Meanwhile, Effie had begun making her way across the overshadowed city, which was lit up with warm orange and blue tones by the explosions of bombs, sodium street lamps and the magical glow of active enchantments.

Charlie was helping the magic corps fend off Lucina’s drones, fighter jets and gunships from the city’s outer battlements, but they were unable to control the swarming tide of aircraft, and some slipped through.

As Effie ran, she saw a shell fall through a crack in the palace dome. About to make contact with the ground, it was mysteriously repelled back at the gunship that fired it. The gunship’s energy shield flashed white and crumbled as the entire craft was overwhelmed by the explosion. It seemed that Rolynd was still alive and well.

Effie’s idiosyncratic ability was being able to phase herself and other objects out of reality, bringing them back at will. Her ability had the unique trait of working on the bodies of others if she phased herself into them. It was a grey zone of Universal Law, where superimposing herself onto another made their souls occupy the same body.

The Bloodstone’s greatest assassin used this power to avoid the deadly bombardment falling about her as she worked her way towards the palace, instinctually phasing out of reality with superhuman speed when she or her gemstones detected an incoming attack and phasing back in once the danger had passed.

Effie approached the palace and cautiously took in her surroundings. The evening shadows could be hiding any manner of evil.

“Effie, from my analysis, the saboteur has the ability to turn themselves and objects they touch into light or electrical current. They haven’t struck again since the amplifier was disabled. I think they must be like you, forced to rest after using their powers. Be on your guard.” Rolynd warned.

“I appreciate you letting-” Effie began to shout over the deafening noise of bombs.

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There was a flash of blinding light.

Before bright spots could even disappear from her vision, Effie had already phased out of this reality. On the other side, her surroundings appeared as they did in the real world. But rather than continue her conversation, Effie had a much more urgent problem at hand.

There was something sticking out of her chest.

A dagger.

“What…?” she uttered in shock.

All her layers of defensive enchantments were on the verge of overload. But, one section had failed – the one meant for protecting her upper torso.

The dagger’s handle freakishly twitched with each beat of her dying heart.

Effie pulled a vial out from her sleeve, dizziness was already overtaking her, the corners of her vision going dark. Effie fell to the floor in a somewhat controlled manner even as her veins burned unnaturally. Her physiology as a Bloodstone and the cocktail of magical potions she had drunk just a few minutes ago kept her alive where any ordinary human would have been slain.

Wasting no time at all, Effie phased the glass of the health potion away. The blood-red, gold-gilded magical solution fell directly into her mouth. In the same beat, she phased the dagger away in a spurt of blood, using telekinesis and pressure from her hand to hold the deep wound shut.

Back in the real world, a glass vial and the bloody dagger reappeared and clattered onto the rune-etched sandstone steps outside the palace. They were immediately tossed about and flung far away by

On the ‘other side’, Effie passed out for a few seconds, slouching over in a powerless heap. Scarlet blood stained the bleach-white bandages she wore in the place of clothes.

Then, the young woman came to and coughed up blood; the dagger had also been poisoned. That explained the sudden mind fog that had overtaken her. She hurriedly ran a hand over the spot she had been pierced.

Fully healed.

“Bastard.” She growled, her mind already seething with thoughts of violent revenge.

In her phased world, Effie could not interact with anyone in the real world, so she had to return before she could report what had happened.

Due to the flash that blinded her, Effie had no information on her target beyond the dagger. But even that dagger alone was unforgettable. The dagger’s pommel had been shaped into the head of a lion. Or to be more accurate – the head of a chimaera, a mythical hybrid creature, a being made by the fusion of a lion, antelope, and snake. The symbol of the Chimaera project.

So, Rolynd was right. There was more than one Chimaera Project. And, if there are others like us here, that means that Lucina kept it up, even after her niece was killed.