As the saying goes, the enemy waits on no one, and its one’s duty to be prepared at all times.

After their escapade in the sheets, Lutius and Rose fell asleep in each other’s arms, completely forgetting all the worries they had. If this was any other prince, perhaps tonight’s sleep would’ve been his last but thankfully, Lutius had an eye that never sleeps called, Trixie. One thing Lutius would learn after tonight is that some orders given to Trixie, would become a sort of passive ability, and in this instance, it was the order Lutius gave her of warning him whenever someone stronger than him appears.

[ Host, an unidentified person who is ahead of you in realm is rapidly closing in on this location. He has now reached the outer hall leading to the main door. Host, please be advised of the potential danger!]

As soon as Trix’s warning was registered in his mind, Lutius awoke and immediately created a commotion to gather the attention of the guards.

“Order. Judgement!” he shouted as a golden scale which represents the element of order, appeared casting a golden light which enveloped the entire infrastructure. Judgement was a Tier 3 spell, one level above Lutius’ realm, thus it used up all of his spiritual essence greatly weakening him. The benefit, however, was that the spell can be classed as a grand spell within the tier 3 category, thus leading to the extremely wide aoe light effect even though it is a single target spell.

Following the bright flash of light. Several warning notifications came from Trixie.

[ Host has undertaken damage from using all of his SE (spiritual essence) at once.]

[ Host is recommended to seek help and make recuperation the priority.]

[ Multiple people with strength greatly surpassing host’s is arriving at this location.]

[ 10 different spiritual essence’s, recognised belonging to Eobard and the Nightingales.]

“Lutius, what’s going on. Who is fighting at this hour? Oh my god, Lutius what’s wrong why are you so pale!” Rose, awakened by the commotion, burst out in worry after seeing the condition Lutius was in due to the SE depletion.

“I’m alright, just need to rest for a bit, someone attempted to attack us just now and I used all of my SE to cast a Tier 3 grand spell. Chief Eobard and his team have already…come,” and with that, Lutius fainted… again, after mumbling with great strain, trying to ease Rose’s worries.

“Princess Rose! Your Highness! Are you alright!?” Eobard’s loud voice shook Rose out of her stupor and she quickly ran to the door.

“Eobard, its Lutius, he fainted after casting that spell, he said it was SE depletion but he is so pale and cold and he said…” Rose erratically muttered about trying to explain Lutius’ predicament but was unable to form coherent sentences at the moment, after all, the realisation set in that she almost died, just a few hours after getting married. By this time thankfully, the whole Capital was aware of what happened and Lutius’ father rushed to the scene together with his mother and the soldiers of the castle. Queen Alexis quickly hugged Rose and proceeded to calm her down whilst carrying her away from the scene, whilst King Luther quickly ran to his son to check on his condition. Amongst the Nightingales belonging to Eobard, the few who knew basic healing spells came forward and administered an emergency recuperation spell which sent in a minute amount of pure uncontaminated SE in Lutius’ body so it’s natural healing abilities can kick start. This was because SE was a second form of blood in this world. Without blood in the veins, the body would die, and without SE within the meridians the soul would die. Also, to since the nightingales are primarily a one shot one kill type of attack force, the knowledge of any spells not combat oriented was almost not present. After a few minutes, the doctors arrived on scene and proceeded to inject a steady supply of Pure SE into Lutius’ body and casted a variety of different healing spells, such as light-calm-mind, which eased the mental stress, light-cure-wounds, which healed the sore and swollen meridians, light-soul-stability, which reinforced the soul and ensured that nothing unforeseen would take place. Thus, the assurance from the doctors, of Lutius’ not having to face any serious setbacks other than spending a couple weeks recuperating, eased the minds of those around and the immediate area became a lot calmer.

However elsewhere, was an entirely different situation. Minutes before the King had even reached the scene an order was passed. The entire kingdom was put on lockdown, as this proved that the assailant might have accomplices which may still be present within the Kingdom’s borders. Each boundary was heavily lock down with a single-entry and exit point being a gate for carriages and a single concrete door where anyone entering or exiting must pass after being thoroughly searched. The order for the closure of all teleportation gates, passed and carried out immediately. The mercenaries who were currently under employment of the Whitstar Kingdom’s Guild, were deployed to patrol the outer borders of the nation and carry message to all villages outside the ‘third boundary’. The King was determined to catch the spies which managed to slip through their security measures and send a message to whoever sent them, but as we all know, when there is a chance for something to get worse, it usually does.

