Chapter 41

Hydrabridge

The Voidlands North of Maston

Reah walked beside Rufus through the fields west of Hydrabridge. She kept her evoked wind mana active, pulling it around with her as they wandered. Normally, evoked mana couldn’t be manipulated once it was in the world. The third connection allowed one to alter mana that had previously been evoked. While it was easiest to alter mana you had evoked yourself, there was really no difference between the mana one arcaner evoked and the mana another arcaner evoked.

If he chose, Rufus could alter the way her mana acted. Of course, to do that, he would have to forge a connection to her wind mana with his own evoked wind mana. Doing that was especially challenging with wind mana since it was hard to locate.

The invisible agents that Rufus had following them were doing exactly that. When Reah’s wind mana hit an object of any kind, she could feel that impact in a similar way to how other arcaners could feel if their evoked pure mana was hit by some force. Through practice, one could take the information gathered from those many impacts and form a rough picture of their surroundings. Rufus’ agents had been specifically trained to alter another’s evoked mana before it hit them. When used against the average wind mana user, that would effectively prevent them from being discovered.

In order to do that, they were obviously a cut above your average soldier. For one thing, they had to have delved deep enough into their wind aether wells to gain access to the alteration connection. Considering that they were maintaining invisibility as well, they would have done the same with light mana.

Despite the agent’s impressive ability compared to the province’s average soldier, Reah could still sense them through her wind mana if she paid any sort of attention. Reah had grown up with the need to remain undetected. Every day she had spent under the boughs of the burning tree was a day in which detection would have meant certain death. Over the years she had spent there, Reah had seen plenty of others meet a horrible fate. It had been a horrible experience, but at the very least, Reah couldn’t deny that it had produced results. She was more finely tuned to wind and light mana than just about anyone.

Now, Reah’s ability to both sense others within her field of evoked wind mana and obfuscate her own presence when under another’s were a whole league higher than any of the agents Rufus employed. Rufus himself was another matter though. While Reah still thought her ability to obfuscate her presence was higher than Rufus’, his sensing ability was almost supernatural. Reah privately thought that his skills with wind mana were being greatly enhanced by the mask he wore.

The ivory masks were a point of great secrecy. The two masks that remained in the hands of the military had their capabilities hidden from all except those who wore them. The third mask had been lost long ago. Rumor had it that a certain enforcer of the organization wore it now, but Reah had never met them to be able to tell with certainty.

As they walked across the open plain, Reah kept her eye on Rufus for any reaction. He was the most likely to sense the aurorae if they approached.

The day dragged on with them aimlessly hiking through the area around Hydrabridge. Just when Reah had begun to think that the talk of aurorae must have been nonsense, five objects hurtled through her wind mana. Each of these objects—by their shape Reah guessed they were sharpened stone projectiles—headed right at one of the five invisible agents that Rufus had planted around them.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Reah evoked a wall of pure mana in the path of the stone heading towards the agent nearest to her. When the projectile sheared through her barrier and into the agent she had tried to shield, Reah knew they had found their aurora. In the initial attack, all five of the agents fell to the ground. Three of them were dead, killed instantly by the stones sent their way. The one nearest to Reah had survived, though he had been seriously injured, his commuted armor must have been enough to reduce the impact of the stone in conjunction with her wall of mana.

On the other side, the agent closest to Rufus had met a similar fate. In the next moment, Reah moved light and wind mana from her aether wells and into her channels. In a single second, the mana had been pulled into a technique, a special area carved into her aether membrane that allowed for the rapid use of mana in a complicated way that would normally take up much of her attention.

The particular technique that she used was a combination of light, wind, and pure mana. The light mana generated a detailed duplicate of her. The technique itself actually used an advanced application of commutation to take an impression of her. She then evoked that same mana, creating an image of herself as she was in that exact moment. Within the technique, wind mana continuously moved through it. A thread of light mana that was used to alter Reah’s image was being slowly evoked during the duration the copy was active. That thread of light mana wasn’t only needed to alter Reah’s image, it was also used as a pathway along which the wind mana in the technique could travel.

