Elijah looked over the destruction that filled the Dungeon floor. Not a single tree possessed its roots, nothing surviving the search. Everything had been razed to the ground to discover what was hidden. Rubeus had known they were on this floor, yet it had taken time to find the exact position.

And so he became ruthless to everything here.

The wall around the cave opening looked ready to fall apart, with how the roots embedded in it had been ripped out. Pieces already had for that matter, the small tunnel filled with small rocks and moss that had been dislodged during the fighting.

“What are we going to do now?” Aleksi asked, as he looked through the small tunnel. Their supplies were still there, food, water, and clothes left behind without care. Even the pistol that Jack had made was still on the ground, along with many of those bronze cartridges around it. The only things taken had been the people themselves. “Elijah?”

“Give me a moment, please,” he requested, which the giant did. They'd known that this was a possibility, that there was a chance of them being tracked and taken when hiding down here, but that risk was meant to have been lessened by poisoning Rubeus. He was meant to have been poisoned, yet that had been a mere deception. They had been tricked into trusting words alone, and now they suffered for their idiocy. “They’re sacrifices, which means that they’re alive until the time comes for them to be used. That means we have time to find them.”

“We’ll have to question the Dreamweaver about the ritual, to figure out what timeframe we’re working with,” Harper noted. A flash of red in their vision made both the Illusionist and Elijah bring out the paper they’d been given by Vera. On it was a message.

‘More than 100 guards moving towards the academy with boxes. Came from the other entrance.’

“We know where the two are being kept, at least,” Elijah supposed. “The final ritual was meant to happen within the Academy’s walls. It seems that they’re sticking with that plan.”

“It’s the best-defended area in the entire city if you have the Royal Mages on your side,” Harper commented. “Doing it anywhere else would be unwise.”

He didn’t refute it. Elijah was still trying to figure out how to solve it all. Nothing came to mind, nothing that was possible. This had gone too far.

Picking up the pistol from the tunnel, they left the Dungeon behind. The streets were crowded with people trying to understand what was going on, forcing them to uncloak and push through forcefully. Aleksi was in the front, creating a small gap of sorts where Elijah and Harper could get through without being crushed by the masses.

Guards allowed them in once again, with some insistence from Harper regarding Aleksi, and they left for the upper floors where Vera was meant to be.

“How are things?” Elijah asked after Harper led them through the Princess’ section of the castle, walking through a few rooms and finding the woman herself looking out the window and down at the Academy.

“If we ignore the oncoming insurrection, it’s not too bad,” Vera replied dryly. “We don’t know what’s going on down there anymore. They’ve locked the entire Academy grounds down, and all my people who’ve entered haven’t returned.”

“Do you want me to try, Your Highness?” Harper asked, to which Vera shook her head.

“Too dangerous,” she said. “I’d rather you didn’t waste your life on some trap we haven’t spotted yet.”

“Nobody has been able to leave the Academy?” Elijah questioned. “Not even those who were there before this all started?”

“From what I’ve been told, no, they have not,” Vera confirmed, clicking her tongue in frustration. “Very few of the common workers or students are meant to be affiliated with this uprising, so I must assume they’re keeping them trapped to avoid any chances of information leaking out early.”

Which means the preparations are going to be done in a place where people will see it.

They didn’t know more about what was happening at that point, so they brought in the two who had a chance at just that. With the help of Harper to cover their journey through the castle, the two mercenaries from the night were able to join them.

“You called?” Fade said tiredly.

“The final ritual is meant to be starting soon if you haven’t noticed,” Vera explained, a thumb pointing out the window. That seemed to get the Dreamweaver's attention, as both she and the younger redhead hurried over to look into the Academy grounds. “You didn’t tell us too much about the ritual yesterday. Let’s make up for that mistake now.”

“If you wish to know the exact details about the process, I’m afraid I can’t give you what you seek.”

“The general steps required to complete it should be possible then? If you’ve been present at so many of them, there must be some common factors across them all.”

“There… yes, there’s several,” Fade gave in, frowning as she continued. “The ritual circle has a radius of twenty to thirty meters, depending on how many Mages and artifacts are used to fuel the process. It increased as time went on, so I think it might be even larger now.”

“So the ritual has to be at the Academy’s central area if they’re to have any chance of drawing it all out,” Vera concluded, Harper already noting down the details in a notebook. “Continue.”

“The Mages on the outer edges of the Ritual circle are able to switch out with others when they’re close to being depleted of Mana, but those closer to the center stay the entire duration,” the Dreamweaver continued. “Rubeus Hayes is usually the closest to the middle, ignoring the sacrificial monsters which are located at the exact center. He is the main controller for the ritual, with all the Mana coming through him before being fed into the ritual.”

Kill the head and you stop it all.

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Elijah was once again cursing their hesitation surrounding the assassination of the Royal Mage. Even if the betrayers might’ve had others to take up the role, removing the original lead would’ve been a massive boon.

“Do you know what happens if those further in are stopped from continuing the ritual?” Elijah asked, to which the Dreamweaver could only shrug.

“With most smaller rituals, it just fizzles out,” Vera supplied in her stead. “With medium ones, it can give serious backlash on the level of a spell pulling more from your Core than there is to take. On a ritual this large… it should kill anybody involved, though that would also require that most of those involved, or Rubeus himself, be incapacitated. If only a few on the outer circles are stopped, I’m not sure how much damage can truly be done.”

“And Jack and Sasha? Will they be hurt if it’s stopped midway?” he asked, to which the answer was ‘maybe.’ They just didn’t know, and he lacked any desire to take that risk anymore. “How long do the rituals take?”

