Leon worried about his retinue, but he trusted Asiya would explain to them his plan. So, invisible, he sprinted across the sandy dirt of the Samar coast back toward the Kingdom’s capital city, where his river nymph and demonic partner awaited him. They didn’t have much longer before Asiya’s parents would be executed, but if they had any luck, they could pull this off.

Leon just hoped that the dungeons in Samar were as porous as the dungeons in the Bull Kingdom. But if his usual luck held, they would probably be completely impenetrable.

After about half an hour of hard running, Leon crossed the twenty-five miles and re-entered the city, still invisible and with a change of clothes to something dark, nondescript, and kept his face hidden, just in case. Given the time, the streets were largely deserted, and it was easy enough for him to slip past most of the guards. The fortifications, however, would be much trickier by the simple fact that they were magically fortified—if he so much as brushed his arm against the sandstone bricks, the sheer amount of magic power flowing through them would disrupt his invisibility.

So, he needed another plan. He could sense that the canals that wound through the city were magically protected, too, so that ruled them out. With some reluctance, Leon realized that heading north to the edge of the city and out into the water was probably his best bet. With Maia on his side, it wasn’t like it was too risky, but he was a creature of the sky, and the idea of swimming even a modest distance out into the Gulf gave him serious mental stress.

He’d have to, though, if he wanted to get around the worst of Samar’s defenses, which were concentrated around the coast. If he was able to infiltrate the port, then he’d practically have a straight shot into the adjacent palace… through a number of guards and gatehouses, but he’d be much closer than he was now.

For just a moment, he allowed himself to contemplate the possibility of transforming back into his Thunderbird form. Unfortunately, nothing had changed since the last time he’d thought about it: he still hadn’t the magical capacity to transform completely at will, so his two transformations today were already pushing his limits. Even one more transformation might start to severely impact his combat capabilities. Besides, with the way he arrived and departed from the palace, the guards were likely keeping an eye on the sky more than they otherwise would, and the sky was clear with a bright full moon out. He wouldn’t be able to infiltrate unseen, and they’d easily identify him if he tried.

So that left the ocean.

Leon scowled, and then made his way a half-mile or so north, back to the coast, and there, frowned at what he saw.

It seemed that his ransoming of Asiya had the Samarids spooked, because their navy was out in force. Their navy wasn’t nearly as powerful as the Legion’s, with no ships nearly as capable as the Legion dreadnoughts, though they still had many war galleys of comparable size to their Legion counterparts. He could only sigh; no matter what, this was going to be damned difficult.

Despite having successfully done what he’d set out to do—that being to get Asiya out of Samarid hands—he was starting to regret his actions a bit. Not that he contemplated turning around, of course; at this point, he had already committed to his course of action the moment he let Xaphan out of his soul realm.

[Are you ready, human?] came the crackling whisper of Xaphan’s voice in his mind.

[Not quite yet,] Leon replied as he hurried out onto the beach. Directing his thoughts to Maia, he asked, [Can you get me into the port?]

[I can do more than that, if you need me to,] Maia replied.

[I wouldn’t mind a lift into the palace,] Leon quipped.

[That can be done.]

Leon smiled at how casually she said that, and then dove into the water and submerged himself. He didn’t have to swim too far out before he felt a shift in the water around him, and he knew that Maia had a hold of him. Only a moment later, he was pulled out into the water, and then circled back toward the port.

[Xaphan, now,] Leon gravely ordered.

Xaphan didn’t verbally respond, but only a moment later, a tremendous explosion rocked the city of Samar. The shockwave was so powerful that even below the surface of the water and protected by Maia’s magic power, Leon could feel it resound in his chest, and he could hear the awful sound of countless pieces of glass shattering throughout the city. The Samarids liked to build out of glass, and while he assumed that most of those constructs were reinforced and magically protected in addition to being fairly robust in and of themselves, the power of his demonic partner was just too much for all of them to bear, and many had their surfaces crack and splinter in response to his attack.

The Royal Palace was the center of the blast. Dark red demonfire consumed one of the outlying buildings and reached up into the clear sky, looming over the entire city and filling the air with the demon’s power in a wordless promise of what was about to happen.

