A day had passed, Periwinkle vanished already, leaving only a note to thank him for the cake and dress.

He could only laugh, yes, this was a very Fae thing to do. He knew that he could make a rule and she would be forced to come back, but it didn’t matter, he learned what he needed to know about Pixies.

Nothing was stolen, nothing was broken or malformed, she just left once she had what she wanted.

Harlan got a call from Brig, not that he had been attacked, just that most of the work was done.

While he had been asked not to go to Luth, Harlan went anyway.

“Hey, old man.”

“Aye, I got yer things in boxes. Load ‘em yourself. Yer makin’ scary things.”

“If I can’t get safety through being friendly, I need people to be too afraid to attack me.”

“Ain’t possible. Some damn fools will always try their luck anyway.”

“Have you thought about being my personal blacksmith?”

“People need me.”

“Then I won’t say another word of it.”

He set down his tools, he needed to wait for the forge to warm up a bit of metal.

“Yer god, does she talk ta ya?”

“Yes.”

“Could you ask her for something?”

“I can’t say for sure she would answer, but yes.”

“Is there a way past the veil?”

His eyes went black.

“You’ve already been out there, where do you think that evolved skinwalker was?”

“So, how do I get there again?”

“Void gates, or Lir guides you through the veil herself. Nobody is supposed to go in and come out the other side. Though each of us has our own way to get mortals past it.”

“Why doesn’t she just help him then. He is her champion, right?”

“She took pity on him, brought him here where he is least likely to die, so her power is not passed on to fools again.”

“Couldn’t she just not make more champions?”

“Not all of us get to pick, Calli doesn’t make champions in the normal sense, people just get invigorated by her and then it passes. Lir places a little bit of her water in a bottle, and then places it somewhere to be found by a hero at the end of a trial, this is related to an old scar between her and a past champion.”

“What happened?”

She diverted her hundreds of eyes, it wasn’t really her sister’s fault.

“He said she was unfit to pick champions, that all she could bring was sorrow upon them. Then he took his own life.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Remember, find out how to cast a void gate, and you can go anywhere in the world without limits.

I made it to move my troops past Fae tricks like what you encountered before. You are lucky that it was a traded item. Not that any Fae who would directly attack you would escape my sight. They are the threats which I am willing to use my full strength to protect you from. You cannot possibly beat them as you are now.”

“Why not?”

“They are masters of the mind, any of them with an ounce of true power would break yours instantly.

Fear and pain run deeply inside you, not to mention you are still a child.”

“Barely.”

“Do not mistake trauma for maturity. You are never going to grow up if you cannot move past these things.”

“I have moved past most of it.”

He had already been standing there for minutes, so he didn’t notice when a group of soldiers in unmarked armor approached the store.

“Perhaps your sacrificial tendency has passed somewhat, but you are still terrified of losing control, all you’ve done is hide it. I might not understand the human mind in its entirety, but I have seen men with far stronger morals break under the weight of life. Do not think yourself too strong for that, ever.”

A new set of eyes appeared.

“My ears were burning, I hope you haven’t been speaking ill of the dead.”

“Coronach, this isn’t the best time to explain your story.”

“Understood. You’ll hear it one day, Little Shadow, you will understand what this world is at its core.”

“My child, you’ve spent enough time here, return to yourself.”

The knight at the front was yelling right in his ear for the last few minutes.

“Sorry, I wasn’t here. I take it you are from the Seaborn?”

“We came to deliver a message, the sea does not forget.”

Brig laughed at the man, Harlan was unimpressed with the threat.

“You came all the way here for a threat?”

“You’ll understand the meaning soon enough.”

The man was little more than a messenger, not highborn, not a bastard, not even a very good swordsman, just a mercenary.

Harlan called Balor, there was no answer, so he tried Isha, no answer.

Rage filled him.

Harlan grabbed the man by the shoulder and crushed his armor inwards.

“What did you do?”

Another stepped forward to pull him off.

The guards came to find out what all the screaming was, only to find Harlan covered in blood and holding a severed head.

They didn’t even get the chance to ask what was happening when Harlan flew past them so quickly that the winds forced them off balance.

