Corvis Eralith
A teal Bubblespell, visible only to the Arbiter's eyes, exploded from my core. I was violently ripped backward through time, returning to the exact anchor point I had captured with REtrocurrent: the middle of the war council inside Gideon's laboratory.
The agonised screams of the artificer and the Twin Horns still echoed deafeningly in my ears; a phantom noise I feared I would never truly forget. What had happened? Who had breached the lab so quickly?
"Tinkerf—ehm, Wonderboy?" Gideon asked, snapping me back.
Raising my head, I realised the eyes of every member of the Chain of Solidarity in the room were fixed on me.
"Sorry, I zoned out," I muttered, Trucewater immediately flooding my brain to wash away the auditory hallucinations of their deaths and keep me ruthlessly focused.
"Who will defend the laboratory?" Helen Shard raised her hand. "The Twin Horns have vast experience protect—"
I cut her off. I already knew exactly what she was going to say: one of Twin Horns' specialties was VIP protection (it was how Reynolds Leywin had originally met Vincent Helstea). But they were vastly under-equipped for whatever Alacryan monstrosity had butchered them in the aborted timeline.
"The Twin Horns are much more useful out on the streets protecting civilians," I said firmly.
"We can't leave the main communication hub undefended," Gideon protested. "I am not ashamed to admit even a weak mage could snap me in half. And while I do have a couple of explosive trinkets ready—yeah, we don't want the laboratory to blow up with me inside it!"
"Chul? Will you take care of this?" I asked my nephew.
Standing at attention, the half-Asura did little to hide his profound disappointment at being relegated to guard duty.
"If I must..." he grumbled.
"Are you sure keeping Chul off the frontlines is the best idea, Prince?" Elder Rahdeas asked, rubbing his chin.
"The less—dwarf—makes a valid point, milord," Soleil, disguised as the robin Coco, chirped.
Several people in the room jumped in shock at hearing a tiny bird speak with perfect diction.
"Chul is the only Asclepius who can fight directly without triggering Epheotan intervention," Soleil continued. "I am not saying that protecting Wise Avicenna is incorrect, but can't someone else manage it?"
Soleil was right. If Scythe Seris was truly the one spearheading this siege, Chul was our absolute safest bet against her. Even with the Fatima's Adaptarmour and years of brutal survival in the Relictombs, I couldn't be certain Cylrit was strong enough to match his former master alone.
Alea? Olfred? Cylrit himself as the lab guardian? No. Their combat prowess would be entirely wasted sitting in a basement.
"Avier," I said, turning to the greenish owl. "You placed one of my Portal Frogs nearby, right?"
"Yes, Great Lord," Cynthia's bond answered, the deep, rumbling voice of the wyvern shrinking slightly as he shied away from the intense, predatory gazes of my Asuran flock. (Poor wyvern).
"Then I will jump back to defend the laboratory myself when the need arises," I decided. "After I secure the area, I will overwrite the island's latent Ontic Circuit to put all of Xyrus under a massive anti-teleportation net."
"Anti-teleportation?" Alea echoed, eyes widening.
"The Alacryans will invade through Tempus Warps. For those unaware, they are artificial portals—similar to those of the Ancient Mages, but portable and usually ephemeral," I informed the room, leaning over the map. "Cylrit, do you know of any Alacryan forces that ride huge, fire-breathing elephants to war?"
The exiled Alacryan answered immediately, his posture rigid.
"Yes. The Farrago of Fiachra," he said. "One of the elite Warbands stationed in Sehz-Clar."
"What can you tell us about them?" I asked.
"What does this Far—this thing have to do with Xyrus right now?" Gideon interrupted impatiently.
"Don't interrupt, Bastius," Olfred scoffed, crossing his thick dwarven arms. "Your reputation as a windbag is certainly not exaggerated."
"Stop," Grandpa ordered. That single, razor-sharp word instantly silenced the two. "You are in the middle of a war council. Act like it."
"As I was saying," Cylrit resumed, professional as ever. "The Farrago of Fiachra is a Warband; mercenary groups sanctioned to aggregate with the standard standing armies of each Dominion. The Farrago, in particular, are brutal veterans of the last Bloodwar. They use their Lavatic Pachyderms as living war chariots and siege engines. Their standard teams consist of an Instiller, two Strikers, a Shield, and a Sentry. They could easily be involved today, but to mobilise a sanctioned Warband out of Sehz-Clar means—"
"The Dominion's Scythe is personally involved, right?" I asked.
