I’d been so distracted by the powerful trio entering the meeting room that I had almost missed the entrances of several other, presumably minor, characters. A man wearing leather armor with a longbow slung over his back and twin knives at his hip. A woman without any weapons, wearing a ceremonial robe. Another man, wearing a thick leather apron. Even from my hiding spot in the nearby fruit tree, I could smell the scent of fresh leather wafting off him.

  I had been worried that someone would notice me, even though I was under an Invisibility Cloak. But nobody looked my direction, and it seemed I would be able to eavesdrop without difficulty.

  “Thank you for coming,” Dawnbreaker started, once everyone was seated. She spoke with a clipped tone, giving the impression that she was a practiced public speaker. “We’re all busy, so let’s get to it. The refugees in Hearst reported the Ontario Region Lord was in Cochrane. We made it to Cochrane, but it wasn’t the Region Lord that we found. It was the Zone Lord.”

  I could hear bitterness dripping from Dawnbreaker’s tone. “We had no intel on our opponent, and that really hurt us. We weren’t ready to fight a shade. Shades can go incorporeal, and Alex didn’t have enough spells prepared to fight against its spiritual form. None of Cy’s creatures could affect it in the spiritual form either.”

  “We escaped, but Cy lost several of his creatures.”

  The woman in the ceremonial robe interrupted, concern etched in her tone. “Are the rumors true? Are you hurt?”

  Dawnbreaker grimaced. “I’m fine. I’ll be fully recovered in two days. We know now that on the eighth day of Acclimation, the second wave will come. We need to strike the Zone Lord before this happens. In two days, we will attack again. Alex will be primed with spiritual spells, and Cy is developing his own counter too.

  “We’ll need holy water potions from the alchemists, and the rune masters should put to use the spiritual shield pattern I gave them earlier,” Dawnbreaker stared at the man in the leather apron, who nodded immediately.

  “Put a notice out to the Adventurer’s Guild. We will open the Daybreak Treasury for anyone with skill—“

   Samantha said.

  Turning away from Dawnbreaker’s meeting, I saw a lone guard walking from the villa gate towards the council room.

  I climbed down from my tree, as silently and quickly as I could, rushing towards the villa gate.

  When I first broke into the villa, I had already planned my exit. I had carved small grooves in the villa wall—grooves that were deep enough for my fingers and toes to wedge inside.

  In the time it took the guard to reach the council room door, I was already over the wall, still invisible.

  “—Dawnbreak only. I don’t know who else I can trust,” Haki Wright was saying to the guards at the gate.

  Most of Haki’s body was covered in a cloak, but presumably the guards had made him lower his cloak’s cowl. Haki had some stubble growing on his face, and his eyes were darting frantically to and fro from behind his thick glasses. His glasses partially hid the bags under his eyes.

  One of the two remaining guards at the entrance of the villa had his weapon drawn, half-pointed at Haki Wright.

  There were a number of bystanders. Some looked like tourists, others probably had their own pleas for Dawnbreaker, and several others were listening in, intent to glean any information.

  Still cloaked, I snuck up behind the nearest guard and rapped his helmet, hard.

  Before he could even collapse to the ground, I knocked out the second. It wouldn’t do to kill Dawnbreaker’s guards—starting a vendetta with one of the most powerful humans on the planet was not on my bucket list.

  “It’s the Crucible!” Haki Wright screamed, as loudly as he could. “They’ve come for me! Help!” So much for avoiding a vendetta.

  It was annoyingly effective. Most of the crowd retreated, but there were some brave citizens who stepped forward to protect him.

  How cocky were these bystanders? Moving forward against an invisible threat.

  “Guards!” I heard someone call.

  I blew through the people surrounding Wright with ease, but he was surprisingly quick on his feet, backing away into the crowd.

  “I won’t let you take me back!” Wright had stopped retreating, and now he stood in front of me with a dagger in hand. “Tell Adia I love her,” he whispered, and then stabbed himself in the heart with his knife.

  I froze for a split second in shock. Why…. It must be a trick. A quick Identify, though, showed that Haki Wright was dead.

  Behind me, the villa doors exploded, wooden shards flying out and embedding themselves into the dirt road and nearby houses.

  A silver figure, blindingly bright with my Mana Sensing, stood in the entrance to the villa, wielding a flaming sword.

  I felt a tremor of fear run through me, as Dawnbreaker’s aura flashed across the square.

