Magus Reborn

Kai knew very well that Prince Marcell had not come here for peace talks.

On the surface, he had played the part well enough. He had listened, argued, questioned the terms, and acted like another prince trying to protect his claim to the throne. But once Kai confirmed that Marcell was connected to Maleficia, the man’s real purpose became obvious.

He had come here for an opportunity to kill Kai and probably his two brothers as well.

If Marcell succeeded, everything would become simple for him. Cassian and Alistair would be dead, leaving no rival claimants to the throne. Kai would be gone too, and with him, Lancephil would lose the one person holding so much of its power together. The Maleficia had likely promised Marcell more than Vanderfall. They might have even promised him Lancephil itself, once the kingdom was weakened enough to take.

So throughout the hour of talks, Kai had been waiting—waiting for Marcell to reveal his hand.

At the same time, he had been thinking about what kind of creature might be supporting the prince. The assassination attempts against Elias had already given him a few ideas. Poison, collapsing rooms, extinct organ-eating ants, and attacks that left no trace all pointed toward something that did not fight like an ordinary Mage.

When the mana around him shimmered, Kai’s suspicions were confirmed. He had thirty seconds before three blades tore through his neck.

That was all the warning his senses gave him.

In those thirty seconds, Kai confirmed two things.

The first was that whatever these creatures were, they were wrapped in shadow mana stronger than anything he had seen before. It folded around them rather than covering, hiding their presence so completely that even his mana sense had passed over them without catching a trace.

The second was worse.

They could hide inside pockets of space within the environment.

Not true teleportation, but something close enough to be terrifying. They slipped into tiny folds in the world, using them to stay hidden from sight, mana, and life force. The ability was so refined that Kai had spent an entire hour near them without sensing them even once.

They were professional Mage hunters. And suddenly, Elias’s survival seemed even more impressive.

More than luck, it had been skill, vigilance, and the kind of experience that came from living long enough to understand that danger didn’t always announce itself before striking.

But these creatures probably believed this moment would be different. It was an attack in the middle of peace talks after all.

They expected it to throw him off as he was surrounded by princes, soldiers and political tension.

Unfortunately for them, Kai was far more prepared.

The three creatures appeared around him at the same time, slipping out of the air itself with blades already in their hands. One came from the left, one from the right, and one straight in front of him, all aiming for the same place.

His neck.

Kai didn’t move from his seat.

A layered shield formed around his head and throat, each layer pressed tightly over the next. The blades struck it in the same instant, sharp metal scraping against condensed mana before deflecting away with a violent screech.

The assassins tried to adjust.

Kai moved first.

He grabbed the one on his left and hurled it straight into the one on his right. Both creatures collided and crashed across the ground in a tangle of limbs and blades. The one in front of him growled, twisting its wrist and changing the direction of its weapon toward his stomach.

Kai kicked it before the blade could land.

The creature flew back and hit the ground hard, rolling once before digging its fingers into the dirt. Only then did Kai finally get a proper look at what had attacked him.

In one word, it was hideous.

Its hair hung around its head like a cloak, covering from all sides. Its skin was pale alabaster, almost corpse-like, with purple veins running down the necks and disappearing beneath the dark clothing. Its eyes were the same strange purple, too bright against the twisted face.

The three creatures were short, barely as tall as goblins, but somehow far uglier.

Everything about their faces looked wrong. Their mouths sat a little too wide. Their noses bent at strange angles. Their cheekbones were uneven, and their eyes did not seem to match properly. When the creature in front of Kai scowled, the expression made its face look even more crooked.

Before Kai could finish it off, Prince Alistair shouted.

“What the fuck is this?”

Kai’s gaze shifted toward Marcell.

The youngest prince was still sitting there, his face pale with disbelief. He looked as if he could not understand how the assassination had failed so quickly. Before he could move, run, or give another order, Alistair acted.

The middle prince pulled a dagger from his hip and slashed it across Marcell’s face.

Blood sprayed across the table.

