“We’ll need cover,” Leon said as he kept an eye on the surrounding streets with his magic senses. “Invisibility? We made it here easily enough…”

“We might make it far,” Archelaus said, “but drawing close to the Lumenite bands will make proceeding under such cover untenable. And if we’re being actively tracked…”

Leon nodded. “It might still be our best option. Otherwise, what other choice is there? Just going out, dragging Ingrid behind us, daring those monks to attack? They seemed happy enough to throw down earlier with Theron…”

“They still backed down,” Gwarim pointed out with a toothy grin. “Head out in force and they’ll piss themselves and run off, just like earlier.”

Leon remembered the strange, pale man on the balcony. He felt like there was more nuance there, but he didn’t bring it up. Instead, he asked, “What about holding this spot, waiting for Ingrid to sober up, and then just taking a quick jaunt through the Void? Go around the fane?”

Archelaus glanced at the woman, who by now had apparently drained her bottle and was dozing in her chair. “We might be here a while if we wait. Gwarim was right: she was drinking krillick venom. Worked to get her drunk, but it would’ve killed any mage below Apotheosis.”

“It’s fucking strong,” Gwarim plainly stated. “It could take a day or more for her to sober up.”

Leon exasperatedly rolled his eyes and said, “Impressive, in a way, I suppose…”

“Yes,” Archelaus agreed. “More impressive are the regular patrols that are made around the fane by both the monks and the warriors of the Sun King. Wards will ensure we won’t get far undetected, and at that point…” He sighed and leaned against a wall while folding his arms over his chest. “If it were as easy as just waiting and then going through the Void, I wouldn’t have troubled you two with this. Ultimately, I’d prefer that we keep this as out of the public eye as possible.”

“Why?” Gwarim asked. “We are Lords. Four Despots! We’ll grab Ingrid and march back to the Lumenite band. If anyone gets in our way, we’ll self-defense them down the Aesii!”

“Gwarim, my friend, I’d expect nothing less than that from you. But let’s at least pay some lip service to subtlety before then, yes? For the sake of all the other Lords currently here in the spirit of peace?”

“The spiritofpeace?! The spirit of peace?! We are not the ones violating that spirit! Those black-robed bastards can swallow my cock a thousand times over before I let them dictate terms to me

!”

“If the Sun King—” Archelaus began, but suddenly cut himself off as a subtle but noticeable wave of power swept over the villa. The wards within flared, ensuring that this wave of power didn’t reach them, but it was still clearly powerful.

A moment of silence passed before Leon said the obvious. “Magic senses that powerful… that was a twelfth-tier mage or a strong sensor spell…”

“Strong enough to pierce wards in most of the buildings around us,” Archelaus quietly pointed out.

Leon frowned, registering the fact that if that sweep was from the black-robed monks, then they had likely narrowed their search for Ingrid down immensely—there were only a handful of places in the district where she could be hiding and not get picked up by that sweep.

“Tunnel?” Leon quickly asked.

“Regulations prevent tunneling too far down,” Archelaus said. “Enchantments ensure the regulation is complied with. We’d be detected immediately.”

Leon’s frown widened to a grimace for a moment. It seemed like their only options were to try stealth or send for reinforcements. Going with Gwarim’s straight-forward approach seemed foolhardy since if the black-robed monks were willing to chase down two twelfth-tier mages in the first place, he didn’t think they’d balk that much at only four.

He was about to speak when he noticed several groups of men from several blocks away, seven or eight to a group. Each one was led by an eleventh-tier mage while the rest of the group was tenth or ninth. Attention seemed largely directed towards their villa. At the same time, what few citizens of the fane that were on the street seemed to freeze for a moment and then began hurrying to get off the streets… as if someone had spoken to them in their minds, ordering them to get somewhere safe.

“They know we’re here,” he said. “We’ll try stealth, and if that fails, we’ll fall back on extreme violence.” Without waiting for a response, he walked over to Ingrid and easily lifted her with his elementless magic. She hardly stirred even as he summoned his reasonable command over light magic to draw a simple ancient rune in the air, this one meaning ‘light’.

