Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1793.12.28]

Should we just dominate him physically, like Aisha would? Well… Spells aren’t THAT personal… And if he refuses to speak, what can we really do? And he doesn’t seem prideful in the slightest. More like a slimy snake… Zeph thought, trying to decide on what to do. Makani and their questionable host started a glare contest while he scrambled to get his bearings. He obviously wants money, so why is Makani hesitating?

To his surprise, their escort broke the silence.

“It seems you forgot that in this exchange right now, you can also lose a thing or two,” Hamar said, taking a step forward while brandishing his war hammer. “That it’s as much a chance as it’s a risk!” he slammed his hammer at the desk, only for it to be caught in the open palm of the boss. The man reacted just in time, standing up in the process, but the crack of bones crushed between the tool and hardwood couldn’t be mistaken.

“And you forgot who you are visiting, boy!” he hissed through a grimace—disturbingly similar to his previous grin—while gripping the hammer’s head.

Ah, yes, Aisha-style in the end—

“Stop this,” Makani’s calm, soft tone stood out so much in the oppressive atmosphere that it made them all pause. “You are wasting our time,” he stated emotionlessly, looking straight at the company boss. “I’ve decided. You will see nothing but trouble until I see results. You won’t see any opportunity until you work for it.”

The man hissed in anger, but released the hammerhead from his trembling left hand, allowing the stupefied Hamar to take a step back after the sudden release.

The bossman cradled his damaged palm in his good hand, massaging it slowly. “Good luck finding her, you ba—”

Makani interrupted him with a calm but raised voice. “North cliffside of Blue Vermilla Island. Private aerostat is getting prepared for a flight.” The boss paled ever so slightly.

It was all the confirmation they needed, but instead of reacting, Zeph stared blankly at Makani. How the hell?!

“You think we don’t have our own methods of tracing our target?” Makani asked, slowly stepping forward with his hands behind his back. Although, being slouched and this pale made him look more like an old man rather than an imposing figure. “All we needed from you, was a contract. You refused. You wanted to stay in. Now listen, and tell me…” The bossman started to take steps back in response, his face full of hesitation.

Meanwhile, Zeph wasn’t sure what to do with himself, so he started to scan their environment with Mana tendril to at least watch Makani’s back.

“How can a contract be of any use if we find ourselves incapable of reaching her? I won’t be stepping into that pitfall anymore. Then again,” he smirked lopsidedly, “as much as we need to claim her today to stay legally clean, your claim on her will end soon…”

Zeph found the source of the heightened Mana density in the room. It took a few iterations, but he was sure that the slow flow of Ambient Mana, recognizable by the lumps of unknown Magicules moving towards the open doors, had a source in the desk. It was ‘smoking’ with Mana, so to say. An inefficient enchantment was imbued inside, he was sure. His eyes widened when he understood why the bossman was moving away from it, and towards the window behind. He quickly checked the stone floor between the man and the desk, simultaneously adding Mana-L from the pool that he kept around the pouch with his enchanted beads, consequently forming a Mana-L core inside his Mana tendril. He got as close as to brush the man’s Veil to be sure, before suffocating the enchanted tracks on the floor with his Mana-L, neutralizing and pushing away the foreign Mana to block the channels.

“If you really want to be included so badly, I will do it for you,” Makani said derisively. “If you work hard enough, then we will give you a chance. A chance to walk away unscathed after we are done. Maybe more, providing you deliver. But there will be no down payment of any sort for you…”

Normally, it would have taken longer, but he concentrated his Willpower on pushing the Mana-L inside. There was a risk of actually triggering the trap, whatever it was, but Mana-L was too dense and viscous to propagate quickly along the enchanted lines, thus creating minimal pushing force. Also, even as it started to disintegrate on contact, most of the ensuing Mana pressure was released to the surroundings because the Mana inside the lines was clearly still under the bossman’s direct control, even if the guy wasn’t able to move it freely like Zeph.

