Supreme Magus

"Everything is fine back at home, instead. Dripha has started eating again." Solus said. "Meeting her parents regularly seems to have helped her regain her appetite. Are you sure you want me to join you? The Gernoffs might attack at any moment."

"Unlikely." Lith replied. "Jirni didn’t factor you in her plans, yet she felt safe sending me away. We might not know what she’s plotting, but the Gernoffs must have an inkling of it, or they wouldn’t be so cautious.

"This case gives me plenty of reasons to be worried, instead. The mysterious friend of the Blood Axes has inside knowledge of Keyla’s plans, a vast network of operatives, and enough resources to protect their assets across the Distar Region.

"I need you there to be my eyes, ears, and, if necessary, my second brain. I might miss something important if shit hits the fan. If that happens, everything we have worked so far would be for nothing."

"What about Tista?" She asked.

"That would be the perfect way to scream my name from the rooftops and let everybody know of my involvement. She’s far from inconspicuous, no matter the form she takes."

"I see what you mean." Solus nodded. "You can disguise Ragnarök as a regular sword, but a human using battle claws is unheard of. Not to mention seeing a man and a woman who both have uncanny magical powers moving together in Distar would make things too obvious.

"I’ll be there in a second."

She used the Mirror Warp to reach a point close to Lith’s flight path, and they met halfway. Only then did Lith share the results of his experiment with the Dread Runes.

’Conjuring the runes in Kharam’s mind was a stroke of genius. A mean, ruthless stroke, but genius nonetheless.’ She said.

’I guessed that if even a mage as powerful as you can barely stare at the Dread Runes, a regular human like him would fold like a cheap shirt. I was right.’ Lith replied. ’Did you find a mana geyser along the way? We could use the Prime Engine.’

’Sorry, but no. We’ve already reached our destination, and we didn’t run into a single one.’ Solus pointed at an allegedly deserted area of the Verrun Woods where the Eyes spotted a large dome of energy in the distance.

’It’s an underground network of tunnels. Not the kind of thing a gang of bandits would build. Especially because those temporary arrays are worth more than what they earn in a year. Whoever their backer is, they have considerable magic skills.’

’How many ways out of there?’ Lith asked.

’Between secondary entrances and secret passages, half a dozen, but none is magical.’ Solus replied. ’There is no trace of dimensional devices.’

’It makes sense.’ Lith nodded. ’A Warp Gate would cost too much, while an old Gate would lead us straight to this mysterious friend.’

’There is also no way to deactivate those protective arrays from the outside.’ Solus pointed out. ’We can only breach them. What’s the plan?’

’We hit them so hard and fast that the Blood Axes won’t understand what’s happening until it’s too late.’ Lith took several deep breaths of Invigoration, calling upon his Sigil Demons and bringing them all to seven eyes as he shared his plan.

’Are the six of us enough, or do you think I should summon a few more Demons?’ Lith asked Locrias and Varegrave, the only ones who had experience leading a small strike team against a large number of weaker enemies.

’We need at least six more.’ Varegrave said. ’We need to attack all the access points at the same time to spread the bandits’ forces thin and keep our mark from escaping.’

Lith had to word his call safely to avoid conjuring feral Demons who would kill anyone in a frenzy and potentially eliminate Mak the Mad Ax before he could interrogate him.

***

Inside the Grindstone Fortress, at the same time.

Mak the Mad Ax had earned his nickname on the battlefield after one of his victims survived the encounter by dumb luck and spread word of his ruthless fighting style, yet he was far from insane.

Whenever blood and limbs weren’t flying around, he was cold and calculating. It was the reason he had never been arrested, and the Blood Axes gang had expanded its influence so much. At the moment, however, he was mostly worried.

’Success or failure of a single ambush is of little importance. As long as my men avoid capture, there will always be another chance.’ Mak thought.

’I’ve given my lieutenants clear instructions to report to me whenever they encounter an anomaly or finish a mission, yet it’s been too long since I’ve last heard from Kahram.

’Even if the Lark caravan was heavily guarded and he still decided to proceed with the attack, by now he should have contacted me and reported the outcome of the battle. Maybe I should-’

A sudden tremor of the underground stronghold derailed his train of thought.

The walls and ceiling of his operation room quaked so hard that dust fell from above, and the wooden tokens that marked the position of the known caravan and his forces across Ghishal County toppled over.

Mak took the command crystal he always carried in a pouch hung to his neck and tapped into the detection arrays that enveloped his fortress.

They were supposed to give him a detailed status about the integrity of the defenses, the number of casualties or injured among his men, and the number and strength of the enemy forces.

Yet all he could see was a fuzzy mess, as if he were trying to peer into a broken monitor that showed static most of the time.

’What happened? How could so many powerful arrays be damaged like this in one second? The only thing I know for certain is that whatever attacked us compromised the structural integrity of the magical formations beyond their ability to self-repair.

’Until they are dispelled and conjured from scratch, the arrays will work at less than one-tenth of their full capabilities. I must contact Ankhuta and tell him to-’

The magical formation surrounding the operation room was relatively intact, so it managed to warn Mak in time. The solid door deformed with a noise of cracking wood and flew off its hinges, coming straight at him.

Despite the warning, the improvised projectile was too fast for him, and it would have hit Mak like a truck if not for the gravity sheath of his armor. The thick wooden door was deflected before it could hurt him and crashed against the east wall, exploding into splinters.

An unknown, not too tall man with a deep frown on his face and a red blade dripping blood in his hand walked through the doorframe. He stared at Mak even though he was still cowering behind the large table that supported the map of Ghishal and the wooden tokens.

Lith waltzed through the room as if he were familiar with the place, because he was.

After summoning his Demons, Lith had also conjured several tier three Zero spells right above the center of the concentric dome formed by the fortress’ defensive arrays.

The hail of Cursed ice had frozen many runes essential to the magical formations to work, greatly weakening their effects.

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