As Lando's space magic failed him, panic surged through his veins. The mysterious mage standing before him had somehow neutralized his ability to phase. Realizing that escape was no longer an option, Lando quickly shifted his focus to a defensive position.

“Interesting, I'm wondering where a space mage is coming from," the man with a diamond-shaped face and neatly combed black hair asked with obvious sarcasm.

Lando was a bit perplexed why the mage did not straight up attack him, but he was willing to engage in a conversation as his only real option right now was playing for time anyway.

“And why do you mind if I am a space mage?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation going until his backup arrives.

The man raised an eyebrow at that question but answered anyway, "I thought we made a deal with the council? You take that woman, and your organization stays out of the revolution."

Lando's excitement peaked at the man's words. Apparently, he was thinking that Lando was a member of the council, but more importantly, he had information about his mother.

He did not answer the guard immediately, as he considered his answers carefully to possibly get the current location about his mother. As a member of the council, he should have known the answer himself, making it difficult for him to ask directly. After a slightly too long pause in the conversation, he made up his mind.

Lando attempted to project an air of confidence, masking his true motives as he posed a question to the man. "Could you please repeat the wording exactly? Perhaps by hearing it again, you may reach a conclusion on your own."

The man still blocking the entrance had a bewildered expression. It did not take long for that bewilderment to turn into frustration and soon after into burning fury.

Lando's fake confidence quickly evaporated as his plan seemed to backfire, as the mage's anger soon turned physical, gathering a full armor made from the rock which made up the floor and blocking the entrance with a wall made out of the same material.

Lando was struck by panic. He had missed the chance to learn more about his mother's location and now found himself locked in an underground room with an earth mage. He estimated the man to be far in the solid stage, making him a formidable opponent. To make matters worse, Lando’s words had backfired and now he was fuming, eliminating any peaceful possibility of leaving the room.

"You fucking bastards! I knew we should have never trusted you!" the man exclaimed, launching dozens of spiked projectiles made from the mage's earth magic towards Lando from all directions simultaneously.

Reacting quickly, the young time mage slowed down time around his body as much as he could. However, he had no idea how to escape this dire situation. With projectiles as big as his leg approaching him in slow motion, the gaps between them were not wide enough for him to dodge successfully. In a split-second decision, Lando propelled himself forward towards his enemy, as they seemed to have slightly wider gaps between the projectiles near his opponent.

But this alone, simply was not enough. Lando remembered a new technique he had recently read in one of his books. He attempted to expand the space between the projectiles as much as he could, creating a gap for himself to slip through.

This was his first attempt at this type of magic, and it quickly became evident. Lando managed to fit into the gap, successfully evading the attack. However, the pocket of space he had created threw off his balance, causing him to crash uncontrollably into the nearby wall, stirring up a cloud of dust.

Despite the crash, Lando was relieved to still be alive. He tried to regain his orientation, but before he could gather himself, a fist smashed into his stomach, feeling as though ten horses had simultaneously kicked him. Fortunately, the loss of kinetic energy provided by his time bubble prevented his stomach from being directly exploding. Like a broken ragdoll, Lando was sent flying into another wall, stirring up even more dust.

"You council fuckers are like shooting stars, here one moment and gone the next! Haha!" The man, seemingly amused by the current development, shouted with a laugh while spraying the room with tiny earth projectiles.

Barely able to move, Lando couldn't hear the man's insults as his ears were still ringing from the impact. He was hit by a few bullets all over his body, unable to see his enemy's attacks due to the dust, the price being some broken bones.

"Shooting star seems to fit quite well in my opinion, sparkling for a moment and fading into insignificance the next." Proud of his previous comparison, the man continued to throw insult after insult and shot bullets in seemingly random directions to quench his fury after allegedly being betrayed by the council.

‘I have to get out of here as fast as possible! One more hit like the fist from before and I’m a goner!’ were the only thoughts in Lando’s mind right now.

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Using the short pause while his enemy randomly bombarded another part of the room, due to the dust still obscuring the view of both fighters, Lando gathered as much mana as he could into a marble like projectile made out of compressed space.

Thanking the man in his mind for throwing insults after insults and consequently revealing his position, Lando aimed in the direction he assumed his opponent to be and fired his bullet.

The magical space missile shot forward, wasting no time. Lando immediately tried to phase into the floor, assuming that the earth mage constantly channeled mana into the surrounding floor and walls to prevent his escape with the help of his space element.

