Fortunately, Fei’s flames were unconventional enough to work. She rushed up to the barrier ahead of the advancing infantry. Seraph kept up with her, blasting energy waves overhead to keep Fei from being turned into a pincushion or flattened by a boulder. It didn’t take much imagination to picture Seraph cursing at Fei as the catgirl sprinted ahead without a care in the world.
A huge flare of azure flames burst forth from the base of the translucent barrier of light. Nathan shielded his eyes, blinking away stars. His eyes were enhanced with magic, and that meant the sudden surge of bright light had hurt. A lot.
When he recovered his vision, he saw the barrier burning. The flames clung to the field of light. They crept along it, eating away at the magic that formed it and growing larger with each passing second. Within a minute, the blue flames opened a hole taller than the wall. Five minutes later, the entire eastern side of the barrier was ablaze.
Blue embers drifted through the air. Individual flames licked the sky, stretching dozens of meters in length as the barrier pumped more and more magic into itself in a desperate attempt to plug the hole. The ring of azure destruction grew with each second. Beneath it, the cries of the terrified defenders grew in volume.
Nathan stared in amazement at the destruction that Fei wrought. An entire barrier had been torn apart in minutes, and he wasn’t sure if it was stopping. Had he ever seen a monogem ability capable of consuming magic at this rate?
He made a note to research Fei’s gem ability more when he returned to Gharrick Pass. If it was as dangerous as he suspected, he might need to make changes to the way he constructed his barriers. Surely, there must be a way to build barriers so that they didn’t fuel Fei’s ability? The barrier was literally destroying itself as it fed more energy into an ability that grew in strength by consuming magic.
The speed of the barrier’s destruction began to push the defenders over the edge. Panic was visible on the battlements. Federation soldiers pointed at one another, screaming and shouting. Officers waved swords and banners in the air as they attempted to maintain order.
Then a section of the wall collapsed. It began as a rumbling, then a great crack rung out across the clearing. A portion of wall roughly ten meters wide began to fall in on itself. The series of booms that rung out as the stone after stone crashed into one another must have been deafening to those in the fortress. The walls were close together, and sound would echo relentlessly.
Dozens of soldiers fell to their deaths, and Nathan shut out their screams.
A brief silence fell in the aftermath of the wall’s collapse. A few more stones tumbled down from the ends of the wall that had been blown apart.
Seraph’s gem ability had worked without issue.
Somebody screamed on the walls. Then several more people did. Within seconds, a full-blown rout erupted. Hundreds of defenders fled the walls. Behind them, the soldiers within the inner layers stared in horror.
They had watched the collapse of one third of the fortress within a handful of minutes.
At this point, Nathan wasn’t even sure he needed to use his plan to jump over the walls. He had thought that Fei would need to pump a huge amount of flame into the barrier to take it out. Each time she did so, he had planned to top up her gem.
Given he was fairly distant from Fort Taubrum, topping up Fei was fairly expensive. The farther a Bastion was from a binding stone, the more difficult it was to draw on its power. Right now, Nathan needed to rely more on his Champions and save as much of his binding stone’s power for any duels with Theus or a dangerous duogem Champion.
“I take it you can still use your gem ability,” Nathan said when he caught up to Fei.
“Yup,” she chirped. “I still had to use a fair bit of fire, but way less than you thought. It’s finally stopped now, but wow. It took out so much of the barrier. It’s still only halfway back.”
Her flames had consumed over half of the barrier around the fortress. The damage wasn’t permanent.
Given that, Nathan figured to improvise and use her fire again. No enemy Champions were in sight. In fact, there weren’t any enemies in sight.
“Wait,” Nathan said. He frowned. “How did they escape if there’s a physical barrier in place?”
“They lowered it?” Fei suggested.
“I would have felt it. A barrier going up or down involves a lot of magical power.”
Seraph looked at him, about to say something. She smirked. “There’s a secret tunnel somewhere, I’m betting. I don’t remember it coming up, but I didn’t spend much time here.”
That meant Nathan needed to search for it. Probing for physical irregularities wasn’t his specialty, unfortunately. He had always relied on his binding stone to inform him about the space nearby.
Although the binding stone was becoming less reliable. Kadria could deceive it. Who else could?
The thought of Kadria gave him an idea.
Rather than using an earth element spell to comb the surrounding area, why not use a spatial one?
Nathan had only dabbled in ascended magic before, but it was becoming increasingly commonplace around him.
Spatial manipulation; mental magic; control over the physical forces of reality; direct channeling of magical energy. All of these were the domain of ascended magic.
Sunstorm’s gem abilities were a form of spatial manipulation, as she affected the ability of people to see the space she was in or teleported herself through shifting her position directly. The darkness she summoned wasn’t “darkness” but a side-effect of all light ceasing to exist upon contact with her gem ability.
Similarly, mystic foxes made extensive use of ascended magic. So far as Nathan knew, foxes couldn’t even use the natural elements. They tricked others into thinking that they could.
For Nathan, he had only known a few tricks. Most of his ascended magic relied heavily upon the binding stone. He could use spatial magic when building parts of his fortresses. Since arriving here, he had been greatly enhancing his ascended magic wards.
