Amary felt her heart thrum when she saw the fog wash over her. She felt disoriented in a weird way. It wasn’t malicious, but she could feel her own Aura lose its coherence within it.

But only for a moment. Once the fog disappeared, she felt control rushing back into her… but John was gone.

He had been right next to her. He was her charge; she couldn’t let him out of sight. And she was sticking close in case she needed to grab him and run. She too could hear the spiked wolves gaining on them, their contorted yipping and barking getting closer and closer.

But now he was gone, and his words resurfaced in her mind.

“If I disappear, run.”

She hesitated, looking around some more, yet couldn’t find him to save her life. She felt like something, someone, was in the vicinity, but she couldn’t see anyone except Wallace and Jen.

He had really disappeared. But how? Did he have some kind of device to make him invisible?

She couldn’t be sure.

“John! Are you there?”

She scanned the snow-covered rocks until suddenly, she sensed something and snapped her head in that direction.

John resurfaced, well ahead of her, wrapped in a cloud of fog. Her perception of him was interrupted, distorted – he was definitely in sight, but the fog seemed to almost convince her he wasn’t, as if trying to hide him in plain sight.

When she focused, his figure resolved in her vision.

He spoke.

“Hurry and run. Once they find you, those Royals will come.”

His words echoed despite the lack of boundaries, and once he dipped back behind one of the rocks, he vanished once more. No amount of focusing on her part could bring him back.

Of greater concern though was what he said. Those Royals would come, and if she didn’t get out in time, she would die to them.

Suddenly, she heard a voice in her mind.

“Get to the mountains and disappear. I’ll try to help you.”

“Alright.”

Amary let out a breath. Then, she looked over and launched herself.

She soared over some rocks and landed right next to Jen. She scooped her up and dashed ahead, leaving Wallace behind.

Amary wasn’t too fond of him either, and he was a knight, so it’d be up to him whether he wanted to keep the pace.

She bounded across rocks, dropping some pretenses of stealth, but still not making herself too obvious. She covered dozens of meters in just a few steps, rapidly closing the distance to the mountain where their bikes were stashed.

She was only halfway there though when she saw a flash of light in the corner of her eye. A Cyclops Scout stared at her, eye brimming with power.

It had spotted her. But just as she thought it was all over, there was a sound.

An explosive crack ripped through the valley, and, simultaneously, Amary saw something rip through the Scout’s head, killing it instantly.

It crumpled to the floor. And just as the other scout stood up on a boulder, it too was shot down.

A few seconds later, the wolves started to howl, a sign of distress and alarm. The camp started to rumble with activity, but Amary recognized the chance she was given.

If the scouts weren’t there, nothing could track them.

And since they’d been made, she took off with her full strength, bounding across the valley and making it to the base of the mountain in less than 10 seconds.

When she looked back though, a chill went down her spine.

The Royals had emerged, and were looking in their direction.

She abandoned all pretenses of stealth, throwing herself up the mountain and disappearing behind its irregular terrain.

After finding the bikes, she set Jen down. Wallace was right behind them.

But John was nowhere to be seen. And how could he be? He was an ordinary man. There was no way he crossed that distance before they did.

He was still out there, that much Amary knew. But she couldn’t go back into the valley. That’d be asking to die.

Thats’ when she suddenly heard that voice again, no doubt John’s.

“Take the bikes and leave. I’m hiding. Don’t waste the chance. The Royals are coming.”

“I can wai-”

“Don’t wait! Hurry up, go, now! Before the Royals catch up to you!”

Amary went silent, and whatever connection that allowed John to talk to her disappeared.

She looked back, hearing the wolves catching up to them. If she got into a fight with them, it wouldn’t be long before the Royals jumped in and slaughtered them.

Still, with gritted teeth, she cursed.

“Fuck! Let’s hurry up and go, now!”

“What about-”

“He’s not coming! Get on your bike!”

Amary jumped on her bike with those words, turning it on before speeding off. Jen and Wallace scrambled to keep up with her, deciding it was better to just leave now and ask questions later.

They went back around the mountain, taking the trail back the way they came and leaving the casually pursuing Royals behind.

……

I cut my connection to Amary before sinking down behind a rock. Pulling in my Aura completely, I let myself fade back into existence for a bit.

With the death of the scouts, the spiked wolves were no longer coordinated. They all charged after Amary, bounding up the mountain in pursuit and leaving me behind enemy lines.

