Windsom Indrath
From the highest clouds, looking down upon the floating island of Xyrus, I remained inscrutable. The Spatium aether arts of the Indrath Clan seamlessly folded the very fabric of space around my form, rendering my observation absolute and my presence invisible.
Beneath me lay the fragile stage of Dicathen, utterly oblivious to the superior eyes watching its celebrated fair.
This joyous gathering was nothing more than a crucible.
It was here that Corvis Eralith would finally have his true worth tested in blood after proving his loyalty against the humans of House Wykes.
I watched the boy with honest anticipation (something, even I didn't know how to feel about); I was eager to see if this elf could shoulder the crushing weight of his continent's survival when the idyllic peace finally shattered—today.
But more than the boy, I waited to observe the High Sovereign of Alacrya's moves.
The Great Eight had recently agreed upon new terms for this proxy war, a reforged treaty binding both Epheotus and the Vritra Clan to a strict, unforgiving set of rules.
As the opening moves of the impending siege fell into place, I remained perfectly still, waiting only to see how Agrona Vritra intended to play his hand.
Corvis Eralith
The day of the Interdicathian.
The day Dicathen would finally awaken on the worldly stage.
The first day of my eleventh year in this world; what would have been the first of January on Earth, though it bore different names across the Sapinese, Darvish, and Elenoir calendars.
And the day I would finally know if everything I had done up until now had been worth it, and if the horrific future I so desperately wanted to prevent was actually avoidable.
I wore the poet's shirt of Nabyun Asclepius, as pristine and white as a dove. Beneath it, I wore black trousers tailored from the precious hide of a Cave Boar: highly comfortable yet undeniably elegant.
A thick leather belt rested at my waist, bearing a heavy golden buckle and a sturdy golden ring to keep Fatima's Vaultlamp securely attached.
I would not go into battle without an Ancient Mage by my side, and with Avicenna occupied with Gideon and the radio network, Fatima was more than ready to accompany me.
Or rather, hang faithfully at my hip.
At my feet were classic elven sandals, woven tightly with the precious, durable fibres of the Elshire Forest's strongest plants.
I firmly clenched my prosthetic Servo-Hand, the polished malachite feeling just as alive and responsive as the flesh and blood of my left hand.
Taking a deep, centring breath, I slid the round, green-tinted glasses of Leòn Leurenzian onto my face, the coloured lenses mixing seamlessly with the bright teal of my irises.
Lastly, I slipped my dimensional storage ring onto the index finger of my Servo-Hand and I exited my private quarters in the Royal Palace of Zestier.
I left behind all lingering doubt, walking with absolute, unwavering purpose down the corridor. Fiorwato served as the perfect, elegant walking cane for such a monumental occasion.
Dicathen needed me to be strong. My family, my friends, and my people needed me to be strong and I would give them exactly what they deserved, and so much more.
The Chain of Solidarity would not break.
—
Xyrus City was in grand celebration, much like the Darffest in Vildorial I had attended two months prior.
The royal carriage carrying Grandpa and me moved steadily through the bustling streets of the Magical Capital of the World.
Tessia flanked us atop Hoofy, the resplendent armour Lady Auddyr had once gifted her shining like polished quartz, her white mantle flapping proudly in the wind.
On the opposite side, Berna's heavy paws padded against the cobblestones. Even the citizens of Xyrus, thoroughly accustomed to bonds and other mana beasts, stared with wide, amazed eyes at the sheer size of my Guardian Bear.
Inside the carriage, however, there was a desert-like silence.
"Is this normal?" I asked quietly, relying on Grandpa's vast experience as a war veteran.
"What? The anxiety? The worry? The blind fear?" Grandpa asked, perfectly listing everything tearing at my insides. "Yes. I tend to look at it like this: if you are feeling all of that, it means you are still sane."
"Sane... I see," I replied.
