Chương 86: Last Living Legend

Ophelia wished things weren't so distracting at the moment. It had neither been that long since she had started her investigation into this Order that Ryland had mentioned nor had she found anything noteworthy about them yet. Just faint slivers of interference via oddities. Like a lost Warden Mage, or the fact that there had been a surprising number of Academs visiting the undercity. How and why were those two related? What else was she missing?

None of which she could think about any longer because the Prime Minister of Androvia himself had decided to pay Arcoryx City a visit. Which meant she was stuck to security detail.

"I've completed my patrol of the 9th District, Warden," she reported near the Warden Outpost at the corner of the district. The Senior Warden there worked directly under the city's High Warden but still didn't technically outrank her. Ophelia was just being polite in letting him order her on what duties she needed to fulfil.

"Nothing unusual to report." The Senior Warden banished the clerks he was working with as he paid his full, beady-eyed attention to her. He seemed to be in a hurry.

"Nothing at all, Mage Knight?"

"Well, nothing besides far too many people in the streets, far too many hawkers and vendors trying to take advantage of that fact, and far too many easy ways for things to spiral out of control." Her words clearly weren't appreciated by the High Warden.

"Well, we're trying to ensure there aren't real security breaches. That's what we're busy with."

"I know, Warden. I just think we're missing something…"

"If you figure out what, do let me know." His words were just the tiniest bit scathing. It seemed everyone was on edge thanks to the Prime Minister's surprising arrival.

"For now, I'll head back to the fray and continue monitoring the actual defences and such." And that was that of their little meeting. Ophelia felt like she had been a little short-changed but that was alright. The circumstances didn't leave room for perfection from anyone. That said, she wasn't lying about her intuition. For all the security everyone was trying to instil, she couldn't help but feel like there was one sector where they weren't putting in as much effort as they really should be. What was it, though?

What was she missing? On the way to meeting the other Mage Knights stationed at Arcoryx, Ophelia once again got a solid taste of just how much the entire city seemed to be in a celebratory uproar. People thronged the streets. Children were being taken to all sorts of sights and attractions by their parents. Couples were wearing matching hats or were draped in the same scarf in the colours of Androvia. The loud hullaballoo of the crowds made Ophelia's ears ring within minutes of taking to the streets.

Were the Wardens actually confident they could provide adequate security through all this mess? She eventually passed by a location where labourers and Technician Mages were hard at work with a magical display. It was supposed to be a working model of the Prime Minister himself, a gigantic mechanical construct representing the most powerful man in the nation. Ophelia just shook her head as she wended her way through the people pointing and gawking at the half-finished automaton.

It was more vanity than she could bear, honestly.

"Ophelia!" Sir Bruten waved at her from the table in the tavern the Mage Knights had collectively taken over. It was one of the more expensive options in the 2nd District, usually serving noble clients. Just to keep in theme, the tavern went by the fancier moniker of "restaurant" rather than a simple tavern. But among themselves—which included both the Mage Knights who had already been at Arcoryx and the new ones who had arrived as part of the Prime Minister's security detail—they just called it a tavern.

Ophelia took a seat next to Sir Bruten, who was himself seated opposite the foreign Mage Knight.

"I see you've recovered well, Solverfel," Ophelia said. Her words caught a little at the lack of a Sir in front of his name, but that wasn't how they did things on Rhel. Weird that they still called themselves Mage Knights, though.

"Congratulations."

"I wasn't injured to begin with," he said in accented Androvian.

"Lady Ophelia."

"You will forgive my misinterpretation then, considering your state after the duel."

"I was perfectly fine!" Sir Bruten laughed hard enough to shake their table.

"Seeing you two get along so well is exactly why I called you over, Ophelia."

"Lady Ophelia is clearly upset about something," the elvhenan Mage Knight said with surprising insight.

"And now she's making me the subject of her ire."

