“Hmm, so they are ignoring treaties.” Ning Xin said with red hair up to the halfway mark.
Ebony took a cloth and pulled on her lips that were blackened with her blood, “you’re going to ignore that you smashed too hard?”
Her black blood didn’t bother him at all. His blood wasn’t red either. They were just a bit awkward. Even if he had seen how it was done, they moved a little differently and were both inexperienced.
“You were kidnapped by a Saintess before, I don’t think that’s any surprise.” He never put much thought into the ‘treaties’; it was only a matter of time. They were a bunch of hungry ants, trained or not, they just wanted to feast.
“It's not. The fortress won’t fall and the Necrochitin aren’t the issue. To us, or me.” Ning Xin hid her eyes again but he was sure she was hiding her blush and nervous, shifty eyes. Her confidence waned before her embarrassment as her lips quivered in his pinch.
“Tell me when you feel like the bad premonition is happening.” He wanted to wash the wound with water but the wound was already healed and no scars remained.
“Ebony!” Mallory ran over and knocked on their door.
“I heard the announcement. Is she walking over or is a Saintess powerful and fast enough to cross the entire battlefield in seconds.” Ebony opened the door to see the ever-prim and proper Crown Princess who was nearby to get the effects of his aura.
“She’s just watching, we don’t know if she’s going to move. I heard that the laws that prevent individuals of great power from destroying natural worlds are protected by Gods. I’m not sure how tightly controlled these laws are or if the Goddess of War Tetramyth herself would even bother with them.”
“You can get to the point.”
“We need fast legs to call grea- I mean, call the Barrier King down. Two of you have the fastest pair. If you can bring along a mind mage, you don’t need to go all the way to the surface before the mind mage can connect a call to the surface.”
Ning Xin gripped his shirt. He tapped it and waited for her to release him. Both of them put on their robes and equipped themselves.
“You have that massive callstone, I was sure you could connect to the surface at the expense of mana.” He commented while walking out and patting Dusk to unground itself.
“It doesn’t work…after the Saintess stepped past the portal the battlefield was drowned in her vitality. The barrier is protecting us.”
Ebony could hear evacuations being done, they were letting soldiers in as fast as they could without compromising defences. The multi-layer barrier made it possible to keep them coming in batches.
“So you want us to walk out of the barrier voluntarily.” Ebony might like a good challenge, to the point of putting his life on the line at times but he was not stupid. Not every opponent was a challenge. He could not replicate The Indestructible and take no damage.
Ning Xin sneakily raised her ear a little. The callstone on her mask was on and he cut and connected to the link since his bracelet was in his bag. “Going up feels safer. The lesser of two dangers. Hopefully only two.”
“Didn’t you say the fortress won’t fall?”
“Won’t fall, not no damage. My gut is wrenching more at the thought of staying here than going up.”
“...I’ll trust it this time. Any guesses why?”
“I think the Saintess crossed over not to destroy the fortress or planet, if she wants to kill a few individuals it might not cause any harm to her. She can blame it on an accident, we could potentially kill people with our overflowing essence. If a Saintess insists, a few individual deaths shouldn’t matter. The ‘law’ or whatever protects the planet and maybe civilization, not a few individuals.”
“I doubt it’s us particularly.” Ebony was confident but not arrogant, there were quite a number of people that were stronger than they were.
“Yes. I think she just wants to slaughter all the noteworthy and strong ones. While The Indestructible and Navin are away. She probably doesn't think much about the barrier. Untargeted deaths might just be small casualties in her and greater beings’ eyes.”
“But she’s already out of the portal. Although most Tetramyths don’t have magic or mana sense, I don’t think my stealth can hide from a Saintess whose power is necromancy. She must use mana or some other form of energy, I can’t guarantee invisibility and my abilities to hide mana signature are good enough for us to return to the surface."
“I think it’s a better choice. Like I said, the barrier wouldn’t stop her. She’s probably waiting for her True Kin to report to her about the location of strong people. By then, it’ll be too late to run.”
“Are you going to tell Mallory about your Intuition?”
“...yes. It would weigh on me if I didn’t say anything.”
“Then tell her, I’ll pack up. Let me confirm, mobility and stealth?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll disperse Dusk and pack up. I’ll cast a small ranged domain myself. You’ll stick close to me, charge energy and you can carry me if we’re followed.”
“Okay.”
With their high-speed meeting complete under a second, he let Xin communicate with the Crown Princess.
