Farwind was not pleased with how the battle was proceeding. He had brought forces fully capable of defeating the defenders of Geltheas, but the reports had greatly underestimated the strength of the individual Shin. He had only recently arrived in Pancal from across the ocean, so information on his abilities was scarce. So far, both the State Priest Homin and that weird little pixie Polus had been killed due to Shin's interference, and the soldier-caste ant seemed was constantly befuddled by his invisible ability. The only saving grace was that Shin's ability seemed unable to follow Nemo into his private roads.

Nemo was an odd man. He took the philosophies of the Phagia Republic skill to heart in a much more profound way than most. As he had risen in power, he had begun granting himself less and less luxuries. Now, as perhaps the strongest individual in the nation, he lived an almost absurdly austere life.

He owned no possessions, save for the sackcloth which he wears only to avoid bothering others with his nakedness. The collar on his neck was created at his own behest. A unique enchant is cast upon it, requiring him to follow any legal order he receives from a legitimate citizen of the Republic. Through a unique combination of skills, he has no need to eat or drink water; supposedly, he has not consumed anything for years.

Despite his peculiarities, he was a highly capable fighter. His unique skill, which allowed him to travel in ways that Farwind did not fully understand, and his powerful Ideals, which allow him to attack in unpredictable ways, made him a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, even Nemo could not land a clean blow on Shin. In addition to the unseen forces the samurai was using to pin down the ant, he acted as though he possessed a precognitive ability or supernatural senses. Even as Valefar lamented the lack of information on Shin, he saw the black-armored youth leap suddenly to his left, only for a trident to stab from the air at his former location a moment later, grasped by the leathery-skinned hand of Nemo.

While their side had taken losses, the other side was not doing much better. Already, their priest bled out on the roof. Not yet dead, but soon. None of his allies had enough free time to feed him a potion with Nemo on the prowel. Lgur had been locked in a battle of Ideals with Valefar himself, her lightning and more subtle thunder-dragon magic competing with the demon's own wind magic. Of course, Valefar had other Ideals he could use which might be more effective, but there was too much risk of those magics being linked back to some of his previous exploits and expose him as a demon. There was no need to be hasty; already, Lgur was mentally exhausted, and probably running low on mana.

Whatever resource Shin was using to keep the battle in his favor, it would not last forever. The soldier ant was a specialist in defense, like Pancal's own Prince Cain. While she was kept at bay now, she had yet to be damaged. Nemo was untouchable in his realm, and Valefar was not as limited as humans when it came to mana. The demon needed to only stretch the fight out, and victory would be his.

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Once again, a dagger lept from an unseen place, nearly striking a fatal blow. Only by constantly moving in unpredictable directions did Thagi Ghul remain alive through the onslaught of ever-changing weapons. Not for the first time, Ghul felt envious of his friend Meld; if he had that intuition enhancing Unique skill of his, dodging such attacks would be a simple matter. Instead, he just had an enhanced sense of smell. What a failure of a Unique.

Sure, it had aided Ghul in the past in many ways, but it couldn't save his friend Dicitiam. It couldn't protect the town of Geltheas. It couldn't stop this weird teleporting magic. This was a sort of magic Ghul had never seen before, he was certain of it. He took a deep whiff of the air, trying to check if the scent of the mana was at least similar to something he had encountered before.

But as a pair of sheers cut at his leg, Thagi smelled only the scent of the Ideal of Phagia Republic, and the Ideal of Abstinence. Fairly common ideals, and unlikely to be related to his movement. There was also the strong scent of an unknown Ideal around the weapons, although Ghul discounted that as being merely related to his offense.

There was no Ideal to account for the teleportation at all. At that realization, Ghul shifted his thinking. Was this some sort of physical skill? It was definitely not merely a high-speed movement ability. Ghul would have recognized something so common immediately. Invisibility and intangibility also did not fit. Once again, Leader Ghul sniffed wildly at the air. Perhaps if he couldn't see or hear what direction he was coming from, he could still smell him.

