Nilfu was, according to his now badly abused road atlas, a long way from the middle of nowhere, which is where he currently was. Or about a three hour run. Truth did some completely unnecessary stretching, and set off. Wasn’t going to get any closer if he stood around, and there sure wasn’t much in the way of passing traffic.

System, could you put together a new spell for me? We have to have loads of spell models from all the research we have done.

<>

I was thinking Enlarge, or one of the old reliables from the PMC days.

<>

Damn. I figure they will be running forensics through that intel office after I’m through there, and wanted to lead them directly to the PMC.

The countryside continued its gray boringness. The occasional burst of green trees served to effectively underline the inescapable truth- you were stuck on an underused highway, in an underpopulated region, primarily used for heavy polluting industries. Fun was not simply not allowed, the land generated Anti-Fun, a substance which obliterated Fun on contact.

<>

Focus on Graeme’s Arrow. I can make that work.

Barely an hour of forgettable highway later- <>

That fast?

<>

Truth scooped up a rock and hucked it at a tree two hundred meters away. Graeme’s Arrow!

The rock shot off and punched a fist sized hole through the tree, and tore a gouge through the one behind it. The first tree slowly collapsed, the hole flickering with fire. Truth zipped over and put it out. No need to start a forest fire. Even if “I can throw a rock so hard it can burn down a pine forest” is a pretty impressive reason to do so.

Oddly, Truth was frowning as he examined the hole.

That didn’t feel right. It felt… hollow, maybe? I don’t know how to describe it, but I can feel the missing components.

<>

Truth spent ten minutes flinging pebbles, pine needles and just about every object he could reasonably and discreetly toss, clipping off individual twigs from trees, knocking down pinecones from a hundred meters away, and generally looking like he was goofing around.

Yeah, it’s weird. I would now classify the spell as “scuffed.” Which I don’t understand, because the performance seems to be identical. And yet, somehow, scuffed.

<>

A red reticle popped up on something so small, even Truth’s outstanding eyes barely saw a flicker of motion. He nodded.

<>

The System’s point was well taken. Truth had been getting better with Graeme’s Arrow, but it did not like sharing an aperture with the System. Truth would swear it resented being viewed as dispensable. Which was crazy, as it was a glorified pattern of magic, not an intelligent being.

Truth had a bit of a glitch as he stumbled on to the same thing the System did. Shut down the reticle. Mr. Sparrow lives to see tomorrow. You’re right. It lacks the intent of the being behind it. The modern magic version stripped out all that- now it’s just some dead human. No extra spiritual load there.

<>

I mean, we kind of knew that all along? It’s why modern magic is so easy to cast- none of the extra baggage that comes with some vast power judging your spell use. Plus some of those old spells really are horribly optimized, requiring way, way more cosmic energy than they should.

<>

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Dunno. You figure it out. I’ve got to go ruin someone’s day. A lot of someones.

Nilfu was another industrial city. Long row apartment buildings, wide roads, it all looked fine, in an utterly soulless sort of way. Same kind of food. Sour, salty, but rich tasting. It was growing on him.

Truth walked over to the train station and followed the signs to the public security office. A few judicial uses of the Poison portion of Incisive later, and he had directions to the Army’s internal surveillance office in town. It was, predictably, in a discreetly fortified police headquarters.

He looked up. A bit after noon? Right at that period between lunch and wishing you were going home for dinner.

Good enough. Were any of the cops his size? He looked down at the tops of their heads. No. Not remotely his size. Fine. It was always going to go the hard way. He would just be starting the “hard way” portion a little earlier. He looked around. There was one of those long apartment buildings across the street from the police station. Easy enough to reach the roof.

The roof of the police station looked about as expected- tar paper with surveillance doing its level best to look in every direction, “Up” and “In” being firmly included. Decently powerful too. Oh well. There was an altar for large scale rituals, a landing pad for smaller spell beasts and flying clouds, and, most importantly, an access door.

He made some last minute adjustments to his assumed identity, took a running start, and crossed the street in a single, powerful, leap. He could feel the station’s wards and alarm spells pass over him smoothly. “High level confidential informant” seemed to be on the approved list. The identity could hardly have been easier to assume. Another one of the Universe’s little digs about his real calling in life.

The door was locked and alarmed. They weren’t that slack, it seemed. Truth could feel the passive wards pressing on his assumed identity. Confidential informant or not, he didn’t belong up here unescorted. No matter- the lock was trash. A knockoff of a thirty year old Jeon design. He was through in under two minutes.