He concentrated hard on the meaning he wanted the rune to embody, and hurriedly said, “Range won’t be great. Get in!”

Archelaus sprang over while Gwarim took a moment to glare in the direction of the Black Robes, now moving in their direction, before doing the same.

With them close by, the power of the ancient rune covered them in a thin dome of power. From within, none of them noticed anything different, but from outside, all traces of their presence vanished; they faded from view until it seemed like the villa was once again unoccupied.

“This… is harder than I thought it’d be,” Leon said, having underestimated the strain of ensuring that the auras of four twelfth-tier mages were properly hidden. “Someone take her.”

Archelaus looked like he was more than willing, but Gwarim moved first, not bothering to carry Ingrid with magic and choosing instead to toss her over one massive shoulder.

“We should move quickly,” Leon suggested. “I don’t know how long I can keep this up, or how long it’ll hold against magic senses…”

“Then we’ll move quickly,” Archelaus said, and the three conscious mages sprang into action.

Archelaus took point, acting as the guide and front watchman. None of them could get farther than about fifteen feet from Leon, but that was more than enough room to move. Archelaus led them out of the villa, opening doors and clearing anything that might block their way, leaving Leon free to maintain the invisibility rune. Gwarim took the rear, Ingrid still slung over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.

Of all of Leon’s skills, he was most confident in his skill with runes. Still, his heart thumped in his chest like a war drum, and his blood roared in his ears as he crossed first the threshold of the villa, and then the courtyard gates, hoping that the wards protecting the villa wouldn’t disrupt his rune since it was created within. Fortunately, it seemed his Ancestors smiled upon him as the invisibility dome remained undisturbed, and their small group spilled onto the tight, quiet streets of the sleepy district, far from the fane’s center of power and wealth.

The courtyard gate opened into a T-intersection, and in all three directions, at least one squad of Black Robes was advancing down the street toward them. He almost suggested they take to the skies until he realized that the air was now thicker with magic than it had been on his and Gwarim’s arrival—additional wards had been raised, which, while not strong enough to stop them, were at least strong enough to break his rune.

“Quickly,” Archelaus whispered, waving them down the middle path. “Alleyway!” He pointed to a thin alley separating two apartments. They’d have to move quickly not only to reach the alley before the oncoming squad passed it but also to ensure none of those Black Robes stumbled into the dome and blew their cover.

“Quietly,” Leon said as he hovered just a few inches off the ground. “This only blocks light, not sound.”

Gwarim and Archelaus both nodded, following Leon’s lead in lifting off the ground. After another brief verbal exchange, Leon placed a hand on Archelaus’ back and pushed, while Gwarim rested his free hand on his shoulder, allowing Leon to dictate the pace and ensure that none of them stumbled outside of the dome accidentally.

Unlawfully taken from NovelBin, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Racing down the street was easier said than done, still. The Black Robes were moving quickly, too, and if they used magic senses, they might notice the dome-shaped void that their senses couldn’t penetrate.

With the rhythmic marching of the Black Robes echoing around them in the narrow, empty street, they reached the mouth of the alley. It was only wide enough to accommodate them one at a time, but that was sufficient for their purposes. Leon’s heart skipped a beat when his rune flickered as the invisibility field brushed up against the wards of the buildings on either side of the alley, but instead of disrupting the field, the alley walls simply crushed the dome around them.

With bated breath, they shot into the alley, pulling just far enough back that the leading Black Robe just barely missed stepping into the invisibility field. However, Leon saw just around Gwarim’s immense frame one of the Black Robes pause for a moment at the alley mouth and give the dark alley a cursory look.

One pulse of his magic senses could give them away. One overcurious Black Robe, wondering why he couldn’t sense anything in the alley…

The Black Robe frowned, but then continued towards the villa, and Leon’s breathing relaxed. He glanced at an equally relieved Archelaus, who nodded back the way they came. Leon gently pushed Gwarim back out of the alley, this time behind the Black Robes, and they hovered slightly off the ground again and, with a fleeting glance over the shoulder at the backs of the Black Robes, they shot off down the street, disturbing nothing but some dust on the perfectly-paved street.