Cylrit, flawlessly masking whatever turbulent emotions he was feeling, simply nodded.
"Lady Seris?" Cynthia asked, stark recognition flashing across her face. Even Avier physically tensed on her shoulder at the mere mention of the Scythe.
(Just how deeply involved was Seris Vritra with the background characters of the novel?)
"Sorry—what exactly is a Scythe?" Helen Shard asked, looking between us.
"Simply put: the enemy's grand generals," I replied curtly. "Engineered to be living weapons of mass destruction. Chul, do you think you can deal with her if she shows her face?"
My nephew smiled wildly, his fiery aura flaring. "The Vritra does not stand a chance!" he exclaimed.
"Prince Corvis," Cylrit interjected smoothly. "I am in no position to make demands, I know that well. But I want to be the one to put an end to the monster who dares to call herself my master."
"Fine. Then let us move, now," I declared, officially ending this "second" meeting with the only cheer that mattered:
"Long live Dicathen!"
Gideon Bastius
My laboratory had always been a refuge, and artificing my medicine. Now, though, I felt it all pressing down on me like a crushing weight of expectations.
I nervously tapped my foot as I sat behind the complex system of Shell-Radios (Tinkerfool's naming left much to be desired; it lacked a certain flair I couldn't quite put my finger on), paying close attention to the flickering lights signalling the various connected devices.
I could have spent entire days revising the function of this amazing communication technology, but we were out of time.
My gaze fell on the blue, shimmering lamp at the centre of my workbench, right where all the smooth, central Shell-Radios were linked.
An Ancient Mage. A fucking Ancient Mage! No wonder Tinkerfool was so damn smart. He had this entity—Avicenna Artira of Ramdad, as he had introduced himself—to teach him.
"Gideon Bastius," the voice of the Ancient Mage called from the earpiece resting on my right ear. "Please, turn on the last Shell-Radios."
"Yeah... sure..." I mumbled. "Master Artificer of Sapin, and I am doing the grunt work of an apprentice like when I was a bloody teenager for the Divine Dragon's sake."
I did as the Ancient Mage asked, though, and pressed the activation buttons on the last shell-boxes. This array would hopefully be enough to cover all of Xyrus City. If Tinkerfool had just told me about all of this a few days prior, I could have developed repeating antennas to place across the floating island taking the smaller ones placed on each Shell-Radio as inspiration.
"Done," I announced. And just in time, too, because the system lit up all at once.
"A portal!" one of the people Tinkerfool had rallied shouted over the comms. "Wind Ward!"
"Fire Ward too!" another voice shouted.
I quickly adjusted the volume by sliding a lever, while the Ancient Mage coordinated every single channel.
He prevented the panicked voices from overlapping with such terrifying celerity that I genuinely wondered what kind of processing power the Ancient Mages possessed in his mind to keep track of it all.
"Gideon Bastius," Avicenna's voice called again. "Check the channel of the Justiciar."
"Again?" I complained, doing as he asked. "That is the third time I've checked Tinkerfool's receiver."
The connections to the various devices were displayed on the central Shell-Radio, a smooth, rectangular box carved in the shape of a large mussel.
I had stuck little pieces of paper next to the dials to visualise whom they belonged to, but the Ancient Mage clearly didn't need sight to map the network.
"If the Justiciar says we will be attacked, we will be attacked," the Ancient Mage stated calmly, and I sighed.
"He predicted all of this happening," I mumbled, rubbing my temples. "I won't deny his terrifying farsightedness."
Dust—Himes had not been able to completely clean the laboratory in our rush—shook loose from the rafters as a heavy tremor rocked the ground.
Over the channel linked to the elven Princess, I heard her shout a spell command: "Sprout!"
Another channel reported that the Twin Horns desperately needed backup down east, and Avicenna flawlessly patched them into contact with the closest ally: Hester of the fiery House Flamesworth.
I clicked a button, connecting the clam-shaped earpiece on my left ear directly to Tinkerfool.
"Wonderboy, your Ancient Mage friend asked me to contact you—again," I said.
