“Don’t touch my archmage.” William said, as he focused his ki on the only enemy tough enough to resist in a state of confusion. Then the man fell unconscious. William hadn’t killed any of them, not because he particularly felt merciful, but simply because he couldn’t. In a way, it was only a little bit harder to kill someone with a soul attack than to drop them unconscious, but over so many… he didn’t have any spare energy. He considered finishing them off, but decided against it. They were only defending their country. Perhaps he might have killed some of them, and if they died they died… but he didn’t need to do more at the moment. Hopefully any survivors would warn off more pursuers instead of encouraging them.

“What was that?” Lorelei turned around, “I can’t really hear very well right now, so I missed what you said. Plus, I’m not… as fluent in the language of Liaoyang.”

William shook his head. “Nothing important.” He breathed out slowly, then took a deep breath, “We should get going. We can find somewhere they won’t look to camp, and avoid getting near any more towns.” William held a hand to his head and closed his eyes, “If there are more pursuers I won’t be of much use, besides hitting them with Chris anyway.”

“When you said you could use such magic again… I thought you meant more than once.”

William shook his head. “I did. I could. Just… not at the same time as ki. Fortunately, I was just using the magic to disrupt them. Chris took care of the defense, too, which saved me.”

Chris glowed in acknowledgement.

-----

William sighed, “I hate walking.”

Lorelei raised an eyebrow, “I don’t recall you being too fond of horseback either?”

“Fine. I hate travelling.” William narrowed his eyes, “Know any passes in those mountains?”

“Are you kidding? I spent most of my life avoiding coming into Liaoyang.”

“Ah… yeah. So, how many of them did you take out before I found you?”

“Many. Just… not all at the same time.”

“Yeah, you’re not the brute force type. I guess I am, now.” William frowned, “I guess I’ve been that way since I obtained power of my own.”

“Is disrupting people and then taking advantage of that moment brute force?” Lorelei tilted her head. “It doesn’t seem that way.”

“There were other ways to solve that problem. I could have hidden us, for example. I just didn’t think about that at the time.”

Lorelei shrugged, “They could have found us even if we were invisible.”

William shook his head, “Oh, I doubt it. Only one guy even noticed what I was doing, and just barely.”

“You can really do that? I would have expected more to at least notice…”

“Well, before that would have been true. Right now though, you didn’t even notice.”

William could sense Lorelei reaching out with ki. Then she frowned, “What happened to you? I can’t even tell you’re right there in front of me.”

“Sure you can. I just don’t feel like you’d expect.”

Lorelei closed her eyes for a few moments, then nodded. “It’s like some sort of… mist? Is that a new cultivation technique?”

“That’s right. I made it myself.”

“You’re recovered?”

“Completely. The other option would be me being dead right now.”

Lorelei made a face, “You’re so casual about that.”

“Only because I survived. It would have been… much worse than being dead.”

Lorelei shook her head, “Your speed of growth is annoying. The only thing I still have on you is my years of experience.”

“Don’t be too upset about it. How are you going to beat dozens of people in magic anyway?”

“Hmph. I tried your laser thing… I can’t do it at all.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. You need Chris. Or maybe another crystal staff, if there were any. The crystal is a required physical medium. I bet you could make a stationary laser, though.”

“Ah, the crystal doesn’t just amplify the magic?”

“It does, but once it become a laser, it’s actually not even magic anymore. All of the energy goes into creating the laser, then I let it out of my control.”

“Hmm, that makes sense. If only there were more such staffs… Tch.” Lorelei shook her head, “It’s not a good idea to try to make more though. It probably wouldn’t work so well, and messing around with souls like that is… not the best idea.”

“You could make one out of actual crystal though, then magically enchant it. That might even be better.”

“And where would I find a crystal that large?”

“You could make one. It would take a long time, but I spent some time modifying the crystalline structures of various materials. You could use that to connect a number of masses together and shape them as you want. You’d pick up the process pretty quickly.”

“Okay. How does that work?”

“Well, see, atoms have certain bonds...”

-----

Lorelei sat at the fire they had made for the night, and looked back the way they had come. “We should have lost them by now. They probably have returned to the city to get hounds or something once they realized they lost sight of us, but since we’ve scattered our scent using magic, they won’t be able to do anything. Even if they had good wizards, the mana disturbances wouldn’t last that long, so they couldn’t track us that way. Now we just have to continue avoiding cities until we reach the border.”

William nodded. They had made the fire because they needed it to cook the deer they had killed. Magic wouldn’t cook anything evenly, and was only useful for burning things… or it would take just as long as a campfire but require continual concentration. They made sure that the glow from the fire wouldn’t travel far, and the smoke wouldn’t be visible at night. “The mountains aren’t too far away. We should get there mid morning tomorrow… I guess we just head for the lower part there, and hope there’s a pass… or at least something like it.”

“Yes. I’d rather avoid any climbing if we can. Especially since we don’t know what might live around here.”

“What is the chance that there aren’t any magical beasts in this section?”

“Pretty slim. People have driven them out of most other areas, and the mountains are one of the few places they can stay. Unless they just happen to have died or migrated recently, I would count on there being something. It might not bother us, though.”

William thought that would be nice… but doubted they would both find a real pass and also not run into any territorial magical beasts. If he had to choose, he’d take the easy road and a fight.