It took a few seconds at most, and when Zeph was sure the channels in the floor were blocked—and as their host paled suddenly, stopping midstep—he spoke out loud with a tone as calm and neutral as he could muster. “Don’t touch the desk. Even if it’s now disabled.”

A drop of sweat rolled down his temple as he started to furiously look for other channels all around the desk while slowly moving a huge part of his Veil to shield the desk from their host. Thankfully, keeping up the blockade wasn’t straining in the slightest after he stopped moving that Mana tendril.

They were lucky that the enchantment inside the desk was leaking so much Mana. It interfered with their Veils strongly. If the bossman had his Veil spread around the whole room in a stable fashion, he would be able to tell what Zeph was doing immediately. Then, he would be able to either trigger the trap immediately or have a chance to do so through his Veil – assuming he was capable of that level of Mana manipulation.

But as it was, the guy was just dumbfounded to the point of freezing in place. No matter how poor his Mana manipulation and sensing skills were, he was sure to notice the blockage by now.

Makani stopped before the ornamental desk, looking down at it with disgust. “And I may have just a perfect excuse to present to authorities in case you decide to scram anyway. Hmm… Actually,” he said, stroking his goatee.

After a moment, he nodded to himself and looked up, straight into the bossman’s eyes. “I changed my mind. You are free to go,” Makani stated dismissively.

Zeph could hear the grating of the bossman’s teeth. The man balled his hands into fists—even the damaged one—but didn’t move otherwise.

The last sentence was as much a promise of legal retribution, as it was a truth. The man wanted to play the game, so he was now invited – in the worst possible way. He had to really choose sides now.

“I’ve heard...” he growled through his teeth. “That your—”

“I don’t care what you know about us,” Makani said with slight irritation. “Didn’t I say it clearly enough earlier? Make your choice. Deliver and hope. Or crawl away and try to survive.” There wasn’t even a trace of maliciousness in his voice, which was even more disconcerting.

Feeling a slight pressure on his Veil, Zeph quickly fired off his new Veil technique while glancing backward.

Three partially camouflaged people stood there. All frozen in strange positions, as if being caught in the Red Light, Green Light game. The burst of his Mana had to startle them, as he wasn’t able to shape his Veil properly that quickly, but at least he wasn’t able to detect any Spell constructs nearby.

Hamar, noticing his movement, turned around a second later, weapons at the ready.

“Stop! Stop!” the bossman shouted, throwing his hands up. “You have me! I give up! You guys, go back to the hall,” He sighed heavily after that, slumping visibly. “Cursed Manacasters…” he mumbled under his breath, shuffling back toward his desk.

His men took a moment to process the order before laughing awkwardly and sheathing their weapons. They slowly backed away, making placating gestures.

As the bossman returned to his seat, Zeph could feel through the remnants of his Veil placed around the desk that the enchantment inside stopped producing Mana. He was still observing the retreating crew, though, ready to use his exploding beads at a moment’s notice. Only after they entered the staircase, he dared to glance back.

Makani still stood right before the desk, looking down at the man sitting before him. “You really like to stir the pot, don’t you?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“Ya think it’s that easy living here?” The man grimaced. “Name is Darrah Vuld. It will be 478 gold, 58 silver, and 2 copper for the claim,” he said, taking out a thin file of papers from the desk’s drawer and placing it before Makani. “I will help with the retrieval. As per law.” His face contorted in revulsion at the end.

