The two-hundred people in front of the suburban house chanted, "Kidnapper! Kidnapper! Kidnapper!"
Howard's network consisted of eighty-nine individuals. Arthur had released sixty of mind control before things got spicy.
The news of his actions had spread quickly, but the unawakened hadn't expected him to move so quickly. His metal domain alone let him fly considerably faster than bullets, despite requiring him to have metal under his robe. He could also use his life domain to have two victims at a time fly as fast as him. Moreover, he had started from nearby victims, making his early journeys very short.
Then things got less straightforward. Some people escaped, while others tried to hide from him. Arthur didn't waste time searching for the former, but the latter were pathetically easy to catch.
Their reaction was expected. The prince might've said they were victims, but the reporters had reported it on worse terms. The media had found people who had been scared and oppressed by Howard's victims, and they revealed the depths of some crimes the network had committed even without Howard's orders. Sophie had revealed everything Howard had done to whom, and the mind-controlled unawakened had often gone beyond. That was natural, as their personalities were twisted, but unawakened nowadays didn't understand all those crimes were on Howard, not the victims.
In fact, a crowd had started to gather around the League the last few times he visited, carrying posters demanding justice.
The victims themselves were getting more and more scared about the repercussions and started calling Arthur names. Supposedly, he was, at the minimum, a liar trying to spread chaos. The people around the house chanting and accusing him below—he was flying—was the largest group he had to confront until now. He expected things to escalate.
Arthur had only stopped to see what it was about. He pulled Howard's victim from an open window. She was a social worker who recommended lonely girls and had their records disappear.
He healed her on the way to the next victim.
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The Golden King had once talked to the prince about weighing the pros and cons of obeying cultural customs, or his enemies would use it against him. Perhaps feeling worried about its consequences, the man discussed crossing lines in the next meeting.
"Sometimes you shall have a goal you find worthy of debasing yourself to pursue," the king had said. "You'll do objectionable things to accomplish it."
"I would never!" the young fool had replied.
"You will," his father replied with a no-nonsense tone. "Denial will only make you more likely to fall into the trap I'm about to warn you against. Pay attention."
The boy had acquiesced.
"When the time to do the distasteful comes, be mindful of your justifications and circumstances. Set clear limits about what you're doing and why. Don't let it become what the peasants call a 'slippery slope.' If you must do one thing, do that and nothing else. Don't steal from a man you murdered; don't murder a man you must only steal from."
The king had paused and looked almost lost at the horizon for a long time. Looking back at those encounters, Arthur noticed the man often did it. He felt the weight of his crimes, even if not enough to stop.
Eventually, he concluded, "When you're old enough to understand why you would need to cross some lines, not committing a smaller offense after you did a worse one might sound silly. What does it matter if you steal from the dead? You're already a murderer! However, this might very well become the only thing preventing you from descending into absolute perversion. Always mind the small things. Use them as deterrents and warnings about where you shouldn't go and what you're becoming."
Arthur had indeed found it silly right after leaving the dungeon. It was also ridiculously hypocritical of the man who had willingly turned into a monster. Still, as far as he could tell, it was sound advice, and he would follow it unless he found a reason not to.
So, one of the things Arthur had asked of Sophie was to convince the League to give him a lot of metal. He could've taken it from Howard, but that would be stealing.
The prince had been willing to cross the line by using mind control on the man, but it had been a matter of life and death in an emergency. He hadn't known whether the League was coming for him. After concluding things weren't as dire, theft would've been unjustifiable.
Sophie had delivered, and as Arthur moved to the last victim, he carried ten tons of steel spheres in his spatial storage ring.
He hoped he wouldn't need to use them, but considering the victim's identity, he expected to need to.
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The last victim Arthur went to deal with was the local National Guard Commander.
The man had killed a lot of military investigators for Howard. The general populace already condemned civilian victims, and it was much worse for an army man to kill his subordinates. That was made even worse considering the inner turmoils of the Luvy nation.