The amount of wind mana used in the technique was negligible. It was there solely to alter any evoked wind mana that approached the illusory copy. After all, light mana had no physical form. If an opponent on the level of an aurora felt their evoked wind mana pass through what their eyes told them was a person, they would instantly realize that they were being tricked. The technique’s wind mana prevented that by altering any wind mana that approached the copy in much the same way the agents had done earlier.

The pure mana was used to create a defensive shell around the image, taking on the appearance of commuted armor. Without that layer of protection, any arcaner could tear her fakes apart with a simple evocation of mana.

Reah produced two of these copies in the first second of combat. At the same time, Reah moved light mana into the first technique she had ever developed, invisibility. This technique worked in a more simplistic fashion, but it also required more of Reah’s attention. She had to semi-manually maintain an illusion of her surroundings such that when someone looked at her, they would see what was behind her.

To an outside observer, it would appear as if Reah had just split into two with one of her copies stepping forward slightly to the left, and the other stepping slightly to the right. Their attention would be focused on the two copies, trying to determine which one was real. In that time, Reah could sneak up on them and slit their throat.

Against an average opponent, that would work. When put into practice against an aurora it seemed insufficient. A slight instant after the real Reah went invisible, an old man walked out from behind a cluster of bushes. At the same moment, wind mana gushed out of him in a torrent.

The air felt thick. Reah found her own wind mana draining at an alarming rate as she used it to delicately alter the wind mana approaching her while also supplying her techniques with more mana than she had anticipated needing.

While the man who faced them was clearly quite old, that did not mean he was any weaker for it. A wall of small sharp stones appeared around him, each similar to the stones that had been launched in the initial volley. The speed at which they moved around the man indicated to Reah that force mana or something similar was being used to propel them.

Rufus was the first to make an actual attack, launching a simplistic if powerful fireball at the aurora. The impact was minimal. The man didn’t even bother evoking pure mana. The stones that surrounded him suddenly interlocked in a dozen layers. The massive ball of flame impacted the shell of stones and was swept to the side. Even in their interlocked state, the stones were hurtling around the man at impossible speeds.

Rufus’ attack wasn’t wholly ineffective though. Fire mana was a staple in offensive techniques for a reason. It was particularly effective at wearing down an opponent’s defense. That remained true here. While the stones seemed to part the fireball, through the field of wind mana that Reah kept evoked, she was able to pick up on several of the stones disappearing, an indication that the evoked earth mana had been damaged enough to destabilize.

Not missing a beat, the cloud of stones moved, carrying the aurora towards one of Reah’s copies. While the stones completely blocked Reah’s image of the old man, she had managed to slip some particles of wind mana through the stones.

These particles were being altered of course, but Reah was reasonably confident that the man was still in the stones. The reason being cognitive limit. While an arcaner could theoretically use a plethora of techniques at once, each of them required some amount of attention to maintain. The more manual effort someone had to use on a technique, the closer they would draw to their cognitive limit.

In the moment, Reah was really only relying on instincts to reach that conclusion, but those instincts were finely honed from years of sensing with wind mana. If she had the attention to spare, she would realize that those instincts were being driven by the movements of the stones. She would have realized that not all the stones were being moved in preset patterns.

Even without that explicit knowledge though, Reah fought with her instincts. As the cloud of sharp stones descended on her copy, Reah cut off the light mana from the copy, causing it to go invisible. She then pushed even more mana into her technique, generating two more copies, each one step away from the original copy. Even with the light mana cut off, Reah continued using alteration with wind mana around the spot where her original copy had been, baiting the aurora into believing that was her real body.

Rufus didn’t stand still during this exchange. He continued to chew through the aurora’s supply of earth mana by destroying the stones with fireballs. He also launched several more subtle attacks using sword mana, a subtype of force mana that moved in a specific cutting motion. While these attacks were less damaging than fire mana, they also had a higher chance of sneaking through the stone defenses. This meant that with each attack, the aurora had to manually adjust the patterns of the stones around him, keeping him distracted and forcing him near his cognitive limit.