Marcell cried out, stumbling back as part of his cheek was cut open. His hand flew to the wound, eyes wide with pain and shock.

“What are you doing?!” he shouted.

Alistair answered with a shout.

“You were planning to kill us here!” he said, his voice shaking with anger. “You were the one who killed our father and brother!”

Marcell’s bloodied face twisted.

He took a few steps back, one hand still pressed to his cheek as if he could not believe Alistair had actually attacked him. Around them, both armies reacted at once. Knights reached for their weapons and Mages began forming spell structures. The tense silence that had hung over the meeting shattered in a single breath.

Cassian’s forces moved first, rushing to protect their prince.

Marcell’s men charged to stop them, and at once, the field descended into chaos.

Kai knew immediately that this was only the beginning.

The very next second, more of the spatial goblin-like creatures slipped out of hiding. They appeared from folds in the air, from shadows near the ground, from places Kai’s senses had passed over without finding anything. There were not just three of them.

There were dozens.

Marcell had definitely come here intending to kill everyone. In a way, that made things easier for Kai.

He and Elias moved at the same time. Kai rebuilt his wind shield, layering it around himself as the air twisted into a barrier. Elias raised earth walls from the ground around himself and Prince Alistair, who had wisely abandoned any thought of fighting and crouched low to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible.

More of the creatures leapt from the gaps between reality.

Their blades struck the wind shield and earth walls from every direction, scraping, stabbing, and vanishing before a counterattack could reach them. The defences held, but the creatures kept moving, their purple eyes bright with vicious focus.

They were excellent assassins. But they lacked real firepower.

That became obvious almost immediately. Their strength came from stealth, speed, and impossible angles. If they could reach flesh, they would be terrifying. But against proper barriers, their blades could not break through quickly enough.

The problem was hitting them.

Whenever Kai or Elias created projectiles to kill them, the creatures vanished back into their spatial pockets in less than a second. A blade of wind would slice through empty air. A spike of earth would tear through the ground where one had been standing only a heartbeat before.

Then they would appear again somewhere else. Always searching for a gap, always growling when they failed to break through.

Part of Kai wanted to let them keep trying.

The longer they attacked, the more he could observe. Their movements, the way they entered and left those spatial pockets, the timing between each strike, and the limits of whatever strange ability allowed them to hide from his senses.

They were dangerous. But they were also information. And Kai wanted to understand exactly what kind of creatures the Maleficia had brought to Vanderfall.

Spatial beasts were extremely rare.

So rare, in fact, that none had been left five centuries before Kai’s birth in his first life. At least, none that had been recorded. Most had either died out, been hunted down, or disappeared into places no one could reach anymore. Seeing several dozen of them here, serving the Maleficia as assassins, only made the situation feel more wrong.

But he didn’t have the luxury to keep observing them. Some of the creatures had already begun changing targets.

A few slipped away from Kai and Elias, turning instead toward the mortal forces clashing around the field. Knights and soldiers could barely understand what was happening, much less defend themselves from creatures that appeared out of empty air.

Kai decided it was time to end this. He began modifying a spell structure.

It was not a complicated spell by itself, but the targeting section needed work. These creatures moved in and out of spatial pockets too quickly for ordinary projectiles to hit them. A normal wind blade would miss the moment they vanished, and by the time the spell corrected itself, the beast would already be attacking from somewhere else.

Kai adjusted the aiming section carefully, forcing it to react to the smallest disturbance in the air.

It took half a minute.

Once the structure was ready, he activated it.

Around him, small knives of air formed. They were thin and light, almost invisible as they blended into the wind. Anyone not focused on them would barely notice they existed, which made them perfect for this kind of enemy.

Kai pointed toward the nearest creature.

The moment it emerged from its spatial pocket, the air knives moved. They cut through the air silently and plunged straight into its face.

The creature collapsed before it could even growl and Kai shifted his aim.

In ten seconds, a dozen of them fell.

