----Hervalle Border, Madeline Front-----
The seven students found it surprisingly easy to get to Hervalle's border.
The troops they did meet all bought their story of being student enlistees from Hervalle. Only as they neared the Madeline Front did inspections become more frequent and strict. Eventually, the group was forced to leave the main roads and cut through the Madeline Front's aggressive vegetation that existed wherever war hadn't leveled it.
Virgoh and Avior proved to be the most capable guides of the group. Virgoh used his sabre artifact to cut away the underbrush making way for a path while Avior used a silver whip to widen the path large enough for the group to make it through unhindered.
Jessica tried to help a few times with her massive greatsword but ended up getting it stuck so often in the underbrush it was more hindrance than help. It didn't help that one time she activated the artifact setting it aflame and almost starting a massive wildfire before the group barely managed to put it out in time.
Despite the group having a relatively well-cleared path the terrain still had obstacles like fallen trees, jutting roots, or loose stones, which combined to make the students progress rather slow.
Out of the seven, it was Victoria who seemed to struggle the most with the terrain. Most assumed it was due to her growing up as a "princess" and never having to trek through unruly terrain. They were basically right only replace princess with the daughter of the Merchant Councilor. Victoria made up for it though by emitting mana in military patterns in response to patrolling Hervalle Mages's mana senses allowing them to pass through their patrols unmolested.
The group might not pass an eye test this close to the border, but with the level of military codes, Victoria knew they could make it look like they were Hervalle War Mages on a secret mission which was good enough.
Of course, Victoria's codes only worked on Hervalle Mages.
While breaking camp in the morning the students felt a foreign mana sense converge on them. Assuming it to be one of Hervalle's Mages Victoria responded by arraying mana in a specific pattern. The mana sense withdrew and the students began to continue their trek when a squad of men in white uniforms with an emblazoned sun on their lapels stepped out of the foliage.
"Looks like we have some spies who want to give themselves up to the Radiance eh?" The apparent squad leader said with a thick Numinian accent revealing his birthplace.
The students responded quickly facing the members from the Constituency. They had come a long way in the last few weeks and their attitudes reflected that. They were no longer the panicking kids who didn't know what to do against the Muck Eater.
Victoria's words however quelled their fighting spirit. "We need to run, the Comet Legion doesn't deploy single squads, they always send out their entire battalion together! That's more than a dozen individual squads we don't stand a chance!"
Trusting their companion the students turned tail and ran. Jessica, Virgoh, and Avior placed themselves at the back of their fleeing group stepping in as the frontliners.
As more white uniforms emerged from the underbrush around the running students Victoria's words were proven right. They had far more than just one squad from the Comet Legion around them.
Avior turned to Jessica while running, "Give me your sword Jessica."
"What why?"
"Just do it."
"Fine, here."Jessica lugged her sword into Avior's thin arms that, despite their appearance, easily lifted the blade before activating the artifact covering the blade in flames.
Avior slashed at the surrounding brush which instantly caught fire mirroring what had happened when Jessica had accidentally done the same thing the day before.
Avior started a few more fires much to the pursuing Comet Legion's horror, before handing the greatsword back to Jessica.
"Keep lighting fires behind you while following the group it'll stall the Legion and try to attract Hervalle's patrols in the process," Avior told her.
Jessica began to do so, letting out her inner pyromaniac with glee, as Avior turned to Virgoh. "Every battalion in one of the Church's Legions should have one elite squad who can pursue us through this fire without issue. We need to find them and draw them away from the group."
Virgoh nodded assuming Avior had an unmentioned plan for losing them after they pulled the elite squad away from the group. Virgoh believed the supposed Crown Prince wouldn't be so foolhardy to confront a Legion's Elite squad without a valid plan.
Jessica kept following behind the other students who were oblivious that Avior and Virgoh had split off, too focused on the task of fleeing from the encroaching battalion and growing wildfire.
As for Virgoh and Avior, they didn't have to wait long until a squad with white uniforms decorated with a golden patch of a comet on their shoulders pushed through the roaring wildfire untouched behind orange barriers which seemed to be connected. If one didn't see their white soldier uniforms with shining suns and golden comet patches they could still identify this group by those signature-linked orange shields they were named after. They were one of the Comet Legion's Elite Squads and it looked like the full squad of twelve had come for them.