Howard had learned by chance that the country was on the verge of a military coup. The country's Governors controlled the police but had little militaristic power, yet had been very vocal against the military authorities. The president theoretically commanded the armed forces but publicly agreed with the governors because it was politically convenient. While that wouldn't become a significant issue in regular times, the mess with the League had made "fuses short" recently, as people these days would say.
If it were the prince, he would've just used his power to perform a coup and silence any opposition afterward. In fact, it wasn't much different from what he was doing if he thought about it. However, he had the benefit of having very few people he cared about and needed to protect.
The military generals cared about more than that, or perhaps they were just naturally more scheming. Their plans started with knowing who was who and convincing them to come to their side with bribes or reasonable arguments. When that failed, they investigated what their targets had done and controlled as many people as possible with blackmail material instead of killing unnecessarily. Hence, the investigators. They intended to make the coup look as legitimate as possible, which required some people not to make a fuss.
Howard had also used blackmail, but Arthur found it baffling. It simply didn't make any sense. This generation of people seemed to barely care about propriety and honesty—even newspapers lied!—yet some things still turned into scandals that could end their careers, political or otherwise, or create massive civilian protests.
It was astonishing how betraying your spouse caused less public outrage than embezzling money, despite the former telling much more about what kind of person you were. What would be beyond you if you betrayed the person you had formed a family and promised to spend the rest of your life with? It wasn't even about love or feelings but keeping your word; it was about integrity. Likewise, spreading misinformation about your political opponent was expected instead of repudiated, despite it demonstrating you had no qualms about lying to achieve your goals.
The prince himself had lied to achieve his goals when he claimed to be working for the League. Yet, his hypocrisy also let him better understand how dangerous it was. It was just too convenient.
He felt bad about it, but his plans were about saving the whole world. To him, that end justified a small lie about his connection to an organization. He would never cross the line to lie about others to destroy their reputation. That was too low.
As importantly, Tamara would never let him hear the end of it, and Sophie deserved a better husband than that.
Moreover, he was a level 100 awakener, an ascender, with almost 10,000 points of wisdom! If his only way out of a situation was to demean his opponents using falsehoods, he might as well admit defeat because he didn't deserve the victory. It would be just too pathetic.
And, well, Arthur was done feeling pathetic after realizing Sophie might need to work.
Speaking of saving the world, the prince could've dealt with Colonel Everett Hester silently if he had come here first. He could also sneak around even now, despite every soldier in the compound being on high alert, with patrols everywhere. However, this would be a crucial show of force in both the League's and his name.
North Lake City was considered an important strategic location, explaining the vast Army compound surrounded by tall concrete walls and filled with utilitarian-looking structures. A few dozen vehicles had green camouflage because of the forest to the South, but all four jet fighters, ten attack helicopters, twenty war tanks, and almost a hundred other vehicles used gray camouflage instead, just as the soldier uniforms. Colonel Hester's troops specialized in urban warfare.
The combat vehicles, aerial or otherwise, were enchanted for extra resistance. The troops wore uniforms enchanted to resist being shot at, though they could only deal with one or two enchanted bullets. War was considered expensive partly because enchantments were such a crucial part of it. Even so, enchantments were still cheaper than some recent innovations, like the synthetic fiber body armor worn by the SRT members. That technology was still too expensive for widespread usage.
Anti-intent string enchantments were only found on the buildings and some rooms because no one expected to be deployed against awakeners. That wasn't any army's purpose—which made it even more dangerous for the world to attack the League. Instead, a specific group was used: twenty-one people wearing voidsteel armor and wielding voidsteel guns.
Arthur couldn't see or feel through the armor, which used excellent engineering to never leave a single millimeter of surface uncovered even as they moved. That worked against thin intent strings and his domain. Howard had said he feared the AMSU—Anti-Mana Special Unit—the most, so he only spoke in person with Hester when he had no choice. He had heard the AMSU members also wore enchanted items to make them stronger, faster, and better warriors. It took a toll on their bodies and caused early retirements, but they were rewarded handsomely.
