Chương 57: A View of The Frontlines

As the official strongest mage in Arcoryx City, Alaric was constantly battling the temptation to jump into the fray. Into the biggest battle the city had seen in ages. Officially the strongest, because no one officially knew about Ryland's… Ryland-ness. His reasoning for it was sound too. He wasn't a battle-junkie looking for his next fix. Rather, if he could help wipe out the Living Mana Incursion before it could grow impossibly strong, then he could simplify the encounter tremendously.

Lahm was always there to keep him and his impulses in check, however.

"Headmaster," he said in a suspiciously knowing tone.

"We have word from regiments three, eight, and thirteen. We've had seven updates since last we checked the live status. We've also received a communique from the students gathered in the western fortified halls, sir."

"Right, of course." Alaric tore his gaze away from the battlefield, where the Living Mana was giving the defenders a run for their money.

"Let's go through them one at a time." That was his primary task. He might be one of the foremost mages in all of Androvia, but that didn't mean his magical might was his most valuable attribute. Rather, Alaric was the lynchpin tying the whole defensive effort together. He was effectively the supreme commander of the defence force, the main liaison between the Wardens, the various defensive contingents from the academy itself, and the city's actual defenders like the Mage Knights.

He couldn't abandon his all-too-important post because of his ego. So, he went about relaying messages, forwarding and issuing commands, trying his best not to feel dismayed at hearing losses and reports of the Living Mana intensifying in strength. The students holed up in the most secure halls of the academy weren't the only ones who needed reassurance. Alaric could use some too. At least they were still secure. The red rain hadn't gotten through to flood the grounds yet.

None of the Living Mana was assaulting the academy's barriers yet. Although, if it managed to do so, he had a sinking feeling that the Incursion would break through their shields too. Just as it had done with the city.

"Sir," Lahm said about an hour later.

"High Academ Soto wants to bolster the academy's defences." Alaric stared nonplussed at his secretary.

"Surely, he's not suggesting we actively amend the barriers in the middle of an Incursion that's at least Exalted-ranked now?"

"He says he has urgent suspicions to share regarding the Living Mana's strange propensity to perpetually raise its prowess. If it is true, then that is what might require bolstering against." Alaric, while remaining externally calm, found his spirit jolting just a bit. The Living Mana's phenomenon of growing stronger and stronger was bothering him immensely.

"Send him in," Alaric said.

"But we must make this quick." Lahm nodded.

"I will impress upon him the need for haste." Soto strode in moments later, a notebook in hand with an ink-dipped quill floating next to him, a looking glass in his left hand.

"Headmaster, I will get right down to business." He displayed his sketches and notes.

"I've determined what it's doing—the Living Mana is growing stronger in reaction to a persistent threat to it." Alaric frowned.

"That makes no sense. We have always been a persistent threat to Living Mana because Living Mana itself is a threat to us. How are things different now?" Soto shook his head.

"I don't know, sir. I can't peer into its mind. All I was able to do was verify its biological response, such that there is. For Living Mana is living, and one of the foremost instincts of life is to survive." Alaric was struggling to comprehend the revelation. He had faced many Incursions across his life, and most had displayed unique properties. Even now, he recalled how wondrous he had felt upon discovering Living Mana that had turned into a living landscape.

A mountain range, covered by a forest, with a river bisecting it all. A living ecosystem. Wondrous and inconceivable as it had seemed, he had come to understand how it had happened. The requirement for camouflage, the deeper need for belonging, and the inherent power that could be attained by consuming everything venturing within its artificial zone. Here… Alaric was struggling to see the line of logic. He was missing something.

"But to evolve so rapidly in such a short period of time…" Alaric said.

"Where is it even finding the power to do so?" Soto, who appeared to be waiting for the realization that was only just now dawning on his face, nodded.

"There is absolutely a foreign magical component involved." A foreign component.

"You seriously can't be suggesting…"

"Obviously, correlation isn't causation," Soto said.

"But at the same time, one would be foolish to ignore the potential links." Alaric wracked his brain. Had there been another incident like this?

"Lahm. Can you recover the records of the recent Incursions?"

"Right away, Headmaster," Lahm said. Soto looked on curiously while Alaric made sure there was nothing egregiously terrible at the actual battle, nor was his immediate attention needed anywhere. The Incursion was still strengthening and things weren't looking peachy for the defenders, but it hadn't devolved into madness just yet.

"Here you are, sir," Lahm said. The corner of Alaric's war table, used for sending and receiving everything from missives to small items, glowed with its Inscribed spell circle. A paper appeared with a shimmer, and Alaric quickly read the report written in formal script.

"Extraordinary notice," he read, his spine tingling.

"Rapid accumulation of power by the Living Mana, enough to cause a noticeable jump in rank." He looked up and met Soto's eyes. The short blonde hair on the Academ's round head seemed to gleam silkily in satisfaction.