"Avior we found them! Now what?" Virgoh asked Avior ready for the next part of the plan.
Avior chucked a rock that bounced off the orange barrier of the elite squad and responded to Virgoh, "We get their attention and run!" Avior turned and ran deeper into the foilage at a breakneck pace.
Virgoh looked in confusion realizing they were just playing the role of bait. There was no grand plan! His anger suppressed by his fear of being butchered by the elite squad behind him, Virgoh took off after Avior hoping maybe just maybe they'd get out of this alive.
A moment later Virgoh's hope died when the brush gave way to a sheer cliff edge overlooking a rapidly flowing river.
Virgoh couldn't even bring himself to look at Avior as fought his panic drawing his artifact sabre and raising a protective barrier. He wouldn't die here he couldn't. He still had to avenge his family. Glancing to his left where Avior had stopped his nervous mind went blank.
There Avior stood lightly stretching with a wide smile on his face. Virgoh could even swear he heard some faint humming coming from the suspected Crown Prince.
Before Virgoh could ask why Avior had suddenly gone insane, their pursuers burst through the shrubbery. The newcomer's bodies were covered in glowing orange mana barriers visibly linked with one another. The Elite Squad had caught up.
Virgoh ignored his still-stretching companion and dashed forward. Decisively choosing to try and cut through and escape the encirclement before the squad had more time to set up. Virgoh's shadow sabre struck against the orange mana barrier resulting in a loud clang and rebounding back. Retreating with haste Virgoh saw the crack his strike made in the mana barrier close back together. In seconds it mended appearing completely undamaged like nothing had happened!
Realizing despite being a Mage of the Third he still had no chance against an Elite Squad from one of the Church's Legions, Virgoh backed up towards the cliff edge where Avior was still stretching and humming like a lunatic. Looking over the edge Virgoh was figuring out if he could survive the fall when a new sound filled his ears.
Virgoh's gaze turned to Avior who had just cracked their neck. Still wearing an insane smile, Avior's figure vanished.
Swinging his eyes toward the Comet Legion Squad, Virgoh heard the sound of a dozen glasses shattering at once. The orange mana shield Virgoh hadn't even been able to damage was now falling to the ground in hundreds of pieces.
The glowing afterimage of a blue line went through where the barrier had stood previously while also connected with each of the soldier's necks who had been sheltering behind them. As Virgoh took his next breath all twelve elite soldiers collapsed headless while the blue line faded leaving a smiling Avior standing next to the last soldier to collapse glancing at his hand where a single water blade extended from his bare right hand.
"If I remember right this is one of the techniques I put in Fluma's mind." Avior thought aloud. "I wonder how she's been doing as of late."
Virgoh, whose mind was unable to compute what he'd seen failed to hear Avior's musings. His mind was in the middle of a meltdown.
No wonder the Council decided to back the Crown Prince! Avior wasn't an embarrassment placed in Sparrow class! He was a monster hiding among the weeds!
Virgoh froze as the still grinning Avior turned to him, "Man did that feel good to let out. Training constantly is productive and all, but I really should save some mana for some extracurriculars every once in a while. I'm sure you'll keep all this to yourself right Virgoh? I don't want to have to explain to the others. It would be a real hassle."
Looking at a completely different person than the quiet, mana-less student he thought he knew Virgoh barely managed to weakly nod to answer his freak classmate.
-----
"I'm going to look around to see if Prim's anywhere around here. If you meet up with the others just tell them we got split up. Remember no leaking what you saw." Avior gave a playful wink trying to remember how his powerful persona went. He ended up using it in most of his lives as he found it always made social situations end so much faster than going with normal dialogue options.