Not getting disappointed, Lando successfully phased into the floor while his opponent was dealing with his attack, he himself not waiting for the outcome. This maneuver was very risky, as if the earth mage channeled his mana into the floor again before Lando was out of reach, his magic would be disrupted and in the worst case he could literally fuse with the floor. Therefore, he descended as quickly as possible to put some distance between himself and the mage.

After reaching what he believed to be a safe distance, Lando tried to remember his previous destination and the according orientation.

"Shit! I seem to have lost my sense of direction due to the dust. I still know where up and down are, but I have no clue about the rest," Lando thought as he made his emergency exit.

One of his worst nightmares, was getting lost in the underground with no sense of direction. If he could not reach the surface before his mana ran out, he would die a gruesome death by becoming part of the earth itself. He already planned to solve this issue in his studies and training, but lately he did not really have time for anything substantial.

"But it doesn't really matter. Anything is better than being near this monster," he decided, moving in a random direction.

Not long after, his ability to see returned, and he took a deep breath, only to start coughing and slump back to the ground.

"Ah, that bastard packs quite a punch. If his attack had been any stronger, I would have been finished there and then," Lando assessed his wounds, realizing that this fight was far from a close one. He had nearly been killed by a single attack. The impact of the bullets that followed had cracked a few bones here and there, but they were nothing in comparison to the fist that still resonated in his stomach.

"Who are you?" a feminine voice came from nearby, startling Lando back to reality as he still winced on the floor.

Still pumped with adrenaline from the fight, he instinctively tried to stand up and assume a defensive position, but failed miserably as his knees gave in, resulting in him hitting the ground face-first.

He tried to look in the direction from which he heard the voice. What he saw surprised him a little. Standing there in a martial arts stance was a young-looking blonde woman.

She appeared ready for battle, and her stance indicated that she was not afraid to fight. But Lando could see the nervousness in her blue eyes.

As she realized that Lando was badly wounded, she slightly lowered her hands and asked, "Answer me! Why are you here? Did my aunt send you down here?"

No longer concerned about the young lady in her green summer dress, as she seemed to pose no threat, Lando slowly sat up and leaned against the wall. He looked around the place he had landed and recognized that he was in a spacious-looking bedroom.

The first thing he noticed was that there wasn't a single window in the room, which seemed a bit strange as it indicated that he was in a basement. "Weird location for a bedroom," he thought, further inspecting the room.

There were a ton of books. In fact, it resembled a small library. He liked books as well, but this was a bit overboard for his taste.

"Are you deaf or just too dumb to understand my words? Who are you and what are you doing in my room?" the woman impatiently asked, raising one threatening fist at the intruder.

No longer ignoring the woman, Lando replied, "I'm sorry. I ended up here by accident. I narrowly escaped from a fight and got a bit lost along the way. My name is Cipher."

The young lady looked baffled for a moment and replied with more questions, "How can someone get lost and end up in a random basement?"

Confirming his suspicions that the room was indeed underground, Lando replied without any embarrassment, "None of your business, lady. I'm sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing down here, but I have to make my leave now."

"Of course, it's my business! You broke into my room, and now you want to leave without explaining anything? Not that you're able to leave anyway. The door is locked from the other side and enchanted as well. So, you must accompany me for a while, anyway," the woman said angrily, seemingly forgetting in her anger that he didn't need a key to enter the room.

"Uh-huh," Lando replied, getting ready to phase away again. But then he realized that he was still wounded and had lost quite a bit of his mana. The fight from before hadn't been that long, but he had poured the maximum amount of mana into every spell just to stay alive.

It wasn't a bad idea to stay here for a bit to regenerate. The putsch was still in full motion, and he didn't want to venture through the streets in his current condition, let alone help his companions with the raid.

"On second thought, maybe I owe you a bit of an explanation. But before I answer your questions, you have to answer a few of mine," he said, trying to calm the girl down.

The blonde woman seemed to think about it for a while but eventually agreed, "Alright. My name is Ina by the way. Ask away."

"First things first, you're locked in here, right?" he wanted to confirm, as this was the only possibility he could think of in this situation.

Ina answered with a short "yes" and then asked with a sizable amount of impatience, "How did you get in here? There should be no way in, and I didn't hear the door opening. It squeaks quite a bit, so I should have noticed."

"I'm a space mage. One of my abilities is to phase through walls and floors," he answered the curious woman.

Ina stood there, not knowing what to say. This was a godsend for her. She became filled with exhilaration as she drew closer to Lando. "My prayers must have been heard! Can you get me out of here? It should be a walk in the park for you and your abilities. Please! I would do anything to get out of this hell!"

Lando was not here to save a damsel in distress. If he freed the girl, people would surely come after them. He already had enough enemies of his own.