They slid back into the carriage. All around the city, massive bells began to chime. Guardsmen, only clothed in lesser-garb compared to those that were now flying down from the Manor on the mountain, began to herd the citizenry underground or indoors.

“My lady,” whispered Cherry. “Are you alright?”

“I am,” said Briar. Everie was stunned by how even her voice sounded. “How did it get through the wards?”

“It was a fourth-layer beast, ma’am,” said the Coachman, who was sitting at the front of the carriage. The vehicle sped through the streets of Medea almost twenty-feet off the ground, blasting over the frightened populace.

Vendors dropped baskets of goods as they struggled to close down their stores; mothers pulled their children closer to them, faces pale; and the guardsmen fanned out over the entire city, expressions soured and grim. They moved with a practiced ease.

Vernas has done his job well.

“How did it get so far inland?” demanded Briar, voice sharp. “My... husband’s men stationed at the borders should have taken care of them.”

“That... I do not understand myself, my lady,” said the guardsmen. “I can only speculate. The beast was a MudWraith, which is a monster known to be exceptionally difficult to detect by wide-spanning wards.”

“MudWraiths are exceedingly rare monsters, though,” whispered Daphne, eyes wide.

Cherry’s eyes narrowed. “And there aren’t supposed to be any on this continent. They’re native to Oseron, not Kallisto.”

The carriage clattered to a stop in the Manor Square. Unlike usual, however, the Manor was swarmed with guardsmen. A constant font of them poured out from the barracks behind the mansion; there were so many that it confused Everie how the damn building had even housed them all in the first place.

“My lady!”

The carriage door swung open, revealing Vernas, fully clad in his actual armor - unlike his ceremonial garb, this set protected much more of his body. His stately posture, however, did not do anything to obscure the rictus of absolute panic that his face was set in.

Two soldiers helped them off the carriage, before an entire entourage, significantly larger than even the troupe that had escorted Everie to the Herofall, herded the four of them back into the house. Klaxons blared from unseen everywheres as maids and guardsmen spilled throughout all recesses of the house, flitting down the Grand stairwell into their quarters below.

The portrait of Medea seemed to glare at them malevolently. It almost looked like the Ancestor was enjoying the chaos, but that was obviously hogwash. Everie dismissed the thought.

They huddled in the Grand Hall, with guards standing at all four sides of the massive room. Vernas was standing at the ingress, barking orders to men outside. The bells had stopped ringing some minutes before, but there was so much noise that it was difficult to tell the difference.

For a moment, Everie felt all of this was an awfully excessive reaction for one monster attack. From what she’d read, ether-enhanced beasts prowled the lands outside of Medea with great fervor, and had to be constantly culled by specialized guardsmen, soldiers, and mercenaries.

But then again, Medea was considered to be a safe land. There were no aggressive species let into the Dukedom, nor were there any that naturally spawned within its lands. It was reasonable that people would panic.

That’s not all, Everie realized.

There was also the fact that... Everie’s safety had been challenged by the attack. After all, though it felt like a foreign concept to Everie, she was important, now. Not just for her noble status, but also because the Medean blessing still resided within her. That meant with her death, the magic infused into the landmass around them would go haywire until it could find a new host - probably Haswalth again or Vernas or some distant cousin in the countryside - with Medean blood.

She clenched her fists. It felt wrong to be so protected. So coveted. It engendered within her feelings she was not yet willing to consider.

“It’s alright, miss” whispered Daphne, as she hugged Everie closer to her. She had been shuddering, and her face must have been awfully pale. “The Dukedom is impenetrable. Lord Vernas has likely already notified the Duke; he’ll be arriving here soon.”

Everie blinked. “Isn’t... father in the capital for the Lord’s summit? How did he get here so fast?”

From the maps she had perused, the capital of Canstein was not terribly distant from Medea manor; the two namesake regions of Azer Luceras even shared a border. But a hundred kilometers was still a considerable span. Beyond some mystical impossibility like teleportation, Everie saw no possibility in such a thing ever occurring.