They hadn’t gone far when a muted crash came echoing down the street as the multiple squads of Black Robes forced their way into the villa, and all three mobile Despots instinctively picked up the pace.

With the Black Robes successfully evaded, they were presented with a new problem: only the streets in the outlying districts were sparse enough to get through with the invisibility field. As they drew further into the city, the streets grew more and more crowded, until people were practically shoulder-to-shoulder around the base of some of the Lumenite bands. The band holding up the arkyard where Storm Herald awaited them was a little less populated, but not by enough to make a real difference.

They couldn’t approach these crowds without giving away their position. Likewise, their personal invisibility options were limited, as while Leon and Gwarim had their bits of gear, Archelaus had nothing, and no one’s gear would extend to conceal Ingrid.

“Narrow the field,” Archelaus whispered to Leon as they moved. “Get it as close to us as you can…”

Leon didn’t verbally respond, but he concentrated on what he wanted the rune to do. He was already stretching the light rune pretty far, but after slowing down enough to properly concentrate, Leon was able to shrink the dome to half of its previous width. That left their small group tightly packed within, but it gave them a little more flexibility in moving through the streets and alleys.

Their route wound through the city, avoiding crowded marketplaces, forums, and any other large gathering point along the way. Oftentimes, they had to stop to allow someone to pass if the street wasn’t wide enough, slowing them even further. Even through his concentration, Leon could feel Gwarim’s mounting frustration at their pace, and by the time they reached the halfway point between the Lumenite band and the villa, they were doing little more than crawling through the city.

After getting trapped in an alley for five straight minutes, Gwarim impatiently growled, “Surely we’ve gone far enough? Why should we continue to sneak around?! Let’s blend in with the crowd and get to the damned arks already!”

Leon looked up from the rune and scanned their surroundings, noting that there were endless places for more Black Robes to conceal themselves, and especially that the Black Robes at the villa were still turning the place over. It wasn’t that large of a villa, and it was largely empty, so once they were done, another scan was likely.

“We don’t know what awaits us or how bold our hunters are going to be,” Archelaus reminded him. “What if the monks around the bands refuse to allow us to proceed? What if there are more of these other monks hidden away nearby, ready to spring the moment they catch a whiff of our scent?”

“Then we’ll deal with them,” Gwarim insisted, his voice rumbling like distant thunder in the tight alley that had become their refuge. “I have confidence in our abilities, and if not ours, then we’ll call our friends. We have tens of thousands of warriors just waiting to act on our behalf!”

“Involving other Lords in a feud with Khosrow’s Fane would be unwise,” Archelaus protested. “Most would refuse!”

Leon clenched his teeth hard. His

people wouldn’t; they cared not a whit for Khosrow. He was reasonably sure that Miuna would step in on his behalf as well, but as Perenelle showed, her camp was hardly united when it came to him. If he were to call her for help, she might not be able to lend much at all—not to mention he didn’t want to incur any debts with her that he didn’t have to.

In the end, their arguments were rendered moot, and the choice was made for them. An intense wave of magic senses swept over the fane, powerful enough to penetrate most wards and certainly more powerful than Leon could produce even as a twelfth-tier mage. The moment that powerful magic washed over their dome, it shattered, the glowing rune vanishing in an instant. At the same time, the Black Robes finished their sweep of the villa and shot into the sky, flying in their direction.

“Move!” Leon shouted. “Move! Get to the band!”

Without wasting a beat, Archelaus shot into the street, nearly knocking an older lady off her feet as he barreled out of the alley. Leon, just behind him, caught her hand and righted her with a gentle pull, all while Gwarim maneuvered his bulk out of the alley.

The lady’s squawk of outrage and thanks died in her throat as she stared up at the veritable giant of a man who brought up their rear, Ingrid still slung over his shoulder. As the group shot past her, she screamed and pointed at them—or rather, at the unconscious Ingrid. Leon didn’t have to understand her language to get what she was saying, as every eye in the street turned in their direction.