He connected to Dusk’s Will and they had a mutual understanding immediately. Although there was a slight waste of mana, Dusk melted itself down and allowed the power source orb to absorb its body. It took over 4 minutes before the large tree turned into a runic sculpted seed pit that encased its power source. Albeit a seed 2 metres across.
Ebony packed the orb and his piano into his bag. He already sent a recall for all of his clones. Thankfully, they were all in range but 2 of them were at work outside the barrier. He told them to help with the retreat but to get ready to turn invisible and get to him when they moved out.
‘I’m glad we have a policy to always have some food we don’t touch.’ Ebony eyed the crates within his bag. It would easily last him 6 months even at maximum energy output. But weeks for Ning Xin. She couldn’t stay in tip-top condition for 6 months so if he spread it out, the same amount of food might last her a month or two. But they were experienced, she should have a greater volume of food as emergency supplies.
Ebony was at an all-time alert, food was power for her. He rushed and lifted her robe up to check her bag. In case she overate or fed him with more food than she should’ve over the time he had been in a trance.
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“I knew it.” He got under her robe and steadily took the labelled crates out to stuff into hers. The organised packing and labelling made it quick. She struggled when she found out and reacted to his movement but he already had his Domain spread out and locked her down. Without her enhancement, he held her limbs down with ease.
‘3 months of maximum output for me. Easily a year if I don’t fight. That should be enough. Can we cash out some food from the army? I’ll try!’ Ebony Flickered to the warehouses and logistical supply.
They wasted 6 whole minutes and he didn’t dally, sending his thoughts to Ning Xin immediately she reacted even faster than him, knowing her weakness.
Mallory seemed to trust Ning Xin’s words, understanding the Xeng’s lineage of being a Divination mage’s granddaughter. She was standing there, no longer as composed as she commanded people and spread the news to the higher-ups. It was nice to know someone with social and military power who trusted their words.
There was a hard limit to how much food an individual could buy directly, outside of allocated quantities. And sadly, only another 3 days worth each. 3 days for normal humans were less than 1 for him at max output and hours for Ning Xin. They did not force their wishes upon the army, they needed the food too.
“When is the best time to move?”
“Not now. Let me think…when the Saintess attacks, we go the other way around. Let’s get to Mallory again, I hope the mind mage is ready.”
“Over here!”
“Hector?” Xin showed her surprise.
“I’m a mind mage too, and my range isn’t too shabby.” Hector’s words didn’t match his actions of raising a large refrigerator-sized box. It contained a large mind elemental ore, crafted into the Empire military callstone and had its capabilities enchanted but they feared communications wouldn’t be secure if other powers land on Elcra.
“Did you hear? What are the Royal’s plans?”
“Great-grandma is facilitating. She’s gathering everyone that can fight the Emperors to get close to her and a group of Elves. Together with our Lord family’s barrier mages, they can stay alive as long as great-grandma has mana. Even if their bodies were mutilated or torn apart, they wouldn’t die. However, I think she’s really crazy. All the Elves and Nobles are challenging her orders right about now.”
“What orders?”
“She wants the elite group of possible targets to go out of the fortress with her, build a small camp around herself. This way, the fortress wouldn’t be attacked at all. Reducing casualties. Assuming Scarlet’s gut is right. She plans to stay nearby, near enough to charge back in a second if the Saintess does decide to attack the fortress but…”
“Hurry up and say it!” Ning Xin had 3 quarters of her hair red. She was getting antsy not due to her Intuition, but her accelerated mind and state.
“They are doubting the Lord Family’s barrier mages who aren’t great-grandpa. If they die, all the elites die in one fell swoop. Then the fortress is doomed. The magic towers can’t kill the Emperors, it wouldn’t work against the Saintess no matter how much mana they throw.”
“What are the seers saying?”
“They support the Life Queen’s decision.” Mallory flew over on her invisible barrier.
“Are you coming along?” Ning Xin was tapping her feet and stopped for a moment, anxious to hear what she didn’t want to hear. They were good friends and Ning Xin was surprisingly soft in character outside of battle.
“I must stay. There must be a Royal member present to keep the army’s morale up.”
“You are probably a target too.” Ebony roughly knew who was marked whenever they got out of the fortress. Hector and Mallory were part of the group. Mallory had both the Life Queen and the Barrier King’s talent combined. She was quite the magical genius, the greatest Ebony had encountered to date since he hadn't seen younger Elves.
“No matter. Make sure my little cousin gets home safe, and make sure he doesn’t slip back here unless the Barrier King is with him.” Mallory patted Hector’s back and turned around to get to her duties.
“Young master. Leave the young lady’s wellbeing to me.” A shadow flashed beside them at quiet, breakneck speeds.
