My footsteps were heavy as I left the palace. Or rather, as I sent out an avatar. My main body remained behind with Scarlet, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Only like this could I truly meet them head on like this.

Once outside, I saw the approaching forces, the smoke rising from the nearby buildings. Chaotic energy rose in the air from the numerous deaths of the martial spirits. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many had survived this slaughter already.

And when I saw them, naturally they saw me as well. Their information network seemed to be pretty useful, as they were able to recognize me at a glance. The armored man standing at the forefront, the one who I first tagged with my mirrors, turned and shouted something towards his people in a language I wasn’t familiar with.

Was it an order to retreat? I couldn’t stop the sneer from forming on my lips as I pointed a finger to the sky. My divinity surged, golden lights flowing upwards from my body and turning into a circle that covered the entire city.

While I was preparing my move, I noticed black and silver energies starting to rise up around the invaders as well. However, this wasn’t to defend or stop me from unleashing my technique. Rather, this energy collapsed on one individual and caused them to vanish. So, they are retreating. Let’s see how many I can convince to stay behind.

“Seal!” I shouted, and the ring of divinity solidified, glass appearing to form within its edges. I watched while more and more of the invaders vanished, but simply continued activating this move.

By the time the glass finished filling the mirror, most of them had already left. For those that remained behind… they disappeared all at once. I smiled coldly up towards the mirror in the sky, where I could see them looking around in confusion. Only fifteen of them…

My body rose up from the ground, sinking into the mirror above to meet my new guests. There was no guarantee that they didn’t have a way out of this prison. Even if they didn’t, there was still the chance that they could activate their private chat system.

The moment that Grayson returned to the guild base, he looked around urgently. “Everyone, report in!”

Names were shouted one after another as the guild members announced their presence. Just as Grayson was beginning to feel relieved, counting the members in his head, the roll call came to an abrupt stop. His eyes went wide as he noted the number of people that didn’t come back.

“Fleece, I need eyes and Margstod and the others!” He walked over towards the drained kitsune urgently, who let out a tired sigh. After pulling a blue vial from her inventory, she downed the potion to recover her strength.

“Okay.” She nodded, moving over towards one of the terminals in the room. This was an item designed to work with her specific skillset, allowing her to project her vision for others to see.

Once she was sat down at the terminal, she typed in the name Margstod, and the screen changed. Fifteen people stood confused on the screen, their eyes roaming around. Meanwhile, another figure emerged in the image, the Keeper that had just chased them away. “Can you pull them out?” The guild leader asked, only for Fleece to shake her head.

Margstod! Grayson called out, trying to reach him over the guild chat. There was a mix of fury and sorrow on his face as he gave the worst of commands. Use the last resort.

Unfortunately, his words didn’t seem to reach them. The area they were in severed their ties with the normal world. Grayson and the others could simply see these fifteen brothers in arms assuming combat stances when they noticed the Keeper.

Quietly, Grayson opened up his own menu, and removed those fifteen individuals from the guild. If, somehow, they managed to escape with their own power, he would welcome them back happily. But unless that happened, there was simply too great of a risk.

Among the fifteen, one of them seemed to realize what he had to do. Emotionally, he opened his menu, his lips moving without words coming out. And then, with tears streaming down his face, he collapsed to the ground.

The last resort was a skill which was required for everyone to know before entering a wild dungeon. In a situation where capture or death was imminent, they would use this skill to destroy both their souls and their brains.

Without their souls, there was no level of resurrection magic that could bring them back. And without their brains, even the most advanced technology could not search their memories. It was the suicide button that everyone had prepared, in order to prevent information from leaking.

With the first as a catalyst, the others similarly began to navigate through their menus. It was clear that they realized that they had no power to fight or escape, so they wished to do the only thing that they were capable of. However, the Keeper similarly caught their actions.

Grayson and the others could see the Keeper’s eyes narrowing, and he charged forward. In a flash, he was already in front of the group. Perhaps because they were already in a mirror, he did not call any other mirrors to fight, relying purely on hand-to-hand combat. Each strike seemed fatal, as it left the person falling to the ground in a heap.

Grayson let out a long sigh, placing his hand on Fleece’s shoulder. Of the fifteen, only four managed to activate their self-destruct skill before the Keeper got to them. “That’s enough. We have to get moving.”

Turning around, he called out to everyone that was left. “As of this moment, we have to consider this base as compromised. We will immediately move towards the second location. Sorry, Blaque…”

The blacksmith shook his head, not finding the strength to complain. “I’ll start the self-destruct, to make sure nothing’s left behind.” Grayson gave him a grateful nod at that, while the others all moved towards the teleporters.

My eyes focused on the corpses before me, a slight smile tugging at my lips. If I could get Jonas over here, there was the chance that he could add some of these guys to his community. However, that also opened him up to a possible infiltration, depending on what skills they had.