The rest barely seemed to understand what was happening. They saw their own kind drop one after another, blood spilling from their twisted faces, but confusion did not stop them. If anything, they grew more frantic. They kept coming, slipping in and out of space, trying to find a way past the shields before Kai’s invisible knives reached them too.

On the other side, Elias had changed his approach as well.

Earth spikes surrounded him in every direction, rising from the ground like the teeth of some buried beast. Whenever one of the spatial creatures appeared near him, the spikes elongated at once, stabbing toward the disturbance. Most of the time, they only injured the beasts, but a few were caught cleanly and killed before they could vanish again.

Their numbers continued to fall.

With every dead creature, Kai became more certain of one thing. This had been an assassination attempt—not a true battle.

Maleficia had sent creatures meant to kill quickly, quietly, and efficiently. Kai and Elias had been the true targets, with the princes as convenient casualties to clear Marcell’s path to the throne.

He supposed that the larger-force strategy had not worked well for the Maleficia so far anyway. Still, as Kai watched the spatial beasts keep throwing themselves into death, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to this.

Something he was missing.

For now, Kai focused on killing as many of the creatures as he could. They fell one by one.

The air knives moved around him in silence, striking whenever one of the spatial beasts appeared from its hiding place. Some died before they could even understand what had hit them. Others managed to twist away, only to be caught by another knife a heartbeat later. The creatures were fast and slippery, but once Kai understood the timing of their movements, their advantage began to collapse.

Eventually, even they seemed to realise it.

Their attacks grew less coordinated. Their appearances became shorter. One by one, they stopped trying to break through Kai’s defences and began retreating instead. They vanished into their spatial pockets and reappeared farther away, slipping out of the battlefield before the invisible knives could reach them.

Soon, none of them were moving in and out of reality anymore. Kai didn’t lower his guard immediately.

He waited, his eyes moving across the field, expecting another ambush or some final desperate strike. But nothing came. The spatial beasts were truly gone.

He wanted to chase them.

Unfortunately, that was easier to want than to do. Whatever these creatures were called, their control over shadow mana was too refined. Kai couldn’t tell which direction they had escaped in.

They also burned their mana so thoroughly when using their ability that no clear trace remained behind.

Maybe Veridia could have figured it out. But she wasn’t here.

Once he was sure the creatures had retreated, Kai turned toward the two forces still fighting nearby. There was a lot going on—Knights shouted, Mages prepared spells behind their line—all too caught in the chaos to realise the assassination attempt had already failed.

The earth shook then.

A moment later, a wall erupted between the two forces, rising high enough to cut them off from one another.

The fighting stopped.

Only then did the soldiers and Mages turn back toward the princes they served, and one by one, their faces paled.

While Kai had been dealing with the spatial beasts, two of the princes had managed to kill each other.

Alistair and Marcell lay tangled together in pools of blood.

Kai walked over and pulled their bodies apart. There were several wounds on both of them, ugly and frantic, the kind made by men who had fought with more hatred than skill.

Prince Alistair, the same man Kai had dragged here, had been slashed across the neck. Prince Marcell was missing an eye.

The wound hadn’t killed him immediately, but it had been enough to slow him. Enough for Alistair to finish what he had started. And unfortunately for him, Marcell had killed his brother before dying as well.

It was an unfortunate end for both of them. But as Kai looked down at their corpses, he felt nothing.

Both of them would’ve ruined the kingdom in their own way.

That was the truth Kai saw when he looked at their bodies.

During the peace talks, neither Alistair nor Marcell had seemed willing to truly consider whether accepting his terms would help Vanderfall survive. Their pride, fear, and hunger for the throne had mattered more than the state of their own people.

Marcell had placed his trust in the Maleficia, only to be abandoned by them the moment the assassination failed. Their creatures had not even tried to protect him. Alistair, on the other hand, had only needed an excuse to strike at his brother, and in taking that chance, he had lost his own life as well.

Now Marcell’s forces stood frozen, staring at the corpse of the prince they had followed.

They looked lost, and some looked terrified.

Kai could guess what they were thinking.