The air caught fire for a moment before Harlan applied a friction lessening spell and sped up.

Blood could no longer reach throughout his body as the gravitational forces overpowered his heart.

He lost consciousness for just a split second before imbibing magic forced his heart to grow in strength until he could handle the speed he was flying.

He ran into an array that prevented his air magic from working any longer, then more that shut down his other magics.

It was painful, like ignoring an itch, to even stand inside of such a thing, and thus they were rarely used unless modified like the city spanning arrays.

3 targets closed in under stealth.

He pulled his telekinesis close to his skin in the hopes to somewhat counter the array by pushing mana and life outwards. It was something Aria had told him about.

Harlan couldn’t use ranged magic, but he could still imbibe.

A dangerous level of strength flowed through his body, every twitch felt like he could tear his own arms off.

The men attacked in a triangle formation, each aimed at different vital spots.

Harlan had never had never used so much imbibing magic, normally he didn’t need it, and more than that, it was something that required a bit more focus and should never be used as he had done.

He leapt at the man aiming for his brain, not being used to his new strength he tumbled in the air like an unbalanced axe, but one that was 500 pounds without hover active.

The man was painted across the forest floor in a gruesome display, but Harlan had shattered his legs due to the explosive force of his muscles, remaining standing only through use of his armor.

The assassins nodded their heads, they did not care about the man who died, they were part of different guilds who had been contracted for this rush job, having never expected what would happen.

They were supposed to prevent him from joining the fight, so they just waited, an unfortunate mistake.

All of his achievement and experience in arrays, most specifically breaking them, was something that was hidden by pure chance, as he only did so in front of Aria when they met.

The men felt the first array drop and rushed him to prevent him from cracking the others.

But it didn’t matter, light had been restored, and then darkness after that.

He called through the void to someone else, then he healed his body as much as he could.

A sickly sloshing could be heard inside of his armor as he moved around.

Harlan could only hold them off by virtue of breaking one of their swords in the first clash, but then he had also broken his own arm with that strike.

Telekinesis, what he believed was one of his most powerful magics, was unfortunately useless against the men, otherwise he would’ve just crushed their hearts with an invisible strike.

Then he understood, he had been using it wrong.

Divots formed as the man who still had a sword slipped on a hole Harlan made by simply striking the ground with telekinesis.

As his mind raced, Harlan realized, all telekinesis was is the ability to remotely make contact with the world around him.

If he could not reach down and get a handful of dirt to throw in their eyes, he could use telekinesis to do so.

The blood loss was slowing him down, yet his allies had arrived.

A wave of shadows covered the first man as the Skoll and his pack arrived.

The moment the second one averted his eyes for just a moment Harlan telekinetically put a stone through his head like a bolt.

“Little Shadow, you called us. My debt is repaid.”

He didn’t respond, he just needed to get out of the arrays so he could get moving more quickly.

The scene when he finally reached his home made his blood run cold.

Many golems and his trees were broken beyond repair, but they had done their job.

He could tell that people had been torn limb from limb, craters had been carved out of his land by powerful magic.

The fear he felt stopped his mental senses from properly functioning, so he frantically began searching the bodies to verify their identities.

Kass stepped outside with armor and mace covered in blood.

“Harlan, what was this? The duke?”

“IS EVERYONE ALRIGHT.”

Harlan was trembling.

“Yes, we all reached the bunker through your tunnels as soon as the attack started. The ones that forced their way past the defenses did not breach it.”

His shaking was so bad he had to use telekinesis to pull out his amulet to call his parents.

“ARE YOU OK?”

“Yes?”

“LOCKDOWN THE FARM. I’LL BE THERE SOON.”

He looked over at the bodies, even the Unseen had been killed, the ranged soulsearching spell still required eyesight, thus unlike with Harlan’s mental senses, it could be bypassed.

Harlan took a deep breath, yet it did not calm him a single bit. The air itself seemed to darken as he kept trying to calm down, each breath becoming shorter than the last until he was hyperventilating.

Then he stopped breathing, his lungs turned black as his body shifted into something for what he needed.

Ava was still staying at his home and she rushed to him as soon as he collapsed on the ground.

