Raith was sitting in Cal’s and Ava’s study reading the notes from Shiya and Markilo about teaching the children. Their team had come back to the Heartstone kingdom a few days ago, but were with Ava currently. Raith had wanted to see the children before she would go train a disciple.

She wasn’t too surprised to find that a majority of the notes were about Naro, Shara, and Varino’s progress, with a few mentions of Zerine. Naro was the typical young teenage boy, hyper, hard to get settled or focus on more mundane tasks, but enjoyed physical activities. He was also doing well in his practical magical studies, while the more studied aspects less so, which only supported her own observations.

Shara was a pleasant surprise. Not only was she skilled at her magical studies and practical magic, but she also seemingly had started incorporating magical movement with her fighting style. Raith smiled, reading that Shara was one of the reasons why Naro kept pushing himself when it came to his studies. She would show off impressive magic after studying, while also teasing Naro who would then study and do the same to Shara making it into a little game.

Varino’s progress was as expected. The spirit was hardworking, eager to learn, and played with her magic constantly. She had discovered a healing ability that Kelly, the household healer, was teaching her how to use. The spirit could handle minor bone injuries and cuts, which was pretty good for a mid E-rank spirit.

I will have to ask Varino about it. If it is similar to my kind of healing, then I can help her gain insights and maybe even a path to improve it further, she thought.

The few notes about Zerine from Shiya left Raith curious more than anything. She had noted Zerine had improved with her basic ambient magical control. She was now capable of extremely basic magical barriers, which were laughably weak and couldn’t last for very long. The process of creating such a barrier took a minute at a minimum or two for the normal sized ones. If she shrunk the barrier, it got stronger and could form faster, but still weaker than a normal barrier created by someone with a crest.

There were other notes that said she could move objects around with ambient magic along with some other basic things. To Raith, Zerine’s progress was simply incredible, but the tone from Shiya clearly showed she found Zerine’s improvement good, but extremely slow. For Zerine to perform what she had without a crest would take immense willpower and concentration to move things around. To make a magical barrier or small mana bolt at all was simply insane to Raith. She had to remind herself Shiya and Markilo probably got used to Zerine doing this, so the feeling of being impressed wore off.

“Still insane,” she muttered. She hadn’t heard of anyone without a crest even getting to the point they could create a mana barrier. The fact Zerine could float around several objects was baffling to Raith as well.

Had Zerine come up with a new way to manipulate ambient magic? Or was she tapping into more advance concepts to make that possible? Raith made a mental note to observe Zerine when she did her ambient magic practice. Shiya was an A-rank mage, thus had limited senses compared to Raith, a gold-rank.

When she gets her crest, she is going to be a goddamn monster, she thought, a grin growing till she began to laugh softly just imagining it.

Raith went on to the notes about Zerine’s progress in magical theory and was pleasantly surprised to find Zerine helping with Naro and Shara’s magical theory, mostly with Shara.

“That explains why Shara had jumped ahead in magical theory,” Raith muttered. Raith had worried that Zerine would be jealous or pull away from her siblings and the other household children, but that wasn’t the case. Granted, Naro had to be convinced to work on magical theory, but would gladly join his older sister and Shara.

Raith moved to their combat training notes. She found again that a majority were about Naro and Shara. Both had become far stronger and faster due to them getting their crests. Naro had found that he enjoyed swordsmanship and enjoyed pushing himself to improve. As for Shara, she excelled and enjoyed hand-to-hand fighting. The two had apparently felt like Zerine was out passing them, so the two had pushed themselves to keep up.

The notes on Zerine were fairly straightforward. Due to her still not having a crest, they shifted to her, focusing on fighting styles that helped her deal with faster and strong foes. Her hand-to-hand fighting had steadily improved, but they had to be careful because her body was frail compared to those with crests. Zerine’s skill with a bow and throwing knives had greatly improved. Markilo also had notes about Zerine learning a verity of weapons that were rather interesting choices, but Zerine had him promise to keep it a secret till she felt ready to show what she could do.

“Now, that is interesting. What could she be training with?” she mumbled.

Raith raised an eyebrow as Markilo described a sparring match where Zerine had thrown several knives, one seemingly missing for it to only fly back, stabbing the training dummy from behind. When asked about how she had done that, Zerine explained she could only do that after once or twice due to it using ambient magic control. After that, Markilo had made Zerine show him the trick.

Raith was afraid her eyebrows would leave her head if they got any higher as she read the details of Zerine’s little trick.

“A combination of embedded willpower and clever use of telekinetic ambient magic,” Raith said, stunned.

How the hell did this come from a fourteen-year-old? When and how did she even start coming up with these ideas, let alone even manged to do it? she thought. Raith's smile only grew as she read more about Estel’s first day of training. The three wild children. A whole family of little monsters, she mused.

A change in the magic around the house pulled her out of her thoughts. The barrier around the family’s home had fluctuated for a moment. She even felt Willow react to the subtle change. Gary had created the barrier, so she knew it would take at least a peak silver-rank or gold-rank specialized in infiltration to get through without attempting to destroy the entire barrier.