"Good!" the Prince of Elenoir, candidate Throneholder of Darv, and absolute freak of nature, replied over the din of battle. "We are almost done with the Lavatic Pachyder—"
The strange, honestly pleasing background noise that sounded like slow-flowing water abruptly snapped into a violently displeasing static. I flinched, ripping the earpiece away as a sharp pain spiked in my ear.
"Wonderboy?! What are you doing?! This is not supposed to happen!" I shouted. But no answer came, neither from Tinkerfool nor from the rest of the Shell-Radios. The entire network had gone dead.
"Damn it! Avicenna, this is exactly what Tinkerfool was talking about!" I shouted, jumping up and spinning toward the heavy iron door of my laboratory.
I slammed the broadcast button, trying to contact the brat one last time. "Wonderboy!"
From the floors above, the unmistakable sound of a heavy wooden door being splintered open echoed down the stairwell.
"Himes!" I called out. "What is happening up there, Cogwright?!"
I rushed to the lab door and pulled it open just a crack to peek out into the corridor. I heard footsteps—too many, and far too heavy—thudding against the floorboards above.
Then, I saw my moustached butler crouched nervously at the base of the stairs.
I aggressively gestured for him to get inside.
"Master Bastius, there are armed intruders on the property," Himes whispered, cold sweat beading on his forehead as he slipped into the lab. "What do we do?"
"We barricade ourselves. We can resist in the laboratory until Tinkerfool comes," I said, slamming the heavy iron door shut and throwing the deadbolts the second Himes was safely inside.
"Search for the Dicathians and kill them! If you don't find them, order the Lavatic Pachyderm to scorch this entire place to ash!" a muffled voice shouted from upstairs, speaking something similar to Common Dicathian with a strange, harsh cadence I had never heard before. "Lady Seris accepts no failure!"
Himes immediately rushed to the far corner of my laboratory and yanked the heavy emergency lever. It powered a complex matrix of defensive artifacts I had secretly installed within the walls of my refuge.
I usually only activated it when I'd had enough of King Glayder and his pompous courtiers demanding heaven and earth from me, but today, it would serve to save our bloody lives.
The high-grade mana crystals feeding the barriers should last for about an hour under spell bombardment. That should be more than enough time.
"Avicenna," I hissed, pacing my laboratory as fast as I could before leaning heavily over the Shell-Radios. "Are you with me?"
"I-I am, Gideon Bastius," Avicenna stuttered, the ancient consciousness actually sounding afraid.
A massive spell suddenly slammed into the laboratory door. The reinforced walls themselves illuminated with glowing runes as the defensive matrix violently struggled to dissipate the destructive mana.
"Fuck it," I hissed, feeling the floorboards shake. "They are too strong for the passive barriers. Himes, help me!"
I rushed to a tall iron closet where I kept my original secret project for the Interdicathian—the one I had been building right before Tinkerfool pulled up with his mind-shattering Djinn blueprints. Training Operator and Blast Inductor (TOBI, for short).
With a deafening crack, the magical defences of my laboratory finally gave out. The iron door blew inward, and through the choking cloud of smoke and dust, I saw five heavily armed men storming into the room.
"There you are, Dicathians!" one of them sneered, raising his hands as strange magic surged from them. "For the Sovereigns, you die."
Before they could cast another spell, I slammed my hand hard onto the runic plate on TOBI's back, jump-starting the humanoid golem's mana core.
"TOBI, buy us some time!" I roared.
My metallic creation immediately whirred to life, raising its built-in cannons and firing bolts of pure, concussive magic at breakneck speed, laying down a desperate cover barrage.
The deafening racket of clashing spells made it impossible to hear anything else. I violently gestured for Himes to hit the deck and stay low.
"G-Gideon Bastius..." Avicenna's voice suddenly projected from the lamp. "The Justiciar orders you to open your tap water."
"What kind of bloody order is that?!" I roared. But I didn't have time to argue.
Sprinting blindly through the smoke and dodging a lethal crossfire of volatile mana, I launched myself towards the large industrial sink in the corner of my laboratory and violently cranked the tap.
Clean water immediately gushed out.
To my right, TOBI was suddenly overwhelmed. The golem violently exploded into a myriad of molten steel shrapnel, and the Alacryan invaders pushed forward, spitting onto the scorched floor tiles.
"Primitives mimicking the Vritra's gifts," the leader mocked, stepping over TOBI's smoking remains. "Kill the lessers and secure that blue lamp. Lady Seris's orders."