The carriage suddenly hit a bump in the road, and my hand instantly snapped to Fiorwato at my side—ready to draw and strike. Grandpa's calloused hand firmly covered my arm, steadying me.
"You are not in this alone, Corvis," Grandpa said softly. There was no irony, no trademark playfulness in his voice; only heavy, elderly wisdom. "Remember that. Now, you have a war council to lead. If you ever feel like it is too much, remember that I am standing right there."
"What?! Leading?!" I asked, looking frantically at Grandpa. We were heading to Gideon's laboratory, where the most important players of this desperate defence would converge, but I had entirely banked on Grandpa doing all the talking. "But—I am not the war veteran!"
Grandpa crossed his arms, a deeply conflicted expression crossing his face.
"I know..." he sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed in himself. "But I was not the one who rallied so many wildly different peoples to defend Xyrus City today. From my experience, it is always better that the one everyone looks up to is the one giving the orders. It is how kings and queens have operated across Dicathian history."
I looked to my right, watching Tessia through the carriage window. She raised her hand to gracefully greet the cheering crowds of Xyrus gathered for the fair, perfectly maintaining the royal composure of the Princess of Elenoir that she had practised since we were toddlers.
Looking to my left, Berna was pressing so closely to the carriage that she might as well have been part of the vehicle itself, her primal instincts actively sensing my underlying tension.
Our carriage smoothly separated from the rest of the grand Eralith convoy, peeling off down Artificers Road. We rolled to a stop in front of Gideon's laboratory, the very last to arrive, just as we had coordinated via radio transmission.
We stepped down, and Grandpa immediately ordered the coach-elf to regroup with the main convoy—no potential Alacryan spy could be allowed to think something was amiss with the royal family's positioning.
We entered Gideon's sprawling house and quickly descended into his laboratory.
"Capture."
"This place rarely sees visitors," Gideon Bastius, the most famous artificer in Dicathen, grumped. He was bent over a sprawling central table littered with a series of red, shell-shaped boxes—some resembling oysters, others cockles and scallops. Avicenna's Vaultlamp, shimmering with a soft, analytical blue light, was directly wired into the central transmission hub. "But, urgh, be my guests."
Gideon's laboratory had probably never seen better days. Driven by the sheer apocalyptic scale of the impending threat, the usually chaotic space was in pristine order. Not a single useless tool or failed prototype was scattered about.
"Your cooperation is, as always, profoundly appreciated," I said, actively forcing an iron steadiness into my voice using Inner Current. The blessed Trucewater flooded my system, washing away the rising panic and making my mind ruthlessly clear. "And of course, the cooperation of everyone else here cannot be thanked enough."
I looked around the room at the formidable assembly surrounding Grandpa and Gideon: Chul Asclepius, Cynthia Goodsky with Avier perched on her shoulder, Lance Olfred and Elder Rahdeas, Helen Shard of the Twin Horns, Lance Alea Triscan, and lastly Cylrit Vritra.
A massive, highly detailed map of the entire floating island of Xyrus lay spread across the laboratory's primary workbench. I leaned over it, planting my hands on the edge of the map.
"So, do we start?" Olfred asked gruffly, cracking his knuckles.
"Someone is missing," I noticed.
Right on cue, a sudden flurry of feathers exploded through the open windows of Gideon's laboratory. Fifteen different birds—all the remaining members of the Asclepius Clan—swept into the room.
"W-what are all these birds?!" the artificer shouted, ducking his head. Several others in the room flinched at the sudden, overwhelming appearance of my flock.
The Asclepius perched themselves securely across every available rafter, shelf, and chair back in the laboratory.
"These... are Asuras," I stated plainly. "Common Dicathian usually translates that word as "Deities," but that is irrelevant right now. Their help will be strictly reconnaissance, as they are not permitted to directly intervene in mortal warfare due to... higher powers. Anyway."
I pointed a malachite finger at the sprawling map of Xyrus City.