Leaving Virgoh behind, Avior covered his body in a veil of shadow mana like he had when rescuing Prim two years ago. The veil made his entire body look like a shadow making it impossible for anyone to identify him unless they had a more advanced method for scanning him than he did for concealment. The only way for light to enter was through the center of his face where a small circle refracted incoming light allowing him to see through the obscuring shadows. The result was the appearance of a lone white circle looking like a single eye only a little bigger than a normal eye floating in the middle of his head. Avior developed this concealment method using knowledge from the best versions of every genius throughout his many lives, without completely overpowering him there was no way for anyone to pierce his veil and discover his identity.
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The first step done, Avior contemplated running with his physical strength alone, but after deciding not to deal with clearing all the foilage in his way opted for a more elaborate method of travel. Spinning complementing spirals of air mana beneath him Avior's reinforced body was catapulted into the air accelerating rapidly as he fed the spiraling air behind him with more mana, even sparking it with fire mana occasionally. Soon enough a sonic boom sounded as he broke the speed of sound alerting anyone in the area to his presence.
He could have concealed the boom or used a less mana-efficient method in the first method, but since he decided he'd be getting a little more hands-on when searching for Prim, he thought an opportunity to sharpen a few more individuals with some conflict wouldn't go to waste.
He was trying to be a villain this time around after all.
Avior managed to make it halfway through the Madeline Front when he spotted the first challenger who had risen into the air after coalescing light mana to use as stairs. A dead giveaway he was from the Church.
"I am Commander Rioscol of the Comet Legion. Identify yourself and surrender for investigation." The white unformed middle aged man's body became covered in a yellow barrier similar to the orange ones Avior had previously shattered only Avior could tell it was significantly stronger despite not being linked.
Next to him rose a butch figure in blue robes surrounded by six floating flanged mace heads. "Hey Darkeye! I'm Eldris, surrender or die!" She sniggered at the mocking nickname she gave Avior due to his concealed appearance.
Seeing the mace heads zipping towards him before he had a chance to respond Avior stopped channeling air mana allowing his body to begin dropping back to the ground. Before his body reached the ground Avior landed on a preemptively formed platform made of darkness mana.
Relying solely on his physical body he launched off the platform to another, and another. Moving with extreme speed and changing direction abruptly with the aid of suddenly forming shadow platforms the mace heads had no chance of hitting Avior. By the time Avior reached Eldris only a few seconds had passed since the fight started.
As she saw Avior's approach two metal shields appeared out from under Eldris' robes to intercept Avior. Avior used another shadow platform to change direction keeping his momentum and skirting around Eldris defenses. A single water blade extended from his obscured figure and slashed at the Invoker's unprotected legs separating them from her body in one clean motion.
Seeing Eldris's eyes widen with rage Avior slashed the water blade through her left shoulder as well tearing it off from her torso. Now one-armed, the burly aide of the Blue Pillar finally withdrew her ire to focus on stopping herself from bleeding out. Walls of air mana formed around her bloody stumps as she fought to stay awake while using whatever she could to keep her remaining blood in her body.
Turning to look at the commander, who now seemed to realize he was severely out of his league running away while reinforcing his yellow barrier, Avior leisurely gave chase while keeping an eye out for any other newcomers.
Avior would usually never do something like this so soon. Stockpiling his mana to fight instead of using it continually to accelerate his body and mana growth delayed his rise to the Ninth rank by precious days. But a part of Avior always enjoyed exercising power even if using the elements always felt wrong to him. It was a complete wrongness like he was meant to wield a sword, but was forced to use a poleaxe instead. Avior had tried all the elements and found that same feeling. He'd even hunted for a possible seventh element but had no luck.
This last life has stirred his emotions and for better or for worse that had made this feeling of wrongness only grow stronger and it was annoying him.
Trying to take his mind off his discomfort he focused his mind on the part he always enjoyed: exercising his power. Avior had decided at the start of this life to be a villain who would drive the world to grow through strife. Of course, the strife couldn't be completely overwhelming, if he ended up destroying the world while imposing his challenges on humanity he would be just as bad as the Angels.
Still, Avior thought he could embrace the role of a villain a little more.
With this in mind, Avior severed the Commander's arms at both elbows, the yellow shield doing nothing to stop Avior's single water-blade packed with insanely dense mana.
