[You’re not going to get through this way, human,] Xaphan chided.

Leon ignored the demon as he continued focusing his power on the smooth stone wall in front of him that the ninth-tier man had disappeared behind mere minutes before. He’d formed his magic into a spike and tried boring into the stone, his meager mastery over earth magic meaning he was trying a more brute force approach in simply trying to force the stone apart.

And so far, he’d had little success.

[You might as well bash your head against the rock,] Xaphan said provokingly. [Your skull is undoubtedly tougher than it, so I’m sure it’ll break before you do.]

[Demon,] Leon retorted exasperatedly, his concentration finally slipping as the rock stubbornly resisted his attempts to force his way in, [if you have nothing helpful to say, then why are you opening your mouth?]

[If my partner is doing something completely asinine, is it not my duty to get him to see sense? Am I not obligated to try and fix him?]

Leon exhaled in frustration in a vain attempt to vent some of his emotions. From saying goodbye to his family and friends to being sent through the Grave Warden’s portal, fighting the creature beneath the wastes, and then finally chasing this one man through the mountains, only about an hour had passed, and Leon’s patience was in short supply.

[Fine,] Leon responded, his jaw clenching in vexation. [Have you some better method for trying to get through this wall?]

[Heh. Thousands, I have thousands of ways to get through that wall. As do you, if you’d only stop and truly evaluate the situation. Stop, breathe, and try and actually use the shit between your ears.]

Leon’s eye twitched in irritation, but he knew Xaphan well at this point, and he could hear the wisdom in his words, hidden as they were behind copious amounts of venom.

So, he took a deep breath and steadied himself. He breathed in, and then out, this time succeeding more in his attempts to calm his frayed nerves. And then he reached out with his magic senses.

Whatever power in the air was suppressing his magic senses didn’t hamper him much over such a short distance, so it wasn’t hard for Leon to make a quick evaluation of the magic in the stone. Initially, he didn’t sense much else that he hadn’t before—the stone in front of him seemed on the surface to be completely normal, but the moment his magic tried to sink in without considerable power backing it up, the stone forced it back out. Even with a more concentrated spike of power, his magic failed to penetrate farther than the length of his index finger.

Given the power he had at his disposal, he couldn’t help but be particularly impressed at the strength and elegance of the cave’s defenses.

[I’m not sensing much,] Leon admitted to his demonic partner. [The stone isn’t giving anything away.]

[You humans and your tunnel vision…] Xaphan dismissively crackled. [Widen your focus, boy, and take in more than just what’s in front of your face. Maybe then you’d actually see something.]

Leon rolled his eyes but did as he was bid. His magic senses rolled over the mountain, and at first, he didn’t sense much more than what he had already; the mountain felt completely mundane save for the strangely magic-proof wall in front of him. However, as the seconds passed and his senses encompassed more and more of the mountain, he started analyzing more and more of the currents of magic that surrounded the mountain.

He'd invested a lot of time in studying defensive wards and how enchantments can affect the land they were placed upon, so he was able to quickly see that while it was subtle, the flow of magic around the mountain itself was unnatural. It was quite elegant, in his opinion, as if whatever enchantment he was now sensing was almost organically interwoven throughout the mountain range, designed to be spectacularly powerful yet not disturb the natural flow of magic through the mountains in any way.

From what he could sense, it wasn’t quite perfect, but it was more than subtle enough that he’d failed to see it until he’d widened his field of view to take in more than what he was directly looking at.

‘Incredible,’ Leon thought as he took in the subtly-shifted currents and eddies. Orthodox doctrine for defensive wards had enchantments being smaller and subtler to try and avoid detection, yet this one was massive. He simply had to get a look at the underlying runic sch—

[Demon,] Leon said, cutting off his train of thought. [Is this… the work of an ancient rune?]

[Look at that, you do use your tiny little baby brain on occasion! If I had a cookie, I’d give it to you as a reward. Good boy, take a notional pat on the head for figuring it out!]

Fighting not to grind his teeth, Leon responded, [Would any of my open runes help?]

[Ancient runes are more powerful than modern runes, but they’re not impervious,] Xaphan said, telling Leon nothing he didn’t already know. [They’re not really my area of expertise, but there’s only one way to find out, I say! Fuckin’ try it! And if it works, run down that little flighty fuckboy, and set him on fire!]

