The City of Mages
The City of Mages
Hundreds of daggers floated in the air around him. Each one a feather from the Wings of Stymphalos. Each one a blade.
Aslan set them in motion.
Seething mana erupted into a fierce tempest of magic. The power condensed in his tattoos scattered into the empty air, and that scattered mana seized the daggers.
It felt as though he had gained dozens—hundreds—of invisible hands suspended in the void. The first thing he registered was not omnipotence but complexity. Aslan exhaled slowly.
The objective was not killing.
It was suppression.
And for that purpose, Domination paired with the Wings of Stymphalos was the most effective tool he possessed.
Shhhhhk!
A dagger shot forward. It flew as though swung by a living hand—and was intercepted by something.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
The detonation erupted, heat searing the air and scorching everything in its vicinity.
The dagger had not been blocked. It had done the blocking. What met the trajectory of the feather-like blade was a blazing fireball.
The sphere, the size of a human head, radiated heat so immense it was barely perceptible by sight alone.
Anna Heleminus observed Aslan's display and raised her hand. The mana boiling from her palm was formidable enough to rival his own.
Considering that most archmages never exceeded a mana stat of 10, the sheer scale of Anna Heleminus's talent was unmistakable.
She poured overflowing mana into her spells with lavish abundance and wielded them with transcendent proficiency. That alone made her a dangerous mage.
The depths of an archmage who had once held the title of Master of Magic. Aslan tracked the hand seals she wove and the incantations on her lips, threading his daggers through the raging flames.
BOOM. CRACK-CRASH. BOOM.
Two fire orbs hurtled toward him. He planted a dagger in each with precision and neutralized them both. The spear of flame that came streaking for his head next—he blocked it with a cluster of blades massed together.
Even as searing heat churned the air around him, Aslan held his focus and rested his hand on Seobsaeng, standing at the center of a storm of steel feathers within a five-meter radius.
Anna's expression shifted—barely. A change so subtle it would have been difficult to confirm even if you were watching for it. But Aslan caught it. She was surprised.
Anna Heleminus possessed aptitude in nearly every school of magic and was an archmage of consummate skill. Her command of all the schools was uniformly superb.
But even she had preferences. The spells she favored most, the ones she trusted above all others.
Manifestation School magic for controlling flame, and Transmutation School magic for exploiting the heat those flames generated.
By freely combining those two schools, she elevated the destructive power of fire magic to an entirely different order of magnitude.
Scattered flames burned everything around them, dealing grievous harm even when blocked. And where the damage failed to land, the sheer intensity of the heat could shatter concentration.
Yet Aslan maintained his unique magic through that blistering heat.
The reason was simple.
It was the power infused in the blood that surged from his heart and thundered through his entire body.
Dragon's Blood.
Potent fire resistance that accompanied his one-time resurrection.
Not immunity, but enough innate resilience to preserve his composure amid seething flames. He kept his wits, and his eyes glinted between the weaving daggers.
The immediate situation seemed to have broken in his favor. Fireballs, rays of flame, cascading torrents of condensed heat—all were being intercepted by his storm of whirling blades.
But that was only the immediate situation. Aslan knew Domination's weaknesses and limits well.
First, range. He could manipulate objects out to a distance of five meters. Domination's telekinetic force reached no farther. That was why he had deferred throwing the daggers as a last resort.
He launched them only when a spell was too powerful to be allowed near him, and the fact that a dagger could not return once it had struck down a spell confirmed the limit.
The second weakness was immobility.
To be precise, he could move, but it was better not to.
Aslan had to control hundreds of hands at once. Moving his own body during that process was a strain. Keeping those invisible hands from tangling already demanded immense concentration; trying to maneuver his physical body on top of that would inevitably cost him control of several daggers.
The third drawback was mana consumption.
Aslan's current mana stat was 10. It had long since exceeded human limits, crossing into a realm beyond the mortal.
And even with mana reserves that vast, Domination drained him at an alarming rate.
Feeling his mana shaved away at terrifying speed, Aslan bit his lip.
He could hold for a mere 161 seconds. The moment his mana ran dry, he could die. From that point on, he would have to close to melee—and that meant accepting the collapse of every plan that followed.
That was not a desirable outcome. Aslan finished his calculations, exhaled, and marshaled the mana he had drawn up.
This was a battle of attrition. He opened a system window in the corner of his vision to track his remaining mana and moved his hand.