Strangely, Howard had said there were fifteen AMSU members. However, he had talked of another group of twenty-one people: the investigators he had ordered the Colonel to kill.
The prince guessed something was afloat.
The AMSU was deployed in the compound's very center, in an enchanted bunker below the centermost three-story-tall building, surrounding the Colonel. They were the man's last line of defense.
The first line was the ten combat helicopters and two extra jet fighters already flying in the skies—on top of the four jets on the ground. Arthur was known to move around by flight, and the twelve aircraft were flying the perimeter. It was around eleven in the morning, and many soldiers on the lookout towers wore sunglasses or used binoculars with dark lenses. They didn't want him to sneak his way in.
Arthur didn't even try. That wasn't his goal here. He stopped in the air half a mile away from the compound and strengthened his throat and lungs again.
"I am Arthur Boria, an awakener," he bellowed under his helmet. Even the helicopter pilots could hear his voice over the propellers' noise and through their ear protections. "I'm working within the boundaries of the Awakener Emergency Act. I have come to heal and apprehend Colonel Everett Hester. You have one minute to reply with an agreement and ten minutes to deliver him to me."
It took a dozen seconds for the speakers spread around the compound to reply, "This is a military zone. Trespassers will be shot on sight. Leave immediately."
The automated message only repeated itself in a loop. Inside the base, other speakers sounded a siren to alert everyone. The helicopters flew straight at Arthur, people on the ground started running to the four landed jet fighters, and the two airborne jets in the skies turned back to the compound.
The tanks would be useless against a flying foe, but ten military vehicles were surface-to-air missile launchers. They were spread throughout the base, pointing outwards, but all turned to face his direction.
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"This is my last warning," Arthur shouted. "I repeat: I'm an awakener, and I have invoked the Awakener Emergency Act. You have no right to oppose me. You have one extra minute to change your answer. If you don't, I'll consider it an obstruction of law and take the necessary steps to deal with this situation."
The military answered by shooting dozens upon dozens of missiles and rockets at him.
All things considered, the Colonel's response was smart. Arthur was a strong awakener, but his mana was still limited. He had flown around the city and used magic on over sixty individuals. If they could force him to use enough mana, he would just die when his energy pool hit rock bottom. Even if it failed, the man would still be setting the prince up for failure later, in case his nation decided to seek retribution before Arthur got to a high-mana region.
Unfortunately for them, he had a metal domain.
Most projectiles were enchanted for extra speed, while a few more tactical ones were also enchanted for extra resistance so as not to get easily shot down. However, they were homing projectiles. Their advanced guidance system was highly complex and dependent on wires linking some things, like processors and sensors, to others. No anti-intent strings enchantment could be found in the rockets, but even then, only powerful awakeners could deal with all projectiles before they reached them. They were swift. Unfortunately for them, Arthur's mind worked faster, and he just kept his position as he waited for the incoming threats to reach his domain.
As every missile or rocket got within reach, he used his metal authority on the internal wiring. Then, to prevent anyone from investigating it in case a rocket didn't explode, he used the wire's metal to destroy the entire guidance system, accumulate more unenchanted metal, and strike the warheads, forcing them to explode.
He could've protected himself with a bunch of spheres, but this was about sending a message of overwhelming strength. Having your weaponry fail without you knowing why would do. The anti-League movements would have to start to wonder what other hidden cards the League had.
Some of the helicopters' missiles weren't guided. Arthur just used metal debris from the others to destroy those as they entered the balls of flames created by the rockets he had already eliminated. The SAM launchers and helicopters just kept firing. All jet fighters got in position and fired, too. The prince kept destroying missiles.
The skies were tainted red with fire.
The jets and helicopters also opened fire using their machine guns. Some land troops pointed mounted machine guns at him and also shot. Arthur let the bullets, enchanted and otherwise, harmlessly hit his sorcerer's robe. They impacted strongly enough that he felt some of it through the robe's anti-shock enchantment, but it was barely an inconvenience.