I tried to scramble backward, but a jagged, searing-hot shard of TOBI's chassis had lodged itself deep into my calf. I collapsed against the wooden cabinets, watching through pained, watering eyes as my executioners raised their hands.
"Ribbit."
A frog croaked. And death did indeed follow—for the bastards.
The only thing I saw was a blinding crescent of viridian light carving through the thick smoke. A second later, I heard the heavy, wet thuds of five headless bodies collapsing to the floor.
When the dust finally settled, Wonderboy was standing perfectly poised in the middle of my ruined laboratory, lowering his green sword as if absolutely nothing had happened.
"Gideon, Himes! I am so sorry!" the brat shouted, dropping his bold facade as he rushed over to us. "I tried to get here as fast as possible, but damn!"
He hurled a dense ball of glowing teal water directly onto my bleeding leg. The agonizing pain instantly receded, washing away like the shores of a beach retreating before an anomalous wave.
"Spare your apologies for when Xyrus is actually safe," I grunted, forcing my fiery anger to overpower the crushing sadness I felt at seeing my sanctuary destroyed. "I just want these invading bastards wiped out of my city."
"Restore the Shell-Radio system immediately,"
Tinkerfool ordered, already turning his back and moving toward the croaking teal frog sitting innocently in my sink. "I am heading to Xyrus Academy."
Olfred Warend
My father knew how to be a bastion of exemplary calm even in the absolute chaos of this battle. The Bronzhers—the newly minted Pitran mages led by Filbrass Torserian—moved as a disciplined unit of order around him.
But I, as a white-core mage and yet a Lance no more, fought entirely alone. I was the spearhead against the Alacryans, as the kid had named them.
Clad in my Hell's Armour—a thick stratum of fireproof stone covered by flowing, incandescent magma—I cleaved through the enemy troops with my heavy halberd.
After the Lavatic Pachyderms broke our initial lines, waves of foot soldiers poured from new portals. They shouted of the valour of their bloodlines, chanted the glory of their dark gods, and mocked the lives of the Dicathians standing before them.
And yet, when my halberd met their flesh, they screamed exactly like the Dicathians I had once killed on the orders of King Dawsid.
I punched the helmeted head of a human brute.
Whatever defensive magic was protecting him, which did not take me long to realise was being cast by another mage in his squad, shattered instantly under the crushing power of my gauntleted fist.
His skull fractured beneath my sheer strength. I callously tossed his body aside and turned toward my next opponent, thick steam rolling off my Hell's Armour like the hottest furnaces of Burim desperate to be cooled down.
The Bronzhers worked efficiently behind me. They freed the civilians trapped under burning debris and shot down the flying mana beasts that swarmed the skies like an insidious plague of desert locusts.
The Alacryan infantry fled upon seeing me. It was fully intentional; Hell's Armour had always been a spell designed to terrify just as much as it protected.
From the corner of the street, a discordant trumpet echoed loudly.
Another Lavatic Pachyderm, carrying a full team of Alacryans in its howdah, lumbered into view, smashing through carriages and stalls as if they were made of parchment. It was a gigantic beast, but its massive size would be entirely futile.
I swept my arms upward, channelling my mana directly into the earth. Seven Stone Soldiers—heavy golems roughly shaped like stout dwarves—rose from the surrounding debris. I ordered them to charge the enemy beast, flanking the creature to force its attention downwards.
One of the Alacryans on top slammed his hands against the spiked skull of the pachyderm, and a devastating beam of fire-breath was unleashed.
Fools. Hell's Armour only grows stronger when fed with fire.
I absorbed the blistering heat, countering their corrupted mana with my own pure, white-core energy, actively augmenting every inch of my body by overflowing my mana veins and channels.
I smirked beneath the molten visor of my protective spell. I had never felt so violently alive while using magic. At least, not since the day I was first shackled as a Lance decades ago.
I walked deliberately toward the Lavatic Pachyderm.
The sheer kinetic force of the fire-breath slowed my steps, but I was unstoppable. The beam was focused entirely on me, and at the very edge of my awareness, I maintained absolute control over my Stone Soldiers as they viciously assaulted the beast's thick legs.
Step by step, I approached, voraciously eating the fire within my Hell's Armour. Once it reached a critical mass of compressed mana (so much heat that even I would risk being burnt to a crisp from the inside out) I would unleash it all right back at the Alacryans.