"We need to disperse our forces across all four Wards of Xyrus City to effectively cover every square centimetre of the island," I ordered, slipping fully into the role of Commander. "Our primary objective is to protect the civilian populace. No casualties are acceptable."
If anyone falls, I can always use REtrocurrent to go back in time and adjust the deployment, I reminded myself silently.
"Cynthia, have you informed the faculty of the academy?" I asked.
"The professors are all fully aware of what is to come, as are the combat-capable senior students," she confirmed grimly.
"Helen? What about the Adventurer's Guild?" I asked, looking at the archer who was still clearly struggling to accustom herself to the staggering fact that Prince Corvis Eralith was simultaneously both Finn Warend and Leòn Leurenzian.
"There are hundreds of Adventurers visiting for the fair today. I have secretly informed those I trust the most," she said. "But I am absolutely certain the rest will naturally rally to the city's defence the exact second they realise the danger."
"Connect your Shell-Radios to the main network," I instructed, tapping my own portable nautilus-shaped device.
Everyone in the room followed suit, including the disguised Asclepius birds, who all had tiny earpieces tucked securely between their feathers.
Once every frequency was perfectly tuned and the static faded into a clear, unified echo of the Truce-Waters, there was only one thing left to say.
"Long live Dicathen!"
—
"Lords Eralith! Want to try some Sapinese specialities? Prince Corvis, I am sure you will love our pastries!"
A kind-looking baker, managing one of Xyrus's many pop-up shops that had practically invaded the streets for the fair, called out to Grandpa and me.
We were in the southern district of Xyrus City, the Wind Ward, simply waiting for tragedy to strike.
What if all of this is just a farce? an intrusive thought, so insistent that even Inner Current couldn't completely filter it, whispered in my mind.
What if I am just a paranoid fool who thinks he is outmanoeuvring a god?
No. That wasn't it. I felt it deep in my marrow that something catastrophic was going to happen. Maybe it was Fate itself directly helping me by offering a visceral hint of the future. Maybe it was just my gut. But blood was going to spill today.
I looked up at Grandpa, perfectly mimicking a regular kid asking a parent for permission to eat sweets.
"Sure! Let the boy taste some human baking!" Grandpa exclaimed warmly, playing his part. "That is something Sapinese cuisine will always be the best at in Dicathen!"
"Too kind, Lord Eralith, too kind," the baker smiled broadly, turning around and lifting a clean cloth to reveal several circular, stocky loaves. "Here, a Honeyloaf!"
I took the warm bread in my hands. Berna immediately shoved her massive, furry snout over my shoulder, gazing hungrily down at the treat I held.
It was a buttery, slightly glazed pastry filled with plump grapes and crushed walnuts.
"I don't want you to go on a rampage in the middle of Xyrus," I told Berna, strictly ignoring her pleading puppy-dog eyes. "This thing has way too much sugar for you."
Guardian Beasts and their saccharose-induced frenzies, I sighed internally, vividly remembering the trick that had allowed me to snap Berna out of her Vritra-induced madness the very first time we met in the Elshire Forest.
I bit into the Honeyloaf, my mouth instantly filling with the comforting warmth of an oven and the intense sweetness of an entire candy shop.
"Tessia would love to taste some of this too!" I told Grandpa with starlit eyes, for a precious microsecond entirely forgetting everything else.
But before Grandpa could deliver one of his trademark jokes, Fate violently reminded me of the war I had been thrust into.
All at once, our Shell-Radios crackled to life, and in the distance, the deafening sounds of structural collapse and chaos broke out.
"The Fire Ward!"
From the northeast, a loud explosion burst into a pillar of fire.
"Earth Ward!"
To the northwest, a shockwave reverberated through the ground of the floating island.
"The Healer's Guild!"
From near the looming buildings of Xyrus Academy, a symbol of magical and not-only advancement, more fumes of destruction started to rise.
"Third Spell Street!"
This was the closest, a boom that rang in my ears and caused the joyous atmosphere around Grandpa and me to fracture like glass.
