Chapter 197

I dispelled the air elemental before I decided to close in, wanting to get a better view of the event. After all, surprises on any battlefield had the potential to be deadly, especially against two mages with little to no support.

The first thing I did was to cast a low-level detection charm, allowing me to get a real-time map of the living — along with the unliving — with no effort and no risk.

[-28 Mana]

Of course, in the past, using such a trick was risky enough to trigger every single alarm of the liches that was found in any area of decent size, but my current skill level was different. I was able to replicate the same trick using much less mana, which made it much harder to be noticed.

And it allowed me to get a sense of the layout, which was simpler than I expected. It consisted of a group of defenders behind several layers of wards, and attackers trying to break them through repeated assaults.

Though, as a nice surprise, Titania and Marianne were the attacking sides, while undead was the side that was trying to put together a desperate defense against the inevitable assault.

It was a nice change of pace.

I started closing in as I carefully focused on their mana signatures. Titania's incredible assault didn't surprise me, as I had seen her fighting before. While she had certain flaws — her direct approach to battle one of them — she had the capabilities to justify her fearsome reputation.

The achievements she had gained during our fun only made her scarier.

Marianne, on the other hand, surprised me greatly. The last time I had seen her, she was just a healer — an amazing healer, maybe even the best in Silver Spires, but a healer nonetheless. Yet, the closer I got, the more accurate my feel for her magic got, and what I found surprised me.

The life energy was formed into several complicated shapes, rotating in a self-sustaining space as they danced around the wards of the undead, ready to destroy any undead that dared to get out of the wards for a counterattack.

They even managed to avoid the oppressive bursts of light magic as they rained on the wards — a courtesy of Titania — each formed into thin spears, weakening the integrity of the wards without wasting Titania's energy in the process.

I had to admit, I was impressed with Marianne's performance, who was using my trick in a spell that I didn't even think off — though, admittedly, with my perks, saving mana was hardly the greatest priority for me. Still, the smoothness of her spells and the efficiency of her approach were amazing.

Though, even with Titania, I was impressed by the way she was methodically disassembling the wards rather than overwhelming them in one burst, showing that she had learned quite a bit compared to our first fateful meeting, where she had been trapped by much simpler wards.

I wanted to watch them slowly work on the wards, but, unfortunately, we had bigger issues to deal with, so I started walking closer, intending on helping them.

Yet, before casting a spell to resolve the issue, I repeated the earlier spell, but this time, putting enough magic to cover a much wider area.

After the earlier debacle, after my target turned out to be a decoy in the first place, I decided to treat the undead with more care, in case I met with another tactical disadvantage.

That turned out to be a smart decision, as, the moment the spell spread past a mile, I felt a ping at the distance. I had found a ward that was hiding a couple of presences, which, interestingly, were not undead. Too distant to launch an ambush, but not too distant to observe the battle.

I decided that it was not appropriate.

[-294 Mana]

An earth spell, combined with a furious dash, and barely half a minute later, I was under their location. There, I stopped for a moment underground, focusing my senses upward to examine the little group, consisting of four people.

The first thing I noticed was that they were not necromancers. It was possible to conceal the taint of their destructive spell-casting from a distance, but it was impossible to do so when it was just a few feet of earth that were separating us. The second thing, even more helpful, to note was they didn't belong to Eternals — at least, that was what I assumed considering their wards were both too weak to be cast by someone over level thirty, and they were not based on the mysterious structure they had used during every encounter I had with them.

With that, I had no fear as I let my mana radiate up, and invade their structure — something that was made much easier by their ward protecting the top and sides much better than the bottom.

Simple mistakes, but simple mistakes were no less critical than complicated ones once someone started to abuse them. I let my mana bypass their wards and slip inside their bodies.

They were all between level twelve and fifteen, which put a frown on my face. Not because they were strong, at least not by the standards that I was getting used to, but their lack of strength.

If they had been stronger, I might have assumed that they were trying to assassinate Titania, but that didn't make sense. Even before she started receiving the benefits of working together, Titania was strong enough to demolish such a group in seconds even if they had the opportunity to ambush her.