When he heard her voice, his body stopped seizing, his transformation reverted.

“WAKE UP, HARLAN.”

He staggered to his feet and did what he should’ve done from the start.

Amulet in hand, he made the call.

“Sepul, the Seaborn have attacked my home, they might attack my parents farm, please, please.”

“I understand.”

Then he fell again.

As he laid there on the ground, he sunk his hand into the dirt, the trees had been broken, but they still contained magic to be commanded outside of one he didn’t recognize.

Roots and branches pulled the bodies to him.

“Ava… get away…”

“No, you need to come inside so-”

With more strength than he thought he had, Harlan pushed her back and put up a room of thin stone around him.

Balor had some idea of what would happen, so he restrained her.

Inside of the stone cube Harlan opened his armor to let the pooled blood out, which it then painted on the walls and ceiling, while he handled the sigil on the ground.

The golem armor brought each of the bodies nearer and Harlan began to absorb them.

20 minutes passed with him inside, he had missed the lightshow as a second sun rose in the sky, followed by screaming.

When the walls dropped, he was hundreds of pounds heavier.

He needed hover and his armor fighting against him just to avoid hurting Ava, who rushed to his side.

“What happened?”

His voice came out as a hellish cacophony for just a few words.

“I needed to heal.”

He touched his throat and spoke again.

“I overused imbibing. My limbs were broken, my armor was full of blood.”

Ava looked inside the cube, seeing that the bodies were gone, only their equipment remained.

She took a few steps back, fear was plain in her voice.

“What did you do?”

His eyes bulged and shrunk again as he got used to his new mass.

“What I needed to do.”

He cracked his neck, a vein popped and then healed in an instant.

Sepul arrived shortly afterwards, while everyone was still looking on in shock as Harlan’s skin writhed like maggots.

He looked at Harlan, at the piles of armor, and he guessed what had happened.

“Stay here, I will be back, you have more friends and family that need to be watched for.

I’ve already contacted Mary and the academy.”

Blackstone was unlikely to be in any danger.

The home of a noble was always a fortress no matter how it might look from the outside. As an old family and a count, anything short of a real army laying siege for hours wouldn’t make it through.

Redwall’s home was far less impressive, but outside of warmagic, it would take time to break in.

Sepul divined from the air, finding people hiding in places that seemed abnormal.

These were the ones that he could easily capture for questioning.

After half a day of teleporting to various places to make sure that it really was just a single attack on each area, he returned to the farm.

Harlan twirled his weapon in his hand, his eyes black.

When Sepul approached Harlan woke from his talk.

“What happens now?”

“Now you understand how deeply the problem goes. The madmen, to openly attack you and yours.”

The staff in his hands snapped before reforming.

“They will surely make an argument in court, but it will be a farce. The men who attacked did not wear colors or badges, but that will only delay the investigation so much. I’ll start brewing more truth potions the moment I return home. This… this is never something that can be accepted, there is no money, no favors, nothing, that will make this end with anything else but me razing their home to the ground, killing them down to the last.”

Harlan took a deep breath.

“I’m going to begin making things.”

Sepul placed his hand on Harlan’s shoulder, trying to comfort him.

“No, not yet, you are in no state of mind to do this. There will be a time for you, but please, allow me to handle this.”

He looked around the room.

“Where is the boy, the one I was supposed to train?”

Isha took his hand, tears filled her eyes, dried blood was still on her dress.

“He was the one who greeted them, it’s my fault, I was hanging out laundry and asked him to open the gate.”

Another one whose name he didn’t even know.

“There is nothing to be done, this is my fault, my defenses, my preparation, it wasn’t enough.”

The fire inside was no smaller than earlier, he simply pulled it inside.

There was of course a lot of investigation, Seekers in and out all hours of the night.

Dahlia didn’t leave his side, even a royal guard was assigned to him.

Harlan spent every little bit of free time he had making golems, he had gotten lax, the defenses he had were still based on his dumb golems, very few of them were intelligent.

He had made better golems, but never replaced the ones he had, instead they always ended up shipped to the orphan village or his parents farm which was always expanding.