A barrage of frantic reports from known and unknown voices flooded the network. Everyone possessing the Shell-Radios screamed of sudden, devastating incoming attacks as the day of reckoning started in earnest.
"Explain what is happening!" Grandpa demanded into his radio, his jovial demeanour vanishing in a heartbeat.
"Grandpa! Shimmering portals are lighting up all across the island!" Tessia called out, the sharp, chaotic clash of steel and magic echoing loudly in the background.
Panic broke out where Grandpa and I stood as well. The King Emeritus of Elenoir immediately roared for calm, his unwavering, elderly authority acting as a beacon in the middle of the screaming, scattering crowd.
People pointed at pillars of smoke and fire in the distance, others covered their ears as screams of forsaken mana beasts pierced the air.
"Cylrit, Cynthia!" I barked into the receiver. "Explain."
"Tempus Warps, of a highly experimental kind," Cylrit Vritra reported tightly over the comms. "At least, they were in my time. They... were being secretly developed by the Dominion of Sehz-Clar, by her. Scythe Seris is in this city."
Seris? Kamiel was working for Seris? Or rather, was he working for the broken, enslaved version of Seris, after Agrona had inevitably discovered her rebellious intentions?
I had absolutely no time to think. A massive Tempus Warp portal—easily ten times the size of the one Cylrit and Fatima had used to arrive in Dicathen—violently shimmered into reality right in the middle of the road, its distorted edges dangerously engulfing the brick buildings on either side.
"Everyone! Run!" Grandpa shouted at the civilians. In a heartbeat, he stepped into the Second Phase of his Beast Will, dense black shadows embracing his body like a feral suit of savagery and darkness.
"Berna, protect the people!" I ordered my Guardian Bear. She roared in compliance, steadfastly calling upon powerful wind magic to form a barrier between the portal and the fleeing baker.
I flourished Fiorwato, unsheathing the viridian blade from its wooden cane just as the Alacryan vanguard poured out from the portal.
A discordant, deafening trumpet echoed across the street as a horrific, elephant-like mana beast with a dozen jagged tusks and skin like pure obsidian lumbered out of the fissure in reality.
It was tall and large, every square centimeter of it promising destruction: a corrupted mana beast made siege engine.
Riding atop its back inside a fortified war-howdah—looking exactly like a monstrous war elephant from Earth's Punic Wars—was a highly coordinated team of Alacryan mages. Five in total, exactly as standard battle groups were formed in the novel.
The hulking mana beast raised its trunk: a cannon, more than a nose, and one of the Alacryans in the howdah slammed his hands down onto the creature's spiked skull.
The Quadra-Elemental Greatrune on my lower back flared and I felt a nauseating surge of magic with all my senses.
From behind my green-tinted glasses, I could clearly see a strange texture in the mana: a glowing, intricate runic pattern amplifying the Alacryan's spell.
Their spellform!
Then, as fast as the Alacryans had first appeared, an apocalyptic torrent of blazing fire was propelled from the creature's trunk, booming like the noisiest of blares and threatening to completely scorch the entire crowded neighbourhood to ash in a single, devastating attack.
Berna was working frantically behind me, grabbing civilians by the collars of their clothes and tossing them out of the direct line of fire, but she would never be fast enough.
There were simply too many people gathered in the crowded streets, we couldn't evacuate in time; the Interdicathian had been far too successful!
"Corvis! Move!" Grandpa shouted, but I had absolutely no intention of listening. I was an Asclepius. Fire would not burn me.
I swept Fiorwato in a wide, defensive circle, rotating the gemsteel as highly pressurised water magic coated the viridian edge. The blistering impact of the torrential flames made my weapon resound, the sound magic imbued within its core letting out a high, singing melody.
But I couldn't just deflect the flames, lest I put the panicked civilians behind me in even greater danger.
No, I had to tame and conquer them.
