It did not take them long to reach the other end of the town and the stables situated next to the other main gate. And thanks to Tiana, they also managed to saddle up quick, although getting Tiana to agree to carry Jack once more was an ordeal.

On this side of the town, the landscape was different. Instead of impossibly tall and dark forests, there were wide open fields with a gentle slope towards the distance. As Jack's eyes were now adjusted to the darkness, as well as Tiana casting some more Nighteye, he could easily see the fields in any direction for almost five miles, before the fields disappeared behind the curvature of the planet or a strip of forest could be seen.

As for the pink fountain of light they could see from the town church, from the are with open fields, the pink fountain was seemingly coming from another side of the town, from a dark and ominous area, devoid of any starlight or reflective night time clouds. To Jack this only meant that the mountain range near the town rose really sharply and to a massive height and size. And now they were galloping towards it, sort of.

The path was long and windy, with a constant uphill gradient. Although there was no forest around them, there were still trees, mostly pines, firs, junipers and other such evergreen trees, mixed with low grass, flowery plants and rocky outcroppings. Jack was sure that if the night vision spell had afforded him any color vision, then the majority of the evergreen trees would not be green but some other color, mainly pale or blue.

Thanks to the relatively low trees in the area, the pink fountain of light was looming before them, by now not nearly as far in the distance. Jack had removed one hand from Tiana's waist, using it to hold binoculars to constantly survey the area around them, as well as the area covered in pink light slightly above in the mountains. Not just to be aware of the enemy, but also to calculate the approximate distance based on chevrons in the binocular sight.

As for the rest, the pink mist did a pretty good job of lighting the whole area. Thus, in the binoculars, it looked like a massive artificial plateau carved into the stone. Vaguely rectangular and littered with stone pillars, collapsed gothic arches and piles upon piles of rubble, as well as some areas with wooden huts and low stone walls, obstructing view.

Jack had no way of saying how big the area was, but it seemed to be huge. It looked like a collapsed open-aired temple, or a long disused altar, or... a digsite. A digsite seemed the most apt description, considering everything he could see. This also meant that there could possibly be an underground area. Probably filled with all the missing magic soldiers.

"Stop." Jack suddenly said. "I think we are about 1500 yards out.. better have some restraint."

He put away his binoculars and produced the 8mm Mauser rifle, shouldering it.

"These sights agree. We should go slow."

The two horses and three riders stopped, and then proceeded slowly.

"What do you want to do?" Tiana asked.

"I want to get within 700 yards," Jack replied, "at that distance, single headshots are not much of an issue. But there is one issue that is bothering me."

"What's that?" Mike asked.

"The glow is pink, yet I could see people not asleep." Jack said. "Which mean there are two options."

"Well, obviously, it is the same as with the church. These people are immune to the sleeping spell, due to some artifact or counter-spell."

"That is certainly one option." Jack agreed.

"And the other one?" Mike asked.

"The other one is, that the pink light is not a sleeping spell." Jack continued. "It is only an intense reaction from artifact distilling. A reaction so intense that its color overwhelms all other spells and their color. But Tiana here should be way more knowledgeable on this than me."

"Why would I know about this!?" Tiana asked, stopping the horse. "Do you know how rare powerful artifacts are?! Artifact distillation is an evil art, intent on destroying the legacy of un-reproducible artifacts lost to time for short term gains. Of course, I wouldn't know how it works, or what color the spells are."

"Is that so?" Jack asked, receiving no answer.

They continued onward for a few minutes.

"Oh, shit." Jack suddenly said, "Stop the horse. Right now."

"What, why?!" Tiana asked.

But before she could complain any further, something cold and heavy was set on her shoulder.

"What are you doing?!" She started panicking. "Get that death wand away from my head!"

"Cover your ears or turn the horse. Better yet, use your magic to deafen all of us for a few seconds or eliminate the noise of my gun."

"Fine!" She replied begrudgingly. "But if I lose even a single strand of hair due to that thing, I will kill you with my bare hands very slowly!"

She pulled one of her wands and soon, after a few whispered mutterings, a faint pale bluish-whitish light surrounded the rifle in Jack's hands, and then shot into it.