“Good,” Makani nodded, taking the papers. “We will see how much you are worth…”

~~~

As they climbed wide stairs engraved in the side of a giant rock that made the Blue Vermilla Island, Zeph moved closer to Makani. They were at the back of the column of people—their numbers have grown to half a hundred—so he was cautiously certain no one would hear them speaking.

“How did you know?” he asked in a whisper, shielding his mouth with a hand.

Makani glanced at him, then gestured to wait. After a few seconds, a Spell formed around them. If not for his new technique, Zeph wouldn’t be able to notice. He started to improve on it, too. Instead of setting a lattice of compressed Mana at the border of his Veil, he started to deform the whole thing into a tentacle-like monstrosity riddled with compressed points all over. It was useless in the context of detecting remnants of Spell constructs, but had much better chances at detecting ongoing Spells or Mana-related effects. It took a lot of his concentration, though, as he had to consciously keep the points compressed. He managed to keep up the Veil shape and density change by imagining a pattern and sustaining it like a 3D texture. He was, in a way, recreating a fractal texture. It wasn’t a real fractal, but the shape and compressed points were regular enough to be conceptualized as such. The minus was, it burned through his Will and Will-Mana quite quickly.

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Truly, his experiences from Earth were producing unforeseen results.

“Thanks to your advice, I managed to finally unlock the Sound-Spell branch of Matrices,” he said proudly with a content grin. “It’s Mana-intensive, but I kept listening from the moment we left the carriage. I’m working on making it Self-Sustaining and Veil-independent, but the latter is quite hard to implement. Also, it’s a utility branch, so it isn’t as useful as I would like…”

Zeph had to stop himself from gaping stupidly. The ‘Lesser Sound detect’ in his possession had neither the accuracy nor the sensitivity to allow him to recognize soft sounds, which meant Makani’s version had to be at least a Tier 1 Spell. He also suspected it was directly enchanting his ears instead of giving visual clues or communicating through the Mana-Soul connection.

But the last sentence confused him. “What do you mean ‘utility’? Sound can be more damaging than physical objects.”

Makani blinked a few times, trying to decipher the meaning behind his words. He evidently failed. “What do you mean? I am unable to produce a shockwave strong enough to directly harm anything.”

“Try to find the resonant frequency of different materials. I’ve heard the human body has a few that can be damaging—something to do with internal organs, bones, heart, maybe even eyes—you would have to test it yourself, though. You should be able to at least deafen or stun your opponents in any case… Anyway, how did that help with finding out about the aerostat?”

“His crew started gossiping as soon as we entered the main hall. All I had to do, was to find a private aerostat that was getting ready to depart. It took a lot of concentration on Memory, but I’ve managed to remember and filter out the sounds coming from the aerobays that I heard when we were outside. The private ones are all located at the top of the islands, thankfully, so the sounds weren’t muffled much. They are used sporadically, too.”

You still had to determine the location by that sound… What are you? Daredevil? Did you manage to awaken your echolocation powers already? Zeph thought incredulously. “That’s… I don’t even know where to start…”

Makani shrugged. “Then don’t. Let’s concentrate on the problem at hand,” he said, looking up.

Zeph followed his gaze. They were getting closer to the Byzantium-style mansion at the top, already seeing the gardens embedded in the cliffside.

========Theron Nalani PoV========

They were here. But their entourage was concerning.

Over fifty people slowly entered the plaza before the mansion, forming loose ranks.

They managed to convince Vuld? That old bastard… He clicked his tongue in displeasure.

“Commander, should we proceed as planned?” asked someone from behind. His voice was youthful but firm.

Theron turned away from the window and stepped up to the table in the middle of the room. A detailed map of the island was spread on it. The man in plain, black, reinforced leather armor stood at attention to the side, waiting for orders. “Yes. But your objectives shift. Prolong the fight, make sure both of them deplete their Veils at the same time. Forgo apprehending attempts and concentrate on the positioning.”

“The last resort?”

Nalani glared at him. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop involving me in that matter?” he growled. “Do what you were told. If I fail, I fail.”

“Yes, commander!” the man hit his chest with a fist in a salute and walked away.

Nalani looked once more at the map. That number of people complicated things, but it should still be doable. Though, he expected that he would have to take direct action.