“Wel!” Hector exclaimed at the old man in a suit. It was his old guard and Navin’s butler, Welser.
‘I can’t sense him through gravitational disruptions anymore.’ According to Ning Xin’s Intuition, this old man didn’t give her a feeling of strength but one of overwhelming danger.
The old man was also the leader of the Royal Elite Guards, a secret one. They never showed up on the battlefield but it was obvious they were wherever the Royal Members were.
Before they realised, this old man had his hands on both his and Xin’s shoulders, “and I’ll leave the young master’s well-being to you kids.”
Ebony sensed a wide but disdainful smile under Xin’s mask, “you were about to threaten us weren’t you?”
‘Oh, her personality skewed to aggressive.’ He shrugged the hand off. They weren’t afraid of most King ranked individuals. It took exceptions like Yvette, Navin, Oplot, and the combatant Elves in general.
One look at the dwarves and beastmen counterparts of Kings and they knew that these races weren’t a large individual threat. The beastmen were poor users of mana, and their vitality-based enhancements were rudimentary. The dwarves were more crafter than combatant though there were a few outliers.
The two of them fear the beastmen the least. They did everything the beastmen could do physically but far better and they had magic with multiple elemental advantages.
As for the foxmen, they were mostly seers or users of foxfire. Just an offshoot of fire mana. The fire mana they conjure and convert is different thanks to their racial traits which further develop as the individual evolves. They were usually slow-moving and weakly propelled spells, but the fires were extremely hard to put out. It might be a spirit and fire magic, not simply fire which may be difficult for them to defend against so they should just dodge it if they were to face it in future.
Ebony now believed the story about the number of tails the foxmen had that correlated to their evolutionary rank. One at birth, a journeyman had two, a master three, grandmaster four, king five.
With the same pattern, it would be six for an Emperor. Seven for a Saint.
‘Hmm, so if a nine tail fox is a God, there is a rank in between for an eight-tailed fox? So the beastmen have ancestral powers too, just not on this planet. Or even connected at all. Unless a nine tailed fox doesn’t exist.’
Welser would follow them out. Using Darkness magic to help with stealth to get through the exit and to the first layer of the magical elevator. They were lucky the elevator was just a floating platform along a shaft. With their speed taking the elevator would be a waste of time.
“What are we waiting for?”
“My men, I’m also in charge of a resupply run. They are gathering all the spatial storage items they can get that aren’t wagon-sized. Ah don’t worry, I know the two of you aren’t planning to stick around. I will also only come back with great-grandpa. I don’t know about Scarlet, but Ebony should get away. They know that it’s thanks to you that great grandpa can even return to the surface to deal with other stuff.”
“How did they find out?” Ebony did not expect to hear about his involvement.
“After so many months, your mana has infused the entire fortress and some of your aura sticks onto people. Even those weak mana sensitivity would have sensed something after so long. And I’m one of the very few who has Emperor-rank kills.” Ning Xin explained.
‘I see why her Intuition is telling us to get away. We’re one of the high-priority targets.’
“Don’t worry, although many of the elder Elves left with uncle Oplot their Matriarch is present along with the Archduke and Archduchess of Elves. The Archduchess of beastmen, Medina who’s a seer hasn’t run away so things shouldn’t turn out that ugly. I mean, almost half an hour passed with the Tetramyth Saintess standing as still as a statue.” Hector yawned and reminded Ning Xin that they had to wait for the Saintess to make a move. It wouldn’t be funny if she moved the moment they left the barrier.
“How’s your gut feeling?”
“Tense. We don’t know what skills that ant has. What if she could target all of us individually without causing mass destruction? I’ll be honest, I think both of us are higher in priority than we think or I wouldn’t have suggested going up right now. Either that, or she’s planning something else instead.”
‘That is concerning. If there’s danger on the surface, it’s highly likely the mandate users or the steampunk people. Have our magic bodies exceeded the mandate user’s ridiculous stealth that made the steampunk people forget our existence or are the mandate users going to come into Tidal? Maybe they realised that too many soldiers and Nobles aren’t present on the surface, and are no longer afraid to come in to get me? The young master guy is not an issue, so the space mage might take action?’ Ebony ran through computations as time passed tensely.
One of his clones helped him repack his bag to have Dusk near the entrance for him to draw mana from.
‘If I can’t stop whatever’s going to happen, then I’ll put all my clones into dormancy and stuff them in her bag. Only six are present but they’ll do. I need my Will to cast.’ Ebony felt glad, Xin’s uncertainty gave him confidence that she wasn’t in danger.
He was.