"You have about a minute." She said.

Jack worked the action, chambering another round, and to his surprise, it made no sound whatsoever. As if he had not touched anything or his hearing was damaged in such a particular way that he could not hear the action of the rifle. He shouldered it and took aim at the pink light around the ruined temple, completely in another direction, with no need to rest the rifle on Tiana's shoulder.

"Mike, you ready?" Jack asked.

"Yes, master."

Jack took aim at a lone hooded sentry standing ways away from other people and even out of their line of sight. He then pulled the trigger. There was no sound to the gun going off, but there was still a loud clap when the bullet exiting the barrel went supersonic.

"My magic didn't work?" Tiana asked, surprised.

But a much more surprising thing was happening. The round hit something almost immediately after reaching the pink light. But it wasn't the person Jack had aimed at. Instead, the bullet hit an invisible barrier right before the target, sending massive waves across its surface, as if it was jello or ballistic gel.

The target noticed the anomaly, indeed every person showered by the pink light did. He approached the spot Jack had hit and looking at his movements, it would seem that the barrier had stopped the bullet, suspending it in air, and he then picked it up. Moments later, a pinkish light started to converge on the spot, and a thin pinkish horn started to grow out of the barrier.

At first, Jack had no idea, what it was, but as it grew into a long spike, he understood.

"We need to move! NOW!" He yelled.

"Where?" Tiana asked.

"Any direction! Just away from this spot! Right away!"

Tiana lead the horse to the left from the path into the wilderness, full of grassy ground, low junipers and other ever green trees, along with a few hardier leafy trees. Mike followed them, Jack still had time to check behind him, just to see the pink spike of light penetrate the very spot he had been in and had held the rifle, traveling further through the forest and probably hitting the ground somewhere further down the line.

"Did you see that?!" Tiana asked incredulously. "What the hell was that?!"

"Quiet please. Let's dismount." Jack replied.

They crawled into the high brush and low evergreens, about 500 yards from the ruined temple.

"That was totally normal." Jack started. "It was perfectly reasonable to set up a barrier like that. I should have seen it before."

"That is no normal barrier!" Tiana replied. "No barrier I know can protrude in such elongated spikes!"

"It is normal." Jack stressed. "Because if I were to setup a barrier against unknowable threats, this is the way I would set it up, technique permitting."

"Well, why don't you explain to us what just happened, Mister 'I Can't Understand Magic!'" Tiana said in a loud whisper.

"It is not just a shield, it is also an information barrier." Jack started. "Whatever spell, energy, kinetic or ballistic penetrator hits it, the barrier gathers the information about it and feeds it back to whoever is controlling the barrier."

"Information? What information?" Tiana asked.

"What spell, what level of power, probably the cost of mana, elemental constitution, speed, direction, elevation, with the ability to reconstruct the data and synthesize a visual representation. I bet if the spell could know what I know about the weapons I use, it could have pinpointed us with much greater speed and accuracy. The only reason we are alive right now is because the spell of the barrier is slow and our weapons are an unknown variable."

"There is something else!" Mike said, in a whispering voice. "Master, when the thing hit the barrier, it started.."

"Yes, I saw the rippling." Jack said.

"But master, it did not ripple from the single point. The waves from the impact traveled and hit another set of waves."

"It did?" Jack asked. "And which waves won?"

"Neither, both intersected and stopped. But there was something else. There was a third set of waves. And where all thee came together, the pink was gone!"

"What!" Jack said out loud, having to muffle his mouth with his hand. "Where did it happen? How long did it last?"

"It happened to the left of where we are right now, about at the same level as the hilt of the artifact being distilled. It lasted for about 5 seconds, I think."

"Interesting." Jack mused. "So it is not a uniform shield. It is the same segment superimposed onto the same radius, several times over. Again, I should have seen this. Magic truly is.. magical."

"What are you babbling about?" Tiana asked.

"This barrier is physically impossible. Yet magically possible." Jack pulled his knife and scratched something into the ground between the three of them. "Somebody has cut corners. Instead of producing a uniform 360 degree barrier they have produced the same section of the barrier several times. Or the spell is putting the same barrier here and here and here and here, and so forth."