With each full rotation of Fiorwato, the Flame of Elenoir flared within and without me, overpowering the incandescent Alacryan magic with the ancient, enduring warmth of the Elshire Forest itself.
Virion Eralith did not stand still. He moved with the preternatural speed and lethal agility of the Shadow Panther he had slain to acquire its Beast Will.
With his Briarspire in hand—having reclaimed his signature weapon from Alwyn now that my best friend wielded Dawn's Ballad—he danced fluidly beneath the corrupted elephant beast.
The Alacryans riding the monster tried to cast their spells down at my grandfather as he viciously cut and slashed at the thick, obsidian-like legs of their mutant mount. However, I was there to stop them.
With one hand, I kept the roaring torrent of fire at bay, while my Servo-Hand rapidly fired compressed Bubblespells to intercept and shatter every projectile of magic cast by the invaders.
The creature trumpeted in blind rage, seemingly incapable of registering physical pain despite Grandpa maiming its appendages.
The onslaught of fire paused for a fraction of a second as the creature inhaled, catching its breath to recharge its devastating breath attack.
Grandpa was directly below the creature. The elephant reared up, raising both of its massive front feet to stomp him into paste, but Virion Eralith easily evaded it.
As the heavy feet crashed down, violently cracking the cobblestone streets of Xyrus and sending shockwaves through the neighbourhood, Grandpa vaulted away with feline celerity before the beast could smash him.
To keep the buildings from crumbling under the tremors, I channelled sound magic through my leg and slammed my foot against the ground, unleashing a counterwave that rippled beneath the cobblestones.
The vibrations surged outward, meeting the elephant's thunderous stomp head-on, their opposing frequencies clashing in a violent symphony before cancelling each other out.
The ground shuddered beneath me, yet the surrounding buildings stood firm, spared from the devastation by the delicate balance of destructive forces I had imposed upon the floating ground.
My grandfather scaled the surrounding brick buildings with the natural, gravity-defying agility every elf possessed for the towering trees of our homeland, quickly reaching the rooftops.
The elephant creature unleashed another burst of fire, which I was perfectly positioned to parry; Fiorwato parted and dispelled the torrent like one would snuff out a candle flame.
From his new vantage point, directly at eye-level with the Alacryan howdah, Grandpa prepared to strike.
The inky shadows coating his body fused seamlessly with the emerald glow of his wind magic, and he unleashed a lethal phalanx of mana-made arrows at the riders.
From behind the creature's beam of laser-like fire, I felt—and physically saw through my green-tinted glasses—the intricate runic patterns glowing within the magic cast by the Alacryan Shield.
A net-like construct of mana intercepted Grandpa's barrage. Like fish caught in a trawler's net, each spear of wind was captured and systematically dismantled until the Alacryan spellform entirely dispelled the attack.
But as I watched the spells these Alacryans were launching, a profound realisation hit me: I understood the foundational Articles of Peace that formed them!
Just as the Quadra-Elemental and Re-Construction Greatrunes possessed their own precise sequences of Articles—as discovered by Avicenna through his Lifework of Aetherology—these Alacryan runes followed the exact same ancient rules.
That Shield's rune was constructed from a singular, isolated Article: Solidarity.
Agrona truly just butchered the sacred arts of the Folk of Calm Currents, I reasoned with deep disgust. I moved my off-hand, causing a jagged pillar of earth to violently erupt beneath one of the elephant's feet.
The pillar instantly shattered under its immense weight, but the stumble gave Grandpa enough time to reposition himself before the elephant could crash into the building he was standing on.
But how can I use this structural knowledge? I asked myself.
The elephant paused to recharge once more, and I cast a quick glance back at Berna. A few stray embers had slipped past my defences and threatened to scorch the civilians, but my Guardian Bear had shielded the kind street vendor who offered me the Honeyloaf, her fireproof fur acting as an impenetrable wall against the heat.