“Willow, Umbra,” she whispered.

Willow a wisp appeared along with a shadowy figure. The glowing ball of silver and blue energy blinked, conveying a message.

“Good job putting extra barriers up around the children’s rooms,” Raith said, patting the ball of energy, who bounced happily.

“Umbra, I sensed two silver-rank and a single gold-rank I trust you can handle one of the silver-ranks and those outside of the barrier. Willow, you should stay near the children’s rooms in case they get past me,” Raith said as she set off the house’s defensives. A bell rang alerting everyone in the household to the danger.

Ava was right, they were going after whole families, she thought disgusted. Raith’s smile was one of anticipation. They chose incredibly poorly coming here tonight.

Umbra’s shadowy form vanished, and she felt the familiar approaching the intruders who, in the time it had taken to sense them, had killed two guards already. The building shook as an assassin and Umbra started fighting in the courtyard.

Ava and Cal are going to be a bit angry about any collateral damage to their home, she thought as the building shook again.

She felt magical energy shift as defense barriers appeared throughout the compound. They were designed to slow any intruders, an addition made after the city was attacked. Raith only hoped that they would be enough to slow the intruder specialists.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

***

“Bloody hell, a fucking shadow spirit!” Cory muttered as he and Jake moved towards the main building. The intrusion expert had taken another path than them, while the other member of their team was dealing with a powerful, shadowy nightmare spirit.

“I think the ones that didn’t get through are being attacked, but my senses can’t even get past this barrier. We shouldn’t have split the group up,” Jake said as he blasted a large door off its hinges to only find a barrier behind it. Both men swore.

"I don't think is going to be as easy as we hoped," Cory said.

"So much for waiting for two powerhouses to be out to attack," Jake grumbled.

Cory blasted through the barrier to only have another appear.

"You got to be fucking kidding," Cory snarled, while Jake sighed.

***

Raith grinned as the intruders meet additional barriers impeding them. But her sense informed her that the group of two had a gold-rank mage who destroyed the barrier, so Raith made them the priority target. She entered the shadows and dashed through the halls, but froze when someone attacked one of Willow's barriers. When the individual attacking the barrier did little damage, Raith kept going and her worry subsided as Willow added more barriers. Raith quickly came upon the assassins, whose progress had stalled again, as they had to fight several golems and another defensive barrier.

The silver rank mage was the first to attack Raith using a typical assassin like abilities. Dark magical bolts shot towards her. She could also sense that this individual’s magic had some afflictions embedded in their spells. Too bad for these assassins, Raith was considered an oddity amongst mages. Her primary affinities were light and dark. Raith’s light affinity primarily focused on healing and temporary barriers, while her dark affinity was all about bringing death and just happened to have some afflictions as well. This meant she could easily counter the assassin’s magical attacks while inflicting damage overtime.

Balls of light collied with the bolts of darkness canceling one another out with minor explosions that rocked the room. The Silver-rank had already cast more spells, a slash of darkness followed up by more bolts. Even several knives flew toward Raith.

She avoided the bolts by weaving around them as she moved in close to the mage, while casually canceling the slash of darkness with her own slash of light. A blast of wind created a wall between her and the silver-rank mage. Raith sighed, annoyed as the gold-rank interfered after destroying the golems. Annoyed, Raith waved a hand, creating a pool of darkness.

Shadowy hands flew out, grasping the Silver-rank who slashed with a sword, but there were too many. When the hands got a good grip on the mage, he released horrific screams as his flesh began to decay. Screaming, he was dragged into the dark pool’s depths. Bones appeared on the ground as the pool vanished.

Raith hadn’t even watched the demise of the silver-rank mage. No, her attention was on the gold-rank who was currently blasting a torrent of flames at her. The shadows swallowed her. The gold-rank mage took her dodge to run. He blasted through the barrier, heading into the house.

“Motherfu-” Raith snarled, giving chase.

***

“Liliana, do you want to deal with the assassins or shall I?” Ava wondered as the two sat in Liliana’s study.

“Hmm, both of us should. I could use a bit of the workout and I haven’t fought in a while. Having you as a backup would be nice,” Liliana replied, stretching.

Ava gave her a wolfish grin.

“Oh, by the way, the attack is far larger than just here. It seems they are targeting multiple locations in the coming weeks several tonight.”

Ava frowned, “are you saying what I think you're saying?”

“Yes, as the attacks have started, I can see it in fate. They are targeting quite a lot of locations. So, let’s make quick work of these unwelcome guests.”

Ava scowled, but nodded, following Liliana who led them to a hall.

“They will be here shortly. Now don’t make too large of a mess,” Liliana said.

“Ah, you're the rusty one. I should be telling you that.”

“Oh, really? I don’t have fire and lightning affinities,” Liliana teased.

The room shook as the intruders got closer.

“Fine, but you should have told my team that,” Ava sighed.

“They are handling the monsters the assassins used to get in just fine,” Liliana said, grinning.

“I still can’t believe they are targeting other nations as well as ours.”

“We aren’t even certain it’s Esteron, but it is troubling and a rather bold move that will most likely backfire in the long run.”