Seeing his arms falling to the ground prompted the commander to reply with a surprisingly high-pitched scream before collapsing unconscious. It appeared his willpower was significantly less than the still-awake Eldris.
Avior hoped both his opponents would be able to grow a little stronger by overcoming their new handicaps. Avior felt confident Eldris would but was far less sure of Commander Rioscol. Only time would tell.
Avior collected whatever mana remained from his spells, putting it away to be reused when necessary. He might be letting loose a little, but for Avior wasting any more mana than strictly necessary and delaying his progression to the Ninth even further was something he could never bring himself to do. Hence the reason he was only using highly mana-efficient spells at a lower tier than he currently could to fight these silly pawns of the Church.
Leaving the now armless commander and nugget of an Aide behind Avior continued his search resuming his use of air currents and fire mana to blast over the Madeline Front in search of his organization's missing leader Prim.
After another couple minutes of searching with no other opponents appearing Avior's path neared one of the Vernicus Army's larger camps from which a familiar spell was launched straight at Avior. The attack, a massive sword made up of the light element, flew so quickly that Avior was forced to deflect the strike rather than dodge it. A feat that cost him a decent amount of mana much to Avior's chagrin.
Seeing the blond figure rising into the air surrounded by a beam of silver light that looked similar to a spotlight, a spell Avior had invented after studying the flying city of Solis levitation and modifying it to work on a smaller scale for far less mana.
Seeing the spell only he knew Avior realized he was about to fight his own Servant. Whoops well no going back now.
Luxia wasted no time launching a white cloud made up of thousands of smaller light blades at Avior.
The still shadow-covered Avior continued relying on shadow and water elements, deflecting and dodging the flurry of attacks coming from Luxia. She was openly revealing power at the seventh level which meant she was still holding back.
Seeing Avior only use techniques at the sixth-level Luxia no doubt realized he was also holding back. Still, Luxia seemed to want to force him to start using larger attacks as she continued adding more and more spells to the mix of attacks. Despite the difference in Mage Ranks Avior knew he would never be in jeopardy when fighting his own Servant. He created her after all he knew exactly what spells she knew and how she planned to use them.
Avior began dancing around Luxia like he was reading her mind. Which he basically was. Her strikes all began to miss, colliding instead with the forest below turning it into toothpicks.
While dodging Avior weaved in small but annoying strikes at her. It was apparent Luxia was quickly getting frustrated as she realized her opponent was playing with her. Although it didn't show on her stoic face Avior could tell from her increased aggressiveness she was beginning to panic.
Avior's confidence lasted until finally, Luxia cast a spell Avior hadn't taught her. Light exploded blinding Avior visually while, at the same time, a powerful version of an ear cracker spell exploded next to his unprotected ears. Luxia even accounted for his mana senses, overloading it with a flood of ambient light mana rendering Avior truly blind.
Avior had ignored one key distinction. His Servants may start only with the knowledge he'd given them, but they could learn from their own experiences as well. And Luxia had been learning a lot from war.
Avior blasted himself away from the fight while blind, deaf, and a little embarrassed. After escaping the area flooded with disorienting light mana Avior's mana sense returned and the first thing he noticed were three gargantuan swords of light about to strike him. The massive swords appeared to be homing in on his mana signature while he retreated. Additionally, Avior could sense these swords although appearing at the 7th level were actually at the peak of the 8th! This fatal strike might even manage to break his skin! His Servant was truly vicious.
Avior quickly decided to take advantage of the moment to achieve his goal of getting out of the fight so he could return to his search for Prim while making Luxia look like a valiant paladin in the process.
Twisting mana streams emerged from his hands. One the color black the other a deep blue. Running through one another they formed a rippling duo elemental shield to meet the incoming attack. As the light swords drove into the shield the water mana evaporated forming steam while the darkness mana dispersed the swords of light into splitering fragments. Luxia followed up by sending a searing wave of light through the steam clearing it, but when the steam vanished there was no Avior left behind. He had vanished.
Now on a distant mountain peak, Avior's obscurred form sat watching Luxia's look of astonishment. Happy his plan seemed to work he refocused his mana on healing his damaged senses and began walking away while dropping his shadowy veil.