"Allow me to guess, Headmaster," he said.

"The man you've been protecting was involved with that incident as well." Alaric sighed.

"What would your hypothesis even be in this case?"

"What need is there to hypothesize, Headmaster? We can simply ask him directly, no?" He had a point there.

"Where is he located, Lahm?" Alaric asked. If his secretary had any thoughts about Soto's suspicion, he didn't share them.

"Let me check, sir." Just as he got going, however, the war table glowed a vivid red. Lahm stiffened as the number of communiques they were getting suddenly increased tenfold. Even where Alaric stood, safely ensconced in his office behind multiple concentric barriers, he could feel it. The broken rhythmic pulsing of tremendous power. Eradicating power. The war table's warning Glyph was now unleashing its siren in a dire alert. Things had taken a turn for the worse.

Alaric took care of administrative tasks with gusto. He relayed new orders, updated old commands, and essentially tried to get a grip on the rapidly worsening situation. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The Living Mana Incursion was battering down their defences and threatening to overwhelm the entirety of Arcoryx City. Despite the distance, Alaric had no trouble seeing proof of that.

That enormous cloud of rotting flesh and raining blood, more like a floating island of putrefaction, was descending upon them all with obliterating intent. Forget Exalted and Titan, a small part of him was seriously afraid that it was now Primordial-ranked. Which meant it was strong enough to beat him. The possibility was so insane, Alaric almost froze up. But the Headmaster couldn't freeze. Wasting as little time as possible, the three academy mages had gone straight to the roof of the administrative building.

Alaric had asked Lahm to take shelter with the rest of the office staff, but the secretary had steadfastly refused.

"I am your right-hand man, Headmaster," he had said.

"A hand can't simply be cast aside whenever one wishes." Soto gave them the strangest look, but there was no time for argument. A teleportation circle had quickly taken them to their destination. The view on the rooftop made his manasoul shiver with rousing strength. Alaric was no War Mage. By the time he was Headmaster, the Realmbreaker Wars were long over, and there was no longer a need for mages focusing purely on destruction. But that didn't mean he lacked power.

Peace was not allowed to dull the edge of his capabilities. Alaric's Inscribed Glyphs turned his arms metallic crystal, sparks of power running along the length of his limbs and body. Every breath he took gusted out white, sparkling smoke. The air thrummed with the true power of the Headmaster of Arcoryx Academy, space pulsing with the intensity of his manasoul. His companions weren't slouches, of course. Lahm had secured his position by being one of the most accomplished Mithril-ranked mages in the nation.

Soto might have been stuck at Exalted for decades now, but his long-ranged sorcery was a frightening thing to behold. So it was that the three of them, plus the remaining Academs and grad students, would bolster Arcoryx Academy's barricade against the Living Mana.

"What in the…" The sheer befuddlement in Lahm's voice, in the words of someone who Alaric considered more unshakeable than even himself, made him jerk his head straight up. There was no need for any of them to act. The Incursion… was already being dealt with. Alaric just stood a little mute as he watched the impossible become real. First, the writhing flesh-monstrosity of the Living Mana was dragged back into the cloud.

The putrid island suffered a storm of craters and dents on its surface as though it was imploding on the inside. It almost appeared as though it was fighting something within its decaying, continental mound.

"Where is he?" Soto had gotten right up to Lahm, his hands twitching like he wanted to shake the secretary.

"Where was his post?" Alaric was of half a mind to tell the High Academ to take it easy, but his eyes trailed to Lahm instead. He was curious too. No, not curious. It felt more like apprehension.

"He's over there, sir," Lahm said, pointing to their left towards another tower, standing even taller than the administrative building. Alaric had specifically requested that Ryland be positioned at a vantage point that would allow him to judge best when he might need to act, while also giving him a post from which he could act. Decisively. And now, they had very strong proof suggesting he was acting decisively. Because Ryland wasn't where he was supposed to be. Soto laughed, and it sounded almost maniacal.

"See, Headmaster. You can't deny anything. You can't—" His words were interrupted by the thunderous cracks rippling through the cloud of abominable flesh far above them. No one spoke. Alaric and his companions just stood transfixed as reality itself cracked apart, as black fractures broke across space itself like glass shattering. The fissures in space then began pulling in the Living Mana. All the Living Mana.

Every inch of that enormous island, that could have swamped the city and leagues beyond it, was now consumed completely. And something very deep inside Alaric promised that Ryland was the one behind it. He had, after all, seen those very same black rifts from the man.

"What in all the gods-blasted Realms would you say the Tier of that spell is, Headmaster?" Soto yelled out over the rising storm. Alaric considered the mad magic at work. The world itself was warping, thumping rhythmically like a heart full of adrenaline, the air now storming around them as the entire academy groaned under the stress of the incredible pull from those Realm-shattering rents, the barriers cracking and the many Inscribed Glyphs flashing in warning.

