“What do you mean? His magical signature is so thick here that I can practically wade through it! And you’re saying there’s not a trace of him leaving here? That’s impossible!”

Farmas was livid. Their prey had escaped them time and time again, somehow moving faster than them, despite clearly being much weaker. The magical signature that they had been following was strong enough to linger for hours, which meant that their target was amazingly strong for a slave, but compared to one of the Gergasi, they were so far beneath their Level that it was a joke. And yet, somehow this “joke” had managed to evade them handily, which led to hours of teeth-grinding frustration at their inability to catch him.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Syrlia snapped back. “He was obviously here, but now he’s gone without a trace; it’s as simple as that!”

“But for the magical signature to be this thick, he couldn’t have left more than an hour ago,” Farmas insisted, which he thought was in quite the reasonable voice. “Surely you’ve missed his route out of here; it’s not like he could just up and completely disappear!”

“If you think you can track him, then you do it! And good luck with that, because you’re practically hopeless when it comes to this stuff; you always have been, and always will be!”

Fury had the Onyx Bone Warhammer in his hands and angling toward her head before he could blink, but it was stopped by a wall of ice so thick that his blow only cracked it halfway. Farmas was then blasted backwards with a Fireball that was cast so quickly it seemed to appear almost instantly, and he rolled with the impact, ricocheting off a tree as he got back up and rushed toward her.

“Enough! We don’t have time for this!” she shouted at him, throwing up another wall of ice in his path. He couldn’t help but be annoyed at her spellcasting ability, which was much more developed than his own, as there were a few spells that she had cast so many times over the years that they became almost instinctual. These two spells were of that variety, though she could handle even stronger spells if given enough time to cast them. He could also cast strong spells, as he wasn’t a slouch, but not with the ease that she did.

His fury and annoyance hadn’t faded enough to save the wall, as he crashed through it with his body, the few sharp edges of the ice as he passed through failing to penetrate his skin. The wall of ice was only a distraction, however, as Syrlia had used it to camouflage her next cast, which was an extremely powerful blast of continuously flowing air that slammed into him from above. She had pushed so much Mana into it that he smashed into the ground, skidding to a halt as he was trapped beneath the assault. The force produced by the air was so powerful that he struggled to even get to his feet, even as he started casting his own spell to block the air from hitting him.

His slower creation of his spell patterns was to his detriment, as he felt something interfere with its formation, slashing through it before he could send his Mana through. Grunting in frustration, he tried a second time, only for the infuriating woman to do it again.

“Fine! I’m done now.”

Farmas could have easily gotten himself out from underneath the continuous blast of air, using his Battle Arts to increase his Strength so that it would be nothing more than a gentle breeze, or simply utilizing every iota of his natural abilities to push through, but the sudden face full of dirt and struggle afterwards had cooled off his anger slightly. He had worked with Syrlia long enough to know that she wasn’t actually trying to hurt him, not that she would have an easy time of it even if she tried, and that she was attempting to deescalate the situation.

That didn’t mean he had to like it, however.

Still, she was correct; they didn’t have time for the good, old-fashioned fight between them that he was yearning for. It had been decades since he’d been in a serious duel between himself and any other Gergasi, and he was itching to test himself in combat against someone who could hold their own. While Syrlia wasn’t able to easily go head-to-head with him in a melee fight, dueling against her was an excellent way to utilize some of his long-unused spells and Battle Arts that worked best when fighting against a spellcasting specialist.

“Good. Now, give me a second while I double-check everything around here,” she said matter-of-factly, letting the air spell elapse and turning away from him. She knew him well enough that he wouldn’t use that to his advantage and get in a cheap shot; he had more honor than that, after all. Besides, she wasn’t the real reason he was angry, even with her previous words.

That designation belonged to the target they had been hunting.

At first, they hadn’t really understood who it was they were following, as the magical signature had simply been unique and stronger than just about anything else they’d found in the Kingdom. But there was a hint to the signature, a “flavor” to it, that had seemed familiar. When they finally saw the abnormally tall – though not as tall as a full Gergasi – individual on top of one of the flying wooden contraptions, both of them suddenly understood why it had been so familiar. Even though his mental stats weren’t as high as Syrlia’s, they still worked plenty fast to deduce what was going on.