He wasn't surprised by the sneaky voidsteel shells coming his way amid the others. He just dodged those because he would rather keep the way he dealt with the anti-mana alloy a mystery.
It didn't take long for all attackers to run out of ammunition. The war machines packed a punch but weren't meant for extended combat. The ground units also eventually stopped. They hadn't prepared to attack him, likely thinking the missiles would do the trick, so they had messed up feeding more ammunition to their guns.
By the time everything calmed down, the prince had barely moved from where he started.
"I understand you're just following orders," Arthur declared in the ensuing silence. "However, your orders are illegal. The Awakener Emergency Act is above your Colonel's command. You all know that. Refusing to obey illegal orders from your superior is not wrong."
He paused to let the words sink in, then added, "I was merciful until now. Part of my mercy was showing how useless your attacks are against me. But beware: this the end of my mercy.
"Anyone who attacks me will be met with retribution. I'll not counter-attack to kill, but I'll also not heal your injuries or use homing spells. I'll target your limbs and shoulders. If you're foolish enough to assail me, I greatly recommend not moving while or after you do, or I might hit a vital organ by mistake. I also suggest being close to a health worker or hospital. Even then, you might die.
"Your defensive enchantments won't protect you from me. Let me prove it to you."
Arthur extended his arm sideways and pulled his three-inch metal spheres from his spatial ring with his metal authority. He enspelled each to increase its melting point significantly and ignore some air resistance. He also made it so some would explode on impact. Then, he shot them as fast as he could.
He targeted the five-foot-thick walls surrounding the base and the aircraft and artillery that had shot at him. He only used his metal domain to propel the projectiles forward, yet his fire rate was faster than machine guns. Two by two, his spheres flew ahead at hypersonic speeds. Despite their speed, hundreds of them were airborne before the first struck its target.
The base's enchanted walls were made of concrete supported by thick steel beams. There was also a layer of metal in the center. None of it could resist Arthur's projectiles.
The spheres he had shot at the walls were the ones with a spell to explode. Or rather, he made it so most of the kinetic energy would spread from the point of impact. That caused his projectiles to get pulverized, and the walls didn't fare better. Twenty big craters appeared on each hit.
The spheres that hit the helicopters, jets, and artillery just went through them. On that front, he was showing his aiming ability instead. He had plenty of training striking fast-moving monsters, and the aircraft's mobility was considerably worse. Still, he spent a few spheres on each in case they dodged in the vectors he found most likely. Not that they could move much before the hypersonic projectiles got to them.
He could've made the spheres home on his targets, but it would be considerably more costly. He had a lot of metal mana but would still rather save it, just in case.
The temperature in which his projectiles moved would've melted them down without his spells. They left molten steel in their wake. He had targeted the helicopters' propellers' axes and the jets' turbines. The flying death traps started falling.
Unawakened would die that day, but Arthur had already shown enough restraint. He couldn't let people believe he was all bark and no bite. That would only cause bigger problems down the line.
And in the end, he had warned these people that he was acting under the Awakener Emergency Act. Twice, at that. They had chosen to disregard his words.
Of course, the soldiers had more subtle considerations than that, but warriors should always be prepared to face the consequences of wielding a sword.
The prince then started flying toward the base's central structure, likely its command center. He moved at an unawakened's running speed. He wanted his every move to be clear to all witnesses.
Snipers, RPG-launcher wielders, and troops controlling mounted machine guns tried their luck. They failed and paid the price. One did the opposite of what Arthur said and tried to crouch to dodge his return sphere. The prince had aimed at the man's knee. The fool didn't survive.
Arthur was halfway to the command center when all attacks ceased.
The military switched tactics. The alarm bells and repeated messages stopped sounding, and instead, a female talked through the speakers.