Let’s hope no more complications take place, he thought, reaching for a faceless mask.

===============================

They entered the opulent building. It was structurally resembling a fortress made from gigantic stone blocks, but the silver-and-black adornments and marble-like floor made it look more like a palace.

Zeph, Makani, and Hamar, along with a few more mercenaries, kept to the back. Even if they were attacked from behind, they had enough people to defend and retreat. Zeph made sure his two telekinetic shields were at the ready and loosened the cords of his pouches.

The aerobay was on the other side of the building, so they used the main gates with the intent of going straight through. Each floor was almost four meters high, and the hallway inside was wide enough to easily accommodate five warriors, leaving enough space for them to swing their weapons.

Nothing stopped them, though. There were no guards, not even workers could be seen.

After a few intersections that they ignored, they entered a huge hall. The stone floor was intricately carved in geometrical shapes. The ceiling, three floors above their heads, had a rectangular hole, allowing the waning daylight to illuminate the interior. The higher floors were opened, forming terraces all around the room.

Seeing the hall for what it was—a perfect ambush spot—everyone prepared their weapons as their focus sharpened.

And rightly so.

As they stepped past the center of the hall, arrows started raining at them. The archers were at the back of the second floor on their right. Makani reacted almost immediately, producing a strong, uplifting wind. The projectiles were already slow because of the curvature of their trajectories—their enemies didn’t enter their direct line of sight—so the wind made them easy to dodge or defend against.

The volley didn’t subside, though. The enemy wasn’t firing as fast as Xim, but still at a superhuman rate. Zeph threw three life-detection beads upstairs, following with a Mana tendril. They didn’t roll far, misshaped as they were, and one was already thrown away by an arrow, but Zeph managed to power one bead to get a look at the enemy.

As it was happening, more enemies charged from the left, jumping from the second floor and trying to surround their group from three sides. Zeph glanced back, noticing a group of ten people that were sprinting in their direction. Five wore black full-plate armor and used heavy weaponry, while another five had body-fitting reinforced leather armor.

“Leave them to us, concentrate on the archers!” Hamar yelled, already running to greet the newcomers.

Zeph received feedback from his Spell, detecting seven people upstairs. Without taking his eyes from the melee happening just a few meters away, he quickly started constructing his overpowered quadruple-Flash at the end of the Mana tendril, making sure to place the Spell behind the lip of the terrace.

As the blindingly-bright burst of light illuminated the whole hall, Makani finished his own Spell. Air implosion struck from behind the backs of the enemy warriors, unbalancing them and even knocking down the closest warrior in light armor. Hamar’s team took advantage of the occasion, making quick work of two heavy and three light-armored enemies.

Zeph glanced around as he reached for smoke-smell bombs with his free hand. They outnumbered the enemy, but those warriors were much stronger than Darrah’s crew. The frontline was slowly pushed back.

He adjusted his position, making a few steps to keep the distance from the fighters, simultaneously igniting the bombs in his hand. Makani’s Veil started recovering, so he should be able to keep the worst of the smoke away from their allies.

He threw the already-smoking bombs all around, not caring about the direction.

Leaving the rest to Makani, he concentrated again on his Mana tendril. Using Matrices, he started the construction of Mana Beam geared with Heat modules. This time, he did his best to direct the auto-construction to imitate the shape Makani enchanted into the Cube. Thanks to the fact that Heat cantrips could be formed immediately from his EE, not to mention his familiarity with the Beam Spell, he managed to speed up the construction time drastically. Instead of 42 seconds, he finished it in 10 or so.

It was still an eternity on the battlefield, though. Enemy warriors started to choke on the fumes as Makani conducted over the airflow in the room. Someone threw a knife at Zeph from his blind spot, probably to break his concentration, but it was easily deflected by his telekinetic shield.

He used the detection bead upstairs just before the Beam Spell was finished, noticing that some archers already recovered. He aimed at the most composed one, standing right in the center.

Zeph had sent most of his Veil to power the concentrated Heat Beam, going as far as creating multiple Heat cantrips in the Spell’s vicinity to increase its efficiency.