And that reason itself is why I had done what I did, killing them with my bare hands. Fourteen of the corpses in front of me shattered like glass, while I picked the last one up to carry. Tsubaki, do we have a room with fourth-tier anti-detection magic?

We have several, my Keeper. Would you like the dungeons, or a more comfortable private chamber? Tsubaki’s reply was as prompt as ever, something that I was thankful for as I left my mirror, taking this invader back with me to the palace. Inside, my main body was still standing with Scarlet, whose eyes burned with fury at the sight of the person draped over my shoulder.

Something more comfortable. I gave a nod at that, before my eyes found Scarlet’s. “It’s okay. I’ve already taken care of it. Sorry, but… I need you to come back with me now. As long as you’re alive, you can rebuild your kingdom, but I can’t risk them getting to you.”

Scarlet’s breath seemed to catch for a moment, her eyes growing wet. “I… I understand, father. However, please promise me that you will let me take to the field when the time comes. Blood must be met with blood.”

I gave a nod, readily agreeing. Meanwhile, I shifted both myself and Scarlet back to the citadel, taking my little ‘package’ to the area Tsubaki prepared for me. Sure enough, it was a large bedroom, well decorated with red silk.

Moving over towards the bed, I unceremoniously dropped the invader off to the side, letting him land on the mattress. His body bounced limply, while I stared at him with a small smirk. “You can stop pretending, now.”

My words were like a trigger, causing him to gasp and open his eyes. When he looked at me, it was not a look of hatred, but one of loyalty. “Sorry, boss. Had to keep up appearances.”

This was a modified version of my Battle Illusion, the Betrayal Illusion. At the moment that I created his ‘illusion of life’, I made changes to his personality such that he believed himself to be working for me. That was why I needed this shielded room. Not to extract his soul and torture the information out of it. Rather, I wanted to simply ask the man some questions.

“What is your class?” Knowing that Sanction’s world had game laws to it, it was obvious that they would similarly have classes as well.

“Me? I’m a Code Mage.” The man said proudly, slowly sitting up on the bed and stretching. “It lets me use advanced scripts like enchanting items or opening teleport gates.”

I couldn’t help but furrow my brow at that. While I was sure that code magic was a thing, the name of the class which used it should have simply been that world’s version of a mage. I didn’t remember seeing any class called ‘Code Mage’ when I last looked through the options.

“Tell me how classes work in your world.”

That one caused him to fall into deeper thought, considering how to explain it. “Well, when you turn thirteen, you are able to go to the Class Office, right? They take you back and have you place your hand on the Class Orb, and you make your vow. That vow becomes your class. Me, my vow was ‘to be the best magic programmer in the world’. So, I got the Code Mage class.”

“You get customized classes, just like that?” I opened my eyes wide in surprise, before shaking my head. “What about your class skills? Do they match other mage-type classes?”

“Oh! You mean our skill trees?” The mage smiled towards me. “Well, there are a ton of different skill trees. Each class starts out with a few that match their vow. I had script magic, magic control, and magic power. If your class focused on the magic of a special dungeon, you could get that dungeon’s magic skill tree instead.”

There it is! I smiled, nodding my head. That was what I needed to know. Sanction didn’t use a set list of classes. Instead, it was a skill-based system. The ‘class’ was just a set of specialized skills that a person had access to more easily. “How hard is it for you to learn skills outside of your class?”

“Hmm… not really, I guess?” The man scratched the back of his head. “As long as you have the skill coins, and are either in a good guild or do a bit of self-study, you can unlock a skill tree easily enough. Like, I have four different magic types I can use, but I only really focus on scripts.”

I gave a small nod at that, satisfied with his answers so far. I’d be keeping this one around for a while, so that I could get as much information as I needed on his world. No doubt the Gilded Branch would be quite interested in what he had to tell me.

“Next question… where are the rest of your people?” Aside from how their skills worked, this was my most important question. If I could find their base of operations, I could form a group to storm it and end this invasion.

“Ah… that one’s going to be a bit of a problem, boss.” The man chuckled dryly. “They already kicked me out of the guild when we ‘fought’ earlier. The base I know should be gone by now, and I don’t have the option to warp to the new one. You see, we have a couple dozen instanced bases set up all over. Kind of like hand-crafted mini-dungeons.”

“But, aside from the craftsmen that made them, everyone only knows the physical location of the active base. Grayson was really stingy with that kinda information, to prevent it from being leaked. If they haven’t destroyed the base yet, it will have a teleporter to take you to the next in line, but I doubt they would have left that behind.”

I couldn’t help but click my tongue at that. So, it’ll be small skirmishes like this for a while, then? Next time, I’ll have to open up with a faster attack, now that I don’t need an informant.