Almost immediately after, alarms went up across the city, along with the sounds of screaming. With his magic senses, Leon could see what few civilians that were out in the streets scrambling for cover, while the city’s guardsmen and nearby military forces hurriedly mobilized. This wasn’t the best thing to see, but fortunately, it meant that many of the patrolling galleys pulled away from the port, while those still docked began to slide out of their berths, preparing to defend the port from a potential attack from the sea. It might make his escape more interesting, but for the moment, Xaphan’s attack had successfully stirred up the hornet’s nest, leaving it emptier than it was before.

[Go!] Leon shouted to Maia, and a second later, he felt the water around him suddenly pulse. He felt himself drawn back, his river nymph lover’s power tightening around him, and then it snapped, sending him flying out of the water and sailing a few hundred feet up and into the air. Unfortunately, his fragile shell of invisibility was sundered, forcing his ring into a five minute cooldown, but in the darkness and with his aura restrained, it seemed that he wasn’t seen.

Behind him, as soon as he was launched, the water within the port began to roil and churn as Maia seized control of it and turned it against the war galleys, further capturing their attention and keeping it from him. He wasn’t able to watch for more than a few seconds, but even that was enough to see two water dragons erupt from the waves and wrap themselves around the hull of one of the galleys, splintering its frame and pulling it down below the surface, spilling its human contents out into the harbor.

With a smile, Leon sailed over the Royal Palace’s walls, clear over any defensive wards that might’ve been inscribed to prevent such a thing. His hood and cloth mask were in place, hiding his identity, but he wondered if that was even something he needed to worry about. He felt sure that as he flew over the walls that alarms would be going off somewhere, but he was also certain that with the recent blast and with an eighth-tier demon going on a rampage within the palace, the guards had other things on their mind.

And, initially, it seemed his certainty paid off. He roughly landed just beyond the walls, the impact shuddering through his eighth-tier limbs, but in a fairly open space—an unpaved courtyard surrounded on three sides by fairly small buildings, and the wall on the fourth—on the opposite side of the palace complex from where Xaphan was on his deliberately attention-grabbing rampage. There weren’t any guards around this courtyard, and more than enough places for him to hide until his ring was usable again.

So, that’s exactly what he did. He sprinted over into the peristyle, pulled open the closest door as quickly and quietly as he could, and then slipped inside. To his relief, he found himself in a small room for storing various sports equipment. He guessed this was a place reserved for the leisure of the Sultan or his guests, but that didn’t matter too much right now, he just cared that it got him out of the open.

Within the storage room, Leon could feel his heart madly thumping in his chest, resonating with every shockwave from every explosion Xaphan set off. Already, the demon was doing battle with the seventh-tier earth mage who’d confronted Leon earlier, as well as another seventh-tier water mage that he was unfamiliar with. Neither Mansur, the fire mage, nor Kaouther were to be seen, which raised his paranoia quite a bit.

Xaphan wasn’t going too hard—Leon hadn’t wanted to do too much damage to either the palace or the guards, he just wanted to grab Asiya’s parents and run. But Xaphan was now contending with two seventh-tier mages, and even though he handily outclassed them on their own, they also had dozens of fifth and sixth-tier mages backing them up, putting more and more pressure on Xaphan as additional high-tier guards arrived to help in fighting the demon. As a result, Xaphan was starting to use bigger and more powerful magics just to sell the battle as real, and Leon wasn’t sure how much longer it might be before Xaphan was pressured enough to begin actually fighting.

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If and when he did, then people would start to die.

It felt like an excruciating eternity in that storage room just waiting for his ring to recover for use. Less than five minutes, but every second had felt like an hour. But the time finally passed, and Leon slipped back outside, became invisible again, and started making his way through the palace complex.

The city of Samar was incredibly well-fortified, with the core of the city surrounded by walls, and additional walls, huge gatehouses, and canals broke the city into many easily-defended sectors. However, there were no such fortified districting within the palace, letting Leon practically have the run of the place without fear of accidentally brushing against something that would disrupt his invisibility again.

There were still many Samar guards running around, though, and more than once Leon had to quickly dodge out of the way as a squad of Samarid soldiers rushed past him—a few, he noted with dismay, running toward the courtyard he’d landed in.

