Mirelle gripped the leather reins as her small arms trembled. The logging path the black carriage followed wasn't a road, but a steep, treacherous slope of loose gravel and sharp stones leading straight down into the ravine.
"Whoa," Mirelle whispered as she pulled back hard on the reins.
The two black horses neighed in distress. The heavy weight of the carriage pushed them violently forward down the slope.
Every time the horses planted their hooves, the gravel gave way, forcing them to scrape for a hold against the sharp rocks.
Red streaks smeared against the grey stones where the jagged edges tore at their lower legs. Their muscles bunched and burned, straining to hold back the wooden box that threatened to roll right over them.
Inside the carriage, Kian curled up on the padded floor and buried his head under a pillow.
Too bumpy, Kian complained internally. My back is going to snap in half. Maybe I should find a comfortable inn to rest.
The carriage finally hit the bottom of the ravine. The ground leveled out. The horses panted heavily, their legs scraped and shaking from the brutal descent.
Mirelle looked up. Her eyes widened.
A massive, shimmering dome of purple light blocked the path ahead. It was the impenetrable anti-mana ward.
Mirelle did not know what it was. She just knew it was in the way. She did not want to stop and ask her master for directions, so she simply snapped the reins and drove the horses straight toward the glowing wall.
Down in the camp, the lead dark Mage turned around. He saw a plain black carriage rolling toward the ultimate defensive ward. He sneered, expecting it to be crushed into splinters.
The dark Mages built their ultimate defensive ward with two distinct layers.
The first layer instantly burned away any active Mana that touched it. The second layer was a physical repulsion net. It was designed to harden into an unbreakable wall the exact moment it was struck by a sudden, aggressive force—like a swinging broadsword, a galloping warhorse, or a launched boulder.
But Kian's carriage emitted absolutely zero Mana. And the two black horses were completely exhausted, their legs bleeding as they pulled the heavy wooden box at a miserable, limping crawl.
Kian (inside the carriage) and the blue-haired girl (on the driving board) possessed no active magic.
On the roof, the pink-haired girl kept her Life Force completely sealed, and the big Swordsman was far too terrified of waking Kian to even think about igniting his Aura. There was not a single drop of active Mana among the four of them.
Because the carriage and its passengers were moving so incredibly slow, the spell's woven logic completely ignored them.
The magical barrier did not harden. It treated the slow, dragging carriage exactly the same way it treated a drifting fog, a falling leaf, or a crawling insect.
The dark Mages had woven a flawless wall to stop a charging army, completely failing to account for a wooden box rolling into their warzone at a snail's pace.
It was a fatal blind spot in their spell weaving.
The carriage slipped right through the purple dome without a single spark. It rolled casually into the center of the dark Mage camp, the wooden wheels crunching loudly on the ground.
The chanting stopped. A hundred dark Mages stared in complete, paralyzed shock.
What did I just see? the Lead Mage thought, his mind completely shattering. A wooden cart just bypassed a localized spatial ward. That requires a terrifying density of anti-magic. Who is inside that carriage?!
Up on the carriage roof, flat on his stomach, Gareth peeked over the edge. His eyes widened. He stared past the red-robed men, looking directly at a huge, jagged gem glowing with an oppressive, sickly light near the edge of the ritual circle.
"A raw Deep-Earth Crystal," Gareth muttered to himself, his scarred face turning grim. "That size is entirely illegal without a royal writ. You have to butcher a mountain vein to get a piece like that."
He swallowed hard. The tactical reality hit him fast. That crystal was universally known as one of the sturdiest solid objects in the world. It was virtually unbreakable. To shatter a power source of that magnitude, a high-level Adventurer would need to launch a continuous, brutal barrage of physical or magical attacks for at least an entire month.
"To smuggle something that indestructible..." Gareth whispered, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. "Who are they? Cultists? Maybe dark Mages?"
The Lead Mage stared at the black wood of the carriage. His eyes locked onto the silver crest. A broken sword wrapped in a thorny vine.
"Thousand Strings!" the Lead Mage screamed, panic violently seizing his throat. "It's him!"
Kian slowly sat up. The bumpy ride had finally ended.
He rubbed his eyes and opened the small side window.
He blinked.
There were a hundred men in red robes staring at him. There was a massive, blindingly bright red circle drawn on the ground. The chanting had stopped, but the residual humming of the magic gave Kian a big headache.
