The journey along the Lumenite strand was short, but still longer than expected; instead of landing on the smooth stones of the portico that the strand should’ve connected to, Leon felt the rougher cobbles of a street out in the city brush against his boots. Whatever Nestor had done had sent them deeper into the city and further away from the palace. Given the brightness of the strand, however, that hardly meant that they’d gotten away; it only meant that they had a few extra seconds to get moving again.
That process, however, was hampered by where they had landed. It was late, but given the festival, many of the streets were still packed with people, and the strand had deposited them right in the middle of a large gathering. Singing, dancing, and drinking had turned into screaming, shouting, and scrambling away as the star-bright Lumenite threw Leon’s party out into the street.
Leon himself hit the ground hard, the stone beneath him shattering with his impact. He rolled with the impact and slammed into a large wooden table set up in the street. The table was stout and heavy, but it turned into a million splinters as his thirteenth-tier armored body struck it. He heard a shout of pain and a wet crunch when he finally came to a halt, but neither had come from him; rather, he’d also struck someone sitting at that table, who now lay beneath him.
He struggled to his feet. The person he’d hit was a woman, middle-aged by mortal standards, and only third-tier. It looked like his landing had broken an arm and peppered her with splinters, some of which were wickedly long.
“Marona!” someone shouted from Leon’s right, and a shell-shocked man sprinted over, bleeding from a gash in his forehead. He pushed past Leon, heedless of the difference in their power, and knelt at the woman’s side.
Leon himself wasn’t injured, but he felt their pain acutely. The woman moaned as the man wept, trying to stem her bleeding from the splinters. Leon couldn’t stay long, but neither could he leave them after causing such harm. He conjured a healing spell from his soul realm and laid it on the woman. It was powerful enough to heal her, but he couldn’t stick around to see it for himself; he looked around and noted all of his people were on their feet. Ariana was still in Valeria’s arms while Alcander, his warping disguise’s face pale, was back upright.
Nestor, however, remained where he’d fallen, the dead man doing a fine impression of living up to that mocking nickname. Leon sprinted over in a flash as he felt a nightmarish, malevolent pressure building up in the distance. He could feel his hair underneath his armor sticking on end from the charged power, while the smell of ozone was so strong he could practically taste it.
Not much time was spent on Nestor; Leon verified that his ruby was still intact—though it was only weakly pulsing with power—and lifted the dead man’s frame himself.
“Gather!” he shouted to the others. They needed no further encouragement, and darted to him as quickly as their powerful limbs could bear them. A glance over his shoulder told him that it was just in time, as Kamran, his body almost lost in the golden lightning flickering around him, was approaching quickly.
They had mere seconds left.
Leon’s fingers blurred in the air as Kamran’s power lanced outward. A pressure wave cracked around them, turning dozens of the fleeing festivalgoers into paste, including the woman that Leon had injured, and the man that had run to her side. Leon’s healing spell disintegrated under such wrathful power, and the shouting ceased as those still alive fell unconscious, unable to endure the cataclysmic wrath of their Lord.
As the city shook from the force of thunder and the Origin Spark above them was lost in the light of Kamran’s intense lightning, Leon finished his rune. He was no Nestor, who had held off Kamran on his own, but he was still skilled, and when contesting a lightning mage, Leon was as in his element as he could be.
A shield sprang into place, and Kamran’s lightning slammed into it like a cosmic, plane-devouring storm. Leon fed the shield his origin power, while his fingers worked on another rune.
His shield shattered, having held against Kamran’s power for less than a quarter of a second. But that quarter second was all Leon needed, and his power wrapped around his people like a dark blanket. Though his studies over the past century had mostly been focused on death magic, he’d improved in other ways, too; as his party faded into invisibility, their bodies became intangible, and they sank into the ground. It was a strange sensation, becoming a shadow; they couldn’t see or hear or touch in the traditional sense, but their magic senses still bled out into the physical world above them, allowing them to see where they were going even when the rest of their physical senses were rendered inoperative.
Justin, as a man who had the most experience with magic like this, took the lead without Leon needing to say anything. He just shot off into the distance, and the rest of the party followed. Alcander started to lag, but Leon reached out with his power and managed to get a good hold on his Paladin, dragging the man along behind him.
The street they’d landed in vanished in their wake, though not due to anything they’d done; Kamran simply came down hard, his power twisting the air and causing the buildings on either side of the street to disintegrate. Leon heard a few more terrified screams, but most were cut short as Kamran’s power crashed down upon the street.
A guttural growl echoed from one side of Torn Sky to the other, and with a wave of his hand, Kamran sent bolts of golden lightning surging through every street and every alley in the enormous city. Leon couldn’t even estimate how many people were dying, but he could feel hundreds dying just in the local district. He grimaced, but he couldn’t slow down.