I was alone, but there was still a glaring issue.

The Royals were coming.

They didn’t go very far. They were jogging over until I killed the scouts, after which they started running to see what was going on. Thankfully, Amary got out quick. They couldn’t catch up to her, or perhaps didn’t bother to.

Instead, a bunch of scouts were sent out with even more spiked wolves, along with a few bears for good measure.

I went off to the side when the wolves converged to chase Amary. Now, I was at the base of the mountain, closer to the central part of the valley.

I let out a long breath. Becoming invisible, in my case, was a mimicry of Plex’s ability. And the only reason I could do so right now was because the process was almost identical to how I made clones.

Instead of tricking someone’s mind to believe there were two of me, I was tricking them into believing I wasn’t there at all. I was removing the ability to perceive me from anything that could actually perceive, not by distorting light or melding into the atmosphere, but by interfering with mental faculties.

Even then, I wasn’t interfering with the minds around me directly. That would just give me away, especially if something was more powerful than I was. It was no different from drawing a string between us.

Instead, I took an indirect route. I distorted and changed my presence, like how you could encrypt data. Just because someone could see the data didn’t mean they could decrypt it. So long as it remained encrypted, it would forever remain a mystery.

As long as my enemies couldn’t decipher my presence, I would remain unseen. Of course, they could just attack the area and counter my interference with sheer power, revealing me anyway, but that was beside the point.

I thought it was rather ingenious, but it wasn’t much different from making clones. In fact, making clones was a bit more Psyka-intensive. Becoming ‘invisible’ instead took more finesse.

And it was working well. Scouts would look right at me, then turn their heads away, completely unaware. With everything chasing Amary and the others, I was free to walk out with none the wiser. It was the perfect plan.

But when I turned my head around, my heart dropped.

I saw… something, sniffing around the floor in my direction with a scout beside it. The thing looked like a mouth with legs. It didn’t even have eyes, just flaps on what could be its upper lip.

As it started wandering in my direction, a Royal trotted over, curious as to what was going on.

Dipping behind the rock, I drew one last foggy breath before activating stealth mode and moving on. I needed to get out.

I started walking gingerly. My boots already helped a lot with that with their enchanted air-supported movement, but if I leaked any sound at all, I was dead. I had to take note of every single crunch of a snow crystal beneath my soles.

Still, I tried to make haste. At some point, I had to climb a bit, moving to higher ground around the mountain. There was a small forest in the area that I could disappear into before making my way back in the direction of the, hopefully, oncoming strike force.

As I started going up though, I heard that mouth-breather monster quicken its steps, its flaps flaring as it took in deep, harsh breaths.

I saw it, the scout, and a particularly devilish Royal start jogging in my direction, probably following my scent or something. So I picked up the pace even more.

“Hey, bitch! Where are you going?!”

“I’m tracking something! Get your dick out of my ass!”

“Just don’t fuck off into the forest! Those humans are probably planning a strike if that was a scout group like I think it was!”

“Fuck off!”

The Royal, a twisted approximation of a female, waved off the others while heading my way.

I finally made it over one of the steeper slopes, finding the tree line and sprinting for it while using controlled blasts of air under my feet to make me fly over the ground, creating distance.

The mouth-breather started scrambling, and the Scout made some weird sound with my sudden movement.

In response, the Royal leapt and landed near the tree line.

It slowly rotated its head as I hid behind a tree. Then, I heard its voice.

“I can taste you, darling. You’re around here, somewhere. That delectable male scent is unmistakable. Why don’t you put down that Aura and let me have a lick?”

I didn’t respond, deciding that I needed to get the hell out as soon as possible. Getting close to my enemies was never good for me.

It was one of the Authority Eight Royals, though I was sensing power eerily close to Authority Nine. No matter what, it was far beyond me.

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When I took a few steps beyond my tree though, its head snapped toward me.

For a second, I thought it saw me… until I looked down and saw my boot prints in the snow.

With a quick thought, I made those vanish too, but not before the Royal launched itself toward me.

I ducked and rolled behind the tree again, narrowly dodging a set of razor sharp claws. I could almost hear them tearing through the wind.

After gathering my bearings and rising to one knee, I stayed absolutely still, looking at the Royal as it scanned around right in front of me.

I got an eyeful in the process. This Royal was almost completely nude, only some leather strips covering its most important jiggly bits. The more I looked though, the more I found myself getting entranced, aroused even.