And he could. But what his ever-reliable nose told him was incomprehensible. The smell was approaching, but from a direction that didn't exist. It wasn't as though he simply could not tell the direction at all; that was a sensation he was familiar with. Rather, he could tell exactly which direction the smell came from, but it was not a direction at all. The confusion quickly brought on a headache.

Ghul was not a great thinker or philosopher. He had never managed to learn an Ideal, despite several attempts. He had gotten where he was now through mastery of his body. So, he simply stopped thinking about the why of it. Trusting himself fully to his nose, Leader Ghul shut his eyes and struck towards the place that wasn't a place. He grinned in satisfaction and he felt his halberd connect.

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The huge ant-man lunged at Shin again, pushing aside the dozens of fallen soldiers and delvers that clung to it. Despite their numbers, they have not enough strength to compete with the huge insect. Still, their efforts held the beast back long enough for him to dodge its mandibles. In the ant's violent shaking, one of the spirits is dislodged and fades away, his soul finally returning to the cycle of reincarnation.

The soul of Shin's grandmother whispered a warning into his ear. The samurai leaped to the side, narrowly avoiding a spear thrust from the very air. Before he can retaliate, the enemy vanished again. In his moment of distraction, yet more spirits are destroyed by the thrashing of the insect.

Shin concentrated corrupted mana into this blade and swung it into the ant-man. The sword deflected uselessly off of the thing's carapace, the mana dispersing on contact. The ant cannot hurt Shin, and Shin cannot hurt the ant. A stalemate. One which Shin will eventually lose as the recently deceased pass on to the cycle, leaving him to fight with only his more permanent comrades.

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Shin examined the battlefield. The ant he could not harm. The strange slave man he could not strike. And Valefar, who could simply fly out of range of his attacks with his wind magic. Even his spirits had little luck grabbing hold of the general, as he would slip between their fingers like a breeze. While he was confident at the beginning, his presence on the battlefield was rapidly becoming useless.

Instead of dragging things out, he needed to act aggressively, as he had done before. Use all of his resources in a single attack. And, if that did not work, flee to fight another day.

With his mind made, Shin placed his family blade back into its sheath. Lowering his stance, he gave a command to the dead. "Come here. Give me your regrets. I will bring you vengeance. The one responsible for your suffering will see justice."

Those spirits that remained halted in their tasks and rushed to Shin's side. Rage was clear on their faces. They had been killed cruelly, indirectly, without cause, without mercy. What little of their strength remained was granted to Shin, to be the executioner on their behalf. As the spirits faded into his sword, only two remained before him.

Mayor Fallow, with a smile on his lips, granted his strength and faded. Dicitiam looked deep into Shin's eyes. His lips moved, but his words were not audible. This was a spirit with lingering regrets.

"Is it the golem?" The shade of the priest nodded. His soul could not know peace with his failure. To Dicitiam, the golem fleeing the town in this chaos was a greater threat than any invasion, even if that invasion had caused his own death. A loose construct was an existential threat to all life.

The shade looked deeper into Shin's eyes, his black orbs drilling into Shin's heart. Whatever answers the spirit found there, he eventually granted Shin his strength, and like the others, he faded away.

Shin's sheathed katana now pulsed with black energy. Settling into his stance, he took careful aim at his target and waited for the chance to strike.

Lgur sent a bolt of electricity towards Farwind, but it was too weak. Vale Farwind knocked the spell aside with the back of his hand and swung a wind-cloaked fist towards the guardswoman's head. His attack did not have time to land, however.

The world seemed to lurch as a black line divided it in two. From the clear blue sky, diagonally down, and through the domed roof of the dungeon fortification. And, that line passed directly through general Farwind.

"Gah!" Blood spilled from Farwind's mouth as his body separated from shoulder to hip.