"But that's not possible!" Tiana said.

"That's why is said it is not physically possible. But magically, it would seem, whatever one wants, can be stabilized. So what one section experiences, others experience too. It is impossible to know if there is a difference in power or delay. But it seems negligible. And that gives us a chance."

"First, we have to move. Due left from here. I need to get in a specific line of sight. Then Mike takes an aim at the barrier and shoots it. I will observe the interference pattern and situation permitting, try to dislodge the artifact being distilled. That should stop the whole barrier."

"How far do you need to go?" Mike asked.

"That's what you need to tell me." Jack replied. If you can imagine the approximate place of the window, we can predict an angle, and thus calculate the distance needed."

"Without any magic?" Tiana asked. "You just calculate it?! In your head?! Are you even human?"

"If I cannot calculate it in my head, I'll use the ground as a whiteboard. It isn't that hard. It was all perfected by a scholar named Pythagoras some 2500 years ago."

Jack and Mike talked almost silently, with Jack sketching in the dirt with his combat blade. Under the effects of the night vision spell, Tiana could see strange numbers and calculations she had no understanding of, scribbled on the ground.

It did not take long for them for Jack to be ready to put his plan into action. Mike and Tiana took a single horse and rode to near where he had taken the shot. He himself went further into the woods, to get into the perfect position so that his line of sight would line up perpendicular with the sword.

The only problem he could not figure out was how to signal each other about being in position. Luckily Tiana had an idea. She used her magic to enchant a bunch of leaves with a detection spell. Once Jack ripped a leaf apart, the spell would disintegrate and she would know right away. Also, as Jack himself had not seen the interference point, they may be needed more than one shot to get it, with both of them moving between shots.

Jack got into the position, resting himself and the rifle on top of a big rock. He then ripped a prepared leaf in half and waited. About a minute later a shot rang out and something hit the faint pink barrier sending ripples all over it, as if it was water. Just as Mike had described it, the ripples did not start from the impact point, but rather from several similar points around the perimeter of the spell, including the top. And indeed the ripples from three or more sources meeting caused a temporary interference point, which slowly moved towards the wave most out of sync.

Jack took aim with his rifle and discovered that he really had to lift the rifle off the rock and try and shoot while standing on the boulder under him. His line of sight lined up with the sword hovering above the pedestal, but the interference point was slowly drifting away, so he had few precious seconds to aim at something maybe 2 inches across while standing.

He pulled the trigger.

*

The bullet tore through the air, successfully penetrating the interference point after which a metallic impact sound could be heard, and everything went dark. Jack cycled the action and jumped off the rock running towards the digsite. Even from far away, it could be seen that the barrier collapsing had a dire effect on the people guarding the area. It took a few minutes of running for Jack to be so close to the area as to start aiming for individual headshots with the rifle.

At the same time, Mike put a similar plan into action, the horse and presence of Tiana allowing him both greater mobility and with the aid of magic, partially suppressed shots. Compared to Jack's precision work, his was more of a harassment.

Of course the opponents started to lob spells at both of them, with colorful magic flying through the air. Most of them fell to the ground at least a hundred yards before reaching Jack. Only a certain kind of explosion spell, which did not really have a noticeable form when flying managed to travel so far as to hit the ground so near to him that he could be showered with the dirt. Soon they figured out that he was even further way and started using parabolic arc, but it did not improve the distance much.

Few mages even tried alternative ideas, like summoning magic, for example to summon giant birds or a pack of wolves to attack Jack independently. But this also did not end well. The whole digsite was essentially a stage and he was the audience. So he had a pretty good view. Therefore, if he saw anything that resembled a summoning magic to him, he prioritized those targets. Usually a body shot was enough to break the ongoing spell, followed by a headshot which killed the target, broke the flow of mana and unsummoned the creature.

Soon, the attacks peppering his location grew more and more sparse, which allowed him to continue forward with the FAL. It was about 15 minutes later when both Jack from the front and Mike with Tiana from the side finally entered the old ruins. It was a horrible sight, but still a sight he had to get used to as fast as possible. The ground was littered with bodies and pools of blood.