One step. Two steps. I continued to close the distance.
When the beam of fire finally sputtered and receded, I stood directly below the Alacryans and their towering siege beast.
The pachyderm roared, rearing back on its hind legs to crush me beneath its massive front hooves. The Alacryan riders were smart enough to understand that striking a living bomb was the worst possible idea, and they desperately yanked the reins to stop their creature; but they were far too slow.
I violently unmade the defensive shell of Hell's Armour encasing my body, tearing apart its structure and reclaiming the boiling magma and every last scrap of absorbed fire.
The molten mass surged toward my outstretched hand, twisting and compressing into a single, violently churning sphere, its surface buckling under the pressure of the volatile mana trapped within.
With a sharp thrust of my arm, I hurled the makeshift cannonball straight into the face of the monster.
It struck the colossal beast and detonated.
The explosion swallowed the creature whole, ripping through its massive body in a cataclysmic eruption of superheated blood and ash. Its flesh burst apart as the inferno tore through it, the shockwave scattering burning fragments across the sky.
The Alacryans above never stood a chance. Caught in the blast, they vanished into the firestorm, their screams swallowed by the roar of the detonation as they shared their monstrous mount's grisly destiny.
"This is Olfred, alongside the Bronzhers and Elder Rahdeas," I reported evenly into my Shell-Radio, stepping back as chunks of roasted meat rained down on the cobblestones. "Another squad of the Farrago of Fiachra has been eliminated."
"No one will hear us, Olfred," my father said, walking up calmly behind me as the Bronzhers efficiently dispatched the few surviving flying beasts. "The Shell-Radios are completely down."
I scoffed, wiping Alacryan ash from my face. "The kid predicted this might happen," I grunted, looking up at the smoke-filled sky. "They will be fully functional again in a few minutes at most."
Tessia Eralith
My first visit to Xyrus City was nothing like I had imagined, even after Corvis had warned us of what was to come.
I felt like I was once again in the Colour Timberland, completely unable to help my twin brother despite all the gruelling training and power I had gained since. I felt exactly like I did in Azellio, when my brother had to sacrifice his own hand just to save me from Nylith.
I refused to accept feeling like that ever again. I had Gaia by my side, and I had a duty to protect these people, even if they were not my own.
"Alwyn!" I shouted, launching myself towards my twin's best friend just as one of those ugly, mutant elephants unleashed its fiery breath like a cannon.
I tackled the Triscan boy, who was busy slashing the luminous sword Corvis had gifted him for his tenth birthday against a smaller, winged creature.
We were in a central square of Xyrus City, and utter chaos was unfolding. I, alongside Alwyn, Albold Chaffer, Ashton Auddyr, and the rest of the elven entourage who had accompanied my family for the Interdicathian, fought desperately to help the human civilians.
The fire breath of the elephant creature crossed the square, aimed directly at me and Alwyn. I didn't have time to cast a Galeshot or any other spell, but a massive, hand-shaped wall of thick wood crashed down against the cobblestones to save us.
"Thank you!" I shouted at the Elderwood Guardian that had come to our aid, the S-Class mana beast standing tall in the middle of the square.
The Woods Wide Web was almost nonexistent on this floating island; the connection to my Beast Will's Acquire Phase was as feeble as the lightest breeze.
Only the Elderwood Guardians I had entrusted to Director Goodsky to plant across the city tethered me to Gaia here.
"Princess! Where is Loup?!" Alwyn asked as he scrambled back onto his feet, looking frantically around the square for the Dracamic I had gifted him.
A flying mana beast suddenly dropped dead in front of us, its torso pierced cleanly by the Branchberd of Ashton Auddyr, who recalled his weapon with a sharp suction of wind magic.
"Let us search for him," I said, noticing that my Elderwood Guardian was currently grappling with the hulking Alacryan siege beast.
With a surge of plant magic, I commanded the woven grass tied around my left wrist to rapidly expand and harden into my signature grassword. With Alwyn at my right, we slashed our way through the incoming enemy beasts, actively defending any civilians caught in the crossfire.
"Hoofy!" I called. My trusty steed, the beautiful Elenoi Highcolt, galloped through the chaos and destruction, neighing fiercely as he ran.