  It was as if all the bystanders were collectively holding their breath. Nobody dared move a muscle.

   Samantha said.

  I hadn’t even realized I was frozen in place too.

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  I took my first step gingerly, unsure if Dawnbreaker would somehow notice me.

  Then a second, and a third, all while Dawnbreaker’s aura held the whole square in frozen silence.

  And then I felt the spell. The words weren’t that loud, but I could feel their power thrumming through the square, and I could see the ambient mana across the whole city imploding towards the square. The words continued in a language I had never heard, full of harsh, angry sounds that burned my soul.

  

  I moved, but it even with increased Agility, it felt like I was running uphill, under increased gravity, in hundred-degree weather. As I ran, I reached into my Interdimensional Pouch.

  Hundreds of streaks of silver detached from Dawnbreaker’s armor like telekinetically controlled ropes, forming vertical nets that moved in a grid-like search of the square. Whenever they reached one of the motionless people in the square, the nets would slit open and brush passed them, continuing the dragnet search. The implication was clear: Run, and I will find you.

  Everybody in the square—guards, adventurers, and passersby—were kneeling, shaking, and not daring to move or make a sound.

  I was putting more and more distance between myself and Dawnbreaker, when I stepped on what I thought was a shadow.

  “There!” Cy flung a dagger at me. I didn’t know how he had made it to the gate in such a timely manner.

  The dagger itself was a laughable attack, considering my current Agility. I even doubted if it would successfully land, if I were to stay in one place. But it wasn’t meant to deal damage—it was meant to direct Dawnbreaker and Alex.

  Before the dagger even had time to reach me, the flying silver nets, which had been searching the whole square, immediately re-formed into a net-shaped dome encircling me.

  Before the dagger could reach me, the unending spell, the unnerving spell that felt like it was trying to tear my soul out of my own chest, doubled in intensity, then trippled again.

  Outside of the silver net-dome, the people kneeling relaxed, trembling less. On the flip side, I saw several people inside the dome faint, bleeding from their ears and eyes, as they experienced the full power of Alex’s chant.

  I couldn’t move. It was like an extra-dimensional weight was pressing down on me from every direction, like gravity itself was trying to pull my soul out of my body.

   Samantha said, her voice tense.

  Even as Samantha said it, the weight on my soul grew fainter. At the same time, the combat shadow, which had guided me this whole time, disappeared.

  I tried to side-step another of Cy’s knives flying my way, but my feet stuck to the shadow, immobile for just a split second, before releasing me.

  Cy’s knife glanced harmlessly off my helmet, the ringing sound disconcertingly loud in the square.

  Well. It was clear I wasn’t going to get away without making a splash.

  I had no idea how many explosives to use, or where to throw them.

  I lit three Igneal Explosives and tossed them at different parts of the silver cage that was closing in on me.

  Then, I tossed a fourth explosive towards Dawnbreaker, who was just twenty yards away from me.

  It looked like the explosives were a successful strategy.

  The moment I tossed the explosives out, the silver cage that had surrounded me suddenly fragmented, the silver threads gathering together almost instantaneously, turning from a massive net into three tarps that wrapped around the explosives.

  The first three bombs detonated at the same time, but the explosion was muffled and absorbed by the silver tarps that had surrounded the Igneal Explosives.

  The explosive flying towards Dawnbreaker was even more anticlimactic. A silver tendril extended from Dawnbreaker’s suit, dicing the Igneal Explosive into a dozen tiny pieces before it could explode.

  I’d been hoping it would delay her, but Dawnbreaker charged directly towards me.

  The good news, though, was that because I had distracted Dawnbreaker’s cage with the explosions, I was now free.

  The world around me blurred as I ran. I could feel the wind burn exposed skin.

  Past the square, it was as though everyone around me was walking in slow motion. All of my mana was in Agility, taking me to over 80 points of Agility. If this were pre-Atropos Schema, I would be setting world records for the fastest pace any human had ever run.

  At the same time, I could feel myself tiring quickly.

  I knew I couldn’t keep this up for long, but I didn’t need to. Thanks to the Invisibility Cloak, all I had to do was put enough distance in between us, and I would be free.

  I left the effects of Alex’s spell and Dawnbreaker’s aura far behind me, and I took care to avoid any shadows just in case Cy’s shadow was somehow able to keep up with me.

  I ran through the streets of Daybreak, and out the city gate, leaving baffled guards surprised at the gust of wind that accompanied me.