Even Tiana, who should have been an experienced soldier was gagging and had gone pale looking at the results of Jack's deathly precision. The almost-severed heads from shots to the neck, the skulls of people cracked open like egg shells, with the ripped scalps still connecting to the pieces of bone and little pieces of bloody brain matter littered everywhere.

The trio made their way towards the central pillar which had been the source of the barrier. Not far from it lay the sword which had been powering the array.

"Do not touch it!" Tiana said as Jack bowed towards the blade. "You don't touch the magical stuff and we don't touch the death sticks you have, deal?"

She rushed towards the blade and produced one of her wands, performing some weird spells, muttering quietly while moving the wand above the blade as if magically inspecting it.

"It is safe." She said with relief in her voice, "no harmful effects or hidden spells."

Tiana knelt on the ground to pick up the blade.

"This is an exquisite piece of sorcery level artifact." She said, "ancient to the extreme, belonging to the third or even the second Godking Era."

She turned her face to Jack who had an indifferent look.

"You have no idea what I am talking about, right?"

"Nope." He admitted.

"Let me put in another way, this blade alone could be used to buy several of the fourth tier nobility lineages from their 3rd tier patrons. It is that valuable."

"So one could buy himself into nobility with this?" Jack asked.

"Well, the actual mores are more complicated, but, you could go from the bottom of the forth tier to the top with no real effort."

"Bring it along then." Jack said. "We still have the real job to do."

"The real job?" Tiana looked at him in a questioning manner.

"Finding Fichte and the rest?" Jack asked in a sarcastic tone.

This caused Tiana to immediately go red in the face.

"I wonder, what would Fichte.."

"You will not tell him!" Tiana was up at once pointing the tip of the sword at his throat. "You will not tell him anything about this or I'll swear to the heavens.."

Jack did not respond, only having a faint smile on his lips.

"Dodge this." He then said.

"What?" Tiana asked, slight turning her head and seeing right down the barrel of Mike's raised FAL.

This made her recoil in fright as she almost lost her balance and finally using the blade as a cane.

"You really are not as good at this as I initially thought." Jack said.

"Who's not good at this?!" Tiana asked. "I am an excellent soldier under commander Fichte, it is just that his gun scared me!"

"Never mind."

Jack turned around. He was now far more interested in something else. In the ruins, there was one area, which was still flanked by actual stone walls, low walls but still walls. Also near the stone walls he could also see a shack of black wood, which had been obscured by the partially collapsed walls.

He advanced carefully, finally being able to make out what the walls had been hiding. There was a wide staircase disappearing into the darkness underground. Faint clanking of metal could be heard from the opening, while a cool breeze also rushed out carrying the musty smell of people doing hard physical labor.

He went towards the shack and raised his pistol with one hand, opening the door with the other. The shack was mostly empty, save for a single male prisoner, stripped naked and tied tightly to the chair, with a black bag on his head. His body was full of a myriad of shallow wounds while various blood soaked torture tools laid out nearby. From his chest slowly rising and falling it was obvious that he was unconscious or pretending to be unconscious.

Before Jack could approach him, Tiana rushed in.

"Günther?!"

She approached the prisoner and pulled the bag from his head. After which she recoiled in pained horror. Whatever was done to his body it could not be compared to what had been done to his head and face. His eyes had been plucked out, nose and ears cut off while it looked like his lips had been gnawed off by something completely different, because it was not a clean cut.

Tiana took one of her wands and magic light started to gather around her. But then moments later she lowered her wand.

"It is useless." she whispered in tears. "I cannot heal him, this requires close to sorcery not magic."

"Well, can't you stabilize his injuries, so that he doesn't die, while we do our thing?" Jack asked.

Tiana was silent for a while.

"Yes. Yes I can."

She swapped out for a different wand. And soon, she sent a spell at the prisoner.

"You can cut him loose now. Let's set him down on the ground."

After the three of them had moved the hulking body of the sleeping man on the ground, Tiana switched wands again. She also produced a milky white hexagonal bar of crystal, roughly 2 inches in diameter.

"What's that?" Jack asked.

"A mana crystal." Tiana replied. "A special kind of crystal which can store mage's mana. It is single-use though."