His destination was the building that he’d seen Asiya escorted out of earlier, which he assumed to be the dungeon. Only a few buildings away, he found that his guess was correct, as a number of prison guards were rushing around throwing together what seemed to be an impromptu execution in the courtyard just in front of the building. Not too far away stood a huge man with his face obscured wielding a gigantic sword which, while obviously ceremonial, was also just as obviously sharp and well-used.

As Leon ran toward them, the Samarids made his job easy by hauling both of Asiya’s bound parents outside and forcing them to kneel on a pair of wooden blocks only a few steps out of the door—it seemed that even though there wasn’t any direct evidence that the attack was meant to free them, the Sultan wasn’t taking any chances and decided to step up the execution of Asiya’s parents. Both of them looked both terrified and at peace; at once unwilling to die here, yet resigned to their fate. They were made to kneel and lean on the blocks facing each other, and Leon could see them lock their gazes, unshed tears in their eyes as they found comfort in being with each other here at the end.

The headsman approached, his blade gleaming in the light of the moon. He took a position above Iset, Asiya’s mother. The beautiful, outspoken woman took a deep breath, but a whimper of fear escaped her.

“Please, me first!” Khayu, Asiya’s father, shouted in desperation, seemingly unable to watch his wife die, or maybe hoping against all hope that some miracle might happen that would help them to escape from death.

The guards ignored him. The headsman raised his blade, but in the instant before it fell, Leon arrived, his body straining as he sprinted to reach them in time.

Fire burst from his hands, instantly dissipating his invisibility as the power of his eighth-tier magic scattered the magic of his ring. Intense flame leaped from him like a solar flare, burning bright orange as it splashed across the fifth-tier headsman from behind, engulfing him completely.

Leon curled his fingers, causing the fire to double back rather than spill forward, consuming the headsman and only the headsman.

Iset and Khayu screamed in shock and terror, and the dozen or so Samarid guards around the prison reeled with similar emotion. Leon, with such an advantage, ran through them like he was the specter of death itself. He didn’t once draw his blade, only using his rarely-used fire magic to incinerate several of the guards around his targets, and then erecting a great wall of fire between him and the rest. With a single gesture, the fire of this wall bent and surged, forcing the terrified fifth-tier-and-below guards hurling back, singed but alive.

With one smooth motion, Leon grabbed Khayu and Iset and hurled them away from the dungeon and back the way he came.

[Got them!] Leon shouted in his mind to Xaphan.

The demon didn’t respond, but his power cascaded through the palace a second later as a pair of tiny fiery wings erupted from his back and propelled him into the air. Rising in but a moment to a height of more than a hundred feet, Xaphan began raining powerful fireballs upon the palace, while the fires that naturally covered his body prevented any ranged attack from making contact with his physical form, reducing most projectiles to ash and dissipating most magical attacks. Those few exceptions Xaphan was able to effortlessly dodge.

“What is this?!” Khayu shouted in confusion as Leon practically hauled him and his wife through the palace complex toward the wall closest to the port—their pace was fairly slow, but as he ripped off the two’s bindings to let them run under their own power, their pace improved dramatically. There was a tower near the courtyard, and getting into the tower would give them access to the ramparts, and from there, they should be able to just jump down into the port—if the wards were anything like what was used in the Bull Kingdom, they were designed more to try and keep people and possible projectiles from coming into the protected areas, not getting out of them. If it were the latter, it might interfere with the guards’ ability to defend the walls.

Despite planning on jumping down from the walls, both Khayu and Iset, while rather unimpressive in terms of magic power, weren’t so fragile that they couldn’t handle a fall of about five or six stories.

“Later!” Leon shouted in response, noticing with his magic senses that guards were now sprinting in their direction. “If you don’t want to die, then run!”

Neither Khayu nor Iset made any more arguments and followed Leon as they sprinted for the remote courtyard in the north where Leon had first landed. Unfortunately, some of the guards who’d gone to check it out after Leon set off alarms getting over the wall had stuck around despite not finding anything, and Leon counted at least three dozen guards swarming over the courtyard.

“Shit! Change of plan!” Leon shouted, and he pulled Asiya’s parents toward the closest guard tower, instead. This part of the walls weren’t quite as close to the water as he’d have liked, but it would have to do.