“Around one or two hours, depending on how hard it is for them to place the monster in the right spot,” Fade explained. “Since humans are easy to restrain, I would assume it is only a single hour.”

“Only one hour… so little time,” Vera commented, looking down at the streets again. “But they haven’t started yet, from what I’m seeing. What’s stopping them?”

“They are likely drawing up the ritual already, but it can only be started while the moon is high in the sky,” the Dreamweaver explained. “I have no idea why this is, but Rubeus made it very clear each time we guarded them down in the Dungeon. If the moon isn't above them while the ritual is ongoing, the costs are twice as high.”

“And that’s not something they can afford down there and much less up here,” Vera concluded. If the moon had to be in the sky, it meant that they had some… six hours before their ritual would start.

Six hours to figure out how to go against an army of Royal Mages. Nearly a hundred highly skilled users of the magical arts, who had decades of experience along with an extreme desire to make sure this all went smoothly. What did they have? A Biomancer, an old berserker, an Illusionist, and a Royal with the ability to trap others in her contracts.

Not the most viable group while in combat.

“We can’t keep this secret from the others anymore,” the Princess said, seeming to come to the same conclusion. “Elijah, I understand your secrets are closely guarded, but we need Alin on our side now. We need my older brother and his personal guards as well, honestly, but my uncle and father can come first.”

The Earth Mage who had helped slaughter Elijah’s old group… He was fearful that the same fate would reach them if the old man knew of their past, but what did that matter now? He could see Aleksi was ready to take that chance if it meant saving the two idiots who had gotten caught.

“Fine,” he gave in. “But how do we know Alin isn’t trapped with the other Royal Mages inside the Academy?”

“He’s rarely at the Academy at this time, and especially not now that my father is out of his bed,” Vera assured him. She ordered the two mercenaries to wait here, while Harper cloaked the others and led them through the hallways towards the King’s chambers. “Telling Alin while my father already knows your secrets will likely make this easier for us all if that brings you any comfort.”

“I can’t say it does,” Elijah replied dryly. A feeling of doom began to travel through his body as they ascended the stairs. At first, he thought it was because of nervousness, the clicking of boots hitting the stone making him flinch internally, yet their approach to the chambers revealed that wasn’t the case.

His worries were all but confirmed when he got to the doors into the king and found it devoid of guards at the front.

“Blood,” Aleksi muttered, smelling the same thing as him before the doors were forced open by Vera. “Shit.”

King Mason Newell was on the floor in the middle of the room, a pool of blood around his chest.

He didn’t breathe. He didn’t move. There was no reaction from the body when Vera cried out and hurried over. There was no life in the man left. For all the efforts to keep him alive, for all the thwarted attempts, it had only taken one for the end to arrive.

Elijah looked away from the crying Princess. Harper was already taking care of it, comforting Vera while she clutched at her father. And, in the meanwhile, he was able to inspect the other body in the room.

“Not dead,” Aleksi commented as Elijah knelt next to Alin. “He’s breathing.”

It was faint, the chest of the Earth Mage moving so little it was barely perceptible, but nobody could deny the air leaving the mouth of the old man. This wasn’t normal, Elijah immediately knew that it was a sedative of some kind, but where…

There.

On the neck just below where the hair started was the smallest of pinpricks. If not for the slight residue of blood wiped away, he wouldn’t have noticed it at all. Yet, regardless, it was a very strange place to inject any sedative. It was much faster at activating and incapacitating Alin, sure, but to get close enough to that area without being caught must’ve been incredibly difficult.

And yet there were no signs of struggling. Elijah was more than sure that Alin could’ve struck down any fool within a second, yet not a finger had been raised. Whoever was behind this had been somebody Alin trusted with his life.

“Can you wake him up?” Aleksi asked, bringing Elijah out of his mind again.

“Whatever was used on him is enough to keep him this way for a day or two without any problems,” Elijah replied, bringing out Dawn and having her grow an assortment of herbs. They were roughly crushed in the giant’s hand, before being smeared on the neck. “I can accelerate the process of the body naturally processing it, but it will still take hours before he wakes up.”

“What if we get you something stronger than whatever you just used?” Harper inquired.

“The blend I just put on and enhanced is enough to wake most people up from an ordinary coma,” Elijah said, getting back up on his feet. “That he isn’t jumping to his feet means that whatever was used is more powerful than anything I’ve seen before. We can maybe force him awake for a minute or two, but, until this is out of his system completely, he will remain this way.”

Since Elijah didn’t have any purifying plants of legend, and he certainly didn’t have the two weeks required to make something of similar quality, this was the best they could get.

“I’ll just kill him myself at this point.”

He looked over to see Vera muttering into the empty air above her while lying on the ground next to her father. The tears had dried up, but her cheeks were still red. One would think that meant that she’d been consumed by anger, yet Elijah could barely see any emotion on her face at all. She’d been emptied of such things by the sight of the king.

“Rubeus?” he asked.

“Louis,” she corrected. “We’ll have to figure out where Philip has ended up if he isn’t already dead or sedated as well, get him on track to help us, and then we can finish the job. After that… I think I’m going to enjoy strangling my younger brother to death.”

It was all said so calmly, while the princess washed away the blood of her father from her hands.

“Vera—”

“Please don’t start using my name now of all times, Harper,” Vera cut in before the Illusionist could finish. “We have a deadline of six hours. Let’s make it count.”

While they had already deemed it impossible to do, it seemed they would be going against an army without much in the way of reinforcements. Elijah should’ve known this would happen.

At least he had six hours to prepare something in the laboratory that could even the numbers a little.