Augustus stared at the young assistant, a vein throbbing prominently on his forehead. "You cannot reach him. You, his personal assistant, whose only job is to know where he is... cannot reach him."
"His communication artifact is disabled," Marx admitted quietly.
"Then go find him!" Augustus roared, spittle flying from his lips. "Check his office! Check the archives!"
"He isn't in the capital, Sire," Marx finally confessed, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
The King froze. "He... he isn't in the capital? During the Star Awards Festival? The most important military gathering of the year?"
"No, Sire," Marx said, his shoulders slumping. He felt a migraine forming on his head.
"Then where did he go?!" Augustus demanded, his voice rising to an impossible pitch.
Marx closed his eyes. "I do not know, Sire. He... he left early this morning after he announced the start of the banquet. He did not file an itinerary. He simply put on a disguise and slipped out of the castle. You know how he gets when he hears rumors of undiscovered magic in the outer towns. He has a habit of wandering off."
For a long, terrible moment, the King of the Clover Kingdom simply stood there, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. The sheer, unfathomable irresponsibility of it broke his mind.
"He left..." Augustus whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and absolute, tyrannical rage. "That magic-obsessed, irresponsible, pathetic excuse for a leader! He abandons his King! He leaves me defenseless during an invasion to go look at some peasant's parlor tricks?!"
Augustus threw his hands into the air, pacing furiously again.
"When this is over, I will have his head!" Augustus cursed, kicking the wall. "I will strip him of his title! I am the King! I am the supreme authority! He is supposed to serve me, not wander the dirt roads like a vagabond! That fool! That absolute fool!"
Marx watched the King rant, his own stress levels hitting a critical peak. He knew the King was all bluster and cowardice, completely incapable of actually threatening Julius Novachrono.
But the King's pathetic ranting didn't change the terrifying, undeniable reality of their situation.
The capital was under siege. The vanguard was relentless. All Magic Knight Captains had been erased from the battlefield. And the strongest mage in the entire kingdom, the one man who could end this invasion with a single wave of his hand, was completely missing.
Marx looked out the window at the burning city below.
Please, Lord Julius, Marx prayed silently. Wherever you are... please hurry back.
___
The chaotic, smoke-filled air of the Royal Capital carried the bitter scent of burning timber and panicked sweat. From the deep shadows of a ruined merchant stall, Lencar watched the skies above the central plaza. He kept his breathing slow and steady, his back pressed hard against the cool, cracked brick of the alleyway. The brass camouflage artifact resting heavily against his chest maintained his unremarkable, slouched posture, completely hiding the hardened muscle and deadly potential coiled beneath his worn brown cloak.
He had left the plaza moments ago, deciding that interfering directly with the Golden Dawn prodigy would only draw unwanted attention and ruin his cover. He preferred to remain a ghost, a quiet observer harvesting the chaos from the edges of the battlefield.
But as he watched the sky, a massive, unnatural cloud of gray began to spread across the rooftops. It blocked out the setting sun, casting the surrounding streets into a sickly, suffocating twilight. Lencar could feel the repulsive, parasitic nature of the magic from several blocks away. It was a wide-area curse, designed to drain the vitality and magic of anyone caught within its creeping fog.
"The witch is making her move," Lencar murmured to himself quietly, his eyes tracking the swirling gray mass.
He didn't rush out to help. He knew Yuno, the boy wielding the four-leaf grimoire was incredibly strong, but raw power meant very little if you didn't know how to wield it when the odds were stacked against you. Lencar folded his arms, entirely willing to see if the golden boy from Hage could survive a true, life-or-death struggle against a veteran killer.
Back in the ruined, ash-covered plaza, the situation had deteriorated rapidly.
Catherine hovered high above the cobblestones on her ornate wooden broom. Her silver hair whipped wildly around her shoulders, and her dark purple dress fluttered in the harsh winds. Her face, previously a mask of aristocratic, mocking grace, was now twisted into a vicious, deeply insecure snarl. The word "hag" still echoed in her ears, burning through her vanity like acid.
"You arrogant, disrespectful little brat!" Catherine shrieked, her voice cracking with hysterical fury. "I'll peel the skin from your face! I'll suck every drop of youth from your veins and leave you as a rotting husk in the dirt!"
Her grimoire floated before her, glowing with a blinding, toxic gray light.
"Cursed Ash Magic: Sensation Deflation!"
She threw both hands forward, her fingers clawing at the empty air. A massive, rolling wave of incredibly dense, dark gray ash exploded from her palms. It wasn't a standard elemental attack designed to burn or crush. It was a suffocating, parasitic fog that spread with terrifying speed, entirely swallowing the plaza and rolling over the ruined fountain.
Yuno stood his ground. His face remained a mask of cool, collected indifference. He raised his hand, his four-leaf grimoire flipping its pages rapidly.
"Wind Magic: Towering Tornado," Yuno commanded.
A fierce, rotating column of emerald green wind erupted around him, forming a swirling barrier meant to deflect the incoming attack. The heavy winds caught the first wave of the gray ash, blowing it upward and scattering it across the rooftops.
But Catherine wasn't trying to bludgeon him with force. Her magic was insidious. It was designed to slip through the cracks.
The gray ash was too fine, too pervasive. It didn't just push against the wind barrier; it seeped into it. The microscopic flakes of cursed ash mixed with the swirling green air, catching on the moisture in the atmosphere. Slowly, the dark cloud began to overpower the clear winds. The ash filtered through the spinning barrier, falling like a dirty, cursed snowfall directly onto Yuno.
The moment the first gray flake touched his cheek, Yuno felt a strange, jarring numbness.
It didn't hurt. It didn't burn. But the skin where the ash landed suddenly went entirely cold, completely devoid of feeling.
Yuno frowned, raising his hand to wipe the ash away. But as he moved, more flakes fell upon his shoulders, his arms, and his face. The cursed ash multiplied, clinging to his clothes and his skin like a second layer of clothing.
"What is this?" Yuno muttered, taking a step back.
He tried to channel more mana into his tornado, intending to blow the area completely clear, but his concentration broke as a profound, terrifying sensation washed over him.
The numbness was spreading rapidly. It crawled up his neck and down his arms. The cobblestones beneath his boots, which had been hard and uneven just a second ago, suddenly felt like nothing. He couldn't feel the ground supporting his weight.