Aaron's active perception skill caused the region to have a slightly greater saturation of Arcane Energy. One of the approaching people, a female Wind Elementalist, detected it and pushed Aaron's energy away from them, creating a blind spot in his active perception. Aaron could still locate them by feeling the void her ability left, but he wouldn't be able to feel the people themselves.

It was too late though. He already knew their power and the danger they presented.

He recognized them from the king's description: they were the elite who had detached from the imperial troops coming to "purge" Illyria. They were missing one Five Star Cultivator, but everything else matched.

"Lana," he said with a soft tone, "you look stunning, and I was looking forward to going on a date with you. There are many things I want to talk to you about, and I had everything planned on how and when to say them. However, I just felt possible hostiles approaching, and I can't risk losing you. You're too important for me, both as my maid and as a potential partner. So, I'll just use the unpleasant situation to better explain to you what the words I meant to say are all about."

She looked confused, so he caressed her head for comfort. "Dating a man like me is no easy feat for your heart. I have many goals to achieve and many enemies to deal with. If we start dating, you'll have to get used to our romantic escapades being postponed or canceled. I don't like it either. Alas, today is such a day. Think about how you feel about it and be realistic to yourself about whether you want to stay with me when it means constantly feeling like that."

He cut his link to the innermost spatial ring in his "chain" of rings and gave it to her. "There are armor, bows, crossbows, arrows, and bolts in here. Go back to the tower and give it to Alys. You two are to clad yourselves in armor. You, personally, must stay on the sixth floor. Alys must stay on the fifth floor, where she is to fight weak opposition. If she can't deal with them, she's to escape to the sixth floor too. External energy won't work in there, so you two will have to fight using the ranged weapons in the ring."

Lana teared up but bit her lower lip and nodded. "Okay," she whispered meekly.

He smiled slightly and kissed her forehead. "Go."

She complied. He waited for her to get into the tower, then for the potential attackers to get close enough to see him, before making his carriage turn tail and run at fast speed through the city.

They only hesitated for a moment before increasing their speed and following him. He smiled and used a skill to make his cultivation look like Four Star Qi Manipulation. No one should know he had leveled up yet, and being underestimated had many benefits in a fight. He didn't know if the system's Check Level skill would foil his attempt, but there was no harm in trying.

Aaron kept an "escaping" pace that would allow them to see him enter his store. When he arrived, he stored his carriage in his ring just in case they were asses that would destroy anything they saw, then went to the second of the three-floor building.

Earlier that day, he had set up a formation to reinforce the building. That was meant to control the influx of enemies. It wasn't very strong and would bulk from a single attack from even a mere Four Star cultivator, but this single second could be the difference between getting overwhelmed from all sides or not. Or between an enemy escaping him or not, depending on how the fight went.

The sound-canceling formation was there just for the neighbors' advantage. It just wouldn't do to have his fight annoy them for no reason.

He had declared his tower would obey the rules of his clan, and the same held for any place he owned. Cultivators required meditation to ponder on the mysteries of the universe, and the rules demanded everyone to not go beyond a certain amount of noise. Sometimes, an interruption could cost a cultivator's entire future. The rule wasn't perfect, of course, as one could never predict when a fight would start in a public place — which was also against the rules — but he had seen it help uncountable times.

After reaching the second floor, Aaron stood in the middle of it, put his hands behind his back, and waited for his guests to arrive.

"Target acquired," Eyes informed. "Second floor, alone, expecting company. Location is hot."

All Hounds were Five Star cultivators, and Eyes was a Wind Elementalist. She handled scouting and comms. One of her fifth-grade skills, whispers on the wind, allowed them to talk to each other without being heard by the enemy as if they were whispering beside one another.

The Garrison Commander, who was called Chief during ops, was also using his own spatial filling, a fifth-grade skill, to feel everything in the building before them. He could detect both the Herald of Light and the potentially dangerous formations inside. He wasn't a specialized scout like her though and would defer to her report if she said something contrary to what he felt, despite him being a Champion Shaper himself.

"Two distinct patterns in multiple locations," Patts clarified to the other Hounds why the location had been classified as "hot." She was the only other female in the team, an Arcanist and Patterner. "One pattern is soundproofing the walls. The other is harder to analyze. Refined work, gold rank at least."

Tac, the second-in-command, whistled at that news. Even Chief couldn't help but ask, "The second formation is gold rank? Are you positive?"

"Both patterns are gold, Chief," she said, emphasizing the word "patterns." Some Patterners were elitists and couldn't stand to hear patterns being called anything else. "I saw a similar soundproofing pattern once, so I could quickly identify the first one. They are better than any gold pattern I ever saw though. The only reason I don't rate them platinum is that I never saw a platinum pattern, so I'm not sure."

The Patterners Guild used the same classification for their formations as the Imperial Mercenary Guild used for their people. First came wood, then iron, bronze, silver, gold, and, finally, platinum. Consequently, whoever could produce a formation of a certain rank became a Patterner of said rank. The empire had only a single platinum rank Patterner, the Imperial Celestial Designer. Patts was at the silver rank herself and took great pride in having reached such a level back when she was still only a Four Star Arcanist.

"Now, please keep quiet so I can decipher the second pattern," she said.

Being called out like that annoyed Chief, but he reckoned she was right and let it go.

About two hours later, she spoke again. "I understand it, Chief. And by the gods, this is incredible! Fascinating, simply fascinating! I never knew you could design a pattern like this! I'm confident the second pattern is reinforcing the walls. But more than that... Chief, how familiar are you with the process used to determine a pattern's rank?"

"Not familiar at all," he admitted. "I only know that higher-ranked ones are more complex."