[I’ll take that last bit under advisement,] Leon replied as he reached into his soul realm. While it was rather empty now compared to only a few days ago, he still had stacks and stacks of spells, including a number of spells inscribed with ancient ‘open’ runes, which he’d already put to use during the campaign on the Sword. He’d have had a lot more trouble stealing Silver Spear than if he’d not had such capabilities.

Without hesitation, Leon focused his mind, envisioning one thing and one thing only: the wall separating him from the cave sliding back open. And then he held out the spell and channeled his power into it. The complex, spiraling rune inscribed upon the spell paper flashed with light, but the power running through it flowed as the rune dictated, and according to Leon’s will. Guided by his spell, his power slipped past the rock with ease, and in a moment, the wall began to haltingly slide open.

Leon’s heart leaped in excitement even though the wall only shifted a few feet before stopping, and his heart then almost stopped as the wall slid shut a few inches. So he scrunched up his face in concentration and poured more power into the spell. He could feel the spell paper reaching its breaking point, and as it suddenly began burning in his hand from the sheer amount of power running through it, the wall slid open enough for Leon to comfortably dart through.

He emerged into a wide hall that led deeper into the mountain, while behind him, the wall, no longer held open by his spell, slammed shut, sealing him inside. However, he actually breathed a sigh of relief, comforted in his bypassing of the obstacle as well as the pleasant surprise that within the mountain, the dark magic in the air outside had lessened considerably.

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So, after taking a moment to revel in the relief of no longer having that magic pollutant surrounding and clinging to him, Leon projected his magic senses down the tunnel. His power was no longer constrained by that power either, so it moved quickly.

The tunnel was a little rougher closer to the entrance, but as it moved deeper, it grew much grander, with the stone smoothing out and then forming stairs, while the tunnel ceiling had been enchanted to give off soft light, illuminating the path.

[Not a bad place,] Xaphan said appreciatively. [Hardly worthy of a Lord of Flame and his current host, but given what’s outside, I’ll take it.]

[I see how it is,] Leon said sarcastically. [Already tired of my soul realm and now you’re shopping for somewhere else, hm?]

[Don’t take it personally kid, I just have higher standards than you’re ever likely to meet.]

Leon chuckled and then began moving down the tunnel. Now that he was inside most of the wards, he was able to sense far more than he could from the outside, and now it was much more apparent that there were ancient runes at play, and more than just the one sealing the cave entrance. He couldn’t parse much on that front, but he was certain at least one of the ancient runes he could sense was the reason for the tunnel’s lack of dark magic polluting its air.

The enchantments made of the modern runes he was able to make sense of more easily, and he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. He’d hoped that whatever master enchanter that could make use of ancient runes had created this place would have more elegant implementations of lighting or reinforcement enchantments, but what he could sense was actually below his standard, even if they were functional.

However, he forced himself not to pass too much judgment. He didn’t know the circumstances the enchantments were made, and the situation outside of the mountain was quite dire. Lighting was hardly the most important thing under such extreme pressures, after all, so anything thrown together quickly would do.

As he moved, his magic senses continued pushing forward, and he could sense the tunnel forking in several places. He was a little surprised there weren’t any countermeasures for magic senses, but he supposed the lack of people around made adding them a little redundant.

Not that he wouldn’t have added them were he designing this place, but once again, he decided to hold judgment until he knew more. He had to admit that adding useless enchantments could be a drain on limited power reserves, and he could also think of dozens of other possible constraints that might lead to not implementing such defenses.

One of those reasons was that there simply didn’t seem to be much in need of defense, as while he could sense the tunnel splitting, he couldn’t sense anywhere the tunnel might lead. All the tunnels he could sense led deeper underground, and he couldn’t sense any yet opening into a room, though he’d only projected his magic senses a few miles down so far.

He didn’t push his magic senses further just yet, instead taking the time to focus his magic on trying to find which way the other man had gone. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sense any disturbances in the flow of magic that would indicate a ninth-tier mage had gone through here recently, but since it was underground, the floor of the tunnel was dusty, and he was able to notice a few tracks.

Leon smiled ever-so-slightly to himself as he followed the tunnel and took the first turn that the tracks indicated, only to freeze, his blood running cold.

It was as subtle as spider silk strung between the walls; a trap, with only a bare hint of its presence to be sensed. Were he not already intimately familiar with trap enchantments, he might not have noticed its presence. From what he could tell, the trap was designed to crush anyone who tripped it under the mountain by bringing the ceiling down upon them. Fortunately, now that he knew that it was there, it was easy enough for Leon to use his magic to disable the ward.