But in rejoinder, Daphne gave her a wry smile. “With all that I’ve taught you, I’d think you wouldn’t be the one to underestimate the sheer velocity a warrior such as the Duke can produce, miss.”

Everie opened her mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by a cacophonic boom. The chandelier hanging above swayed as the entire Dukedom seemed to tremble.

A twisting sound pierced through the air... and then the doors swung open to admit Haswalth, clad in light plate armor. The signature Medean crest was embossed upon his breastplate, and looked more design for ceremonial wear than actual battle.

The weak-willed, worried man was nowhere to be found. Everie felt her hackles rise as she finally recognized her new father for what he was.

A warrior.

A soldier.

His face grim, Haswalth strode into the Ballroom. Briar felt positively frigid next to her, as she stared at her husband with an uncomfortable scrutiny.

For a second, she almost expected them to come to verbal blows as they always did. But to Everie’s relief, Briar let Haswalth into her arms. They embraced for a few moments, before Haswalth let her go to face Everie.

“Father,” she started.

“Everie,” he exhaled. “Are you okay? Are you uninjured?”

Cold eyes roamed her slight form, assessing Everie for wounds. Finding none, her father put a hand on her head, mussing up her hair. She swallowed, snapping out of her stupor.

“Yes... father,” she said, slowly. “I believe I am.”

----------------------------------------

The world was changing.

Of course, the world was always changing. The universe was a fractal mass in an everlasting state of flux, moving with or without those that scrambled to follow it.

Inesorin knew this. And that was the first reason why he continued his work.

As he stood on the thousandth-floor balcony of the Cardinal Ivory, looming over the city of Hüdrich, Elaros, Inesorin adjusted his spectacles. He didn’t actually need them to supplement his vision, of course; three-centuries of exposure to ether and absentminded circulation had inadvertently made him a seventh-circle Breaker despite his Chanter specialization. Not to mention the avalanche of spells he could use to heal poor eyesight.

Rather, the little gadget perched atop his nose served a much more important purpose.

To scour the entirety of Elaros for every last Shadowwraith.

The damn things had somehow snuck under his nose to infest half the continent in a matter of days. Of course, they weren’t individually powerful; a mere fourth-tier Breaker or Chanter could slay them easily. A motley collection of second and third-tiers or a slightly talented mage could likely do the same, given even footing.

But to the common people, they were dangerous. And though three centuries of aimlessly scratching at the Final Wall between the Ninth Layer and attaining divinity had curdled any of that youthful vigor Inesorin had originally started his quest with, he still cared for his homeland.

That was the second reason why he continued his work.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Having identified and compartmentalized the current locations of every Shadowwraith in the continent, Inesorin heaved a weighty sigh. His platinum-blond hair rippled in the tempestuous winds as the manastorm trapped in his beloved tower surged.

Then he stepped off the balcony.

But instead of plummeting to the ground as any non-demigod would, Inesorin stood aloft. He spent no ether to maintain his flight, nor did the winds move to accommodate his travel. No, he simply stood, and the world refused to let him fall.

His world. His reality. His will.

It was the second-greatest height of magic one could attain. The only step that remained was to merge oneself with the universe, attaining a fundamental status. But...

Inesorin closed his eyes, then opened them.

It is time for action, he scolded himself. Not for introspection.

He clapped his hands, and only then did his ether surge. It swept over the weeping valleys of Elaros, across the mudfields and meandering marshlands that composed the nation he so dearly loved. Every individual drop of rainfall represented his eyes and ears; he was all-seeing. All-knowing.

If only that were true.

Every avenue of sight was open to him. He saw the students and faculty huddling around fires in the byzantine temple-structure that was the Transcontinental Institute of Magicology, reading and praying by candlelight. He saw the soldiers and mercenaries guarding every gate to the cities Hüdrich and Onslõw and beyond, watching the pooling shadows warily for the first hint of a wraithlike limb.

