“Can any of you open space gates?” Xendus asked the group, obviously not referring to the fire magic students.

“I can” Reylor raised his hand, “but I don’t have much mana left, so wherever we’re going, we’ll have to jump through the gate quickly.

After explaining that Queen would take the students back (and provide some psychological care); Xendus directed Reylor to open the space gate at a particular location.

“Wrrrr”

The space gate opened, and everyone rushed inside. The other side of the spatial gate was the inside of a house. The gate closed as Reylor stepped out of it. At this point, Xendus performed a couple quick hand seals, and Reylor abruptly fainted. This eliciting gasps from the feminine part of the group, while Khes and Flint just stood there in confusion.

“Don’t worry guys, he is fine and I mean no harm. It’s just that this is a secret place, and I had to tell him where it was for us to get here. I just used a technique to erase his short-term memory. He’ll be fine when he wakes up.”

After recovering from that certain turn of events Rose knelt down by the couch where Xendus laid Reylor, and looked at him with questioning eyes. “Who is this man, who suddenly came to our aid, and protected our little school with his life? And why would he do that? It almost even cost him his life!” She also felt gratitude towards the rest of Reylor’s group, along with Xendus and Queen, but she especially wanted to thank him.

“Why is everyone acting so weird?” Aileen thought aloud, with a confused expression.

“I don’t know either.” Elany replied, before pausing for a moment. “Oh! It’s the rings, it’s the rings!” She nearly shouted out. “Everyone, take off your rings! Uncle Brent’s a good guy, he won’t hurt us.”

Hearing the name “Brent,” Xendus snapped his head around to look at Elany just as she slipped her ring off.

“Elany?!” He gasped out, before reaching his arms out to embrace her. “Elany, I was worried about you guys!”

“Don’t worry, Uncle Brent, we’re fine,” She said, as a warm feeling rose up in her chest.

“Then does that mean this man is—,” “Yep, you just knocked out Reylor,” Elany said with a giggle.

Meanwhile; Khes, Flint, and Aileen had taken off their rings, and Khes went to take off Reylor’s.

“Huu?” “Reylor?!?!”

Lucy inadvertently stood up and back up a bit as yet another look of shock ran across her face. Then her face turned red. “I-I-I did that to Reylor?” At first she was quite embarrassed, considering that direct mana transfer can be quite an intimate thing, but at the same time her heart felt very warm inside. “Reylor. I left you just like that, after promising to travel with you. Yet, you still came back to find me, and put yourself on the line to save me and my students despite what I had done to you.”

“Ya know, he might be handsome and all, but it’s best to take things slow at first,” Eric called out with a smirk.

She quickly turned around to see who had made the comment, as her face began to resemble her alias even more closely. “You guys,” she said with a sweet trembling voice. Tears slid down her cheeks as she took a closer look at the rest of the people who had pitched in to save her and her students. They were happy tears, of course.

*** *** ***

A few hours later Reylor woke up. After being warmly hugged/thanked/apologized to by Lucy, Xendus got down to business.

“Do you guys know what was going on there?” Silence

“As I’m sure you might have guessed, those were Vilnor soldiers. Catching wind of developments in Shildwell territory, Orvan ordered an attack on the instructor. He’s a nervous type, and is afraid of anyone related to the Shildwells rising back up to seek revenge on his own head, specifically. There was another reason he was scared. It seems some sort of fire mage has laid waste to the properties of several of his vassals.”

He glanced at Lucy with a smile. “But don’t worry about it too much. Things are about to change, Miss Shildwell.” Her eyes grew wide. “Don’t be so surprised. Or rather, be careful of auramancers. Shildwell auras are quite easy to distinguish from others. Your magical essence camouflage is nigh perfect, but your aura feels like an inferno—as did that of any other Shildwell I’ve met in the past.

“Now, as to why I said not to worry too much, we are about to start making waves in Vilnor. They won’t have the time to worry about you, Hahaha!”

“Wrrr” A spatial gate opened, as Queen stepped through.

“Rey—?”

“Miss Queen!” Her confusion was given not time to sort itself out as a pure bundle of joy slammed herself into Queen’s arms.

“Elany? Elany!” Her cool facade was broken for a moment, as she found herself unable to withhold the joy of seeing Elany safe after all the things that had transpired at Splendor.

“Then the Archaic spell?” Having regained most of her composure, she took a look at Reylor.”

Xendus shook his head. “I don’t understand how he can do it either, but I wasn’t lying about what happened at the academy.”

“Reylor, can you use divine magic?”

“Huh?” Several heads turned at the same time. The use of Divine magic was a God-like ability. Unlike nearly any other type of magic, divine was a compound type. It required high affinity with not only holy, but also void and light magic. Only a pure genius would have high affinity in three different elements. Then it was nearly unheard of for the three a genius possessed to be the very ones necessary to use divine magic.

“Hmm.” Probably, though I have not tried.

“Try combining light, void, and holy magic together.” Xendus prodded.

“Whoosh” Magical essence combined to form a ball of glowing white energy. It felt very pure, and made one to feel more energetic in a way, but also intimidated. It also felt sharp, as opposed to the soft feeling that holy magic would emit.

“Woah.” Elany breathed out. Everyone else appeared dumbstruck, except for Queen and Xendus. Queen was still a bit surprised, herself, however.