She started drawing in the air with magic light, she also started talking in some strange language. With some of the words being utterly foreign to Jack and some seemed to be more familiar. Soon, a faint blue light enveloped the naked man and tied him up in strands of light. As the light faded, a pale blue human-shaped cocoon was left behind. From the outward, it looked very similar to a cocoon a spider would knit around its food. But the fine strands of the cocoon had a kind of sparkle to them as if covered in metallic paint with very fine flake in it.

"We can go now." She said in a somber tone. "he should live at least until the next sundown."

The mana crystal in her other hand had lost all of its color, turning from milky white to opaque gray. She exerted a bit more grip and the stone broke into small pieces and a cloud of dust like soft chalk.

The trio left the shack and proceeded down the stairs into the darkness.

*

Not long after stepping into darkness they saw a long line of small burning candles that barely gave any light, yet allowed to see the corridors leading further into the bowels of the place. Here, Jack took the lead, extinguishing every light he came across. Thus they descended deeper and deeper, leaving only darkness behind them until they reached a lit opening where they saw two mages guarding a dark tunnel entrance. Behind them there were some slaves transporting and emptying carts in the middle of the huge area, with other slaves shoveled the small piles of dirt and rocks into a single bigger pile.

Jack put the rifle on his back and nodded to Mike. They both pulled their sidearms and slowly approached the two guards. But before they could but their plan in action, Tiana stopped them. She silently pulled the knives both of them were carrying and then approached the guards silently. The guards saw her, but realizing it was a woman, they were obviously less on guard than if it had been a man.

"Halt!" they shouted, but Tiana just ignored them.

The sect members let her get to maybe 11-12 feet from them before they started to act, but by then it was too late. Two blades flew out of the darkness, thrown underhand. At this range it was impossible to miss. The blades penetrated the faces of the opponents, and for good measure, she pulled both blades and cut their throats as well.

"Tiana!?" one of the slaves turned out to be a magic soldier of Fichte's. "You came to save us?!"

"Silas, where's the commander, where are the rest of the magic soldiers?"

"They are not with you?" Silas asked.

"No. After your went dark in Coldwood, Fichte organized a second team. We managed to get into Coldwood, but they were caught by the sleeping spell blanketing the town. We thought they might be here."

"Well, I don't know. But the lower levels did receive a new batch of slaves just tonight, so it must be them."

"Thanks, it still might be them." Tiana replied. "We should get you out of here."

"Don't." Jack interjected.

"Why not?! I know this man!"

"Because we are outnumbered, and essentially blind. They have been working here for some time, they can last a few more hours putting up appearances while we clear out the digsite. Otherwise they run off, and any visiting enemy will find the slaves gone and raise an alarm."

"Your friend is right." Silas said. "Also, you couldn't break those chains anyway, these are magically hardened mithril, resistant to both heat and cold. It would take at least three mana crystals to get enough power to break them."

"Fine then." Tiana said, somewhat dejected that she was out of mana crystals. "We will come back for you."

As soon as they left, another slave walked up to Silas.

"You know them? You shouldn't really trust them." the old man said.

"Why not?"

"You may not know this, but above this cave is a massive old ruin. The ruin is covered by a dome-like barrier which not only shields the location from all kinds of magical or non-magical attacks, but also prevents anybody from sneaking in. The barrier will immediately alert the dozens of mages in the ruins under it to prepare for battle, as well as it can pinpoint not only where a person was trying to cross it but also what kind of attack, and the direction it came from. Even if it happens half a mile from the barrier."

"So you mean.."

"It is impenetrable. Quite literally. Unless they have a very powerful sorcerer to help them, One, who can not only take down the barrier without much overt force, but also decimate all the enemy mages patrolling under the dome. That is why I say, don't trust them. The young men with her did not have any trace of mana on them whatsoever. They may be mundanes. Thus the only way for them to get in here.."

"But she killed the 2 guards." Silas replied.

"Which means that they are high level members of the sect."

"Well, honestly, I only trusted them halfway." Silas replied. "I did not tell them about the demonic beasts. If they survive, I suppose your theory is proven."