“Only time will tell,” Ava said, drawing her sword as they felt the magic of the group coming towards them.

Liliana sighed, “I hate that is truly the case now.”

Darkness spread through the hall and the two gathered power.

“There are a lot of gold-rank mages,” Ava remarked.

“Your peak gold. Half of them are brand new to the rank from what can I sense.”

“True,” Ava replied, purple sparks appearing around her.

“Frist attack will come from the shadows on the right,” Liliana said a breath before purple flames shot from the shadows.

Liliana scoffed, and the flames slowed, then vanished. With a crack of thunder, purple lighting shot through the door. One of the auras winked out as a mage died. Mages appeared out of the shadow arrayed before the two. Ava counted and got twenty gold-rank mages.

***

Captain Leon watched as on the map, a green dot was carefully moving into place.

“After this one, we just need to get one more in place,” he said, looking over the map that had a nearly perfect circle made of green dots. He turned to look out the window of his cabin with a smile.

“We just made contact and-” his first mate trailed off, making Leon turn.

The final green dot that wasn’t in the circle had vanished.

“What the hell?” Laon said.

"We were just in contact with them?" His first mate said confused.

The shipped rocked, forcing Leon to hold on to the table, while his first mate staggered, then slammed into the wall as the shipped rocked again.

Leon ran on to the deck as the alarm bell rang.

A deckhand spotted him and ran towards him.

“Sir, we’re-” a deckhand was saying when a spear of metal pierced his chest.

Blood shot out, covering Leon, who stumbled back. The metal spear had hit the man with enough force that it pinned him to the wall next to his quarters.

Leon rushed to the helm with his first mate on his heels. Spells, arrows, bolts of metal were being shot at their vessel from another ship that had appeared out of nowhere. It was dark, but not that dark to miss a vessel approaching. Now that he got a good look at the vessel, he saw it was rather strange in appearance. The vessel was angular and made with metal, no signs of masts at all. He had never seen such a ship before.

“Prepare the mana cannons!” His first mate bellowed over the shouts of the crew.

It didn’t need to be said, as their crew was already well on the way to having the weapons ready.

Captain Leon took the helm.

“I’ll get us ready for the broadside,” he told his first mate as he spun the wheel. He even used a spell to hasten the maneuver.

Unwelcomed guests right when we were almost ready, Leon thought, seething.

***

“Intruders!?” Zerine said, scrambling to get dressed.

Varino looked nervous as she stood fidgeting near the door of their room.

Zerine grabbed the emergency teleport crystal that was in its usual position, next to her bedside.

Varino peeped and jumped back from the door as a barrier appeared.

“So much for going to the safe room,” she muttered. Varino ran to her arms reaching for her.

“It’s alright Varino. I’m sure everything will work out,” she said, lifting the trembling spirit to her shoulder. Varino hugged her cheek with a burble.

“Yeah, together forever,” Zerine said, patting the spirit’s back lightly with a finger. Meanwhile, internally Zerine was fighting to keep her own fear under control.

There was a flash. Zerine blinked the spots out of her eyes. Willow had appeared. The wisp bobbed and blinked rapidly. Just having the wisp nearby helped both relax.

“So, a group is attacking, but Raith is back! Wait, why didn’t she show up earlier!?” Zerine wondered.

Blinking.

“Oh, fine, I guess visiting the queen and adventurer guild leaders is important. But still, We-”

They all froze as a loud crack meant a nearby barrier had broken. Willow blinked rapidly as a barrier appeared, covering the room. The message was clear, it was the outer barrier around her room that had been broken. Zerine backed up towards a corner, clutching the emergency crystal in her hands tightly. Varino patted her cheek with a confident whistle, but Zerine could feel the spirits trembling, matching her own.

The roof of her room exploded apart, and a shadowy figure landed on the barrier. Varino and Zerine screamed falling back. Willow blinked rapidly in front of the two, but Zerine was staring at the figure cloaked in darkness. Varino's shrill chime made her focus.

Zerine went to crush the crystal in her hands, but discovered that she must have dropped it. She scrambled, searching frantically. There was an audible cracking sound, like glass, as the figure slammed a fist into the barrier, making her flinch.

She spotted the crystal a few feet away. Zerine dove at it as the barrier shattered. Zerine threw her arm up as the figure conjured a metal spear in an instant, then sent it at her. Another barrier appeared around them just in time. The spear shattered into shrapnel that shredded her room apart as it smashed into the barrier.

Willow was floating in front of Zerine, whose instincts were screaming at her that the barrier was weaker than the one Willow had created earlier and to get the hell out of here.

There was a flash of light. Zerine threw an arm up in front of her, crushing the crystal as she did. She grabbed Varino with her free arm as Willow flew into her chest. At the moment before they vanished, she saw the figure send a sweeping slash of metal with ghostly black flames coating it. As the figure cast the spell, the door to her room exploded as a figure appeared with one eye glowing gold and the crimson. The figure had a shining red and gold blade that hurt to look at, which the figure used to swipe at the attacker.

Zerine squeezed her eyes shot as a bright light encased them, teleporting them away.