The one they were chasing was a half-breed.

There weren’t many secrets among the Enclave, and the fact that a half-breed had not only appeared in the Kingdom but was also fathered by the illustrious Vilnesh… Well, that was not a secret that could be kept by anyone. Vilnesh had attempted to claim the spawn but had failed when the half-breed had escaped, only for Chinli to have him in her possession a short time later – wherein it had been said that he had unfortunately been killed.

That, at least it seemed likely, was a lie. The now-deceased Chinli had obviously let the half-breed escape, for what reason, Farmas didn’t know, but he could guess at what happened next. The child had apparently shown up again in the Kingdom after laying low for years, and her network of informants had told her where he could be found. Going to retrieve him and try to restore some of the respect she had lost when she came back empty-handed before sounded just like Chinli to him, but obviously something went wrong with her plan.

In short, she died.

And how that was even remotely possible now made slightly more sense when they knew that it had been a half-breed that had done the deed. Of course it was someone that was even part Gergasi, as there was no way that any slave would’ve been able to accomplish such an act, though how the woman had managed to screw up so much to actually get killed by what was no more than a child was beyond him.

But they were going to make sure such a thing didn’t happen again. While Vilnesh might’ve wanted the half-breed alive, as it was proof that reproduction was at least somewhat possible in the future, there was no way either Farmas or Syrlia would risk bringing the child back to the Enclave. While it was doubtful the half-breed would be able to accomplish a similar deed in the future, with the state of the Kingdom and the world as it was, there was no reason to risk it right now. They could study his corpse later, if it was even necessary.

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But unfortunately for the two Gergasi, trying to actually catch the half-breed, and the small woman he had with him, was proving futile. Their target had somehow used a spell to create a floating box that could move faster than anything they had ever seen before, and Syrlia was at a loss to how it worked. At the time, she had mentioned that it had felt like it was like a solid spell formation, which didn’t seem possible, but she maintained her assessment afterwards.

They had lost their prey when he deliberately flew into the Calamity, and they were reluctant to enter. As much as they wanted to catch and punish the half-breed for what he did to Chinli, as incompetent as the woman was, either one of them entering the Calamity might end up making matters in the Kingdom worse if the Aperture in the center started growing at a rapid pace.

Unfortunately, finding him where he exited proved just as difficult, especially as darkness fell. They didn’t return to the Enclave, but instead spent the entire night on the move, looking for any trace of where they might have emerged. It wasn’t until that morning that they located a town near the border of the Calamity that had been practically obliterated, with fading traces of the half-breed’s magical signature all over it. Syrlia had managed to track where they went next, though it was difficult because the magical signature was so faint that Farmas couldn’t even detect it, but fortunately his companion could.

Which brought them to what was obviously a camp of some sort, which had been abandoned not that long before they arrived. The magical signature of the half-breed was so strong there that he was sure they would be off and after their prey within seconds, but that hadn’t proven to be the case when Syrlia announced that there was absolutely no trail to follow. It didn’t make a bit of sense to him, but he was also aware that his companion wouldn’t tell him that unless it was true. She wanted to find the Gergasi-killer just as much as he did, so if she said the trail went cold, then he was forced to believe that.

“Any other signs of where he might have gone?” he asked as soon as he got up from where he had been held down by her spell. Brushing off his clothes, he looked around to see if there was anything obvious, but he saw not a thing.

Syrlia, however, was already walking slightly away from where the majority of the magical signature was concentrated, to a spot a little further through the trees. He followed her and looked down at the ground where she eventually stopped, seeing what appeared to be an indentation in the scattered leaves and dirt. Farmas wasn’t necessarily the best physical tracker out there, but he knew enough to determine that this was where their quarry had sat down, his back against the tree while he… did something.

“These are odd. What do you make of this?” his companion asked, squatting down to look at some pieces of rock that appeared to have been shattered from a larger stone. He shook his head, not sure what she was getting at. At least, not until she picked up what appeared to be a whole stone, which appeared to have some sort of spell pattern embedded into it.

“Ah. This is a Fusion.”

Farmas was confused for a moment, before he remembered. “Those things the Mage-slaves can create? Those things are practically worthless. A waste of time.”