With a tremendous blast of fire, Leon overwhelmed the tower’s locking enchantments and caved in the tower’s door, stunning the Samarid guards within. Now out of direct line of sight, he wasted no time closing with the guards and hitting them with concentrated and almost imperceptible blasts of lightning, rendering them unconscious.

“Up!” Leon shouted, pointing to the winding stairs leading further up the tower and to the wall’s ramparts. Khayu and Iset darted upstairs while Leon checked behind them—hundreds of guards were now converging on their position, and without Xaphan around to take up their attention, the seventh-tier mages that had been focusing on him were now running in their direction.

Without any more hesitation, Leon took off after Asiya’s parents, and together, the three of them burst out of the tower and onto the ramparts. Arrows began to hit the wall around them, and Leon had to let loose with an arc of flame to shield them from the withering hail coming at them from the other nearby towers.

“Jump!” Leon shouted, and Khayu and Iset leaped off the wall. Any hesitance they might’ve had in following his orders was long gone. A moment later, Leon jumped after them, constantly using his fire as a shield to keep the arrow fire from hitting them.

When they hit the ground, Khayu stumbled a bit, but Iset landed with more grace and helped to balance her husband. Together, the three began sprinting for the water. The Samarid attempts to stop them, however, intensified, and Leon watched as the seventh-tier mages reached the top of the wall. The female earth mage jumped after them, while the unfamiliar water mage stood on the ramparts and pulled out a bow of her own. She then drew an arrow that had Leon’s heart skipping a beat: an arrow with a scroll of spell paper tied around it.

The water mage nocked, drew, and loosed, and the arrow sped through the air, but curiously, it wasn’t aimed at any of them. Instead, it looked like it would hit the ground about fifty feet ahead of them. Leon guessed it was some measure to try and block them in with the reinforcements that were now swarming the port, and Leon couldn’t let that happen. He conjured a ball of fire in his hand and threw it in the general direction of the speeding arrow. The fireball detonated in the air, consuming the arrow but inadvertently setting off the spell. In an instant, Leon’s fire was pushed outward in a great wave of heat as an enormous pillar of ice took its place, then fell to the ground with a gargantuan crash, crushing several buildings within the port.

It came close, but it didn’t injure any of them or hinder their path.

The earth mage, meanwhile, was gaining on them. Leon could run much faster than her, and under normal conditions wouldn’t ever be in danger of being caught by her. However, he was slowed down by Khayu and Iset, and though they were drawing close to the water’s edge, the earth mage was gaining.

The ground beneath their feet began to rumble and shake as the earth mage’s power rushed out ahead of her, and Khayu and Iset both started to lose their balance. The stone dock cracked and splintered, and spikes erupted from the ground. Asiya’s parents barely managed to avoid getting impaled, but lost nearly all of their speed. Both went tumbling down, and might’ve been killed by the earth mage if Leon hadn’t suddenly came to a heart-stopping halt, turned, and confronted the seventh-tier mage.

He glared at her, then conjured fire around his fist. He punched out, letting fire spill from his knuckles in an unstoppable torrent. A river of fire was ejected from his body, and the earth mage had to stop in her tracks and conjure a shield of earth to avoid being completely consumed, pulling her power back to protect herself.

Leon let his fire wash over her shield for a moment, then turned and ran to Asiya’s parents. He dragged them to their feet, and together, the three continued their run to the water’s edge.

In the distance, Leon could see Maia still wreaking havoc within the bay, her water dragons crushing Samar ships or causing them to capsize—not directly killing anyone, but knocking many into the water and causing a tremendous amount of damage to their ships.

[Maia!] Leon shouted as the Samarid water mage shot another spell arrow at them. He turned and used another fireball to intercept it, then kept on running.

He didn’t need to say anything more to his river nymph lover. A relatively small water dragon broke out of the water as the three drew close, sweeping up Khayu and Iset despite their sudden fear and panic, then pulling them into the bay and beneath the waves. Leon dove in after them, and Maia’s power wrapped around him, pulling him further and further in.

Maia towed the three out of the bay with incredible speed, leaving Samar behind, their mission successful.

At least, so it seemed.