As Avior's hearing and vision became healed Avior withdrew his mana sense no longer wanting to waste mana to maintain it.
Doing a visual check to make sure he'd lost any pursuers Avior decided to proceed back to his colleagues on foot he'd had the opportunity to let loose and he'd discovered Prim was nowhere near the Madeline Front. It seemed he would need to travel to Numina after all.
-------
Luxia had watched the shadowy attacker leave with consternation.
She had been helpless against her sibling's insane mana control. And Luxia had no doubts it was one of her siblings. Who else could have such a knowledge of mana manipulation other than who her Creator gifted the knowledge to? In the eight years Luxia had lived she had yet to come across any spells with a complexity and elegance anywhere close to those of her Creator's.
But still against her sibling, she had been losing thoroughly. They used her Creator's spells like extensions of themselves casting them with exact timing and pinpoint placement. For Luxia, it felt like watching perfection manifest. Not to mention their sibling's mana density had been insanely dense. One of the reasons they were able to best her just by using spells at the 6th was the Luxia being purely outclasses in mana quality. She had truly been overwhelmed in every single aspect.
Only when she launched a surprise spell learned from her experiences in constant war targeting all her sibling's senses did she manage to push them back momentarily. A precious moment she had tried to capitalize on by launching a finishing blow only to fail spectacularly. And Luxia had no doubts her sibling wouldn't fall for the same attack again. The entire time they seemed to be just playing with her. Testing her. Luxia had no doubts they were far beyond her current abilities.
And that could only be because she hadn't been training hard enough. Obviously, her sibling had been training relentlessly to gain such competent control of multiple elements to complement their initial talents gifted at their creation. Luxia needed to work harder. She couldn't disappoint him.
For now, she would have to retreat for a little while to prepare for their next encounter. If she fought them as she was now it would mean being at their complete mercy again.
She would spend the time bought with the retreat devoting herself to her own training. She had no illusions her sibling would likely be doing the same. It was a race to survive and before she had even realized it she found herself already behind.
Truly her sibling backing the Hervalle Empire was a vicious one.
Knowing her sibling behind the Hervalle Empire had no doubt caused havoc throughout the Madeline Front, Luxia brought herself into the air within her Light Beam, a spell which used a ray of recirculating light to achieve levitation, and began searching for survivors. Wanting to garner any advantage she could use her race for power that would enable her to prove her Creator's confidence in her correct.
It didn't take long until she stumbled upon two corpses belonging to the Church. One was the Comet Legion's commander Rioscol while the other was someone she had just met the other day. The Blue Pillar's Aide Eldris. Luxia lowered herself down to the ground to inspect their wounds went one of their eyes suddenly flicked open. Eldris was still alive!
"Help" Her voice rasped out. Luxia flooded the paraplegic with light mana sealing her severed appendages and preventing further blood loss while examining Eldris for other wounds only to find none. Her sibling had defeated a Mage of the Seventh just by cleanly severing their limbs? How frightening.
After a few minutes of instigating blood production, Eldris was back from the dead and as vibrant as ever, even if she was now missing three limbs.
"That bastard Darkeye! I'll pay this favor back if it's the last thing I do! The Church and I will hunt him, his family, his-" Eldris stopped as she realized Luxia was giving her an uncharacteristically murderous look.
"Lady Luxia are you alright?" Eldris toned herself back down thinking maybe the Paladin of Justice didn't like cussing.
Luxia's deadly gaze withdrew as if it was never there, "As a Paladin of Justice I cannot condone going after family members solely for being related to the guilty."
"Ah of course. I was just speaking from emotion I apologize. As you can see" Eldris gestured to her severed limbs and the dead commander with her chin, "I've had a rather full day of it."
Luxia looked away trying to contain her anger after hearing a threat against her creator.
Even if it was an accidental one. Her sibling's family? Well, that would of course include Luxia herself, but more importantly that included her creator. And nothing could be allowed to threaten him.
Luxia began making her way back to her camp while dragging Eldris and the dead commander with her. Planning how she would begin her force's withdrawal from the Madeline Front while taking advantage of her growing alliance with the Church to buy her time.