Anna Heleminus's eyes widened and tracked the motion of his hand. Feeling her gaze, Aslan formed a hand seal.
He could not cast traditional spells, but he remembered every hand seal and every incantation.
The hand seal he formed traced the shape of a spell. He framed that shape as a summoning formula. Miming the structure of the summoning art, he channeled his mana meaninglessly through the tattoos along his arm. The tattoos blazed.
Churning mana. Glowing ink.
Aslan extended his hand and pointed before her. The woman retreated a step, then raised her hand and slashed it downward.
Along the line she traced, immense heat coalesced with rock and came crashing forward.
The magic slammed uselessly into empty space.
KWA-BAAAANG!
The roar and thunder of the impact were loud enough to rouse his companions from sleep inside their cells. Loud enough that the guards above would be descending.
Aslan reminded himself that he needed to pacify Anna Heleminus before the guards arrived, and allowed himself a faint smile.
Anna Heleminus stared at the empty floor where nothing had materialized, realized she had been deceived, and moved her hand. The rock embedded in the floor stirred. As it launched toward his head, Aslan drew Seobsaeng immediately.
Thunder Call.
KWARURURUNG!
The thunder-laden sword strike deflected the boulder and scattered a peal of thunder across the prison. The sound woke several of those who had been sleeping in their cells.
The first to rise was Fay. True to her nature as an Elf who required no sleep, she opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings.
The bars were melting under the aftermath of magic, and shattered stone debris rolled across the floor.
And the concussions kept coming. The girl shifted her gaze, rose silently, and peered beyond her cell with blue-violet eyes.
The Elf girl grasped the situation in an instant.
Aslan was fighting a woman.
The woman was a mage. Fire was her primary tool, but she mixed multiple schools of magic together.
She also took in the state of her companions.
Whether from the frigid seawater or sheer exhaustion, Tiyamal showed no sign of waking and was snoring. Angie lay curled in a corner, wrapped in a blanket.
Fay snorted softly and shook her head.
Sleeping soundly, aren't they.
Ereta, at least, was awake, but a boulder had rolled to a stop in front of her cell and blocked her exit.
Ereta, her tattoos aglow as she shoved at the rock, met Fay's eyes. Fay looked at her and flashed a deadpan smirk.
Looks like I'm the only one who can act. Fine by me.
She shot Ereta a look that said stay put, you troublemaker, and moved at once. She took several steps back, widening the distance from the cell door, then bounced lightly on her feet to check her condition.
Her body was in perfect form. As it always was—ready to fight.
The Elf girl, possessing the highest stats in the party, confirmed her fitness for combat and studied the footing.
The underground prison was stone save for the iron bars. Solidly built.
Sturdy enough to withstand Fay's launch.
Fay drew a breath she did not need—the way Aslan did.
The girl, still bouncing lightly, landed softly, bent her ankles, and dropped her knees low. Power gathered downward with the deeply lowered stance.
Then she sprang.
A soft thump followed as she vaulted upward. One leap brought her to the ceiling, and she twisted to kick off it hard.
Off the ceiling, toward the wall. As she flew, she twisted again to aim her legs at the wall.
CRASH!
Stone chips burst upward, and the Elf girl accelerated. Her target: the iron bars. Specifically, the most heat-warped section—the one holding the door, the weakest point.
She flipped her body around and extended both legs toward that door.
CLAAANG!
A dropkick carrying tremendous acceleration. The hinges tore free under the impact, clattering across the floor, and the door tumbled after them. The sound was swallowed by the booming echoes of magic.
The iron door scraped across the stone, raising sparks. Fay flipped midair, landed, and hurled herself into the darkness before the magic-flinging woman could notice.
Low and silent, she darted through the shadows and snatched a fallen dagger from the floor.
A steel feather from Aslan's cloak. A handful of edged steel, perfectly suited as a dagger. She had no sword at the moment—this would have to do. The girl gripped the blade in reverse and ran soundlessly through the dark.
Her target: the throat. Drive the blade in behind the cervical spine and twist, ripping the neck open. A decapitation performed on the spot would look like the work of a beast.
Afterward, they could pin it on a priest. Aslan would face no trouble that way.
Her calculation complete, Fay altered her course behind the mage and lunged.
Thump!
The Master of the Sword accelerated, and Aslan sensed Fay closing in. He flinched.
"Sto—!"
His flinch and shout betrayed the anomaly. Anna Heleminus sensed it and turned.