It is a wonder they even dared show their presence here, Inesorin thought, darkly. Shadowwraiths are native to Kallisto. Not to Oseron.

Something is afoot.

Though he had long outstripped the need to use a language to channel his spells as medium, the great archmagus of the ivory tower felt runes flicker to life all across his person, then on thin sheets of ether, then all across the boggy marshlands of Elaros.

His core flexed. The Layers trembled as his will was made reality, his vision made existent, his imagination made decree.

Inesorin’s eyes shot open, irises fizzling with power, and he whispered his spell for the world to hear.

Sing, for me, my tempest. Breach the gates. Tear them sunder. Ainzlochvertazkíf.

Release the thunders that quench the world.

----------------------------------------

The world was changing.

It had been two weeks since the attack on his mistress and cousin-in-law, and Vernas’ work hadn’t gotten any easier.

Clearing Medea itself had taken hardly any effort. He had trained his men well, and the protocols had been immaculate, despite decades of unuse; the extermination had been swift, with the few Mudwraiths hidden in the country quickly rooted out and destroyed with the use of advanced surveillance artifacts and spells.

There’s a reason why Wraiths of any sort haven’t been seen throughout the world in centuries, Vernas thought, frowning. When their ability to cross wards into civilian territory was first discovered and exploited, the Empire of Solurus had expunged the continent of Kallisto of their kin and they.

So what brought them back?

It was clear this wasn’t an isolated incident. After Haswalth arrived at the Manor, court finery still trailing from his coattails, his brother had made it quite clear that it wasn’t just the Dukedom that had been attacked: Azer Luceras as a whole was under crisis.

The beasts weren’t strong. In fact, for their level, they were incredibly weak. The average Azer-Luceran soldier was of the second layer, and from his experience Vernas was reasonably confident each one could slay a wraith by their lonesome. A two-Layer disparity in strength between their respective paths was immense - with the beasts so inherently feeble, it had made little sense to him how these things had wrought such havoc.

The problem, however, lay in their stealth. Unlike other beings past the third tier - which was, according to standard doctrine, when beasts began truly gaining fulsome strength - what they lacked for power, Mudwraiths made up for with their cunning and special ability to cloak their ether signature. Their lack of strength and magical will meant they were incredibly hard to detect, not to mention their darkness affinity magic and access to a realm of shadow.

While still not much of a threat for a reasonably talented warrior, they were a terrible scourge for any civilian populace.

Vernas had even heard legends of the Retainers of Black employing them as tools for their vile trade. When it came to assassination and gratuitous killing, Wraiths were probably one of the most suited lesser beasts for the job.

He flicked his sword, sending blood splattering across the andesite cobblestones of Alerich. Vernas sighed, before sheathing his blade.

How boring.

“Th-thank you so much, sir!”

Vernas turned lazily, one violet eye settling upon a brown haired girl, dressed in traditional peasant’s garb - which of course meant a roughspun frock and apron. Despite her nervous smile, her obvious malnourishment and the dark circles under her eyes betrayed her real feelings.

“Don’t mention it,” Vernas said, grimly. He stepped off the Wraith he’d just slain, still caked in clumps of the earth from whence it’d arrived.

He moved to leave, before pausing. Vernas let out a heavy sigh.

“Do you have anywhere to stay?” he said, turning. The girl blinked.

“I’m... not sure what you mean,” she said, slowly.

Vernas suspired. “I meant, do you have anywhere to stay,” he said. “Do you have any relatives? It’s not like I can just leave you here to starve.”

He gazed from his peripheral vision to the rest of Alerich. The once- pastoral village was now a sight for sorry eyes. Ragged corpses lined the sides of the roads, superseded in number by only the heaps of Wraith carcasses lining the sidewalks. The guardsmen serving under Vernas’ expeditionary force walked the streets with grim expressions on their faces.

Some looked forlorn. Others just looked angry. It made sense.