Xendus cracked a smile. “What would you think of giving your old teacher a hand in a few days?”

“What are you up now?” Reylor asked with a smile as he dispersed the ball of magic.

“In one week, we are going to turn Vilnor upside down. Orvan has called a kingdom-wide meeting with all the major powers in his Empire. It would be very helpful if you could help us out with a small part of the ceremonies.” Xendus let out a devilish grin as he handed a scroll to Reylor.

Reylor opened it, releasing a pulse of divine energy and revealing the drawing of a glowing magic circle, and nothing else.

“How by the gods... Where the heck do you get that?” Lucy asked, as she took a step back, trembling slightly.

What is it? Elany asked.

“The Angelic Elegy or rather, the method for casting it.”

“The heck?” Flint said, also taking a step back. The rest of Reylor’s group also stepped back a bit, though only because of what they saw on the faces of Flint and Lucy.

“That is correct,” Xendus replied. “This is the method for casing Angelic Elegy, the only known divine domain in existence. In the past it was used by a magician to single-handedly annihilate every living person in an entire kingdom—all at one time, which I am sure is what Flint and Miss Shildwell are thinking about.”

“It’s Lucy, Uncle Brent,” Elany said while holding onto his arm.

Brent nodded then continued. “However, annihilation is not the use I have in mind for this spell. First of all, using a spell that large would likely kill the caster, as it did in the case of the man who destroyed the kingdom. Also, our aim is not to kill, but to liberate, even though some deaths will be necessary. This spell can indeed cause massive amounts of damage, but it doesn’t necessarily have to. The effect I am looking for is the ability to suppress combat magic.”

“Like the Alteroy Kingdom?” Khes asked.

“Yes, exactly. There was a kingdom ruled by a practitioner of divine magic. Being a man who desired peace, he developed a mechanism that was able to continuously cast a domain over his capital city. This domain inhibited the use of all forms of combat magic except for divine magic. Of course, he was the only one able to use divine magic, so this was a way of protecting himself, as well as placing the common people in the capital city on an even playing field with those who could use magic. This led to the city being considered one of the most impartial cities in the world at that time.”

“So, you want to suppress magic, then what?” Eric asked with a bit of hesitation.

“We’ll utilize our next secret weapon.” Xendus grabbed something out of a sack, placed his fist forward, and opened his hand.”

Silence

“Wow, that’s a lot of spirit magic,” Eric stated, while everyone was curiously staring at the small stones in Xendus’s hand. “Let’s just say, I pulled a few strings to get some help from a few spiritual practitioners to get these.”

“W-what?” This time it was Queen who reacted, though she quickly regained her expressionless appearance. You went to the elves? How the heck did you manage that? I almost got killed last time I went to their forest.

Xendus smirked. “A friend had some favors to repay.” The he continued with the main topic.

“These are spiritual projection stones. Using spiritual energy, my friends were able to record some questionable acts committed in the palace—particularly between Orvan and some Hemlock cronies.”

“Hemlock?” Flint blurted out. “What has Hemlock to do with the emperor?”

“Do you remember when a staff member was attacked at Votran?” Xendus asked.

“Yeah, it was Helen, right?”

“Yep, that’s the one. Do you know why she was attacked?”

Silence

“While we can’t say for sure, we have reason to believe it is because she originated from the Shildwell Empire. With the economy obliterated because of the war, she moved to the empire to find decent work, eventually ending up at Votran. We believe Orvan, the nervous man he is, wants to uproot every sing potential root for rebellion, and so this included Helen, because she was from the Shildwell Empire. Now naturally, the Headmaster would not stand for this, and the losing his loyalty would strike a major blow to his military power, so he chose to outsource the operation to Hemlock.”

“So you plan to restrict magic so you can use the stones to reveal the sins of Orvan in the safety of the domain?” Eric asked.

“Yes, exactly.”

“But won’t that just make us sitting ducks?” Aileen asked.

“Nope, silly girl.” He replied with a glint in his eye, and proceeded to ruffle her hair.

“Hey!” She quickly backed away in embarrassment. She was not prepared to be treated so familiarly by this stranger.

“Elany didn’t tell you about her Uncle?”

Eric chuckled, as Aileen shook her head.

Xendus slipped his shirt off, causing the already red-face Aileen to become even redder. “Girl, stop blushing and look at the marks on my skin, hahaha!”

Aileen, who had now partially backed behind Eric, stepped out a bit, this time focusing on the inscriptions on his skin.

“You have heard of auramancers, haven’t you?”

Aileen looked up “You’re an auramancer?”

“Aileen, he’s a grand auramancer,” Eric replied in Xendus’s stead.

“Oh.” She then just stood there, looking at the runes with a dumbfounded expression. Khes was surprised as well, though everyone else in the room already knew from witnessing the earlier fight.

“So no, we are not sitting ducks, considering the domain does not apply to aura techniques. And besides, if your brother agrees to help, I’m pretty sure he could hold his own, as well.”

Aileen couldn’t help but smile at that, as she leaned into Eric.

“So, think you can do it, Reylor?” Xendus asked, returning focus back to Reylor.

“Yes, I can,” he said as he handed the scroll back.

“For Splendor, this debt will be settled with blood”