Shouting followed them as they took to the skies again, flying just above the people’s heads in their haste to reach the Lumenite band. Leon projected his magic senses, analyzing as much of the city as he could without growing too distracted. He could sense Black Robes emerging from buildings all around them, more than he’d ever considered. Easily two or three thousand of them, a startling number of them post-Apotheosis. He even clocked a dozen who were too strong for him to easily perceive their tier.

‘No wonder they were so confident…’ he thought as the race to the Lumenite band began in earnest.

The fane was suddenly ablaze with magic senses; thousands of Black Robes hunted their quarry, which inspired other capable mages in the city to scan their surroundings, too, if only to see what was going on. The Black Robes’ magic senses, however, concentrated on Leon’s group, and they didn’t hesitate to move to intercept. All subtlety was disregarded as they simply shot into the sky, the laws of the fane apparently not binding them to the earth.

But they were too late, Leon’s group was made up of lightning mages, and the route to the Lumenite band was nearly a straight shot. They could make it and reach the band easily before the Black Robes, and once surrounded by their followers, the Black Robes would have to back off or risk—

“W-What?!” Ingrid groaned as she straightened up a bit on Gwarim’s back. How much she remembered of her time at the villa, Leon couldn’t say; however, it didn’t seem like much since she immediately started thrashing around in his grip. “Let go!” she shouted, slurring only slightly.

Gwarim was taken by surprise, and was especially not ready for Ingrid’s fists and feet to suddenly flash with red-gold lightning. He dropped her, and she fell into the crowd hard.

“Ingrid!” Archelaus shouted as he came to a halt, his voice barely audible over the screaming and shouting of the people they’d disturbed and the people that Ingrid had landed on. “What are you doing?!”

“Archie?” she asked as she got back to her feet and completely ignored the people scrambling away. A couple looked rather hurt, but they didn’t have time to do anything at the moment.

“Yes!” Archelaus shouted as he grabbed her hand. “Let’s go!”

It seemed she trusted him a good deal as, when pulled, she followed him back into the air. Without another word, they sped off down the street, Leon and Gwarim on their heels.

It seemed that Ingrid might have remembered more than Leon initially thought, however, as, due to her delay, when Leon’s group reached the large courtyard where the base of the Lumenite band was, three dozen Black Robes awaited them, including three too strong for him to readily see through as well as six twelfth-tiers and ten eleventh-tiers.

“Shit…” Ingrid murmured as they spilled into the courtyard and came face-to-face with this force. Leon heartily agreed with the sentiment.

Moments later, another group of Black Robes arrived, and led by a twelfth-tier, cut off their easy retreat through the courtyard’s portico. They could fly, but so could their opponents…

“I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding!” one of the Black Robes of indeterminate strength called out. “Stand down and submit, or you will be cut down where you stand!”

Gwarim sneered, undaunted by the powers they faced. “Who are you to stand in our way?!” he thundered. “We are Lords of the Nexus! Remove yourselves from our path!”

Leon didn’t add anything of his own, but he donned his armor and drew Iron Pride, making his stance on the matter clear.

“All those who bring violence to Khosrow’s Fane are heretics, and will be treated as such!” the leading Black Robe called out. He continued in that vein for another few sentences, but Leon immediately tuned him out, choosing instead to examine the surroundings.

One thing that stood out was the brown-robed monks—they were still present, though they’d moved off to the side, close to the edge of the courtyard. They watched the Black Robes surround Leon’s group in bewilderment, suggesting much that Leon didn’t quite have the time to speculate over.

“… will be no further warnings!” the Black Robe finished.

Gwarim donned armor of his own, made of some white-ish gold substance, flickering as lightning seemed to arc to and fro just below the surface of the metal. “You will receive no surrender from me!”

“Very well,” the Black Robe said, and he drew a weapon of his own.

Violence, it seemed, was inevitable…