Vernas was a man forged in blood. In his short lifespan, he’d killed hundreds, if not thousands of people. As a seventh-ceiling Breaker, he was a demigod, standing just before the pinnacle of the world. He could crush mountains with sword swings and split entire steppes into ravines with a flick of his blade. Before the purge and during the Eastern War, when the Medean Guardsmen had fought in tandem with the forces of King Luceras the former, Vernas had transformed valleys into molten calderas and burned fortresses with just his breath.

He was an adherent to the principles espoused by the Ember-Witch, after all - she who birthed the first spark of magic itself, causing untold destruction upon the world. A Hero as terrible as she was influential.

Violence was no stranger to men of his path. But gratuitous violence like this...

It hurt. It felt like he’d failed in some way, even if he had no obligation to protect any place outside of Medea. Even if that place was a city inside the country his homeland had signed a pact of mutual protection with centuries before.

All this could have been prevented, Vernas thought, darkly, if those wards had functioned properly.

He supposed he wasn’t being entirely fair. Wraiths were immune to most detecting wards, after all, meaning some degree of malfunction was to be expected. Even the great wards surrounding Medea had failed to detect all of the beasts, letting in a few stragglers such as the one that had attacked his sister-in-law. But for such a massive force, no amount of stealth should have precluded the guardsmen of Alerich from coming to its defense.

But the wards hadn’t activated late - they’d never activated in the first place. And thus had an entire city had fallen to an attack that strategically should have been routed hours prior. Why, Fifth Circle Chanters had died to this attack, slain in their own bedrooms without being given the chance to cast even a single defensive spell!

Entire generations lost, all because some fat provincial lord had decided to pawn some power away from his city’s wardstone to fund his other illicit dealings. Oh, how Vernas longed to cut some of that flab off him - to bring men like him down to size.

But I didn’t. Vernas was strong, but that meant he couldn’t flaunt his strength. There was a process to things. An order. If all the demigods in the world romped across the planet, doing whatever they wished, then the fragile order that had been created by Heroes such as the Ember Witch after the Fragmentation would have fallen long before Vernas’ birth.

He was a soldier, not a leader. It would be his cousin’s job in the House of Lords to address this issue of graft.

The girl - Anabellum, she’d called herself - was saying something to him. Vernas closed his eyes, feeling enervation wash over him.

Oh, cousin, he thought, sighing. Is this what changed you so after Uncle’s death?

Vernas covered his face with his hands.

Now, what am I supposed to do with a child that’s lost both her parents, when hundreds of people just like her are roaming this city, being rescued by my men, even as I think?

—

The world was changing.

Somewhere both close and far, both behind and in front, inside the physical realm and not, a silver-haired girl in a set of atavistic witch’s robes and hat awoke from her slumber. The sunflower hidden in her lapel shuddered at her departure from her lazy sprawl.

“Ow...” she groaned. “What was that?”

The Weaver blinked, before making sure she still had her most important possession - that being, of course, her witch’s hat - and casting a surveillance spell over herself.

Nothing was amiss. Her core was fine - if being restricted to a miniscule fraction of her power could really be called fine. Her physical vessel’s vitals also showed no discrepancy.

So why did she feel like shit?

Beware of the Marked.

The Weaver stilled.

Her expression contorted. A panoply of emotions flashed across her face: from hatred, to joy, to disgust, and suspicion. Then, she grew expressionless.

She sighed, watching the fractal expanse around her flicker like the interior of a kaleidoscope. Her silver eyes flashed, spreading the power of her gaze all across her chosen, miniscule cross-section of Existence.

“So it begins, then?” she whispered.

The Weaver stepped forward, and all of a sudden, the fractal mass shifted. Now, instead of displaying void, each glass-like pane of the Layer displayed a different vista. Snow-capped mountains and clearwater springs. Ancient gearworks, bearing within them a primordial power. Fields of swaying, black-violet plants, both grain and flower.

Her stare, however, was focused entirely on a mansion atop a hill in the very center of the ancestral city she now stood above.

“Is this also part of your plan, old friend?” She chuckled.

“You sly, conniving bastard.”