An explosion rang out as air rushed back into the gap in the sky created by the strike. Black tendrils expanded from the two halves of the general's body, as though trying to pull him back into one piece. The halves repelled each other, however, and they only grew further apart with each attempt. Below, the domed building buckled, its integrity compromised by the long thin gash cut into its surface, a gash which now actively pushed to spread itself wider. Chunks of masonry fell away to the dark interior. To the side, the Association Leader swung his halberd rapidly with his eyes closed, the weapon seeming to disappear with each strike. Its blade was coated with blood.

"General Farwind? Is..." Among all the action, the ant stared only at General Farwind. Cut in half as he was, it was clear those were no human organs spilling from his chest. As he desperately tried to restore his body, bits of his true anatomy would poke through from time to time. It was obvious now that he is a demon. Taking advantage of his damaged state, Lgur covered the demon's body in a squeezing snake of electricity, slowly sizzling away at this flesh even as its fangs bit into him.

"Must..." Although he was now free of the spirits holding him still, the soldier ant did not attack. Instead, it entered a fugue state, its antenna swaying wildly. The trance lasted only a moment before it returned to its senses. Shin was too wary of the strange behavior to capitalize on its moment of stillness.

At its return to wakefulness, the ant yelled out above the crash of falling stone and ongoing clashes of combat between Ghul and the nearly naked man. "Pancal combatants, I have received permission by the council of emergency delegates to offer a temporary cessation of conflict to discuss the possibility of demonic interference in relations between Pancal and Phagia."

At her proclamation, the body of Farwind finally gave in to its damage. His eyes closed, and for a moment he fully took on his demonic form. Black, beetle-like wings sprouted from his back, a pointed tail emerged from his backside, and short horns erupted from his head. A moment later, both halves of his body were pulled through a much too small hole in reality. The general was gone.

Ghul and the nearly naked man stopped their combat at that time. Ghul was covered in scratches, cuts, and bruises across the exposed parts of his body, and his armor was nicked and dented. When the nearly naked man stepped into visibility, he looked even worse off. A deep gash crossed on his shoulder bled freely.

Breathing heavily, Leader Ghul slowly nodded. "We will talk."

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Mud quickly climbed to its feet. That lurch had certainly felt like the mansion had moved, and its Domain confirmed it. The Domain, being linked to the mansion, had lifted along with it. What Mud saw within its raised Domain was the method by which the structure would move.

From the far sides of the house, large multi-segmented legs had unfolded from the interior of the walls, each segment nearly as long as the depth of the house. The eight legs ending in points resembled a creature Mud had seen in the street markets of Geltheas; a tier zero beast known as a 'Crab'.

Jabrax nodded to herself and looked around the room for a moment. "Well, I got it started and I think I know how to control it, but it will be impossible to drive since I can't see what's going on outside. Cithlar must have had some other means of seeing out of the building, or maybe this was just never completed."

"I can see outside with my Domain."

"Oh right, I suppose that would work. Alright, tell me which direction to go then." Jabrax hovered her hands above the controls, awaiting Mud's directions.

"What is the status of the weapons you mentioned previously?"

"Oh right, those." The demon gave a jagged toothed smile. "Want me to try to activate them?"

"Yes. Target the location twenty units to the west and five units below my current location." This should be suitable for destroying the slum house as per its plan, thought Mud.

"Well, if you say so!"

The glee with which she began rapidly manipulating the console filled Mud with concern. Perhaps the fact that she had manipulated it into giving a specific order to fire the weapon instead of simply firing it herself was a warning sign that-

Mud's thoughts were cut short as the building was sent stumbling backward by a massive concussive force along with the muffled sound of an explosion outside. A few automatic adjustments of the crab-like legs rebalanced the mansion, but all that remained of the shack was a crater that extended well beyond Mud's perception. Not a trace of the slum house remained, having been completely vaporized by the cannon that had emerged from the front left side of the house.

Jabrax disappeared up the stairs to examine the damage, but stomped back down with her arms crossed. "Hmm, I was hoping it would be bigger than that. Maybe wipe out the whole city or something."

Mud lamented its failed plan. It really was excrement. "Walk us east."