At sunset, it had happened in an instant.

Chunks of several pillars supporting Al Dherjza’s palace dome had disappeared in an unexplainable burst of blinding light, causing the entire structure to suddenly sag and crumble in places. Distorting the palace’s shape had been enough to break the delicate machinations behind Effie’s aegis amplification spell. The protections preventing any harm from befalling the city were deactivated in an instant

The instant the aegis amplifier was disabled, magical sirens throughout the city activated in response, blaring their warning.

“Remain calm and take shelter. The Aegis has been compromised.” The pre-recorded message said on repeat.

Al Dherjza’s occupants scrambled for shelter on the morning streets overshadowed by the Intercessor’s cold shadow.

“Lucina’s forces are amassing in full force! They’re trying to storm the southern gates! Are they insane?” said the voice of the Bloodstone, Charlie, across all of Al Dherjza’s allied channels.

“The Aegis has fallen! Take cover and prepare for bombardment!” Effie urgently announced.

Explosive shells fired from Lucina’s artillery forces flew high into the sky from outside the city gates, both from amassed troops and from the Incandestine city outside Al Dherjza. The weapons left trails of vapour in large arcs, appearing almost as straight lines to the people of the desert city.

Visible as specks on the darkening orange horizon, super-jets began to sortie from Lucina’s military city southwest of Al Dherjza.

Despite the unexpectedness of the magnified Aegis’ destruction, Al Dherjza itself had been well-prepared for this eventuality. While ‘normal’ civilians certainly lived among its residents, the capital was well-known as the home of the outcast. People from all over Apolaphia with unique abilities and ideologies were ready to fight for the place they called home.

It wasn’t just the people, but the very landscape too. Streets had been terraced, walls cut the city into defensible sections, and strengthening enchantments lined every building and street.

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In the three years that Rolynd had taken the throne, he had done all he can to make Al Dherjza his home. He had even arranged for certain buildings to be built at specific positions around the circular city, forming a giant enchantment. Interlocking enchantments all across the city meant that any given part of it would be able to withstand the impact of even a large-scale bombing. Any registered resident of the city would be granted protection and performance-enhancing boons.

The shelling from the Incandestine forces was violent and relentless. Explosions rang out and blossomed all over the city in a transient carpet of light. But, when the smoke cleared, Al Dherjza still stood, largely unaffected due to the magical upgrades it had received.

The domed palace was the largest exception, having had its structure ruined by the mysterious attack that seemed to have cut through the marble building like wet butter. With its shape distorted, many of the enchantments specifically protecting the palace had been disabled.

Rolynd wandered the palace and inspected the structural damage, apparently showing very little concern for his safety. The cuts that had destroyed the aegis amplifier were numerous, but all followed the same alignment, suggesting a single strike had created a path of destruction a hundred meters long and about five meters deep. The marble was scorched on the cut edge. But, most unusually, there was far less debris near the sites of damage than Rolynd had expected to find.

Of course, the debris left by Lucina’s bombardment was another story. Rolynd absentmindedly wondered if there would be anything left of his home as the great palace gradually crumbled and shook around him.

“Effie, come to the palace,” Rolynd ordered from inside the crumbling palace. “We need to figure out who or what disabled the amplifier. If my Aegis really can’t stop them… well, it doesn’t matter. We are all in danger.”

“On it.” The mask-wearing Effie replied from one of her hideouts in the city. A lonely chamber in an accountant’s office overlooking the quieter part of the city. She wiped her lips clean of the orange liquid of the last magical potion she had prepared for this eventuality. All of the Bloodstones had similar potions, ones that magically toughened skin, bone, muscle and sinew and sped up metabolism.

With her body prepared, Effie slipped into her pocket dimension and disappeared without a trace.

Rolynd wondered how the aegis amplifier had been disabled at all. He had noted that it had gone down around the time the daily shipments from Sarigold were to arrive.

Why had Sarigold not sent word that their magic circle had been compromised?

But even if the enemy had arrived via teleportation, how had they disabled the Aegis in that same instant? They should’ve been unable to move, teleport or otherwise attack in any way without Rolynd’s permission.

That left only one conclusion in Rolynd’s mind: The enemy had a way to bypass his Aegis. Not only that but whatever abilities they possessed allowed them to bypass his Aegis without him even realising.

How was that possible?

He had all the clues he needed to solve this mystery. He just had to piece it all together.