Machias stays on his feet, sliding a ways back but not losing his balance as a faint Earthly aura surrounds him. Alisa goes down briefly but is back up too as soon as the terrible wind passes.

The gargoyle follows up on its wind attack by whirling toward the left flank and slicing at Emma and Elliot with its claws.

Emma, gripping her staff and staring in intense concentration, makes a small movement toward Elliot. The gargoyle's claws scrape off of nothing, striking sparks against empty space before a crackle of silver seams ripple out to reveal a spherical force shield. Emma twirls aside as the shield shatters under the blow, building up momentum behind her staff as she brings it around. A wave of purplish silver mana arcs out from the staff's head in a great crescent and slams into the gargoyle, sending it staggering backward...

...toward Hailey and Laura.

There are many things about the ARCUS that make it a true leap forward, a "Next Generation" orbment.

Refinements to the clockwork drivers allowing faster and more powerful Arts, yes. A new, more ergonomic case and controls, yeah. More standardized cosmetic customization options, that too.

Next Generation quartz designs to go with it, also that. A built-in communicator that doesn't drain noticeable amounts of EP to use, even that.

None of that is what happens next.

As the ten wielders of ARCUS face off together against this powerful monster, their battle auras mingle and synchronize. Normally this would be of little more than academic interest. Not so, anymore.

A soft, faint glow seems to emanate from the chests of all ten of them, felt more than seen. Felt through that mysterious extra feedback channel on each of their ARCUSes that previously wasn't doing anything at all.

It's not quite like sharing senses. It operates on a deeper level than that. But here, in this moment, the ten Class Seven prospects feel and act through each other, sensing and reacting on the level of instinct. There's no guesswork. There's no confusion. There is just bone-deep certainty and effortless coordination. Each of the others is there, doing that, and about to do this. For that one brief and miraculous moment, their unified will is actualized into unified action, and the ten of them are as one.