But when he attacked the Twins in a fit of rage, he had used unvarnished mental magic. The only time he normally used ascended magic directly was when he used counter magic.
Back when he fought Sunstorm last year, he had countered her gem ability by directly manipulating the “darkness” she summoned. That darkness was an area of spatial manipulation, so he had simply taken control of it by infusing his own counter spell with ascended magic from the binding stone.
When he had crushed the distorted area of space summoned by Sunstorm, the side-effect of condensing the space she had summoned had created an explosion.
He thought about that area of space she summoned. The way it had felt. If he could cast a spell using spatial magic, he might be able to locate the escape tunnel, even if it was protected by magical wards that hampered detection spells.
It took a few goes. At first, he tried third rank spells, but the spell frames burned out the moment they turned golden.
Then he upgraded to a fourth rank spell and felt something might work. With more time, he could probably get away with a supercharged fourth rank spell. But he didn’t know how to make it work properly.
A fifth rank spell was expensive, particularly as he was using power from the binding stone. But every failure with a fourth rank spell cost him power as well.
The first time he cast the spell, it worked. He envisioned the idea of a space that stretched beneath him and across the outer ring of the wall. It didn’t need to be too big, as the enemy soldiers had fled quickly. The escape tunnel needed to be nearby.
Within this space that he had created, he knew the feeling of every spec of dirt. That was too much information for him to handle, so he mentally pulled back on what he was receiving from his spell. Pretty quickly, he knew the makeup of everything below him within several hundred meters. The composition of the earth, the countless colonies of ants within it, how far down the barrier went.
And, of course, the location of the esc
ape tunnel.
He nearly finished the spell, before realizing that maintaining the spell was less effort than casting it. Keeping it active practically debilitated him, however. The sheer amount of information being pumped into his mind bordered on overwhelming. He didn’t need to know how many ants there were nearby, but he knew it anyway.
His attempts to cut off the information flow failed, and he realized that he would need to refine this spell a lot more before it was useful in more situations.
“I’ve found the escape tunnel,” Nathan said. “The bad news is that I’m going to need you to do all the work until we’re near the keep. I don’t know if I can cast this again, but I can keep it active.”
Nobody answered. He looked around and saw Seraph gawking at him. And because Seraph was shocked, Fei put on the same expression.
“Is something wrong?” Nathan asked.
“That was ascended magic,” Seraph whispered.
Oh. So, she recognized that.
“Yes,” Nathan said.
“That explains a lot,” she said. She gulped, closed her eyes, then reopened it. “I’d suspected as much after what Sunstorm told me about your initial encounter with her. But seeing it with my own eyes is something else. I didn’t even know that humans could use it.”
“I am a Bastion.” Nathan shrugged.
Seraph gave him a cutting look but dropped the topic.
“Um, I don’t get it,” Fei said.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Nathan said. He ruffled her hair. It felt weird when combined with all the other information being pumped into his head.
Capturing the next three layers of wall went terrifyingly smoothly. Nathan eventually dropped the spell once he found the tunnel beneath the third layer of walls and let out a sigh of relief.
He needed a lot more time to practice that spell before he used it again.
His soldiers rounded up the Federation defenders outside the keep. One last glowing barrier kept them out, but this one was a proper dome. Theus hadn’t skimped on protection for the keep, and there was no indication of an escape tunnel here. Nobody had fled inside of it.
“Fei,” Nathan said, gesturing for her to get to work.
Once more, a barrier blazed brilliantly in the morning light. Inside the keep, the Federation soldiers didn’t bother to fight back. They threw down their weapons and surrendered.
Nathan left his soldiers behind to handle the busywork. He had a binding stone to claim. He actively focused on his magical senses, just in case somebody planned to ambush him.
No Champions attacked him. There was no sign of Theus.
Had the Federation surrendered the frontier? Had somebody betrayed Torneus?
Or was Theus merely a coward who had run away from a proper fight?
Nathan entered the chamber that contained the binding stone and received his answer. Upon entering, he paused and signaled for Seraph and Fei to stop. They gave him an odd look.
Nobody was here. But he knew she was.
If he used spatial magic, he wondered if he was good enough to sense her.
As it was, he felt the tiniest blank spot in his magical senses. He had many years of familiarity of a certain woman using her spatial magic to sneak up on him or hide in his bed.
“Narime, show yourself,” Nathan said. He placed his hand on his sword hilt.
Seraph cursed, raising her tonfas. Fei looked confused but wreathed her sword in flame. Both looked around, wary of sudden attacks.
“That is the second time you’ve seen through my magic,” Narime’s voice said. “I believe the saying is that once is luck and twice is coincidence, but I’m inclined to say that you’re relying on something else here.”
Narime blinked into existence. One moment the room was empty. The next, she sat cross-legged in the middle of the room in a blue dress. She stared at Nathan with curious eyes, a half-smile on her lips.
Chapter 32
“I’ve never met a human who could see through a mystic fox’s illusions. Part of me wonders if I should have tested you in your fortress and pretended to be somebody else. Would you have realized it was me? What interesting things might I have learned or experienced?” Narime laughed.