I hoisted myself onto his back, pulling Alwyn up behind me. Extending my fingertips, I unleashed a compressed Galeshot at another flying beast, condensing hurricane-force currents into an hypervelocity projectile.
The spiralling winds shrieked through the air, striking the insectoid monster with enough force to tear straight through its carapace, leaving a gaping wound in their wake as the creature plummeted to the ground before it could reach us.
"Loup is helping a family out of a collapsed house!" Alwyn shouted over my shoulder, pointing Aurandall—a rather strange ancient elven translation for Dawn's Ballad—towards one of the side streets connected to the square.
Before ordering Hoofy down the alley, I rapidly surveyed the battlefield.
Albold and Ashton were actively assisting my Elderwood Guardian in taking down the great elephant, whose trunk shot wildly at the sky as Gaia's sapling relentlessly grappled with it.
The members of the Royal Police were fighting seamlessly alongside the Xyrus City garrison to repel the enemy troops. We wouldn't be needed here.
"Coco!" I called. My small robin glided down and landed lightly on the back of my gloved hand.
"My name is Soleil, Lady Tessia..." she murmured. "What do you need?"
"Observe the skies and tell me where Grandpa and Corvis are!" I ordered, furiously mashing the buttons of the strange nautilus device Corvis had handed me.
"This piece of junk is useless!"
I then gently tapped Hoofy's sides with my riding boots, ordering him down the street Alwyn had pointed out.
Hoofy effortlessly jumped over an overturned carriage. I cast another Galeshot at an incoming beast, while Alwyn cleanly pierced another with the tip of his Corvis-style cane-sword.
Hoofy landed heavily on the cobblestones, his hooves cushioning the fall thanks to a quick burst of my wind magic.
The amber jewel hanging at Alwyn's neck flared as he turned his head towards his canine bond.
"Loup! Why did you run away from me?!" he shouted, jumping off Hoofy's back. "Bad dog!"
He rushed to Loup's side. I attempted to contact Grandpa or Corvis with the Shell-Radio again—nothing. Dead static.
"Winter!" I cursed fiercely.
I watched as Alwyn and Loup helped a terrified family of four out of the ruins of their home, Alwyn expertly slashing his sword to cut away the heavy, burning debris.
"Hide somewhere else!" Alwyn told them, though his panicked voice wasn't exactly the most reassuring.
"Run to Mana Square! A Lance of Elenoir is stationed there to protect the people," I told the human family, projecting royal authority. "You will be safe there."
It had been agreed that Alea would defend Xyrus City's teleportation gates; from what Grandpa had told me, losing those archways would mean absolute doom for the Magic Capital of the World.
Alwyn and Loup rejoined me, climbing back onto Hoofy just as Coco glided back to my shoulder.
"Where is my family?" I asked her.
"The Highprince is taking care of the sabotage to the Shell-Radios," Coco explained. "Virion Eralith is heading to secure the adjacent alleys of the city."
That meant they were safe! I rejoiced inwardly, snapping Hoofy's reins to return to the main square.
But something went horribly wrong. Through the fragile threads of the Woods Wide Web, I suddenly felt as if something had violently ripped the heart straight out of my chest. One of the Elderwood Guardians had just been killed!
The heavy, earth-shaking stomps of one of those Alacryan elephant beasts echoed not too far away, but then another agonizing tear forced a raw scream from my throat. A second Elderwood Guardian had fallen.
"Princess!" Alwyn shouted, frantically grabbing my shoulders. "Hoofy, get us out of here!"
"Coco... I need your healing..." I wheezed, slumping forward over Hoofy's neck.
The soft weight of my robin settled squarely on my back. My pet bird (had she actually ever been my pet, though?) shook her feathers, and out of the corner of my tear-blurred vision, I saw glowing, ember-like down fall over me.
The crippling, phantom pain immediately quieted down into a dull ache.
I took Hoofy's reins back from Alwyn, and we charged back into the square, Loup running fiercely by our side.
Static finally cracked from my device, the background noise returning that of a peaceful stream.
"The Shell-Radios are operative again," Gideon Bastius, the eccentric Sapinese artificer and somehow an acquaintance of my brother, announced over the network. "What is the situation out there?"