He'd only been a handful of steps away from triggering the trap, and he couldn’t help but think that it had been left in haste by his quarry. He redoubled his caution, spurred by the thought that if such a subtle trap was left in haste, then something even more insidious could be waiting further in. He was powerful, but not invincible, and he was hunting a ninth-tier mage in his home territory; he had to be cautious.

So at a slower pace, Leon continued down the passageway, his eyes and magic senses sharpened by caution. The tracks he was following continued even further down the tunnel and turned eastward, back toward the first mountain he’d investigated before encountering the object of his current hunt. Leon followed, disabling several more traps along the way, each one left with more and more subtlety, the last so invisible that he’d come within a single step of triggering it before he’d noticed.

Eventually, he reached a door blocking his path—not a stone wall like what he’d passed to enter the tunnels, but a properly carved door, made of local stone and decorated with geometric patterns. Leon could sense a fair amount of power flowing through the stone, which took him almost by surprise, as he’d thought this one would’ve been just as protected as the outside wall.

As he approached the walls, a voice rang out, though he couldn’t understand the words. He was, however, able to identify the speaker as not his quarry, which only left him with more questions.

“I don’t understand you!” Leon responded, but the voice didn’t say anything more.

[Probably a recording,] Xaphan said. [I doubt there’s a need to respond.]

[There might be others watching,] Leon responded.

Xaphan grunted dismissively. [It’s your breath to waste, kid.]

[Don’t call me ‘kid’, demon.]

[Don’t act like one, kid.]

Leon rolled his eyes and studied the door, paying his demon passenger no more mind.

The door was quite heavily secured, but in a far more conventional way than the exterior of the cave. Leon, feeling a bit impatient, simply pulled out another ‘open’ rune and used it like a hammer; in seconds, the enchantments sealing the door melted away, and Leon pushed against it.

The door was stone, but it wasn’t so heavy that Leon was unable to push it open. It swung inward on metal hinges, revealing a large chamber on the other side. It was a domed chamber, with floors made of some kind of dark marbly stone polished to a near-mirror shine, while above, the domed ceiling had been elaborately painted with dozens of different scenes that Leon could only assume held some kind of religious significance, as they mostly depicted humanoid figures bowing to larger animal-headed humanoids.

There were two other doors leading down into the chamber on the other side, flanking a massive wall covered in hundreds of carvings. The carvings appeared to be writing as far as Leon could tell, but only of short phrases, and each short section seemed to be in a different hand.

More notably, though, was the bald, orange-skinned man Leon had followed down here. He stood in front of the wall like he was protecting it, and glared at Leon with a mixture of fear and anger. Leon couldn’t sense anything special about the wall, so he assumed his target chose to guard it for personal reasons rather than anything practical.

With a deep sigh, Leon shut the door behind him and pulled his sword back into his soul realm. He made a bit of a show of it, too, which drew his target’s fear and ire for a moment before the weapon disappeared.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Leon calmly said, hoping his tone would convey the meaning of his words even though the other man couldn’t understand them. He then pulled his helmet into his soul realm too, though he stopped there. He wasn’t going to leave himself completely defenseless when confronting someone potentially hostile. “Please, I’m only trying to find out what happened here, and you’re the first person I’ve come across.”

The other man regarded him coldly and didn’t respond, though he made no hostile moves, either. Leon waited for him to respond, though, and only made another move when it became clear the other man wasn’t going to take the unspoken offer.

“I’m hoping we can communicate somehow,” Leon said as he mimed at his throat, then cupped his ear, smiled, and nodded vigorously. “This will help us if you’ll let it,” he continued while doing his best to portray the Rumble Stone as good and positive. However as soon as the Rumble Stone appeared in his hand, the other man’s eyes narrowed and he shifted from a more neutral, if resolute, stance, into something decidedly more hostile. His ninth-tier aura spiked as his killing intent filled the room, and he finally spoke. Leon couldn’t understand the short tirade the man shouted at him, but he could certainly understand the furious tone he used.

He knew that they were about to fight, but he made one last appeal, raising his hands soothingly and trying to say calmly, “I’m not here to hurt you, or anyone else…”

Before he could say anything more, the chamber shook as the man’s aura filled it, and he charged at Leon.

Lightning and disappointment flooded Leon’s body in equal measure.

‘Fine,’ he thought. ‘The hard way it will have to be…’