The night was long. Maybe she imagined it, maybe not, but High Councillor Ayn felt a strange heat in the air. A heat that was not of the aetherite refineries, nor of skill usage. It was the heat of the rising summer. It was a heat that acted like the cold, it seeped into her body, her bones, and it ached. How it ached in her centuries old bones.

Ayn was alone, leaning over a balcony of the palace that overlooked the city. Her domain. Ayn's hands tightened around the railing, knuckles white as she exerted a force that would have crushed adamantine on the metal bar.

As she gazed at the horizon, at tall buildings that poked through the diminishing smog, her thoughts wandered. The city was not a force for good, a great grinder that took in potential and ejected broken dreams. A city that was as genuinely kind to the starry eyed that came to it in search of crystals and skills, as the love of a geassed escort for a client they wanted to create a recurring customer out of. A city of false dreams and real nightmares. She was really in one of those moods today, wasn't she? But it was alright. New Delport, liberated from the Catrian empire, was not intended to be a utopian settlement. It was a crucible by design.

Her communicator rattled and hissed as she forwent verbal communication entirely to keep up with the operation. Kalist. Kalist was in some ways like her, she loathed fighting things directly, preferring to use pawns, and so did he.

'And so did the Godtouched.'

Her hands relaxed, and then squeezed even tighter. The Godtouched complicated things so much. And yet, she was an opportunity greater than this city. An opportunity to fix something broken a long time ago. Ever since Emperor Ceroxichtan had been killed by another Godtouched, ever since the Leviathans and the Dryads had lost all that had kept them in check, since the Red Flight had dedicated its existence to subduing cislunar portals to the Unformed Chaos, it was just a race against time. And until now, elvenkind had been losing.

"We are all already dead. They are just waiting for the kill notification." One of her ancient lovers had once said, days before ending. Not dying. There was no dying to the Dryads, instead moss and spores had infiltrated her body from one tear in her armor, and then had bloomed inside her. There was no Self-Sanctity strong enough to endure against the combined might of the whole circle. She still lived, just as an impression of an elvenoid superimposed and stretched across a tree. Her brain became clusters of berries, and yet, they still functioned. Electricity still raced across that fruiting tumor, thoughts turning slow and tree-like.

Maybe they would still lose, almost certainly so, but it was no longer inevitable. But that was not something she had to worry about tonight, not even this decade. She had a dragon to worry about.

Kalist was, as much as she did not want to admit it, honorable in a way only those that had known the heights of power and pride could be, and that gave her an inkling of what he was planning. She suspected that the other two did too, even if one was in denial.

Still, it would not do for him to accept it and start thinking about ways to escape it. She turned away and made her way across the palace to the chambers of High Councillor Sevarius. Narra had already given his blessings for what must be done.

As we waited in a makeshift tent outside the cordoned — I was unsure if it would be more appropriate to call it a neighborhood or a block— I was struck with how organic this place was when compared to the surface city. Middle Gerankir was hideous, and built to maximize living space. While the foundational stratum of enormous tenements stretching to the sky was very much planned according to a design, everything else had just grown haphazardly around that into a new pattern altogether. Barring the actual constructions with their right angles and artificial materials, it did not resemble a city at all, but more so felt like some kind of sprawling subterranean insect nest. An anthill of people, toiling towards ends I did not know, and probably did not want to know. The only things I knew for certain about the rulers of Gerankir were that they were apparently so strong that the Council and the guilds considered fighting them too dangerous to the city itself, and that they ran enormous flesh markets at the layer just below this one. Overall, not exactly a flattering image, even compared to the Council's enforcers slaughtering a protesting crowd wholesale and out in the open. Speaking of enforcers, L, who seemed to act like the undeclared leader of this little group, spoke up.

"Now normally I would use this downtime to make sure we are all generally aware of each other's strengths before we see any combat at all. But since the Underlords have different plans and I would prefer to not redo it over again when their people join us, I will instead ask if any of you are on the verge of a class mastery." B, the enforcer who had escorted me until now raised her hand. No one else did. I was practically at the very beginning of my current class. L nodded at B.

"Good, we shall see if we can safely get you a kill the—"

A not so distant explosion interrupted L. We stepped out of the tent to see a large kobold made of several partially melted bodies held together by flesh flowing like syrup facing off against Granite. Other kobolds clashed against Granite's minions and even some enforcers with gnashing teeth and writhing appendages.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

We shared a look and joined the battle. The kobolds were strong, some stronger than what I had faced in the Illustris Palace, barring Crusader and the ones that had been keeping people from flying out, but they were outnumbered, and frankly outmatched. Even when the familiar heatless flame burned with newfound, or perhaps recently rediscovered, flame, they were still shambling feral creatures for the most part. And like feral animals, they were put down, the enclosure reestablished, and then it was time for the team to expand.