I narrowed my eyes before washing away the seductive influence. Was this what they called a succubus?

I had but a second to think before its head snapped toward me, boobs swaying with its movement.

I almost panicked before I realized it wasn’t looking directly at me, but only knew my general direction. Still, my heartbeat, though slow, felt like it wanted to tear itself out of my chest.

Then, it lunged forward, its claws slicing straight forward…

…and hitting nothing but air right above my head.

But simple proximity was enough. Despite my Aura’s more potent distortive abilities, the Royal’s power was on an entirely different level of raw power, blasting against mine and whittling it away to nothing for a moment.

But a moment was enough. It knew where exactly I was.

In response, I brought up my A-5 shotgun, blasting it in the face while throwing myself backwards with a blast of air from my boots.

The Royal’s head snapped back from the sudden impact, and it twitched it back, almost like a spider. I sent a clone in a different direction, and she lunged for it.

While it was busy thoroughly dismembering my clone, I created some distance with the now invaluable help of my boots, making sure to cover up my trail this time. My brain automatically simulated blood and gore, and my body being bisected wasn’t a pretty sight. I even felt some phantom pains.

Once the clone disappeared though, those thoughts vanished with it. My stealth took over once more and made me scarce.

The Royal went back to looking around for a few seconds before suddenly bursting out in laughter.

“Hahaha! Sneaky little bastard, aren’t you? How slippery… How weak. One wrong step and it’s all over for you. Isn’t it thrilling?”

I continued to remain silent. There was no playing around with this one.

As it searched, keeping eyes and ears out for any of my movements, I slowly got to my feet and made my way away.

It was inches at a time. I was basically shuffling backward. Shockingly, making anything beyond my body disappear was rather difficult, including the ground.

There was another problem as well. My Aura had a range. It was large, but my power diminished exponentially every foot from my body.

That meant covering my tracks wasn’t possible forever. Once those were revealed, it would draw a straight line to me, and I couldn’t use the enchantments on my boots to much because that mana usage would make me shine like a beacon.

I stopped and stood still for a bit, thinking.

It was at least an hour before the strike force arrived. I just had to survive. A fully empowered shotgun slug to the face only left a now-gone bruise on that Royal’s face. It was a nice shiner, but also a brutal reminder of how weak I was compared to it.

So I wasn’t killing this thing with brute force. Thankfully, its Aura was lacking, only supplemented by raw power.

Well, that might not necessarily be true. All I knew was that it couldn’t handle my mental interference very well. Not a surprise, since few Scourge beasts or Royals, if any, had ever faced competent summoners. Our scarcity made our abilities entirely unknown.

I couldn’t let this Royal learn how to combat my Aura though. I could feel its own, and it was constantly probing around, trying to get a read on my mind. Given time, it would eventually close in on me, and then? I would be screwed.

If I wanted to avoid that, I had to improve. Change the encryption, make it more complex, make it fainter as I dispersed it over a larger area.

I concentrated and continued to stand around. So long as this Royal didn’t close on my location, I didn’t have to move and make things more difficult for myself.

I watched as it looked around, inspecting the surroundings, looking at my tracks and trying to guess where I was.

“... You’re not moving, are you, hun?”

It mumbled and kept looking, and over several minutes it began to get closer to where I was.

In that time, I ran through dozens of ideas on how to improve my stealth, how to throw it off my tracks. I decided it was an appropriate time to give one of my ideas a try.

I looked off to the side and concentrated my Aura there, giving it a bit more of my signature.

The Royal quickly noticed and took a large bound over. When I dispersed it though, she looked around and chuckled.

“This little bunny is trying to play. You want to play? You think you can fuck with me?”

It let out faint snarl before drawing a shortsword and slashing the air.

My instincts screamed at me, causing me to drop down to the floor just as a blade of energy sliced through the air. It would have cut me clean in half had I not been fast enough.

The trees, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. Dozens of them creaked and toppled, trunks slamming into the snow powder and raising a fine mist.

I took advantage of the chaos, dashing ahead a few steps to make extra distance. The extra movement didn’t go unnoticed though, and the Royal got a lock on my location and threw itself over.

I threw out some more clones, confusing it while scrambling away. It threw out some more blades of energy, really pushing me to my limits. I started dumping so much Psyka into my stealth and clones that my head actually started heating up a bit.