The aurora was a highly experienced combatant though. He recognized what Rufus was doing and changed strategies quickly. He suddenly abandoned his stone defense, launching the fast-moving stones out in every direction.

Fortunately, it seemed that the aurora had taken Reah’s bait. The stones while seemingly shot out indiscriminately were actually carefully aimed. The bulk of them whirled through the air, attacking her invisible copy as well as the two new copies she had created. Each of these copies were torn apart from multiple angles, the pure mana that she had given them not nearly enough to protect them from the onslaught.

Another large cluster of stones was sent towards Rufus. Reah was struck with amazement when he managed to pull through the volley largely unscathed.

The aurora’s attack had devastated the battlefield. Only one of Reah’s copies was still standing, and as she watched, the aurora sent several stones that he had kept in reserve hurtling towards it. Rufus continued to be assailed by stones being sent at him from multiple angles, effectively forcing him to stay on the defensive.

Despite all that though, two things had fallen into Reah’s favor. Her actual body had managed to dodge all of the stones meaning that she remained completely hidden, and the aurora no longer had a stone defense. All he had left was his commuted armor.

In an instant, Reah was upon him, evoking her entire aether well of sword mana into one focused attack around her right hand, enough to pierce through his commuted armor around the neck and kill him instantly.

Reah was certain that she had remained undetected throughout the brief fight, but somehow, something told the man to move at the last possible second. Reah’s technique cut through the armor that he commuted around his neck, but instead of dealing a killing blow, it only cut a shallow wound along his nape.

Her attack failed. Reah found herself in hand-to-hand combat against the aurora. Though Reah was by no means unskilled in hand-to-hand, she was sorely outmatched. If Reah had had any doubts about whether the man was an aurora, they would have been crushed here. The man’s movements flowed, one into another, too fast for Reah to defend against. Reah recognized the form immediately. The core arcaner’s way of the fist, the signature style of imperial aurorae. This man executed the moves with far greater proficiency than any of the white tiger’s students she had grown to know.

Reah was on the ground, her legs swept out from under her. She desperately rolled to the side, but it wasn’t enough. The man landed a palm strike on her arm. Reah evoked pure mana to defend herself. At the moment of impact, a hidden dagger that looked to be made of wood moved from where it had been strapped under the man’s wrist. Driven by force mana, the wooden dagger broke through her evoked mana, and then her commuted armor, driving deep into her arm.

Reah screamed with pain, barely conscious of the man ripping the dagger out and flinging it into the distance. As the dagger was flung far away, powered by force mana, Reah saw a bright red flare pop up where the knife may have been.

With Reah momentarily incapacitated, the aurora flung himself into combat with Rufus.

When Reah finally managed to fully regain her senses and pull herself to her feet, she saw Rufus already on the ground surrounded by an impossibly thick barrier of pure mana. The aurora made a few soft attempts to break through the barrier, evoking flame, stones, and more.

Nothing broke through though. Seeing Reah move back to her feet, the old man gave a hearty laugh. “I should have expected such a prominent official to have such a defense.”

With those words the man vanished, launching himself away with a burst of force mana.

Rufus pulled himself up groaning. For her part, Reah held her injured arm carefully. Looking around, Reah felt defeated, but she knew that was not entirely true. From the viewpoint of the ministry of education, this had been a massive success. Though three agents had been killed and two others severely injured, Rufus had survived. Not only had he survived, they had discovered that the rumors of imperial aurorae were more than idle words.

Rufus pulled himself to his feet, a sour look on his face. “Well, that’s not good.”

Reah agreed. Even putting aside the danger of the aurora they had faced, the very concept of being up against an aurora was bad. The imperial aurorae were mercenaries, but they could only take contracts approved by the empire itself. That meant that the empire had put their support behind an enemy of the province. As Rufus had put it: that was not good.