"I'm Major Ivy Diaz. I'm a lawyer. You said that you... uh... activated the Awakener Emergency Act's authority, right?" Arthur didn't reply as he kept moving, and she continued after a few awkward moments of silence. "Wait!" She pleaded, and he ignored her stalling tactics. "Listen! Luvian authorities have yet to recognize your claim! You're declaring war by invading a military base!"
The prince had to answer that.
"I have the right to single-handedly enact the Awakener Emergency Act," he replied. "I don't need Luvy's permission or recognition. It's called an emergency act for a reason. A fast response is required before the mind-controlled subject can do more harm than ordering his troops to attack the awakener who came to free him from mind control. He's scared of his actions being revealed, as are the corrupt individuals he has co-opted. There's no telling the lengths he'll go to hide evidence or kill people he dislikes under the guise of mind control now that it has been revealed. This classifies as an emergency."
That last bit was important. Now that Arthur had revealed the mind-control network, people could try to use the victim card to commit crimes before he freed them. The nature of said mind control sometimes made it harder for them to control their worse impulses, so it was a natural consequence of the ill-intended.
"T- That's not how the law works!" the Major replied. "Let's sit and discuss things! You're making a mistake! Please, believe me!"
Major Diaz might sound honest to some. However, Tamara had taught him to analyze signs like stuttering, volume of voice, and word emphasis. She was likely lying.
He replied, "Only a certain set of government officials are beyond the reach of the Awakener Emergency Act. Colonels aren't included. Luvy's authorities are welcome to discuss my actions with the League while or after I'm at it. As part of the League, you can do it right now as I approach Colonel Hester, free him of mind control, and take him away. I'll not stop. Luvy cannot legally stand in my way. You can't even stop me illegally. You lack the power."
"There are talks!" Diaz screamed. "The generals are on the phone with the League! Just wait a little! Just a little!"
Arthur ignored her. He finally got to the command center and took rotating disks from his ring. He cut down a tunnel from the highest ceiling all the way into the basement—and beyond into the underground bunker.
The bunker's walls were five-foot-thick solid metal enchanted to withstand a beating. To their credit, they slowed Arthur slightly. He had to shoot head-sized balls at hypersonic speeds at it to save time in creating an opening.
The bunker had seven rooms: a meeting room, two bedrooms filled with bunker beds, two bathrooms, a food deposit, and a bedroom with a master bed and a small table. The meeting room had a large round wooden table with twenty seats.
Colonel Hester sat by the meeting room's table. The blue-eyed, white-haired forty-five man was tall and thin. The uniform looked too big on him. Arthur felt the man hadn't had a good night's sleep for a while and was undernourished.
The AMSU members stood around the room. They were all aiming their voidsteel rifles at the opening Arthur had created.
"Don't move!" one of them shouted as soon as the thick metal lid he had created fell on the ground. "Leave! Now! Or we'll open fire!"
"Stand down," the prince replied. He kept his voice loud so everyone in the base could hear him. "I am Arthur Boria, an awakener. I'm working within the boundaries of the Awakener Emergency Act. I have come to heal and apprehend Colonel Everett Hester. You have one minute to leave this room, or I'll consider you to be obstructing me."
"Stop!" Major Diaz said through the speakers. "Just listen! The Colonel is innocent! He did nothing! It was all me, I swear!"
Hester widened his eyes in surprise. "Ivy?!" He stood up. "What did she do?!"
So, they wanted to make it look like she had acted independently to protect the Colonel. The man's reaction seemed legitimate enough, but the other twenty-one people in the room suggested he could trick biomancers. At least, that would be the case if Arthur's suspicions were correct.
Arthur ignored both Diaz and Hester. His next actions depended on how the people in that room reacted to his following words.
"I have already prehended the Colonel's body and can feel the mind control," he lied. He did feel the mind control with his domain, though. He had gotten enough experience at it that he didn't need to prehend anyone to recognize the signs anymore. "I'm not your enemy," he told the AMSU members, though still with his voice loud to be heard everywhere in the compound. "I'm here for the Colonel and the Colonel only. Whether your nation will make you pay for any crimes you might've committed under the Colonel's orders is irrelevant to me. I'm here exclusively on awakener business, under the precise limits of the Awakener Emergency Act. I can only touch him unless you attack me."