But it wasn’t for nothing. With a bit more dancing around, I managed to shake it off and found myself another sweet spot.

I stopped, taking a few breaths and noticing I had gone through nearly a third of my Psyka in that one bout.

It had barely been 10 minutes. At this rate, I wouldn’t even make it to the next hour.

I cursed inwardly. This was looking like more and more of a shit situation that I really didn’t want to be in.

When I looked around, I noticed that the surrounding forest had been completely cut down. There were over 100 yards between me and the next standing tree. Naturally, that meant that all those tree trunks, branches, and leaves were cluttering the area.

More cover. Convenient, if used correctly… but it could also be a cage.

There was some leaf cover between the Royal and I, which would help me maintain my stealth. However, I realized that I needed to simultaneously employ real stealth tactics on top of my magical stealth.

Keeping my tracks hard to follow was one tactic, and reducing my noise was another. Every sound I made still reverberated outward and helped give away my location. With all these branches in the way, it would be harder to maneuver quietly, even though I could break line of sight easier.

So while formulating how I would begin to increase the distance between us, I also employed some more baiting tactics.

I occasionally used clones and Aura concentrations to throw off the Royal’s senses. It pissed it off to no end too.

“Fucking with me, fucking with me. I’d prefer you just fuck me. I’ve fucked quiet ones before. The dead ones are nice too. Those dicks can get hard. Only downside is the lack of seed…”

It continued to mumble, my disgust rising with every word. It was one thing to be vulgar. It was another to hear about this level of depravity.

“Fuck. Why don’t you just come out, little bunny? Mama’s getting hot.”

And then it started touching itself. Seriously, I needed to get the hell out of here.

I started walking on tree trunks and rocks, anything that wouldn’t leave behind a track. It was working for a while until I started encountering barriers of leaves and piles of snow. Without the canopy of the forest, the snow was free to fall and accumulate on the ground, making my life more difficult.

Still, I was making distance. More distance meant larger margins of error. I had no choice but to keep pushing.

More time passed as I snuck around, but the more I messed with and baited the Royal, the more pissed off it got. It continued to launch occasional blades of energy. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to know any large-scale magic. However, its sensitivity would continue to sharpen the longer it had to analyze my Aura.

I did what I could to throw it off, but my power could only go so far.

Minute by minute passed, each one feeling longer than the next. The 30 minute mark came and went, and I was down 60% of my Psyka despite constant regeneration.

At that point, once I found a good spot, I stopped and thought some more.

I couldn’t continue like this. My stealth was good, but in exchange for the invisibility, I was basically broadcasting that I was in the area. The Royal knew I was here. It just didn’t know where specifically. With every minute though, it was getting closer.

I needed to improve. There were more facets to stealth in this world with the magic aspect. But that didn’t mean I should forsake the non-magic aspects. Until I could improve my Aura technique more, I’d have to use everything at my disposal. After all, this was the first time I was using this technique in the field.

I looked around, examining the snow, sticks, dirt, and leaves.

I needed to blend in. I needed to become a part of my environment.

I was no scout sniper, but I had read things about camouflage. I unfortunately didn’t have any gear that would make a ghillie suit easier to create, but that wasn’t necessary.

Obscure the figure, use the surrounding foliage and colors to your advantage, eliminate your traces, and disappear.

I called upon what little knowledge I had before improvising and beginning to assemble items. I also brought out some string from my camping gear.

And so, using the distance I created between myself and the Royal, I found a spot and started disappearing.

A fallen tree for cover, some snow to eliminate my body’s outline, mud to smear and distort the color and texture of my white snow coat, as well as dampen my obvious scent.

After some time, I had a good spot. I just needed to bury myself while not making too much sound.

Throughout this time, I had been occasionally popping up my head to check on the Royal’s progress, and noticed an ever-increasing concentration of spiked wolves, scouts, and those mouth-breathers.

I cursed as the Royal signaled them over.

I had to hurry.

Hastening, I laid down into a subtle crevice in the dirt by a rock and a fallen tree. Then, I started covering myself while slowly pulling a bundle of sticks and leaves over my body. At the same time, I used clones and lures to pull the Royal away, as well as some of the approaching spiked wolves and scouts.

Finally, once I was buried beneath sticks, mud, snow, and a pile of leaves and branches from the fallen tree, I let out a breath.

