The Banksi Mansion was a tiny thing.

The town of Haviskali alone, between the five distinct zones that made it up, contained almost half a million citizens. Half a million souls living their lives in blissful ignorance of the assault taking place in their midst, the wool forcibly pulled over their eyes.

Even the population of the hill upon which the mansion stood, contained four blocks, with roughly thirty houses in each and a population slightly north of six hundred. It was almost inconceivable, if one stopped to consider it, that a singular assault made on a single mansion, housing not more than seven people including residents and staff, might have such an enormous impact on the lives of so many. They were a drop in the bucket, a tiny speck of blackness against the light of society. But that blackness could spread with surprising speed, and on this night, it grew beneath the hill like a cancer, choking out the light.

The wrath of the Shimizu Warlord came to this hill, and suddenly, it had the population of exactly zero.

A legion of igriotts, born of a twisted experiment between wind kami and the snow-wolves of the Northern Dominion, answerable only to the Warlord’s call, erupted everywhere at once. Pale, grayish mist rolling off them from the corruption soaked into their bones, the creatures looked skeletal and starved, their animal instinct twisted into a monstrous hunger for bloodshed, their fanged maws ripping through stone and metal alike, as they ripped through the settlements on the hill. Individually, they were weak, by the standards of adventurer combat. Even someone of Zuken’s caliber could kill them in the dozens without much effort.

But against normal civilians? Normal men, women and children resting in their homes, just beginning to tuck in for a night’s sleep?

The igriotts tore through doors and walls, unerringly seeking the living, their speed and precision more mechanical than anything like the shambling horror their appearance suggested. They moved so quickly as they attacked the households that the residents within were dead before they even shook their slumber enough to realize their homes had been invaded.

Those were the lucky ones. The igriotts were incapable of sadism, but they could hardly help inspiring terror. Far, far too many people woke up to find themselves in a nightmare, fleeing for their lives from shadowy figures that seemed to come out of nothingness and moved with an unnatural speed despite every instinct screaming they should not even be alive. They fled in vain, hunted down like animals with brutal efficiency, or fled from one invader only to find another awaiting in their path.

And then, once every bed was scoured, every room cleared, and every cradle silenced, the blood-soaked monsters went to their true work. They hunted through the homes, finding the tiny wardstones implanted within them, all of them serving as tiny anchors that maintained the vastly powerful protective barrier that hung over the Banksi mansion.

They’d finish their task. They always did.

…

…

…

This was not how negotiations were done.

When Ultaf Shimizu had come to his home, demanding him to hand over Tanya to him, he had granted him a month to think about things. A month that by all standards, should’ve been enough for Tanya and Lukas to return from the mission. Even in a worst-case scenario, he could’ve sent her and Lukas in hiding, preferably in his private hideouts in Maluscion. Instead, the two had gotten stranded in the borderland after attracting lethal attention from the most powerful inhabitants of the region. If he ever had the fortune to lay eyes on Lukas Aguilar again, he’d have to impress upon the young man the difference between audacity and idiocy.

Either way, he had expected Ultaf to return after a month, demanding him to sell Tanya to him. Zuken had expected him to sit over several glasses of wine, and negotiate the terms of the settlement. Maybe he could get him to extend the time period, what with the entire ‘stranded’ situation. He had expected Ultaf to throw around subtle threats. Maybe strongarm Zuken by bringing the Earth King into this mess. By the Goddess, the last thing he needed was to see that man’s face again.

Zuken even had his cards ready. Lord Naowa, the Shogun of the Llaisy Kingdom was a Lord of the Sacred Eight as well. Certainly nothing compared to the Earth King, but no one to scoff at either. A diplomatic mess between two Lords of the Sacred Eight was a wonderful way of dragging this matter for weeks, if not months.

He had expected Ultaf to snap at him. Maybe throw less subtle threats.

He had not expected him to attack him with his army out of nowhere.

But here he was.

Zuken exhaled, and silently sipped his tea. He really hoped that Ultaf was not so lost to barbarism that he’d deny him a final cup of tea before the nastiness began. That the ‘tea’ was actually an alchemical mixture designed to temporarily elevate one’s manacrafting abilities by a magnitude was a different matter altogether.

He looked down from his rooftop, feeling the slow, subsequent shattering of the wardstones downstream. Unlike other nobles, Zuken did not place his faith on a singular wardstone. The consequences of having a central point of failure were simply too high. Instead, he had used smaller wardstones and implanted them into the bedrock of the houses downstream, with each wardstone adding its own protection to the barrier placed over the mansion. He did not know how Ultaf had known his strategy, or if he was just plain lucky, but his monsters were slowly and systematically undoing the barrier protecting his mansion. A second prong of attack, a group of wind-spiritists were rushing uphill using the forest as a cover. Wind-spiritists were hard to track on a good day, and this was using those monsters as a distraction. By the time his troops had mounted a defense, half of them had already crossed through the outer perimeter.

Despite that, he only had eyes for the single figure that was already air-borne, a lance in hand, leaping right at him.

Ultaf Shimizu ‘s charge hit the roof like a bomb, and Zuken raised a barrier just in time to intercept it. The stones beneath his feet shattered as the impact buckled the roof beneath him, as he shifted his weight and redirected the charge into a pair of boulders, catapulting them towards Ultaf who narrowly avoided them, skidding across the roof. The Shimizu had clearly aimed for a lethal blow and superficial damage to the roof barely counted as a minor problem in comparison to that.