He was very glad he didn’t try that anywhere close to himself when a powerful explosion shook the air.

But the air kept shaking even after the blast ceased.

He caught movement in his peripheral vision, and immediately spun in place, brandishing his spear. His telekinetic shield was cut in half as he barely deflected a thin sword. The clash left him slightly unbalanced.

His eyes opened wide when he saw a masked person in form-fitting gray robes, appearing from nowhere like a ninja. Assassin?!

He tried to jump back, but the warrior was much faster. The sword cut deeply into the armor on his hip, forcing Zeph to move with the strike to his left. He used the inertia of his weapon to jump further, swinging at the enemy.

The gray-robe easily dodged his strike, moving low and closer to press him with a series of quick stabs.

Zeph’s pouches—cut off in the first attack—hit the floor, beads and smoke bombs scattering on the floor.

His second telekinetic shield failed after three lighting-fast stabs, and he let go of his spear. The weapon was too slow. Instead, he raised his hands in a boxing guard and used armor’s vambraces to deflect the strikes while scrambling to time his footwork to move away.

After gaining a few stab wounds in the lower part of his torso, he instinctively found the rhythm of the attacks. The next stab, directed at his chest, he allowed through while twisting his torso in preparation for a jab. The sword tip slid on a metal plate and penetrated the leather just under the next one at a steep angle, cutting deep and scraping on his ribs. Zeph continued the rotation, effectively catching the sword between the plates and leveraging it to the side while throwing the quickest punch possible. His thumb, protruding from the side of his fist, found the eyehole in the mask.

The gray-robe kept their eyes on Zeph at all times – they didn’t even react to the punch, and definitely weren't expecting the maneuver.

The needle under his nail penetrated the closed eyelid and exploded immediately, throwing the man’s head back as he screamed, and wrecking Zeph’s finger. The left side of the mask crumbled, showing just how effective the blast was, but in the next second, the man was already closing in with two knives in his hands, ignoring the blood and remnants of his eye oozing from the grotesque wound.

At that point, Zeph’s Veil was already shredded off. The sword, now lying on the floor a few meters away, was coated in dense Mana, preventing him from recovering it and stripping parts every time the man had stabbed. He was unable to construct Spells in that state. Zeph managed to make a few quick jumps back to make distance, when suddenly the world become white…

========Theron Nalani PoV========

I should have used a pain-inducing agent… Frix, what’s this guy made from? He cursed internally as Einar moved back, stopping right at the central floor plate.

He immediately activated his prepared Skill, sending a concentrated beam of light at his eyes, and jumped forward.

Only to spasm midstep and almost fall on his face. An ethereal pain shook through his very being, trying to shut down his brain.

But he was not a novice in the Soul arts. As much as the attack was surprising, it was merely a distraction.

Gritting his teeth, he powered through the agonizing sensation and corrected his posture, stumbling close to his target.

Only to detect through his Veil a bubble of unmoving Mana at the center of Einar’s chest, just as the man started to crouch in a defensive stance. His working eye opened wide as he immediately dodged to the right.

But it was too late. A blast of Mana hit him right in the arm, obliterating his Veil and frying the nerves in the whole limb.

He screamed again. It certainly was a new form of pain – one he had never experienced before.

In panic, rage, and pain—for the fear his prey would try to escape when he was recovering—he activated the enchantment in the knife in his good hand and threw it at Einar’s feet. The explosion of force lifted his body, crushing the man’s legs.

Enough is enough! If he dies, so be it! he screamed in his head when still howling from the pain.

It took him half a second to cut off the neural feedback from the offending extremity, enough for the man to drop back to the ground, two ells away from the now cracked, central floor plate.

Breathing heavily, he walked to the unconscious body lying in a heap, brushing away another Soul attack, not even considering the fact that it was activated without Einar's conscious input.

I need to hurry, he thought, hearing the fight all around intensifying. Another group of Lucas’s men should keep the perimeter and sow chaos, but after the explosion, anyone with half a brain would notice something was wrong. Curse that man… All that trouble—he shook his head slightly and calmed down. I don’t have weapons… I can still play it as intended…

He gave a signal to switch off the enchantments engraved under the floor panels around them, disabling the muffing and light distortion, and bent down to grip Einar’s neck…