Some of the soldiers had tried to burn the orphan village, but it was a slaughter as the Brothers cut them down with no less brutality than Harlan would while the Sisters watched the children.

Everyday more of them walked out of the house. These were not things to protect, they were forged in anger and hate.

He burned over half of his new mass just to avoid much needed sleep and tp soulsmith them.

Their heads looked like a human skull with no jaw, the only white on them, while the eyes shone a malevolent dark red.

Each was stamped with a number on their head to show when they were made.

They stood no less than 8 feet tall and were broad shouldered.

They were walking suits of armor, though it was still just stonesteel, color magic gave them the appearance of obsidian colossi.

40 of them were made before the month ended.

15 for the farm, 15 for Redwall, and 10 for his home.

37 were smart, 3 were alive, their skulls black to mark them as the leaders of their respective units.

Thus they were his Black Sentinels, and those under him his Black Guard.

Harlan thought for a moment about giving them a name like The Death Corp, The Black Unit, Or Deadmen. But, he thought about it, those names lacked subtlety, he wanted something which was not so overtly threatening. And, ultimately, they were a defensive unit.

The leaders, who he just referred to as Black 1, 2, and 3, spoke in a tone like a poor imitation of a human, sounding hollow and mechanical, as if he was only echoing words from steel lungs

“Combat ready.”

He had to call in a favor, but he had been given three of the anti-golem rifles, just like the one that nearly took his own life.

From there it was a matter of taking it apart and figuring out how it worked, then he needed to manufacture the other parts.

Only the living golems were given one built into his arm.

The sound dampening spells he put on it helped, but standing near it, his ears were still ringing.

“You know what you must do?”

“Slaughter when required, protect at all other times. Shoot first, bury the bodies later.”

“Good, now, real orders.”

“Keep everyone safe, avoid hurting people, look scary, talk in a manner unlike a person.”

“I’m sorry that you are smart enough to understand all of this.”

“I am sorry that I must exist.”

Black-1 placed its large clawed hand on Harlan’s shoulders.

“I will keep them safe.”

Xol appeared suddenly.

“Don’t let that darkness swallow you whole. You’ve got too much light left in your heart, too much fire in your lungs.”

“What?”

He did not remember when he stopped needing to breathe, and had just assumed that he had gotten over his panic attack.

“Love will drag you to the infinite depths of hell. Another gift?”

It took him a moment to understand the question.

“Void gate, how do I learn it?”

Xol made a tsk sound, cursing under his breath.

“I know not of such magic. It is the place of her champion, and the failed champion. Ask another of me.”

“Time magic.”

“It would be an unfairness to you if I took your asking. It shall come to you in time. Another.”

“Truth magic, how do I make one of the potions?”

“A secret known to Fae and The Light of Man, yet neither does this the same way. Another.”

Harlan was getting annoyed.

“How do I protect everyone, can I?”

“What you seek is to always be here and there. This… this is something which I should refuse you. Yet…”

He pulled a book from his sleeve.

“If you lack true self, then this shall be death to you, and death to yourself. Do take care, Changeling.”

He vanished, same as he always did.

The book was two tones of black, one which seemed to absorb every drop of light which reached it, and one which rejected the light.

The only crime of which Harlan was fined for, was not for killing those men in cold blood, but for leaving their bodies.

When he got the letter, they referred to it as a cleaning charge.

He could only laugh, not out of any real amusement, but out of insanity. Hurting a boy who asked for a fight was enough to pay over 100 men to kill him and his family. But tearing 4 of them limb from limb and leaving their bodies to cool in the street, was worth 20 silver.

House Seaborn, despite everything, could not be linked to the attack.

Yggdra had to make a very convincing argument to prevent Sepul from dropping a small mountain from low orbit on the family home anyway.

However, that did not mean that Sepul did not visit them, and make a clear proclamation.

Any attempt against Harlan, or his family, or his friends, was no different than attacking him.

At the end of the month he delivered the heads of 100 wanted assassins to the guards in the capital.

Within the last 20 years, every single powerful assassins guild had been wiped out, replaced, and then wiped out again.

Yet the profession never seemed to die, people always wanted killers.