I turned back to Grandpa, who dropped into a crouch. I blinked—and suddenly, he was standing right behind me. Shadow Step. His Beast Will's First Phase, not dissimilar to a watered down version of Burst Step.
"Corvis," Grandpa said, his voice dropping into the low, lethal hiss of a tiger. "I will kill the mana beast. Take care of the invaders."
I blinked again, and he was gone, having seamlessly teleported to another rooftop to send a fresh barrage of shadow-coated wind spells to divert the enemy's attention.
Fatima, I called urgently to the Djinn resting at my hip. How much do you know about Avicenna's Alphabet? What can I do against a spellform comprised entirely of Solidarity?
'It has been common knowledge in our society—' Fatima started, unable to completely suppress her instinct to lecture (very much like Avicenna despite how much she would beg to differ).
Tell me how! I shouted mentally.
'Balance,' Fatima explained instantly. 'Or, if it is the Article of Balance you are fighting against, all the other combined Articles will overwhelm it.'
Perfect. The runic matrix powering the elephant's fire-beam was anchored by Balance, and I knew exactly how to shatter it.
"Berna, tag in!" I roared.
My Guardian Bear immediately lunged in front of me, standing to her full, towering height on her hind legs and bracing to tank the incoming heat exactly as her kind was built to do.
I jerked Fiorwato backward, calling upon the absolute depths of my magic. A roaring tidal wave manifested along the gemsteel edge, and with a vicious snap of my arm, I launched a highly compressed crescent of water straight at the elephant and the Alacryans—actively infusing the attack with every single Article of Peace except Balance.
The tidal wave and the fire-breath violently clashed.
But exactly as Fatima promised, the conflicting Articles aggressively interfered with the foundational structure of the Alacryan magic, unraveling its stability and rendering the fire completely useless in a massive burst of steam.
"Grandpa!" I shouted.
Virion Eralith blitzed from the rooftop, rocketing to the exposed side of the elephant and carving a bloody, devastating trench right through the pachyderm's thick flank.
Atop the howdah, the Alacryans finally understood that Dicathians were not prey to be trifled with. The Instiller desperately grabbed the creature's reins, while two Alacryan Strikers leapt from the beast to flank me on either side.
They raised their weapons as they fell, the corrupted magic—built upon the Article of Justice—flaring brightly from the spellforms branded on their lower backs.
I smirked coldly.
"Agrona Vritra's petty magic system is an absolute insult to the art of the Ancient Mages," I stated, my voice carrying over the din of battle. "And that is something I cannot condone. Your Fate has run out of threads, Alacryans."
As the Alacryans rushed me from both sides, I simply raised my hands and conjured two dense Bubblespells at the tips of my fingers, actively engraving the Article of Balance within them through REmould.
Upon contact with my engineered spells, the Alacryans' structured magic completely collapsed, unravelling into nothingness and leaving them as nothing more than average, defenceless men mid-swing.
I ruthlessly shot the two Bubblespells forward; two perfectly clean headshots that snapped their necks and killed them before they even hit the cobblestones.
Grandpa, too, did not let Dicathen down.
Turning my attention back to the pachyderm, I witnessed my grandfather execute an act of sheer, terrifying brutality I hadn't imagined him capable of.
He drove his Briarspire straight through the thick, armoured neck of the monster, violently gripping its trunk with his free hand. Enhancing his physical strength with a massive surge of wind magic, he then completely severed the head of the elephant with the gruesome, flawless precision of an elf who had survived a thousand bloody battles.
He carelessly tossed the massive, severed head aside, which Berna smoothly caught mid-air to prevent it from crushing a nearby merchant stall.
With only the mountless, terrified Instiller and Shield left, it did not take long for us to end them, too.
I observed the towering Tempus Warp's portal still humming actively in the middle of the street.
Pointing my palm downward, I conjured a dense Bubblespell. I enlarged it, infused it with the Articles of Freedom and Balance, and carefully engraved the exact anti-portal spell matrix I had used against Draneeve.