A puff of fog rose into the air before me. It slipped through my mask, a dead giveaway.

Suddenly, a thought rose to the surface of my mind – a convenient remedy.

I grabbed a handful of snow from under me and stuffed it into my mouth.

After I did that, I felt two things with my Aura.

The first was something from my 5th Star. Something started calling out to me, excitedly, as if I’d become worthy of it.

The second was the Royal. I heard it mutter as it started to hone in on me.

“Fog? Is this your Aura, little bunny?”

I cursed, and then, made my decision. Those Scouts and wolves were adding more variables, making it more difficult to maintain my stealth, especially as I started running through the last of my Psyka.

So with my decision, I pulled everything back.

My Aura, my Psyka, my mind, was pulled so far back into my body that I felt like I went blind. I closed my eyes, finished burying myself alive, and went still.

“Oh? A new game?”

I ignored the Royal, not daring to even utilize the danger sense of my Aura. I started to convince myself that I didn’t exist, that I was dead, that all traces of me were washed from the very ether. Going even farther, I shut down my coat and the functions of my hood completely. The cold quickly started invading my body, but I shoved the discomfort aside.

Like that, minute by minute ticked by. I counted every single second, allowing my body to remain limp as the snow in my mouth numbed everything and melted a bit, covering my tongue with water and dirt.

“Where in the hells are you, little bunny? Hey! Start sniffing around, fucking mutts! I want every corner of this forest searched!”

The Royal started yelling. Wolves whimpered as they were screamed at or kicked in anger.

I just kept my eyes closed, focusing on my breathing.

30 minutes turned to 45, and 45 turned to an hour.

At some point, the Royal reached its breaking point.

“Fuck! Where did he go?! Come out!”

It started thrashing about, randomly throwing attacks every which way. No direction was spared, and I could hear explosions of wood and earth.

The ground thrummed from the power of the impact. Chunks of wood slammed into my legs and torso, which, while painful, was bearable. But then a trunk tipped over and crushed my shin.

I vividly felt bones snapping, causing my body to jolt uncontrollably as the pain lit my nerves up like lightning.

But I didn’t move, nor did I speak. A branch slammed into my arm, digging into me with the weight of a trunk behind it. But I let it be, using that sensation to distract from the broken bone.

The Royal clambered around for almost 15 minutes, sending out more attacks that left some wolves crying out in pain. Those too loud for the Royal’s liking were quickly silenced with wet squelching.

And then, when the hour and a half mark came around, I let out an inward cry of happiness.

A massive explosion sounded from the valley. Its echo was accompanied by yelling and shouts of alarm.

The sounds of battle. The cavalry had come.

I let out a longer than normal breath, some of the melted snow and dissolved dirt seeping out between my lips as I smiled.

“Fuck!”

The Royal let out a shrill scream.

“You fucking fuck! Weak little piece of shit! Where the fuck are you?! Fuck!”

It sent out several more powerful attacks. One of them must’ve broken a boulder, because I felt a huge rock fall and smash my other arm.

My happiness won out over my pain though.

“Fucking fall back! Go! Flank those motherfuckers! We’re attacking!”

The Royal commanded its troops. Rapid footsteps followed her words, running off into the distance.

For a moment I felt relief. But I didn’t move. For one, I couldn’t move my leg anyway. But more importantly, I had to be sure.

I remained buried, same as always, for several more minutes. The battle continued to rage on, but I acted like I wasn’t safe.

Then, I heard it.

“Fuck!”

Another curse, and from eerily close. Then, I heard its steps run off.

I let out a breath I had been holding, realizing that my heart was beating so hard my head was starting to hurt.

I decided to continue waiting while buried. My leg went numb after a while, go figure, and my arm started to swell. But I stayed still, waiting until the sounds of battle dwindled away.

Didn’t take long, it seemed. So since there was no way that Royal was still sticking around, I decided to let out my Aura in a burst, checking for anything nearby.

I could see with my Aura, to some extent, an ability I learn of while getting my Crown. I felt nothing but a ruined forest.

So I rose, picking myself up and spitting out the cold water and dirt in my mouth. I quickly shuddered afterward, feeling both the numbing cold and my broken leg, which was still trapped under the trunk.

“It’s only been half an hour or so. I won’t lose it, right?”

I prayed and turned on my Aerial, finding several connections nearby and tapping into a select few that I recognized.

“This is Liaison.”