"Princess Tessia, reporting!" I declared proudly into the Shell-Radio, my voice ringing with misplaced confidence. "We are evacuating the civilians as agreed, the Lavatic Pachyderms are being dealt with, and our cooperation with the city guard couldn't be bet—"
My cheerful proclamation died in my throat. As Hoofy galloped back into the sprawling plaza we had left just minutes before, an overwhelming, suffocating sense of primal dread slammed into my chest. I felt Alwyn violently stiffen behind me, gasping for air as if the very atmosphere had turned to nothing.
"King's Force?!" Coco shrieked, hopping frantically onto the crown of my head. Her voice was laced with pure, unadulterated panic. "How is this possible? It is not an Asura doing this!"
A lone boy—looking to be the exact same age as Corvis and me—stood dead in the centre of the ruined plaza. He was the epicentre of this crushing, gravity-defying aura.
He had pale, wheat-blond hair, and two curved obsidian horns jutting fiercely from the sides of his head. He wore a jet-black uniform forged from interlocking scales with serpentine patterns, draped beneath a dark cloak collared with blackened feathers.
"Grey! There you are!" Another boy my age jogged casually toward him, completely unbothered by the monstrous aura bleeding from his companion.
This one had messy black hair and wore the exact same dark uniform—a living embodiment of the bogeymen Dicathian children were taught to fear from birth.
"I found her, Nico," the blond boy, Grey, said flatly. He turned slowly, his piercing, blood-red eyes locking directly onto mine with predatory absolute certainty. "Tessia Eralith."
The dark-haired boy named Nico turned to stare at me, a brief flicker of hesitation crossing his features.
"She is just a little girl..." he murmured. But he quickly shook his head, his face hardening as he cursed. "Vritra be damned! Let's just do it."
"Princess, we need to go now!" Alwyn screamed, desperately fighting through the paralyzing magical pressure and yanking on Hoofy's reins.
Coco forcefully shook her feathers, a burst of her hidden magic momentarily breaking the oppressive hold on our bodies. Without hesitating, I violently kicked Hoofy's sides, ordering him to flee for our lives.
"Milord! Lady Tessia is being hunted! They are wearing Phoenix feathers as clothing!" Coco screamed frantically into the Shell-Radio connection to my brother.
Hoofy galloped as fast as his strong legs could carry us, his hooves striking the cobblestones like thunder.
I didn't dare look back. I could feel their terrifying mana signatures pursuing us as clearly as a scorching sun at my back.
They were the ones who had effortlessly slaughtered my S-Class Elderwood Guardians! These monsters disguised as children: Grey and Nico!
"What?! Chul! Cylrit!" Corvis's voice screamed through the earpiece, the raw terror in my twin's voice entirely unprecedented. "Are you nearby?!"
"I am busy, Uncle! The cowardly Vritras have lured me into a trap!" Chul—the strange powerhouse who called my brother "Uncle"—roared. Through his channel, only the deafening, apocalyptic sounds of a brutal melee were audible.
As we fled down the ruined streets, I desperately reached into the Woods Wide Web, calling upon any remaining Elderwood Guardians to come to our aid.
But every single one that rose to block the path behind us was instantly, brutally uprooted. With each death, a sickening tear ripped through my Beast Will, making me gag and clutch my chest as if I were being physically slaughtered myself.
"The Wraiths," Luchen—no, Cylrit—reported, his normally stoic voice tightly strained. "Agrona Vritra has deployed a squad from his private army. I am currently rushing to aid Lord Chul before they overwhelm him."
"No! Abandon the trap! Go to Tessia! Alea?! Olfred?!" Corvis shrieked, his composure completely shattered.
Before Luchen could answer, the cobblestone street directly in front of us violently burst open. Massive, jagged geometrical constructs of blackened iron erupted from the earth like a row of guillotine blades, completely sealing the alleyway.
We pulled Hoofy to a violent, skidding halt, the Elenoi Highcolt rearing up in panic. We had absolutely nowhere left to run.
"Mana Square is falling!" Alea Triscan shouted through the static, her voice cracking with desperation. "It is a whole army of Alacryan mages! We are entirely outnumbered, and they just keep pouring out of the portals!"
I gripped my grassword, tears of sheer, helpless terror pricking my eyes as the footsteps of Grey and Nico closed in behind us.
But then, the chaotic noise in my earpiece suddenly cut out. From my brother's channel, I heard one single, icy command slice through the panic:
"Unleash."