With a thunderous crack and a spark of dark energy emanating from the spot where all the rents had coagulated, it was all over. The Living Mana Incursion was simply gone.

"I don't know," Alaric finally told Soto as a disbelieving silence descended on them.

"But I do know the caster is merely Sil-no, Gold -ranked now." Soto stared at him.

"This is not the time for jokes, Headmaster." Then he continued staring when Alaric didn't correct himself.

"No way… you're serious?" Afterwards, Alaric was swamped by an avalanche. Casualties, damage reports, reconstruction efforts, and the typical like were merely the tip of the iceberg, even though they ideally should have constituted the majority of his actual efforts. What the Headmaster of Arcoryx Academy was actually busy with far too much were the meetings.

Meetings for deciding when the students should return to their actual dorms, meetings for going over the various damage and destruction, meetings for figuring out how the academy was supposed to help the city. Alaric blessed the fact that he had Lahm. His secretary was as powerful as the academy's barrier spells when it came to pointless meetings wasting the Headmaster's time. Sadly, Lahm couldn't help with the parties who weren't satisfied that the Living Mana Incursion had been repelled.

Mostly because they hadn't been involved with the repelling.

"We're not stupid, you know," the Governor of Arcoryx said belligerently.

"You know what happened to the final stage of the Incursion." His fat, pompous face bulged from the Mirror Plate's hologram. Sometimes, Alaric wondered why he hadn't thrown that Glyphtech device away yet.

"What excuses are you going to make this time, Headmaster?" asked the severe High Warden of Arcoryx City. The top of his head was still wrapped with bandages. He refused healing until all his subordinates were dealt with first.

"That an Incarnation popped in and whisked away the Living Mana as an act of divine providence like some are saying? The priests consider it blasphemy, and the Oracle is extremely suspicious too..." The Governor's jowls shook as he nodded approvingly.

"Right? This is far worse than your little wrinkle in the city's Warding Inscription."

"Or breaking centuries-long records of Arcoryx Academy's Entrance Trials." That was true enough. Alaric couldn't just swipe what had happened to the Living Mana under the rug as easily he had with the previous incidents. The Governor took a deep breath and sighed it out.

"You do understand why we are concerned, yes Alaric?" It was a mite galling that a mere Mithril-ranked mage addressed him with no deference at all. If anything, Governor Wolomir was almost acting as though he was Alaric's boss, which was a frankly ridiculous stance to consider. Even besides their rank in the Grand Frame, the man hadn't even been in his post for half a decade.

"I understand full well that there are those who are curious about what occurred over Arcoryx City today," Alaric said.

"They are concerned," the High Warden corrected.

"Reasonably concerned. How else would one feel at a display of inexplicable display of apocalyptic power right over one's head?"

"Exactly," the Governor said.

"Did you know, Alaric, that my Evaluator Mages tell me the magic used to tear apart the Incursion was at least a few ranks worse than the Incursion itself?" It was annoying how the fact was both surprising and yet made complete sense. Of course Ryland's magic was incalculably powerful. The Governor's Evaluator Mages had agreed it was far stronger than the Living Mana Incursion, but notably, the rotund man hadn't mentioned a specific rank.

"I understand all of your concerns," Alaric said.

"I understand your need to assuage fears that we're housing some sort of weapon or anything along those lines that could be used against others. I understand, I really do. But—" He sighed.

"We must handle this carefully. Do you think we—the city —can afford to anger the man who saved us all today?" That finally got them to stop and think for a Calamity-cursed second.

"We understand that you've been as cautious as someone in your position can be," the High Warden said, trying to be kind.

"But we also cannot perpetually hide this matter away from everyone."

"At least he's admitting it is a person," the Governor muttered.

"I still think the Vestige was—" Alaric glared at the man to stop his insinuation.

"This is what I mean. You can't say what you want and blab to whomever you wish. I repeat, we must handle this with caution and care."

"Yes, yes," the Warden said quickly to forestall any arguments.

"We must decide on a compromise on how to bring this matter to light appropriately." Alaric nodded, thoughts awhirl.

"Let me think for a day or two and get back to you."

"A whole day —" The High Warden cleared his throat.

"Then we shall convene in two days. Farewell for now, Alaric." They both left and the Mirror Plate returned to its plainly reflective state. Alaric sighed and leaned back in his seat. If he had thought he could finally relax a bit, he was sorely mistaken when Ryland's Fatehound materialized out of nowhere. Alaric should have reacted with a start but at this point, there wasn't much that could surprise him. Also, when had he allowed the Fatehound to bypass his office's defensive Inscriptions?

"Danger—eradicated," the monstrous being said.

"Quarry—fled." Alaric sat up, spine straightening." What?"

"Quarry—fled. Pursuit—nigh impossible. Cover—Living Mana Incursion. Quarry—fled."