Back when Lith had first acquired his second life force, he had joked about slaughtering people and pinning the blame on a black scaled monster. He had never expected for a day to come when he would turn the joke into reality.
Lith flew towards the commercial district. He needed an isolated zone for his ambush, to have as few witnesses as possible. He couldn’t afford to raise rumors about a demonic being appearing in the same city he was.
His nature as a hybrid was a double edged sword. It gave him an advantage against most human enemies, but it had to remain secret at all costs. It was necessary not only for it to keep being an effective weapon, but also as a matter of survival.
Lith doubted that liches like Inxialot or even the human Council of the Awakened would leave him alone if they knew about the existence of a new power. He was certain of it because it was what he would have done.
He picked the warehouse district for his plan. That late at night, with the snowstorm still ongoing, there was no one else but the night watch around. Lith took the enchanted dagger out of his pocket dimension, collected all the venom still coating it, and then he hid as far as he could before dropping it in an open space between buildings.
‘I hate fair fights.’ Lith thought.
‘Against any other enemy, I would leave Solus to stand guard on the dagger and ambush them. Too bad I only have one cloaking ring. If I keep it, then those two would discover her existence, and if I give it to her, my blue core would be like a goddamn sun to their Life Vision.
‘If I’m right about the tracking spell, the only thing I can do is to remain close enough to the blade to spot the assassin, but far enough from it to be mistaken for a guard. As long as I wear Orion’s ring, I look like an inconspicuous yellow cored individual.’
‘What about me? I can’t take my gauntlet form. It would give your identity away and defy the purpose of this charade.’ Solus asked when she noticed that Lith was casting only a few spells.
There was a limit to the number of spells one could keep at the ready. Each one of them would exert mental pressure on the mage, wearing down their focus and willpower. They had no idea how long they would have to wait.
Mindlessly going all out meant getting tired even before conjuring their first attack.
‘Save your strength and cast spells only when we have a grasp on the situation. Try not to draw attention to yourself.’ Lith replied. The wait turned out to be so long that Lith had to dispel even the few spells he had prepared.
He kept moving around the warehouses, following the pattern of the guards for more than an hour before something happened.
‘A red core is flying fast toward the dagger.’ Solus warned him.
‘He didn’t rush in, but bid his time and watched from afar instead.’ Lith thought.
‘Clearly he has been trained well, but flying while wearing a cloaking spell is a blunder. There’s no way a red core could fly. Either he got impatient or training aside he is a moron.’
‘Or maybe it’s a trap to lure you into the open.’ Solus pointed out.
‘If you’re right, it’s naïve and poorly executed. If he walked, I could have mistaken him for a guard until it was too late, whereas by flying he made an easy target of himself.’
‘Unless he is the bait and his companion is the hunter.’ Solus couldn’t believe the levels of paranoia she had reached. It seemed that bad habits did indeed rub off.
Like Lith had predicted, the enchanted dagger had a tracking device. It alerted Kieran the moment it left the pocket dimension. The assassin had reached the warehouse district as fast as he could, smelling the trap from miles away.
His problem was that even though he knew there was a trap, he couldn’t find it. There wasn’t anything magical near his dagger, no array surrounding the area, and only weak ass cored humans patrolled the area.
Whenever he spotted a yellow cored human, Kieran checked his energy signature to be sure it wasn’t the Ranger, but even after more than an hour, the area was still quiet.
‘Damn! He can’t have dropped my blade here without a reason. I waited for so long that now I have no time left. If I don’t imprint the Reaver every two hours or store it in a dimensional item it explodes!
‘That stupid master of mine is so afraid of others stealing her secrets that her safety measures border insanity.’ He thought.
To make matters worse, only Deraniel had accompanied him to retrieve the lost dagger. The other members of the group blamed him for his solo stunt and aside from laughing at his expense, they did nothing to help.
Even Deraniel would have given him the finger rather than a hand if not for their masters being good friends. He was following Kieran from a distance thanks to his surveillance mirror, ready to Warp to his side if the necessity arose.
It was an enchanted item that allowed him to see everything in the vicinity of its transmitter, a small pin that Kieran wore under his cloaking garb. As the assassin was about to reach his blade, the Reaver, Lith took out a wand from his pocket dimension.
Then, he broke it in half before tossing it inside a Warp Steps leading directly beside the enchanted weapon together with a Hush spell. Although it produced no sound, the following explosion sent the Reaver flying against his owner.
The sudden flash blinded both Deraniel and Keiran, so neither of them could see a second Warp Steps opening above the assassin’s head, nor Lith emerging from it. The rapier in his hand lunged at Kieran’s right arm, yet he reacted by infusing himself with air magic and managed to avoid the strike despite being blind.
The black scales covering Lith’s mouth opened as he breathed a stream of Origin Flames against the enemy. The blue fire ate at the black garb, revealing several overlapping auras.
The cloaking aura was the first to fall, allowing Solus to distinguish its pseudo core.
‘Okay. This guy has a bright cyan core, a physical prowess slightly inferior to yours, and the dagger stuck in his chest.’ She inwardly smirked, glad to have left enough venom on the Reaver in case something like that happened.
‘His armor has a defensive barrier, a clocking aura, and something that reminds me of Full Guard. They were arranged so that the cloaking function covered them all.’
‘Lucky bastard!’ They thought in unison.
Full Guard was one of the most useful spells a Mage Knight had. It created a spherical blue aura with a radius of 1.65 meters (5.41 feet) around the caster.
Thanks to Full Guard, a Mage Knight had no blind spots. Whatever entered the sphere would be detected, allowing them to counter attack and dodge with surgical precision without even looking.
‘That’s how he reacted so promptly to my Blink, earlier. Full Guard’s biggest downside is that it turns you into a neon sign, but the cloaking aura solved the issue. I need to get my hands on that thing!’
