Attacking the one Shattered that had come to check out whatever disturbance had registered with them when I entered the town was a little like poking an anthill. From afar, the anthill is quiescent, just a mound of needles, earth and whatever material the critters had access to but the moment it is seriously disturbed? Suddenly, the entire thing boils over, countless ants crawling out, trying to defend their home from any attacker, no matter the cost to the individual.

In this case, the Shattered had just barely hit the road when I heard noises behind me. At first, it was only soft noises, muted by distance and thick material between the source and me but by the time I had walked the few steps to the place where the Shattered had fallen and was just about to pick it up, the noise had increased in intensity by an order of magnitude. If I had minutes to make my escape, I would be fairly surprised as I considered it more likely that it was a case of seconds, maybe a good number of seconds, but far too few for comfort.

Stealth was no longer possible, not while carrying a body. Even my magical abilities could only do so much to keep the second body hidden and if there was some connection between different Shattered, even that bit wouldn’t help. But there was something I could do, something that might give me a few moments of time.

Remembering how the Shattered back home had reacted to Blood Magic, I cut into my palm and channelled a descent amount of Astral Power into the blood that instantly welled up before swiping my arm through the air, scattering the magically infused liquid in the air and on the ground nearby. Hopefully, the literal scent of Blood would drive the approaching Shattered to distraction, or send them into a feeding frenzy so they’d turn on each other, allowing me an easy escape. That done, I began to run as quickly as I could while carrying the heavy load.

Without turning around, I couldn’t see whether my ploy had worked or not but from what I did hear, there was a massive mess going on. It was an absolute cacophony, snarls, growls, the slapping sounds of flesh hitting flesh or stone, crashing sounds of property destruction, clanking, I couldn’t even begin to name the variety of sounds behind me, let alone build a coherent picture of the events from them. Well, other than the picture of a complete and utter mess.

Knowing that I had only so much time before they’d sort out the mess they were in, I continued running as quickly as I could, until I reached a suitable tree. There, I pushed my Wind Magic as much as possible, jumping upwards and accelerating even further with the help of my cloak, the combination enough to let me land near the crown of the sturdy tree.

Hidden between the reddening leaves, I stuck the still-comatose Shattered between a couple of branches, wedging it in to make sure it wouldn’t fall before wrapping some Darkness Magic around it, concealing its presence as much as possible.

Once that was done, I let myself drop back down to the ground and kept running, trying to make it look like I had merely taken a leap instead of dropping off the Shattered. At that point, I could barely hear the commotion behind me and wasn’t confident that any of the Shattered were still following me, but I wasn’t about to take a silly risk, I had done so earlier. Now, I just wanted to break all contact between myself and the Shattered before returning to the one I had stashed away, hopefully before it woke back up. But given the amount of power I had put into my magical command, I doubted it would wake before noon, maybe it wouldn’t even wake by the time night would roll around again.

After laying a trail for about half an hour, never getting close to the few Shattered that had swarmed out of the town and into the surrounding area, I decided it was good enough. There were traces of my presence all around town, never leading in the same direction thanks to my ability to fly and step through the shadows, both of which I had used to break up the trail. if the Shattered could follow that, they’d have already found the one I had knocked out and stashed away but the few times I had been in viewing distance of that tree, it hadn’t looked disturbed. Unless the Shattered were a lot more subtle and careful than I gave them credit for, they hadn’t been able to find their lost fellow.

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Using my cloak and Darkness Magic to conceal myself once more, I stepped into the shadows, appearing some distance away above the treetops. From there, I quietly stepped onto the highest branches, using my cloak to lessen my weight just enough to keep them from breaking. It took a lot less Astral Power to move like this, which, in turn, would hopefully mean that there’d be less of a trace but by this point, I was fairly confident that I wouldn’t be detected. Not unless the Shattered had some very special senses in addition to whatever alarm that had allowed them to detect my presence when I initially entered the city.

In the time I had spent running around and muddying my tracks, I had thought about that trick quite a bit. The only thing I was willing to believe was that they somehow could detect the pressure my feet put on the ground while walking. Wind Magic controlled the air around me, keeping my scent and any other gasses that might give away my presence contained. Sure, there was a minor gas exchange to keep the air in my personable bubble breathable, but I highly doubted the Shattered could detect the increase of carbon dioxide caused by my breathing. That seemed to be a bit of a stretch. Additionally, the Wind Magic also kept sound waves inside, muffling what little noise I made while sneaking.

Similarly, Darkness Magic should conceal me from sight and I thought it would also conceal me from ways to detect my temperature, but I hadn’t been able to test that as thoroughly as I would like.

So, unless the Shattered were capable of tracking the magic I emitted to keep myself concealed, which would imply that they had incredible magical senses, greater than any Luna, Lia or I had access to. That, I considered doubtful. Additionally, they’d also need a fair amount of skill in Darkness Magic to overcome the effects of the concealment concept woven into the spells I used, something I considered to be, again, doubtful.

But pressure? That might very well be the answer, especially if the Shattered were as active underground as their reaction made it look like. I could easily see creatures able to dig tunnels gain the ability to sense spikes of pressure, allowing them to evade collapsing ceilings and similar disasters. Applying such a sense as an early warning system could be a way to find my presence unless I used my cloak to fly. Something I should test later.

For now, I only checked if there were any Shattered anywhere near the one I had stashed away or the path I would need to take to meet the others and when I didn’t find anything, I picked up the acquired test subject and made my way towards them.

While I kept my senses wide open during the trip, nothing jumped out at me, the only noises in the night coming from the forest around me, the rustling leaves, the occasional creak as the wind shifted one of them, nothing that’d indicate danger.

“Did your plan change, Mother?” Lia asked stepping out of the concealment they had been waiting in, just in case I needed support to make my escape.

“Well, somewhat,” I admitted, feeling a little embarrassed that I had been caught by the Shattered. Sure, I had caught one of them in return, but I had been utterly confident in my ability to hide myself and scout out the town, only to be caught moments after entering.

“They have some way to notice if somebody enters their domain, they certainly noticed me. This one came looking as soon as I got in, so I decided to get us our first test subject. We can run an experiment or two on it and tomorrow night, I can try and find out how they were able to find me,” I explained, shrugging while shifting the unconscious Shattered to Silva who easily took care of the weight.

While there were a few looks of surprised disbelief at the fact that I had been detected, they didn’t object to my plan and we started out way back to our base. There was science to be done.