The speed of retaliation her light magic allowed was simply ridiculous.

Yet, their presence was not accidental either. If that had been the case, they wouldn't have been hidden in wards good enough to avoid Titania's detection spells, or my first, weaker, detection spell. And their levels were enough to qualify them above disposable pawns for every single force with the great exception of the Eternals — and I had a feeling that Eternals were not exactly a group that bothered to deal with such weaklings.

Interesting, I thought even as I invaded their soul space with more of my mana, and with a flick, blocked all of their Stats and Skills at the same time, the great power difference allowed me to do so.

When I pulled up, I met with the panicking party, each just barely cognizant enough to realize what they had lost. And, my immediate presence revealed the truth of my presence. "Tell me, why are you here?" I asked.

They didn't turn completely idiotic even without the System, but the difference with and without their assistance was significant — a fact that I was intensely aware of, hence the reason I was objectively wasting a resource like Divine Spark that even the System required, and the gods battled for it outside the System space, just to avoid that exact fate.

"Tell me who do you work for, or perish!" I ordered, not even bothering to tap into the benefits of my Charisma to enhance the intimidation value. I was afraid that I would trigger a heart attack if I did so.

"W-we're working for Crown Prince," the four-voice answered at the same time, unable to resist the sudden pressure without the assistance of the System.

I found their cacophony of voices as unpleasing as the answer. "You three, silence," I said before I turned at the one at the center, who looked slightly more coherent than the others. "What do you mean by Crown Prince, I thought the Empire had a Crown Princess."

"N-not for long," he stammered, his coherency not making him any more courageous than his friends, at least not in a manner that was useful.

"Explain," I ordered.

"E-everybody knows the Princess escaped the capital with her tail between her legs. With that, it's only a time before the Emperor takes her title and delivers it to the rightful Prince."

"And you work for that Prince," I asked, only to receive a nod. "And are you here under his orders?"

To his credit, he managed to maintain his hesitancy for a fleeting moment, until I blasted him with the weight of my Charisma, which worked wonders to increase his intimidation value to a dangerous level.

"Yes!" he gasped as he stumbled back, his face flat white. "He wants us to give a report about the members of Silver Spires since the Princess retreated there."

"And?" I asked, but he kept his lips closed. Which, I had to admit, was an impressive display of loyalty. Too bad it was wasted in a game he was little more than a pawn. He didn't even see the blade of air that cut off his head, and as he was busy with the realization that his life came to an end, I turned to the next one. "And?" I repeated.

This time, the answer arrived quick. "He wants us to take down any target of opportunity to weaken Silver Spires just in case they allied with the Princess," he answered. "But only if we are sure that it couldn't be traced back to us."

I made a note to inform the headmistress about that particular detail to pull the school patrols tighter. I might have complicated feelings about Silver Spires, but it didn't change the fact that it was the closest thing I had to a home.

With my pressure getting tighter, I had asked them a few more questions about their numbers and distributions, but they knew very little as they operated as a cell, and they were sent directly from the capital with no local connection, just with a communication item to send emergency information.

So, I used their communicator to send an interrupted message about a sudden undead attack before killing them, a few simple modified healing spells was all I needed to create the evidence of a successful undead raid before destroying the bodies — as necromancers would never leave high-level bodies lying around.

Then, I turned my attention to the undead fortress, and with a flick of my hand, I used my Arcana abilities to unfold a few critical nodes, causing a cascading critical failure in the wards to destroy the bulk of the forces.

Until I could arrive at their location, Titania and Marianne finished destroying the remaining undead, looking at the ruined hill with a sense of satisfaction.

"So, girls," I said cheerfully, amused by the incredible speed they turned to face me with their magic flaring, only for it to fade as they realized the identity of the intruder, though as their mana calmed, their anger only got more intense, an expression that did nothing to their spectacular beauty. "Who's in the mood for a party?"

[Level: 32 Experience: 524160 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 7923 / 8000 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [84/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]