Their prince was dead, their hidden assassins had fled, and they were surrounded by enemies. In their minds, the next step was probably execution.

If fear pushed them too far, this could easily turn into another fight.

Kai stepped forward before the situation could worsen.

“The battle is over,” he said loudly. “Put down your weapons, and I will make sure no more deaths happen here.”

Everyone looked at him.

For a few seconds, no one moved. Suspicion, fear, grief, and confusion passed over the faces around him. Then one of Marcell’s men lowered his sword. Another followed. Soon, more and more weapons dropped to the ground, metal striking earth in uneven clatters.

At least Marcell’s forces understood quickly.

Cassian’s men did not lower their weapons.

Kai turned his gaze toward the remaining prince and let his expression harden. “Make your men drop them. I am not going to hurt you.”

Prince Cassian looked back at him.

He had gotten to his feet at some point, though he still looked shaken by everything that had happened. His brothers were dead. The peace talks had turned into an assassination attempt. The future of Vanderfall had narrowed around him in a way he probably had not expected when he came here.

Still, after a moment, he slowly nodded.

“Drop your weapons,” Cassian said.

His men obeyed. Only when the last sword hit the ground did Kai allow himself to relax slightly.

He had not wanted to kill more men today. Not these soldiers, at least. Most of them were only following orders, and Kai had never enjoyed killing people whose only defence against him was a shield, a sword, and the hope that their commanders knew what they were doing.

The field slowly quieted.

Kai looked at the two dead princes, the scattered weapons, and the frightened men standing around him.

He let out a breath. “That is definitely not what I expected to happen here.”

Prince Cassian turned to him immediately, his voice shaking slightly. “What did you expect?”

Kai pointed toward Marcell’s corpse. “I expected him to try to kill me. I did not expect him or your other brother to die here.”

Cassian blinked.

“You knew my brother was going to try to kill you?” His gaze moved toward the dead spatial beasts scattered across the field. “Did you know he was controlling those strange creatures?”

“No,” Kai said. “I didn’t know he had those creatures specifically. I expected something bigger and more destructive.”

Cassian stared at him, still looking as if he could barely follow what was being said.

Kai continued, “But I did know he had the Maleficia with him.”

That only made Cassian look more confused.

Kai didn’t explain further. He couldn’t tell him everything, not here, and certainly not in a way that would reveal how much Elias had already known and hidden. The old Magus’s oath was still a problem, and if Cassian realised Elias had been keeping information from him, it would only create another mess Kai did not have the patience to handle.

So he focused on the reason he had come here in the first place. Two princes were dead. Only one remained.

And from the way Cassian looked at the bodies of his brothers, stunned and pale, he could already tell what would happen next. The prince would become paranoid. Perhaps more than before. He had just watched a peace talk turn into an assassination attempt, seen one brother reveal himself as a traitor, and watched the other die trying to kill him.

That kind of thing would leave marks. Which made this the best opportunity Kai was going to get.

“Prince Cassian,” Kai said.

The prince looked at him. The look of bafflement on his face only deepened.

“I know you will have a lot to think about after what happened here,” he continued. “And I know you will need to mourn your brothers. But you still have not given me an answer to my offer.”

Cassian’s face tightened, as if he could not believe Kai was speaking of politics while his brothers’ bodies were still cooling on the ground.

Kai kept his gaze on him.

“After seeing what happened here,” he said, “I am sure you understand better than before that you need someone who can protect not only you, but the whole kingdom.”

Cassian’s anger flickered for a second, but it did not fully rise.

Instead, his eyes moved back toward the corpses.

The meaning of Kai’s words seemed to reach him slowly. Marcell had been supported by something far more dangerous than soldiers. Alistair had been terrified enough to attack first and think later. Vanderfall’s throne had already become a trap, and if Cassian climbed it alone, there was no guarantee he would survive long enough to rule.

His expression darkened.

“Can I consult my men first?” Cassian asked.

Kai smiled faintly.

“Of course,” he said. “You can.”

***

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