Kian frowned. He looked up at the roof.
"Lexi," Kian said, his voice flat and annoyed. "It's too bright. And they are being incredibly loud. Turn it off."
He closed the window and lay back down on his pillows.
On the roof, Lexi's dead eyes scanned the hundred hostile Mages.
Turn it off, Lexi analyzed. Kian is annoyed by the noise. He wants the camp dismantled. But he used the phrase 'turn it off' instead of 'eliminate.' He is displaying his usual terrifying mercy. Zero fatalities. He wants them alive to face the Imperial Law.
"Understood," Lexi said softly.
She stood up and looked down at Gareth, who was still flat on his stomach.
Lexi kicked him hard in the ribs.
Gareth grunted, sitting up quickly.
"Earn your breathing privileges," Lexi ordered. "The Master wants them quiet. Do not kill them. Break their jaws. Put them to sleep."
Gareth looked at the hundred dark Mages. A big, feral grin spread across his scarred face.
A direct order, Gareth thought excitedly. He is testing my utility! If I knock these guys out, I get to live!
Gareth did not bother climbing down. He simply rolled off the roof and dropped like a three-hundred-pound boulder directly onto a group of five Mages.
The ground exploded. Gareth did not use his heavy sword. He just swung his big, aura-coated fists.
He punched a Mage in the chest, the sheer blunt force knocking the air from his lungs and sending him unconscious to the ground. He grabbed another Mage by the robes and threw him directly into a rock wall.
"Intruders!" the Lead Dark Mage screamed. "Kill them!"
Spells erupted. Fireballs, and different kinds of spells flew toward the big Swordsman.
Lexi did not wait. She dropped into the chaos.
A blur of pink hair and dark fabric lunged forward. She did not bother with the sharp edge of her steel dagger, instead slamming the heavy iron pommel into her target.
Point Zero.
She appeared behind a casting Mage, tapped the back of his neck with the iron grip, and released a tiny, localized burst of pressurized Aura.
The shockwave instantly knocked the Mage cold. He dropped like a stone.
She darted through the crowd. Tap. Drop. Tap. Drop.
It was not a battle. It was a systematic, brutal janitorial sweep.
The Mages could not track her. They could not hit Gareth, who was simply laughing and treating their magical barriers like fragile glass windows.
Lord Elric backed away, his face pale with terror. He watched his grand army of dark Mages getting completely dismantled by a pink-haired girl and a laughing giant.
"Stop!" Elric shrieked as he drew a thin, ornamental sword. He pointed it at Lexi as she walked toward him. "I am a noble! I am the heir of the Sterling Family! You cannot touch me! I demand you bow!"
Lexi did not blink. She stepped inside his guard, grabbed his expensive silk collar, and slammed the pommel of her dagger directly into his forehead.
Elric's eyes rolled back. He collapsed onto the ground, entirely unconscious.
Lexi walked past him. She approached the heavy wooden posts. She raised her dull blade and struck the thick iron chains binding the captured Sterling knights. The localized Aura bursts shattered the iron links without scratching the knights' armor.
The Lead Knight collapsed to his knees and gasped for air. He looked at the pink-haired Thief. He looked at the big man tossing unconscious Mages into a pile. Then, he looked at the carriage.
He saw the silver crest.
Knights despised high-ranking Adventurers. They viewed them as uneducated, lowly mercenaries who just happened to be strong, constantly stealing the public's admiration and bruising the formal military's pride.
Begging an uncouth Adventurer to fight a war the knights could not handle was a bitter, humiliating blow to their ego.
But staring at the dismantled enemy camp, that rigid knightly arrogance entirely evaporated into raw, suffocating relief.
"The Feeble Soul," the Lead Knight breathed out. His voice trembled with heavy emotion. "He answered the Earl's plea. He actually came."
Suddenly, the ground violently shook.
The red magic circle in the center of the camp did not turn off. Despite the Mages being unconscious, the ritual had already crossed the threshold.
The red light flared into a blinding pillar of dark energy. The air smelled like rotting meat and ancient dust.
A humongous, skeletal hand grabbed the edge of the dirt.
Lexi stopped moving. Gareth dropped a Mage and turned around.
A Calamity-class Phantom pulled itself out of the circle. It was fifteen meters tall, composed entirely of jagged bedrock, pulsing red shadow, and exposed fossilized bone.
Grave-Stone Asura was the name of this Phantom.