Following Justin’s lead, they sped through the streets, Kamran’s lightning flashing through the air above them. Kamran himself fell behind, unable to sense them. For a brief, glorious moment, Leon could hardly believe it; they were actually getting away.
Then the Anax screamed himself bloody, and his power curled into the sky. Runes etched themselves above the city like stars, bathing the streets in Kamran’s power. Leon thought it was intended to strip his party of his magic, to peel it away like the skin of a potato, but instead, he felt his power begin to boil. His skin sizzled in his own power, and it was all he could do to carve a new rune into the dark blanket around his party that, for the most part, stilled it. Heat lingered, but that specific danger had been weathered.
And then another pulse of power echoed through the city; a great suction threatened to tear them from the ground and into the streams of lightning still flashing through the streets. A desperate scream escaped Leon’s lips as he frantically began throwing up runes of his own, his frantic mind barely getting them to activate before they were torn from the earth.
But they remained immersed in shadow, their pace slowed but not stopped, as Justin led them onward. The safehouse was a good distance away, but they weren’t heading directly there. They’d have to take a more circuitous route, just to be safe. And that meant more time exposed to Kamran’s attempt to find them.
The man himself pursued, though it was clear enough that he still couldn’t see them. He conjured more runes, and Leon sharpened his mind, conjuring more of his own to try and counter.
Pressure quickly built behind Leon’s face as he devoted so much of his mental faculties to keeping Kamran off their trail. A single slip-up would reveal their location, and direct battle against the man was not something they could win. Running and hiding was their only viable strategy.
Leon soon felt wetness running down his face. He was maintaining three separate ancient runes, his concentration split between them all to keep Kamran’s magic at bay, and what he almost took for hot tears were running down his cheeks. But he knew these weren’t tears—tears didn’t smell like iron.
Leon’s pace began to slow. He couldn’t hear screaming anymore, though whether that was because the citizens of Torn Sky had sought shelter or died, or he’d gone deaf. The thunder accompanying Kamran’s lightning shook the earth, and even buried in shadow, Leon could feel his body vibrating, his bones cracking, and his ears popping with every thunderous crack. He felt Cassandra appear at his side, and though no words were exchanged, he felt her take Nestor off his hands, and he slowed to a complete halt.
“Keep going,” he croaked, though whether the words were heard or not, he wasn’t sure. He went still, his limbs going limp as he devoted so much of his concentration to maintaining his runes that he could no longer move.
He felt Daryun and Zhang come to him next, and they ducked under his shadowed arms. They were practically crawling along at a snail’s pace, but with their help, the party could still move even as Leon kept his focus where it needed to be.
Distance was building between the party and Kamran. The furious Anax wasn’t ceasing his search, but with every passing second, he was getting his power back under control, and fewer lightning bolts flashed through the city. The runes far above remained, however, and only grew more numerous as the minutes passed.
Soon, Kamran’s lightning ceased entirely, though that didn’t mean that Leon’s party could move unimpeded. With the intense pressure from Kamran’s runes, it took nearly an hour for them to reach the safehouse. By the time they slunk within as little more than shadows on the ground, Leon’s helmet was stuck to his face. His ears, mouth, and nose were blocked, leaving him unable to breathe, while his eyes were sealed shut by dried blood. But even through that, he maintained his concentration. Only once the door shut behind them and the safehouse’s privacy enchantments flared did he drop the darkness rune, allowing the party to emerge from the shadows with some small reassurance that Kamran wouldn’t immediately see them and wipe them from the face of the Nexus.
“Th… this…” Nestor gasped, the dead man having awoken at some point. Leon felt a weak burst of power from the man’s metal frame, enough to conjure a rune but not to power it. “Someone…” Nestor added, his tone desperate.
Valeria added her power to Nestor’s, reinforcing the rune with origin power. Only then did Leon feel the pressure around him lighten.
“We are… safe…” Nestor wheezed. “… For the moment…”
Despite trusting the man’s word, Leon let his own runes fade slowly, alert for any sign that doing so would alert Kamran. The Anax had taken to the skies and was scouring the city, but in that, the sheer size of it was working in their favor.
“How long do we have?” Cassandra asked. “Not just with these runes. How long until Kamran finds us?”
“A few days, if our luck holds,” Justin stated.
“Fewer,” Nestor responded. “My rune… will not last that long… And I’m in no condition… to make another…”
“Then that’s how long we have to get out,” Cassandra stated as Leon turned away from the party.
Doing so didn’t do anything except spare his dignity as he pulled his helmet back into his soul realm. His disguise bracelet had snapped again at some point during their flight—as had everyone else’s, he noticed—so his blood-covered face could be seen by everyone. His eyes, nose, and ears had all bled profusely from the pressure of Kamran’s power and maintaining his runes. However, though he felt drained and tired, he didn’t feel any worse for wear. A few hours' rest would see him back to fighting shape.