The limits weren't as precise as he claimed, but Arthur was forbidden from doing anything to any unawakened who wasn't directly involved in awakener business.
Truth be told, he had come with the intention to crush the AMSU. Putting them down despite their voidsteel defenses would look more impressive than leaving with their permission. However, they might be the investigators that were supposed to be dead. Arthur figured that showing he could reason with people would also work in his favor.
"Are you telling the truth?" the Colonel asked.
"Yes," Arthur replied. "My goals are healing you and taking you to the League's branch to await the arrival of people from the National Branch."
"Everyone, leave," Hester commanded. His troops were well-disciplined and complied without a single word. "Can we talk at a normal volume?"
"No," the prince replied, his voice still booming and making the room shake. The Colonel flinched every time his ears almost ruptured. "But I can hear what you want to say and not answer in a compromising manner."
The man smiled slightly, and his shoulders relaxed. "I'll believe you're not here on that bastard's orders. Listen, lad. You said your name was Boria, right? I have no proof, but I believe Howard was working for someone high up in the League."
"You're correct," Arthur said. No one was around to hear the man's words, and no magitech or exclusively technological objects were around.
Hester's eyes widened, and he tensed again. "You... What's your goal?"
"I'm here to free you from mind control and take you to the League branch," the prince repeated. "I will ensure justice is met. Your identity as a Colonel won't stop me. No identity will. Your twenty-one voidsteel-clad troops cannot stop me."
That was his roundabout way of saying he had guessed the Colonel had saved the investigators somehow and that Arthur would erase the League's corruption. It was an even more roundabout way of saying he was only talking at all because of those twenty-one people. He knew the truth, and Hester could only trust Howard was done for, or the investigators would die anyway.
That one of the victims had found a way to refuse Howard's orders and lie to the biomancer about it was expected. Mind control was only absolute if the person became a mindless puppet. There were always ways to try to resist here and there. Howard didn't keep as tight a leash on the Colonel out of fear of the AMSU, so it made sense that Hester had found a loophole.
Arthur's suspicions were all but confirmed by feeling Hester's brain. It was a mess of mixed signals. It was a wonder the man could function at all.
The Colonel looked at Arthur's helmet's eye slits but could only see the sorcerer's robe head cover. Still, in the end, the man made the right decision.
He nodded and said, "Thank you."
Arthur nodded and put the man to sleep.
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In the past, any House of some standing replaced the wheels in their carriages for floating enchantments. However, the carriages remained much slower than today's vehicles. Using horses to pull them was faster than mobility enchantments. Modern engines and wheels had gone a long way to make travel quick.
That said, the League hadn't been blind to the obvious way to improve hover carriages. They added engines to them, too. Jet ones, like in the jet fighters.
Hovercars were war machines exclusively used by the League. They purposefully made the vehicles impossible to function and maneuver without an awakener's input. The unawakened had found no way to produce similar things yet.
The vehicles were larger combat helicopters, their design somewhat square but with sharp lines. Four small jet engines on their sides and one on the front allowed them to take off, land vertically, and maneuver. The engines could change directions, letting the vehicle move diagonally at up to thirty miles per hour, according to the Tome of Laws. Four larger engines on the machine's back let it reach significant speeds in a straight line. Those four couldn't change directions; mobility depended on the smaller engines.
Hovercars carried missile launchers and mounted machine guns. Internally, they could carry up to thirty people. There were also four seats for awakeners outside, so they could take to battle if they wanted.
Hovercars were expensive and a rare sight outside high-mana regions, partly because they required awakeners to operate. If they were seen, the League was making a move and wanted everyone to know about it.
Well, the League had arrived, and it was making a scene.
A dozen hovercars were flying around the League's skyscraper, another dozen were parked on the ground, and a small army of over two hundred awakeners had taken control of the situation on the ground.