He was an officer, and one of the first things they taught in officer school was that no officer knew everything. They were supposed to specialize in something then find the right people to cover for their shortcomings. Delegating was more efficient than shouldering everything. Safer and cheaper too, as they usually failed when they tried to do everything themselves.

"There are many factors involved in pattern classification, but the one that matters here is the functional rating. Functional rating is further divided into symbol complexity and design efficiency. The symbols in both patterns are more refined than what I'm used to, clearer and simpler without losing meaning, and the second pattern's efficiency...

"Imagine you have to link two points to make a pattern work. If I consider the second pattern's design to be a string going straight from the first point to the second one, then every other design I have ever seen would be a pigtail going around in circles upon circles before linking the points. I..."

She hesitated for a moment, but then found her courage. "Chief, I know this mission is important; you said it came from someone at the top. But there's a chance we're in front of a platinum rank pattern. If I'm right, it's priceless. I must insist you don't damage the walls. I must also invoke the National Crisis Clause to abandon this mission and deliver news of these patterns to the guild. They must send a gold rank patterner to analyze it and determine if I'm right. If I am, this means—"

"I know what it means," he cut her off.

If an unaffiliated Platinum Rank Patterner were hiding in the fringes of the empire, his potential danger would be much higher than that of a mere Four Star Qi Manipulator like the Herald of Light. Sending them all to kill a Qi Manipulator was overkill, to begin with, and they could do without Patts, whose fighting power was the worst of the lot. She was almost exclusively a pattern analyst on the team.

Not to mention he had three Five Star Entropomancers in the group, and they were from Imperial Ducal Houses too. Their power was enough to crush this entire kingdom alone.

"Are you sure there no other formations in there? Nothing hidden?" he asked.

"If there's really a platinum ranker behind this, they might be able to hide some patterns from me, sir. But if that's the case, I won't feel anything until they activate anyway. All I know is that I can't feel anything else now."

"Very well, you may leave." She did so at once. "You heard her, we can't destroy the building, so I'm thinking a cautious assault on the first floor followed by a blitz of the second floor. Standard attack formation until we have more information on the enemy. Any thoughts?"

"Sounds solid to me, sir," said Tac, who was also their tactical advisor.

"Let's go, then. We have a Herald of Light to kill."

They entered the first floor with enormous care. They weren't attacked, and there wasn't much place for the target to hide either, as the place was bare of furniture. Moreover, Chief's spatial filling was still telling him the target was on the second floor, and Eyes would've told them if the target had moved.

Still, they checked the entire first floor for traps, then got in position before the only stairs leading upwards. Def, a Vitamancer specialized in healing his own body, would've been their point man if he hadn't died in the damned caves. Pot was also a Vitamancer, but he specialized in healing others and couldn't take much of a beating. That left Bolder, an Earth Elementalist who focused on protecting the weak elements of the team, himself included.

"Three... Two... One..." the Chief counted. "Go!"

Bolder rushed upwards, closely followed by the others. The commander was the third to climb the stairs and when he reached the second floor, the floor and ceiling — which were made of stone — had already been manipulated by Bolder to become pillars and walls of different sizes around the target. The changes would both protect the team from the herald's attacks and act as a trap of sorts. If the target tried to protect himself from an attack by using the changed terrain, Bolder would simply remove the protection, causing the target to be hit regardless.

When the commander first laid his eyes on Aaron Ironblood, back in the rime rewind in the cave, he had been unimpressed. What he saw now didn't change his opinion. The man wore clothes one might see being worn by a common Rogue in the streets, none of his equipment was enchanted, and his physique was mediocre for a Qi Manipulator.

He had killed a Mouth-Man, yes, but he had forced the single beast to fight under his own terms. Now, he would be fighting on the Hounds' terms. He was surrounded and outnumbered by people strong than him, there was nothing he could do.

'Check Level,' he thought, as protocol dictated, and was satisfied that intel had been good. He was indeed a Four Star Qi Manipulator.

Yet, his training didn't allow him to underestimate the man by taking things slow. Having been manipulated into a disadvantageous position or not, the Mouth-Man had still been an Entropomancer. A swift kill would be the best for everyone.

So, the commander focused and activated his strongest skill. "Spatial breach!" he yelled, so his team could look away, and closed his own eyes.

The Champion level wasn't named differently for aesthetical reasons. There was a vast gap between a Champion and a Five Star Cultivator, and it was especially clear when dealing with the two strongest elements, Time and Space.

Space Energy poured out of his energy core, not through its walls, but through reality. One moment, it was inside his core, the other, right where the target was. And another instant later, it became a terrible skill that torn asunder the walls of spacetime for a split second, almost too quick for the mind to register.

It was still too long though. Watching a non-place that not-existed outside the boundaries of spacetime could break the mind of onlookers. He had done so the first time he used the skill, and it had taken him two years to recover.

Only Entropomancer or Shapers stronger than the caster could resist such skill. Or Devouts, if they used one of their special skills.

The target, despite being the Herald of Light, wasn't a Devout.

Instead, he was dead.

Or he should be. When Chief opened his eyes again, he didn't see a terribly deformed corpse. He saw nothing, as if he had used the skill on empty air.

"You showed that illusion who's the boss!" a merry voice said from behind them.

They all turned back at once and there stood the Herald of Light wearing an expensive suit and holding Patt's head in his hands. The herald man followed the team's line of sight and it let him to her head. He raised it.

"Oh, that." He threw it on the ground between them. "I couldn't have her telling people how great of a formation master I am. How else would my enemies keep sending losers like you after me?"

He smiled in what many would consider a creepy smile, but the commander had killed plenty of boastful men in his life. He wouldn't be off-put by such a display.

"Third variation! Attack!" he ordered.

The battle was on.