One of the main tenets of a great assassin is the ability to hide. Not just his presence, but also his weapons, artifacts, spare clothing, any documents that was stolen or needed to be planted, potions, poisons, etc, etc. To facilitate this, most assassins equipped themselves with a space ring which is a bit different from a storage ring which almost everyone has. The space element is not one which is accessible in the form of natural SE, however it is a hybrid of the four natural elements, earth, water, fire and air. When sorcerers of all four natural elements come together and compress their Pure SE, they are able to interfere with the fabric of reality and distort and control space. A storage ring utilises the space element to create a vacuum or a pocket connected to the ring, thus leading its usage to be limited to storing inanimate objects. On the other hand, a space ring is created by using the space element together with the four natural elements and create a mini habitat the size of one football field which can hold anything animate or inanimate. Also, it is connected to the soul of the owner, meaning it can’t be opened by a third party unlike a storage ring, which can be forcibly opened.

After various orders was passed by the generals and the King, Eobard did a quick search of the assassin’s belongings to remove any suicide capsules or remote detonated scrolls/ artifacts. During his search he found a ring tied to a chain around the assassin’s neck which was passed to the Court’s Advanced Warlock Vronearth, for him to break the seal bounding the ring to the assassin’s soul.

By this time, Lutius had awakened.

‘Ugh, I still feel tired even after the doctors casted a rejuvenation spell on me. I guess that’s what I get for making a hasty decision. Atleast it worked out well in the end,’ he thought as he sat up on his bed.

“Trixie explain the situation,” he commanded as he was unaware of what happened after he fainted.

[ Replying host, the assassin has been detained by Chief Eobard and is currently being searched and presumably questioned.]

[ In light of the situation, host made the correct call in casting the strongest spell that was available. This is because the assassin was an Intermediate Magic Knight.]

[ Host’s body is currently healed but the SE meridians is still sore, and the reabsorption of SE is advised as soon as possible in order to ensure host is in his best form at all times.]

Within seconds all the information Trixie related was consumed by Lutius and he decided it was time to see exactly who wants him dead so badly.

After reassuring his father, mother and Rose of his wellbeing, he visited the dungeons where the assassin was being interrogated by Eobard under the supervision of Warlock Vronearth. A special array was built in the prison dungeons which forced whoever was being interrogated to be unable to fabricate stories and deceive the interrogator.

‘Basically, it was a truth serum, array style.’ Thought Lutius as he arrived at the cell.

“Last time I’m asking who sent you and why did you target His Highness Lutius!?” Eobard asked as he whipped the assassin. Unfortunately, assassins were trained to withstand torture so forcing them to speak was usually impossible. Emphasis on the word usually. Restoring a sizable amount of SE, Lutius was now able to cast his tier two spells without a problem.

“Eobard its fine if he doesn’t want to talk. You see people like this won’t obey you, no matter the amount of torture you subject them to. Atleast that is if it was regular torture.

“Order- Subjugation, of the Guilty!” Lutius shouted. The spell, Subjugation of the Guilty is a spell that only works on persons that is guilty of whatever they are being accused of otherwise the spell is rebounded on the caster which has the potential to be fatal. Also, the person the spell is used on must be at the same level or weaker than the caster. In this case, the assassin was robbed of his SE by Warlock Vronearth and was only allowed to keep enough in his soul to keep him conscious and alive, thus lowering his realm to that of the soul actualization stage, the stage before one becomes a spell caster/mage. This spell allowed the caster to have full control of the body of the opponent and can be used to force someone to speak out their most inner desires or even commit suicide.

Today, however Lutius was truly angered. All the stress he thought he moved on from due to him being suddenly thrown in a foreign world and given an impossible task and having to adapt to his new self, seemed to find an outlet to vent in the form of this assassin.

“You definitely know the uses of this spell, Subjugation of the Guilty, so you know I can simply force you to answer my questions. However, you see, I have a need to vent so, please, don’t break to quickly. Alright?” Lutius said to the man flashing him a smile which would send shivers even down the devil’s spine. This spell took on the physical manifestation of a chain wrapped around the assassin’s body with needles inserted into him, with the other end being held by Lutius. Grasping tightly on to the chain the man screamed with pain. His whole body seemed on fire as he felt his veins swelling. His fingers started to decay and fall off and his eyes started to bleed, but the worst was yet to come.

“You must not be feeling to good right now are you, Mr. Assassin. Let’s start the interrogation again. Firstly, what is your name? By the way, before you respond let me just tell you, that if you think that feeling your veins swell and feeling pressure building up in your meridians was painful, imagine if I forced you to eat your entire tongue and crush your entire into smithereens, and just before you pass out… I would heal you and do it all over again, and again, and again. So, make sure and lie and be difficult, cause like I said, I wish to vent.” Lutius’ voice, low and cold made everyone in the area apprehensive. Even the Warlock and Eobard who thought they knew Lutius completely was shocked by the sheer presence they felt emitting from Lutius at this moment. They looked at each other and couldn’t help but see a brief flash of fear in each other’s eyes. This was the might of the element of order.

After that traumatising experience, Lutius and company learned something unexpected, and if true, would have serious ramifications to the Kingdom of Whitstar.