“You’re not a very good actor, so I don’t know if that would have worked out,” Nathan said.
The fox glared at him, her tails weaving patterns in the air.
Behind her, the binding stone glowed. It appeared almost identical to the one at Gharrick Pass. Perfectly round, a meter in diameter, glowing white, and had two thick bands of black stretched across its luminescent surface.
Those bands meant that the binding stone was protected by the Federation’s protective wards. Nathan knew how to decode them, but he needed time to do so.
Time he wouldn’t have if Narime decided to turn him into ash.
Fei and Seraph began to circle the fox. Narime spared them a glance in response, before refocusing her attention on Nathan.
Several moments passed in awkward silence.
“Why are you here?” Nathan asked. “Why isn’t anybody else here?”
“Arriet and Torneus agreed to send me here so that Theus can focus his efforts elsewhere,” Narime said. Her tails pulled close around her body.
“I already said you’re a terrible actor. Why are you really here?”
Narime clicked her tongue and looked at Seraph. No reply was given to her look, so Narime turned back to Nathan.
“Fine,” Narime huffed. “Torneus doesn’t know I’m here. Arriet certainly didn’t want me here, but he relented once he discovered that Theus was still in Tartus. While I may disagree with Arriet’s opinion of Torneus, it at least allowed me to be here.”
If Nathan remembered correctly, Arriet was Narime’s current Bastion. Nathan had never met him, as he had died before Narime had sought out Nathan’s assistance in his timeline. When Torneus had began taking control of the Federation, Arriet had died defending the Houkeem Desert. Most of the Bastions in charge of the defenses had abandoned their posts so that they could stop Torneus, and the next large overland assault by the demons left the Federation on the brink.
“Arriet is supporting Torneus?” Nathan asked carefully.
“Torneus has more allies than you know,” Narime replied.
Nathan gave her a look, and she huffed at him again.
“Leaving aside your acting abilities, if Torneus had so many mysterious allies, then he would be protecting this binding stone with more than a single duogem Champion,” Nathan said.
“That’s right,” Seraph added. “You’re powerful, Narime. But you can’t stop all three of us. And not in close quarters like this.”
“Really?” Narime’s chest puffed out. “I’m a six-tailed mystic fox. My talents in sorcery far exceed anything you can imagine. And my opponents are a monogem beastkin with a year of experience, a duogem human whose gem abilities excel at endurance battles and defeating opponents weaker than her, and a Bastion without the support of his binding stones.”
Narime stood up and flicked her tails as one. “Unlike you, Seraph, I didn’t let him steal the binding stone. Shall I demonstrate the true skill and power of a mystic fox?”
If there was ever to be a poor match-up, it was this one.
Before Nathan could say anything, Narime raised a hand surrounded by a pair of glowing squares. Nathan felt the magic of the barrier snapping into place. This barrier glowed pale blue and partially obscured Narime from his vision. He drew his sword, cursing.
Azure flames crashed into the barrier and clung to them. Unlike the barriers outside, this one didn’t immediately collapse. The flames ate away at the barrier but made slow progress.
A moment later, the flames vanished in a wisp of smoke. Narime’s sapphires glowed and sweat formed on her brow. She let out a deep breath. A smirk formed on her face.
“Care to try something else?” Narime asked.
That was new.
That was very new.
Nathan h
id his shock as best he could and kept his sword raised. With his spare hand, he cast a third rank spell to enhance his muscles.
Before he even finished casting, he felt the spell fizzle out. The triangle in his hand shattered with a piercing wail that caused Nathan to wince.
Narime continued to smirk at him from behind her barrier. Seraph slammed her energy waves into the barrier, but they bounced off with minimal effect.
He had seen that coming at least, but at least he had confirmed that one part of Narime’s gem ability was as he remembered.
“Nathan, what do I do?” Fei shouted, eyes wide.
“Keep the pressure up,” he said.
Fei’s and Seraph’s eyes met, then rushed Narime at the same time. The fox placed her hands together and a pair of pentagons appeared between them. Her silver tails weaved a pattern behind her, their white tips glowing blindingly bright.
Flames washed over the barrier and split apart where Seraph’s energy waves met them. Both women struck the barrier with all their might. The barrier began to crack and warp. Fei’s flames found purchase and began to eat away at the core of the barrier. Within moments, they would be inside.
Nathan pointed his sword at Narime and cast a supercharged fourth rank spell. His sword glowed a sickly green.
She glanced at him and furrowed her brow. Her gems flashed.
The flames vanished again, leaving the barrier intact.
A moment later, Nathan’s spell lit up the room. A brilliant pulse of light magic split the air as it slammed into the barrier. The entire barrier flattened into a disk that was barely larger than Narime. Wind whipped about the room, flipping the bottoms of Fei’s uniform and Seraph’s cheongsam.
The barrier cracked, then shattered. Narime shut her eyes as the wind magic sliced into her. Dozens of cuts formed along her skin and dress. Blood ran down her cheeks and arms.
A few moments later, Nathan’s spell ended. Narime was bloodied, but only with scratches. She was a duogem Champion. Her enhancement made her far sturdier than ordinary humans.
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