Calmly, he used his elementless power followed by a brief burst of water magic to clean himself up. Then, he finally turned and said, “Kamran isn’t going to stop looking for her.” He nodded at Ariana, still unconscious, though he noted that this condition was continuing not due to emotional turmoil or abject fear, but rather a spell lain over her chest. This wasn’t the time to deal with everything she’d revealed in the palace, so he didn’t comment on the spell.
“She said that she was his daughter…” Valeria whispered, moving away from Nestor’s rune without cutting off her power.
As she knelt at her mother’s side, Leon turned his attention to his party. Everyone looked a little ragged by their fight, but Cassandra, Daryun, and Zhang all looked good, all things considered. Valeria and Justin were more harried but seemed physically fine. Alcander and Nestor, however…
“Al, status,” Leon ordered.
“Weak,” the Paladin answered. “Whatever that damned golem hit me with is lingering.” He’d collapsed into one of the few chairs in the safehouse and didn’t look even remotely ready to return to his feet.
“Is your death imminent?” Leon asked.
“No,” he answered.
“How mobile are you?”
Alcander sucked in a rasping breath. “Slow, but mobile enough.”
“Then rest. Cassie, see to him.”
Cassandra nodded, then set herself to examining Alcander. Zhang joined her—though they’d largely focused on combat applications of light magic, their chosen element still made them highly competent healers.
With them applying their powers to try and heal Alcander, Leon turned to his distant kin. “Nestor?”
The dead man hissed, the sound escaping his faceplate like steam from a punctured pipe. “Unharmed,” he responded. “I… overused my power…”
Leon’s heart sank. Nestor had performed admirably so far. He didn’t think they’d have been able to escape Kamran’s palace without him.
But Nestor was still dead in the body. He had neither physical form nor soul realm, and that meant that his ability to create and store magic power was extremely limited. This wasn’t that big a deal for the most part, but it still meant that his endurance in battle was low. He was unlikely to be able to repeat his stellar performance again without several months of rest. Pushing him any further would only endanger him, as magic bodies were extremely fragile things. He needed what power he retained just to stay alive.
“What about you, Leon?” Daryun asked, remaining close to Leon. He didn’t mention it, but he glanced pointedly at the spot on the floor where a few drops of Leon’s blood had spilled.
Leon scowled briefly, then cleaned up those spilled drops. Kamran had been provoked, and he didn’t want to leave any evidence behind that might point to him in the west. He knew that Kamran had seen Justin, but he hoped the rest of the party remained anonymous…
“Fine,” he said. A skeptical look was Daryun’s response, but the Paladin remained tactfully quiet. “Not great,” Leon said, knowing that his pride shouldn’t get in the way of their getting away, “but fine. Keeping those runes up was draining, and resisting Kamran’s power took its toll. But I can still fight, if need be.”
He paused and exhaled slowly. “When we get back to Artorion, I think I’m going to be instating mandatory training for everyone in some useful runes.”
“Good,” Nestor said definitively. “There are no greater powers in the universe… except possibly Universe Fragments. Possibly. Had my siblings studied more… then the Clan might never have fallen…”
His tone was somewhat light, but Leon heard the bitter undercurrent buried beneath it.
Finally, Leon turned to Ariana. “How is she doing?” he asked.
“We need to get her out of the city as quickly as we can,” Justin insisted.
“We all need to leave the city as quickly as possible,” Valeria responded. “Mother won’t want to go.”
Justin grimaced. “We can explain things to her when we’re safe.”
“We’re going to have to wake her at some point,” Valeria said, her expression tight. “I’d rather get that over with sooner than later.”
“We shouldn’t do that here,” Justin argued.
“How long are we going to keep her down for?” she asked sharply.
Justin laid a hand on her shoulder, and she jerked away. Her sapphire eyes turned to Leon. “I want to wake her up. Here. Before we leave.”
Justin balked. “Valeria, we can’t—"
“I don’t like the idea of carrying her away,” Leon interrupted. “We are not common bandits kidnapping a noble girl from her home. I’d rather she decide to come with us of her own accord.”
Valeria’s eyes brightened, and a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. That smile died, however, as Leon continued.
“That being said… we might be better served focusing on getting away. We can always wake Ariana outside the city, and let her go if she refuses to stay with us.”
‘Getting away might be easier if Kamran gets her back, though…’ The thought was dirty, sloughing through Leon’s mind like sludge. The only thing he wanted Kamran to receive from him was death… but if the Anax kept up his vigilance, escaping might be impossible without letting Ariana return.
“We’ll throw together a plan to escape first,” Leon said. “If we still need the time to rest, then we’ll wake Ariana and see what she says. If we have to leave before then, then we’ll bring her with and speak somewhere else. Either way, Justin… start practicing what you want to say…”
Neither Justin nor Valeria looked particularly happy with his decision, but they accepted it. And, with that settled, they were free to move on to the next most pressing question that they had to answer: how were they going to get out of the city?
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