The girl closing fast. Red hair scattering, a dagger leveled. Anna Heleminus's eyes flew wide.
The dagger halted a hand's breadth from Anna Heleminus's face and was pulled back. Anna stood frozen, mouth open, astonishment written plainly across her features.
Fay withdrew the blade, flipped in the air, and landed beside Aslan. Anna reached toward the girl with a trembling hand and let out a soft, broken sound.
"—Three, two, one. Breach, breach!"
"Breach, breach, breach!"
"Drop your weapons and surrender!"
CRASH! The door burst apart, wood splinters flying, and through the shattered entrance a squad of mages armed with crossbows and staves surged forward—then came to an abrupt halt.
"Mayor?"
What met their eyes was a peculiar tableau.
A prison cell scorched and gouged by intense heat and slashing impacts, as if some magical event had taken place.
In the middle of that cell, the mayor, murmuring half-formed words as she approached a girl.
And watching it all: a young man with wide eyes, rubbing his chin, and an expressionless girl holding a dagger.
A scene impossible to parse without explanation.
While the crossbow-wielding arrivals stood awkwardly, waiting for a cue, Aslan let out a low breath of admiration.
Fay looked, for all intents and purposes, like a fourteen-year-old child.
Anna's daughter had never reached that age—she had died and been sealed into a pendant. But if she had lived to fourteen, there might have been some resemblance to Fay.
The eye color and race were different, yet Fay possessed the flawless beauty typical of Elves and, on top of that, blood-red hair strikingly similar to Anna Heleminus's own.
A lovely girl with an almost fey loveliness that disarmed wariness. And an archmage who had lost her daughter and fixated on that loss ever since.
In the fevered aftermath of combat, Aslan had shown her the most idealized image of a girl, and Fay had lodged herself firmly into the gap in the woman's thoughts.
To reinforce this, Aslan recalled a historical detail.
Anna's husband had been human. Anna's daughter had been a quarter-Orc.
So perhaps—just as Anna herself showed Orcish traits only in her ears, her eyes, and her mana—her daughter might have borne no visible Orcish features either.
Not that it would have mattered if the daughter had been distinctly Orcish.
Nearly two centuries of solitude had long since pushed the woman into fantasy.
Memories burnished and reconstructed in the haze of distant recollection. Aslan understood that those memories had been amplified to their extreme by Fay's appearance, and he poured the last of his mana into recalling the Wings of Stymphalos.
He was down to about fifty mana, and vertigo swept over him.
"Earlier... I said I could grant you one thing."
Anna could not tear her gaze from Fay even as he spoke. She lifted her head only with visible effort to look at Aslan.
The madness of moments before might have been a lie. Her face now was steeped in maternal tenderness.
Aslan offered her a faint smile.
"I thought... that what you were trying to do was not an honor to the dead. And I thought this would be the same—a desecration. But... the living must go on living. If you wish, I can add one more condition to our arrangement."
He turned his head slightly toward Fay as he said it. The motion seemed casual, but Fay caught his meaning instantly.
The quickness of a companion who had fought beside him and synchronized with him for an entire year.
Fay had already returned the dagger to Aslan's cloak. Now she slipped half-behind him.
Her expression was precisely calculated.
Shy, as if meeting a stranger. A trace of curiosity tucked into that shyness. She peeked out from behind him, only half her face showing, and looked at Anna.
She blinked hesitantly. Anna flinched as though something had jolted deep inside her chest, and Aslan continued.
"This is my companion, Fay. The Master of the Sword—the only Elf who fights."
Anna did not reply. She seemed unlikely to have even heard him. Aslan smiled.
"Anna Heleminus. If you wish it... I will let you spend time with Fay—as your daughter—until you are able to let go of your attachment to the child you lost."
At those words, Anna's pupils quivered minutely. Expression dazed, as if her soul had fled her body, she approached Fay.
Fay watched the woman draw near, then glanced at Aslan.
The look she gave him was the same look one might wear after teaching a dog a bizarre trick.
A look that said: Do I really have to do this?
A look that said: Are we seriously doing this?
A look that said: I don't want to.
Instead of answering, Aslan smiled slightly. Fay saw that there was no other choice and stepped toward Anna.
Anna saw the shyness in Fay's approach, opened her arms, and embraced her.
"Little one... what is your name...?"
"Fay."
At the answer, Anna stroked Fay's back, her expression unreadable.
A mix of obsession and maternal love.