He stepped back deeper into the shadows of the trees. "We start by testing the range."

"You think the field has a limit?" Lena asked.

"Everything has a limit," Reidar said. "It's a physical property of the stone. It absorbs mana, but it can't absorb everything infinitely, and it has to have an effective radius."

He needed to know how close he could get his summons before they destabilized. If he could summon right at the gate, he could breach it. If the field extended a hundred meters out, they were stuck with the drainage pipes, and even that was uncertain.

But that was just the first question. There were others.

Did the field extend upward equally? If the Sky-Hunters flew high enough above the walls, they might avoid the dampening effect entirely and drop in from above.

What about patrol patterns? Mapping out when guard changes occurred could reveal windows of reduced vigilance they might exploit.

Were there secondary entry points? Beyond the four main gates and the sewers, there had to be maintenance access, water channels, or damaged sections of wall that might offer infiltration routes.

Did the dampening field affect different summon types differently? Would lower-tier summons be absorbed at different distances than higher-tier ones? Did certain creature types resist the effect better?

Where exactly did the supply lines enter the fortified compound? The essential provisions—food stores, fresh water sources, building materials, and other necessary supplies—all these logistical entry points were typically less heavily fortified and monitored compared to the main military gates that served as primary access points for troops and defensive operations.

And what about the main building itself? Since that was where Silas likely was, understanding its specific protections could reveal whether it had its own dampening measures or vulnerabilities.

Reidar filed the questions away. They would need answers to all of them before they committed to a plan.

"I'm going to send in the Sky-Hunters," Reidar said. "Shrunk down. Let's see how far they get before their mana gets sucked out."

He raised the Void-Caller's Baton. He didn't summon a massive swarm this time. A small cluster of 10 Vorathid Sky-Hunters appeared.

Reidar didn't want to summon more because he didn't want the same situation with Viren to happen again, because this time it would mean they would fail to accomplish their goal for good. Of course, the Sky-Hunters activated the [Size Shift] skill.

The monsters shrank. Their massive wings and armored bodies condensed until they were no larger than common ants. They buzzed, hovering in the air like dust motes.

"Go," Reidar said. "Fly to the wall."

The tiny swarm moved. Reidar closed his eyes, activating [Overmind Consciousness] to see what they saw and to have a better picture of the situation.

The world shifted. The perspective fractured into ten different views, all of them rushing toward the dark stone of Ashwick's walls.

The wind was loud at this size and was also stronger. It was a roaring torrent that would have threatened to blow them off every normal insect course. But they weren't, so they went ahead.

The wall rose before them like a towering cliff of black stone, blocking out the horizon. From Reidar's perspective, it was imposing; from the Sky-Hunters' miniature viewpoint, it seemed to stretch endlessly upward, but their wings gave them the freedom to ascend without limitation.

The Sky-Hunters advanced to within fifty meters of the wall. The mana link remained strong, suggesting the dampening field's reach was more limited than Reidar had expected—a promising discovery.

At Forty meters, it was still stable.

At thirty meters, Reidar started feeling a slight tug, a resistance in the mana flow, like walking through water, and it only increased the more Reidar's summons went toward the walls.

At twenty meters, the resistance intensified. Heavy pressure weighed on the connection, forcing the Sky-Hunter's wings to work harder to maintain flight.

Ten meters.

It was at that moment that the connection snapped, and that Reidar knew he fucked up.

There was no warning. One second, the Sky-Hunters were there; the next, they simply vanished. The mana fueling their existence was ripped away, absorbed by the stone.

Reidar watched as they all hit the same invisible barrier.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

They winked out of existence one by one as they crossed the ten-meter threshold.

Reidar opened his eyes. He took a breath, shaking off the disorientation of the severed connections.

"Ten meters," Reidar said.

Lena looked at him. "Ten meters?"

"The dampening field extends ten meters from the wall," Reidar said. "Anything summoned inside that zone gets unsummoned instantly. The stone sucks the mana dry."

"So we can't summon near the walls, and as we assumed, we can't destroy it," Jake said. "The sewer plan is the only way then."

"Not quite," Reidar said. He studied the gates more carefully. "The walls draw in mana. But the gates themselves are constructed from iron and wood, so they don't. As the Vorathid Sky-Hunters got closer to the walls, I saw the guards using spells in that area."

He pointed to the South Gate.

"The dampening effect is localized to the stone," Reidar said. "It doesn't reach the center of the gate passage. It's too far, which also explains why my Vorathid Foragers had been able to get inside the city when they got here with Silas. They were behind him, and he went in through the gate."

He paused. "Here we have two alternatives: either we attack the gates, alerting everyone, or we go through the sewers. I don't have to explain what happens in the first case, right?"

The others shook their heads.

"So, the best strategy would still be to go through the sewers. At that point we can simply open the gates and summon the monsters right inside the base, far from the walls."

It confirmed his theory. The walls were an impressive defense, but they weren't perfect. They had gaps.

Jake grinned. "I like the sound of that."

"Let's find that drainage pipe," Lena said. "Before a patrol spots us."

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