I raised my arm and hurled the Bubblespell like a baseball. The portal was instantly engulfed by my magic, sputtering violently before shorting out and vanishing after a few seconds of standby.
"It is going to be a massive hassle deactivating all the portals across Xyrus manually," I lamented with a frustrated click of my tongue.
"Corvis, my boy!" Grandpa called, appearing directly in front of me and letting the oppressive shadows of his Integrate Phase sink back into his mana core. He gripped my shoulders tightly and stared down at me.
"Are you unharmed?"
"Yes, I am," I said, turning my head to scan the scattering crowd. "This is just the beginning. We have to move!"
"You are right," Grandpa agreed, the conflict between swelling pride for his grandson and bitter disappointment in himself clear in his voice. He unclipped his nautilus-shaped Shell-Radio receiver.
"Cynthia! Camus! Hester! Buhnd!"
While Grandpa attempted to coordinate with the rest of the Chain of Solidarity—it seemed he even called upon old acquaintances from across the continent, like Elder Camus—I rushed to administer first aid to the wounded civilians. As I worked, Fatima's voice echoed in my mind.
'Justiciar, I have a proposition for you,' the Sage stated calmly. 'I thought of it while studying the latent Ontic Circuit of your Hearth.'
Tell me, I replied, kneeling to coat the broken leg of a crying child with Trucewater. The bone seamlessly snapped back into place and healed as if the injury had never occurred.
'You can cover the entire island of Mage-Caliph Zayrus with the golden strings of Peace you described to me,' Fatima explained. 'By anchoring them to the anti-teleportation spell we developed, you can prevent any further Tempus Warps from opening.'
That was exactly what I needed to definitively end the portal plague. Finishing my application of Trucewater to an elderly merchant who thanked me from the bottom of his heart, I stood up and returned to Grandpa.
How can I cover all of Xyrus? I asked Fatima.
'I can awaken the old Ontic Circuit of the island that Pacificator-General Ji-Ae originally ordered built,' Fatima said. 'As the Justiciar, you will have no problem overwriting its aged framework with your own strings.'
Perfect. That is exactly what we are going to do, I decided, raising my own receiver to communicate the new strategy to the command network.
"These damn things don't work," Grandpa scoffed, glaring at his device with the typical distrust the elderly held for new technology. I sighed.
"You must have done something wrong," I said, reaching over to check his Shell-Radio. "You either pressed the wrong button or—"
My own device was dead silent. It was powered on, but it wasn't connecting to the main network.
"See?" Grandpa huffed. "Told you. Come on, let us travel by foot. If we sprint across the rooftops, we should reach Bastius's lab in ten minutes at most."
"Grandpa, no," I said, cold dread pooling in my stomach. "This is not a malfunction. This is... Avicenna! Answer me!"
I forced raw mana directly into my Shell-Radio, desperately hoping the Re-Construction Greatrune could force the connection open.
"J-Justiciar," a heavily staticky voice answered. It was Avicenna, but the soothing background noise of the Truce-Waters was entirely gone, replaced by a violent, crackling hiss. "Something has happened. I cannot tell what. I will patch you directly through to Gideon Bastius."
The noises that followed... I would remember them until the day Fate finally decided to cut my strings.
The agonised, horrifying, blood-curdling screams of Gideon Bastius and the Twin Horns Party—the Adventurers we had confidently stationed as the laboratory's garrison—flooded the Shell-Radio.
I stood completely paralysed. Berna nudged me frantically, and Grandpa shouted my name, desperately shaking my shoulder to snap me out of my trance, but I couldn't move.
I heard the frantic, desperate screams of Jasmine Flamesworth as her blades met something impossible. I heard the sickening crunches and the guttural cries of Gideon, Durden Walker, Adam Krensh, Helen Shard, and Angela Rose as they were systematically butchered.
It was the most awful, devastating sound I had ever heard in my life; in my lives.
"Unleash."