The internal surveillance was… inconsistent. Intensely heavy in the hallways and in some of the rooms he checked, completely absent in others. Those rooms tended to smell strongly of bleach and disinfectant. The station wasn’t that big, and he was fairly sure anyone with a rank like “Major” would be somewhere on an upper floor.

The hallways were painted a pale bluish-lime color. Truth couldn’t help but think it looked like a hospital. The handcuffed, roughed up, prisoners made odd patients, and the police were cruel orderlies, but that was the feeling it gave. A big hospital, ready to do as much exploratory surgery as it took to find the cancer.

He found the Major’s office by the simple expedient of checking every room. Once he found a room with a seating area and a secretary, he figured he was on the right path. The heavily armored, powerfully locked and warded door to the inner office was, likewise, a clue.

He looked over at the secretary, a young man in uniform. Level One. Probably the son of someone important, given a very cushy, very powerful job for someone his age. Truth walked behind the desk. There were a few unlabeled buttons and gems built into the desk itself, as well as one built into the floor. At a guess- messaging, a silent alarm and the door unlock switch. But he had no idea which was which.

Best guess was the floor button was the alarm, but… Hell with it. Truth grabbed the secretary by the neck and slammed him into the wall. Two sharp slaps to get him focused, then leaning into Incisive- “You will open the door for me!”

The young man’s hand involuntarily spasmed towards a blue gem set into the desk. Good enough. Truth snapped his neck and pressed the button. The door unlatched and swung open slightly.

Truth blew in like a hurricane. The Major hadn't been expecting anyone. At Level Five and a veteran of a lot of nasty business, he was already pulling his needler and drawing a bead on the door when Truth came in.

Several things happened very quickly. The Major managed to snap off a half dozen needles, relying on the auto-fire function and the magic of spray-and-pray. Truth called out the Tongue and deflected the needles that would have actually hit him back at the Major, as he rushed to close. None of the deflected needles hit. The Major had cracked a charm, surrounding himself with a glassy barrier.

Truth didn’t bother with Obliteration. He just stacked up the power of his body on Incisive and slammed the Tongue straight through the barrier. It was like stabbing into ice- but he got through. The Major let out a shocked grunt as a meter of angelic steel was suddenly buried in his guts. The barrier shattered.

Truth was on the Major then, ripping the blade out and using the flat of the blade to smack the needler out of the Major’s hands.

“DO NOT MOVE!” Truth didn’t try to clean up his accent. His crude Onis came out very Jeongo.

“Who the Hell are you?! Do you have the faintest idea what you have done?” The major ground out.

“No, I was lost and gutted you completely at random. YES, Major Tsu, I know exactly what I am doing, and what you are going to do.”

“I will never betray my country!” Was there a recording device in here? Truth would bet there was. Perfect.

“Oh, we have a hero, do we? Well, Hero, if I can find you in your armored office in the middle of a police station, how safe do you think your family is? How safe do you think they are right now?” Truth started leaning on Incisive again, letting the poison drip into the Major’s ears. The older man turned pale, but his face didn’t shift.

“No matter the sacrifice, I will not yield!”

“No? But what if I wanted you to call for help?”

There was a pause.

“That’s right, Major. You have been attacked. Someone burst into your office and gutted you. He’s standing here right now. Don’t you want to see me dead? See me in chains? Call for help.”

Major Tsu was breathing heavily. He wasn’t dumb. He could feel what was happening. “You want to lure the tiger from the mountain.”

“No, the tiger is quite happy on the mountain, ruling as it should. It’s the dogs yapping around his heels that need to return to the plains. After their master gives them a good smack and reminds them to behave.”

“I will never betray Onis. NEVER!”

“Shame. Oh well. I think I can fake your voice now. And don’t worry, we will take very good care of your family. All the families of senior internal security officers have been marked. A week from now, your country will labor in chains. Lower than animals and demons. All because you forgot your place. All for the glory of the King of the World.” Truth picked up the Major’s needler, cast the crummy version of Graeme’s Arrow, and shot the Major in the head.

He quickly searched the room, scraping everything that looked secret or confidential into a sack, popped open the safe with a combination of violence and Obliteration, emptied it into the sack, triggered the explosives in the safe (blowing out a wall in the process) then pressed the emergency alarm. Truth wanted to make sure they had a real emergency to respond to, after all. And he had just enough time to make one. Probably.