She held the stone in her hand, and the next moment, it suddenly shone with a weak light. As he had thought, it was barely enough to marginally light up a dark room, let alone being actually useful. It would be much easier to use a spell.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asked suddenly.

Again, shook his head. “Seeing what? That’s like a little toy that he probably discarded after seeing how much of a waste of time it was to create.”

She smacked him on the side of his head, which he didn’t bother to dodge, as it didn’t hurt him. “No, look at it closely. Come on, I know you’re not as ignorant as you’d have others believe.”

He grunted but did as she asked. At first, he had no idea what she was talking about, but then he saw it. The pattern that was fused into the stone was, as much as he could admit, perfect. There wasn’t a single flaw, as if it was meticulously created and perfected over hours and hours of work. After enough experience with casting spells, spell patterns didn’t need to be more than the general shape than they needed to be, as the intent behind them counted more for a successful cast than anything else. It was how those like Syrlia were able to cast so quickly, because their spell patterns were so basic by the billionth cast that they could be created in a fraction of a second.

But this pattern was on the opposite end of that spectrum. While he had never fully gotten into the whole “Fusion” craze once it passed through the Enclave, who investigated it for its potential worth (only to be discarded as fundamentally a waste of time after a few decades of study), he couldn’t remember seeing anything quite like this. In fact, this was more than just perfection; the sheer strength inherent in the lines of the grid-like pattern stood out as even more astonishing – which was not a feeling he wanted to associate with the half-breed they were seeking to kill.

“Aha, you see it!” Syrlia said with satisfaction. “But do you see what else is strange about it?”

He looked closer, delving his senses into the Fusion to try and see what she was talking about, but after nearly 30 seconds of seeing nothing – other than being reluctantly impressed by its formation – he shook his head. “No.”

She smirked at his failure, but he didn’t care; he just waved at her to get on with it. “Where is the Mana coming from to power this thing?”

He knew from the study the Enclave had done on Fusions that ambient Mana was used to power these things, taken from the environment. But when he went to look for any Mana being funneled into it, he didn’t see a single thing. It was only when he glanced around in confusion that he noticed something happening a few feet above her hand. There was a small disturbance in the Mana flow at a specific point, which he could see was being pulled into itself, as if something was there and absorbing it.

Reaching out his hand, Farmas passed it through the disturbance without feeling any resistance. He did it again, though he rested his hand inside of it this time, but again he felt… nothing. Or at least nothing physical. He was fairly certain that mana was being absorbed into empty space, and he couldn’t figure it out.

“Again, you found it! You had me worried for a moment there.”

Staring at that point where Mana seemed to be absorbed, he ignored the condescension in her tone as he asked. “How? And what does this mean?”

“For once, I have no idea. It reminds me of something, though.”

Tearing his gaze away, he looked at Syrlia. “Reminds you of what?”

“Just something I’ve heard about one of our earlier projects,” she answered with a shrug. “The Unspoken Response, remember?”

“They’re still around? I thought they were all executed shortly after the Apertures appeared and we pulled back our control of the useless Nobles in the Kingdom; did some of them survive?”

Syrlia shrugged again. “I have no idea. That wasn’t my responsibility. But I know someone who might know.”

It took him a moment to understand who she meant. “Oh. Her. Yeah, I think we should bring this to her and ask about all this. In addition, as much as it might be a mistake, I think we should let the Grand One know about the half-breed. I’m afraid Vilnesh will try to keep it quiet, and I’d rather not take the fall for his and Chinli’s failures.”

She thought about it for a moment before nodding. “That’s probably a good idea. Especially since, if I’m correct about this,” she added, pointing toward the place where the Mana was being absorbed into thin air, “then our target has likely developed a way to avoid being tracked.”

“That bad?”

“Not necessarily bad, but it’ll severely hinder our ability to find him. We need more information from Vilnesh about this half-breed, which I’m sure he’s not about to share without some… prompting from the Grand One.”

“Alright, then let’s go. Being this close to the Calamity here is starting to make me itch. I don’t like there being a challenge that I can’t face, and I’d rather leave it behind rather than think about it too much.”

Without another word, the two of them lifted into the air, leaving behind the campsite, and the last traces of the half-breed that got away.