We did not have to wait long for the Underlords' underlings. There was me, of course, then Medea and Vespia, and then B, L, V, and H, all going over whatever information we had managed to extract and extrapolate so far about this set up. It was a set up, no one here suffered any delusions otherwise. Kalist wanted something and that required my presence. At least Ayn seemed confident that he would not kill me, or try to cognitomancy me into becoming his thrall. One could only hope.

The curtains of the tent slid apart and Granite stepped in.

"Your team." He said before leaving just as swiftly. And then came a girl who appeared to be my age named Serias with almost blindingly glowing purple eyes that were barely diminished by her dark sunglasses. I assumed she was the leader, based on how the others, although seeming older, deferred to her. Not that outward appearance was a real indicator of age with so many biomancers running around. And that was ignoring how stats interacted with lifespans.

Serias was accompanied by three others that also chose to withhold their names, instead choosing to stick to Wolf, Hound, and Fox respectively. I got the feeling that Serias would have too, if her eyes weren't so distinct. I did not like being close to Serias for just one reason, her gaze made my skin prickle and I could feel traces of cellular damage accumulating. Thankfully she seemed to be aware of her power and mostly kept her eyes on the ground. The other three just wore suits that seemed a bit too fancy for an active warzone but I was not going to comment on that. If Granite thought that they were fine then I was not going to challenge his authority here for no reason.

All nine of us sat in a circle in a different room than the tent we had been in earlier and L began. We did not spend a lot of time on pleasantries, seeing as we were on a timer. It was straight to business, starting with skillsets.

"I'm primarily a barrier mage. I can make them as narrow or thick as I want and move them freely so I can provide both offense and defense. There is no limit to how many barriers I can have, but there is a range limit." I let out a sigh of relief. I was worried that I would be expected to divulge weaknesses and more, but all we really did was make sure we knew what roles the others could serve. B a speedy mid-range blaster, H was a biomancer and a healer, just like me. That explained why Medea was apparently so interesting to them, judging from their glances at it. V was the weird one. He was nigh impossible to actually put down and if he could get a hold of something, that thing was not going to get out.

On the other side, Serias was a close range fighter whose speciality was disrupting active biomancy, and destroying organic matter. Perfect against Parciv's creations.

'And us.' Medea added. I did not disagree. Hound, Fox, and Wolf were not as specialized but worked well together as a team. Fox would provide buffs to the other two while they did the actual fighting.

"I don't fight directly but my pets can. I can also heal anyone in a pinch if I have biomass available." Simple, sweet, and not overly specific.

Serias turned to me and gave me what I assumed was approval scrutinizing glance, before turning away as a holographic 3D map of the cordoned off block appeared on the table. There was a red flashing dot on one of the buildings halfway between the center and the edge of the map.

"This is where Mr. Jink's domicile is situated. That entire building and its neighbors are swarming with kobolds but we have managed to confirm that the entire floor is sealed with a mana signature locked seal. A seal far stronger than anything crystal can buy. And it is not locked just to the signature of the Wyrmlord but rather also to young Anya here." L began.

"Her? Why you?" Hound asked.

"I am not sure if I have the liberty to say it." I would have said that I did not know but it was possible that lies could be detected by Hound. L ignored the interruption and continued on.

"Our mission is getting her to the seal safely and then retrieving or eliminating Hink, destroying the body production facility, and figuring out how he is getting the kobolds out without opening the seal, in that order. Are we clear?"

We were clear. Clearer than we had any right to be.

We shuffled out of the tent and joined a small crowd that was congregating at the opening of the cordon. Granite saw us and gave an almost imperceptible tilt of his massive head. The plan was simple. Granite was going to send a few groups together to see if they could beat back enough kobolds to retake some of the neighborhood again. They had done it before, hence the knowledge about the seal. I still did not exactly understand how the council knew it was keyed to me but from what I understood, they somehow brute forced their archive of mana signatures until one matched. Anyways, I digress. We would be joining and hiding with these expeditionary groups until we could split off in the heat of battle. It would not keep Kalist off our trail for long but every minute was valuable.

A larger version of the holographic map was floating between Granite and everyone else as he highlighted key chokepoints and places that we had to avoid using too destructive skills in, lest the roof of Middle Gerankir itself risked breaking. A part of my mind moved over to my house and the biomantic experiments I had going on there.

And then Granite stepped speaking and wished all of us luck. It was time. We moved as one tide past the opening. Acrid smoke hit my lungs and I coughed, a wave of hot air almost making me nauseous.

Thanking Quiraion that my skin mask did not blush, I followed L and the group we had attached ourselves to for the moment. Their destination was close enough to Parciv's place that we did not need to split anytime soon. And no one was really interested in splitting and getting picked off one by one. With hot air and smoke scalding our noses, and shoes threatening to boil from the heated roads, we trundled onwards and ahead while the sounds of battle and death surrounded us.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.