Ultaf turned to face him. “I told you, Banksi. You'll rue the day you went against me.”

“I already am,” said Zuken, frowning. He hoped Ultaf hadn’t seen his hands shake. Just eleven more wardstones and the barrier would fall. “Your army has absolutely no regard for lawn maintenance.”

Ultaf threw his head back and laughed. “Witty under pressure. I like that. Tell me Banksi, what did you hope to gain by crossing me?”

Zuken exhaled. Truth be told, he had been expecting the situation to turn out very differently when he had decided to spurn Ultaf’s overtures. Between Tanya’s aeromancy and Lukas Aguilar’s unpredictability, he had thought of multiple options if and when the eventual face-off happened.

“You know what they say, humor is like violence. They both come unexpectedly, and the more unpredictable they are, the better they get.”

“I quite agree,” said Ultaf, losing his combat stance. “I’m offering you one last chance, Banksi. Call it my Asukan pride, I’d rather avoid killing a noble if I could.”

“I can only repeat what I told you earlier, Ultaf,” Zuken said tersely. “It is true that I hired Tanya, but she isn’t under my protection anymore. She got stranded in a borderland in the last mission. I’m not even certain she’s even alive anymore.”

He wasn’t dragging the truth. Getting stranded in a borderland was one of the most dangerous things that could happen to an average adventurer during a mission. That said, Tanya wasn’t exactly what one’d consider average.

Nor Lukas, for that matter.

His thoughts went back to Elena and Olfric, both currently hiding in the emergency room, in the event of a catastrophe, the room was enchanted to sink deep within the crust, all the way to the very base of the mountain. Of course, that was his ultimate failsafe, and would only be triggered if all his defenses had failed spectacularly, and Zuken had perished.

Not a very attractive thought.

Again, it was the worst possible scenario. Zuken believed that there were a rather substantial number of alternatives that he could insert before things went that far. Any other spiritist in his place would’ve placed their hopes on the defensive and offensive capabilities of their wards, but Zuken had always been an odd one out. To him, manacrafting was just one more set of tools that the mind could use to solve problems. The mind was the more important part of the pairing.

And his mind told him that the key to his survival lay in convincing Ultaf.

Ultaf Shimizu was a rather simple man to understand once you figured out his logic. He truly believed that it was his right to rule, being the only relevant Sacred Eight Lord in the entire region. True, Lord Naowa, the Shogun of the entire Llaisy Kingdom was a Sacred Eight Lord as well, but he was as docile as they came. Plus, he had the entirety of the kingdom to manage, and was probably the last person who wanted to be caught in a crossfire between a Sacred Eight Lord and the outcast son of another over something so trifling. Even Tatun Kinosu, the Overseer of Haviskali, would almost certainly turn a blind eye to what was happening.

Hence, Ultaf Shimizu embodied the greatest authority in this region. In Ultaf’s mind, the strong stood over the weak and made the rules, and he stood above them all, and therefore held final say in everything. Should there be a subject that he bothered to take interest in, he’d address it as he saw fit with no issues, regardless of the destruction that might happen in his wake, if someone attempted something he did not like, he was, in his own mind, obligated to serve as an appropriate judge, jury and executioner.

Whether he allowed them to live was merely a part of his self-imposed duty as the judge and jury.

It was up to Zuken to make sure that Ultaf did not take up the third role. Dying was bad for business.

“You can choose to destroy my mansion, Ultaf,” he said in as calm a voice as possible. “But the truth won’t change. To the best of my knowledge, Tanya has been stranded, along with a fellow compatriot.”

Ultaf Shimizu stayed quiet for several moments before smiling briefly, as if amused by a small joke. “You’re lying!”

Zuken frowned. He was missing something, a key ingredient in this conversation. Whatever Ultaf’s sources were, he must have been mightily confident in them.

“What makes you say that?”

“I have my sources.”

“Your sources are wrong.” he shot back.

“You’re annoying me now,” drawled Ultaf. “First you lied about sheltering the creature. Then you stood defiant against me. And now, you call my source, Lady Kandra, a liar.”

Zuken faltered. Anyone in the mercenary business knew of Lady Kandra. Supposedly, she knew everyone from the bottommost rung of the political ladder to the highest, but no one knew her. Zuken counted himself as one of the rare few that had the opportunity to even converse with her. A true ghost. Lady Kandra was someone that could be swayed with neither riches nor resources. She dealt in one thing and one thing alone — information. And that made her dangerous.

And if Lady Kandra was Ultaf’s source, no wonder he was being so reckless about things. The real question was, why would someone like her lie to Ultaf Shimizu? Even better, why would someone that played on the Empire level take interest in something so insignificant?

“I don't know why Lady Kandra thinks otherwise, but it is not true. I do not—”

The rest of his words died in his throat, as the sound of something… loud hit his ears. Only, it was less like noise than it was like being thrown into an enormous vat of sludge. Instantly, he felt like there was no way to get a good breath. There was pressure against all of his skin and pain in his ears, like he had just jumped off a really, high cliff. His defenses failing, Zuken clapped his hands over his ears, not that it did much good. Honestly, it was a miracle that he hadn’t fallen to the ground, spasming in agony.

Then he saw it.

Wings.

Six of them.

Each spanning twice the size of an average jixin, claws that were taller than he was, and a mouth that looked like it could swallow three people like him in one go, the creature that manifested in the sky above his mansion looked less like a kami and more like a demon.

For the first time since he had seen his father angry, Zuken Banksi felt fear.