"I am not upset. I am merely stressed by everything happening here and the fact that I'm being sidelined from my original investigation to security duty."

"And you believe a Mage Knight is meant for something more?" Sir Bruten asked. Ophelia couldn't halt the flush on her face from emerging. Her mother would have been so embarrassed by her reaction.

"That isn't what I meant. I just think we all have our duties—""And your duty is chasing ghosts all over the city?" Solverfel asked with a raised, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. Really, why were his eyebrows better looking than hers?

"I am not chasing ghosts," she said more indignantly than she'd have liked.

"In fact, the one who pummelled you to paste and left you depressed for a week was the one who informed me about it, Mage Knight Solverfel." Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"I was not pummelled to paste." Ophelia tried not to smirk. She noted that he hadn't countered the fact that Ryland himself had spoken of this Order. Ophelia had mentioned it to her fellow Mage Knights, but they hadn't really given much credence to it, so she hadn't pressed the point too much. She didn't have solid evidence, after all.

"Why don't you let me chase these ghosts of yours, Lady Ophelia?" Sir Bruten said.

"Maybe you just need a change of pace."

"I don't need anything other than some space to do the work I have actual faith in," she said.

"And frankly, your duty is abhorrent, Sir Bruten. Double-checking the backgrounds of all the new entrants into the city sounds like the height of exhaustion."

"It's not that bad. I get my own detail of Warden Mages to do the grunt work and I just step in if absolutely necessary. Which it hasn't really been, yet." Ophelia wasn't listening.

"You've had over thirty thousand people visiting Arcoryx from all over Androvia. Not just labourers and artists and whatnot, but tons and tons of visitors too. That's bound to take up so much time…"

"Please, it's not that bad." Conversation with her fellow Mage Knights wasn't very productive, but she had to admit it was refreshing in a strange way. So, she soaked in their company up until she felt recharged enough to tackle her real goals. Before they could countermand her or anything, Ophelia quickly slipped away from the 2nd District tavern and found herself at the 35th District near the walls.

Normally, it would have taken her perhaps ten minutes to traverse a third of the city thanks to her Inscribed Glyphs of Power and Agility. But with all the crowds, it nearly took her an hour. And then another half hour before she found her exact destination because she had to ask around a lot to locate it.

"I'm afraid I don't know much," the poor woman Ophelia was interrogating said. Her face was haggard with sorrow.

"I don't really understand what happened. He changed so suddenly. He was so… good for a week or two. And how he's just… gone. No one knows what happened."

"Good?" Ophelia pressed. She felt a bit horrible at having to poke and prod someone who was clearly in the throes of grief, but she didn't want to waste this opportunity. Time was already hard to find.

"How exactly was he good?" Her expression soured.

"Was he… troubling before that? Any other changes you noticed?" The Warden Mage's widow sighed.

"Lots of changes. He played with the children more. He brought nice food. But he also seemed a lot more active, always out and about, never a moment of rest. He was a lot lazier before that. I don't know what changed." Out and about, was it?

"Where did he go? Do you know?"

"I'm not sure. I heard him muttering about all sorts of places. Though what I heard the most was Old Lake." Ophelia frowned. The Old Lake was in the 20th District, not too far from Arcoryx Academy. What else was there? She couldn't tell off the top of her head, but it was clear that it would be the best place to investigate next. So, thanking the poor woman and offering her some money as a token of gratitude, Ophelia quickly headed off to see if she had time to visit the Old Lake.

Ryland had expected to be taken to a more heavily-guarded if secluded area when he had agreed to go with the Enforcers. Well, the location they took him to certainly fulfilled both requirements from a certain perspective. But he hadn't expected it to still be within the academy. They were walking through one of the oldest halls in the entire academy, a location Ryland himself had hardly ever visited during his time at Arcoryx.

Pillars bigger than ancient trees stretched up towards a roof that hung several hundred handspans over Ryland's head. The entire place was crystalline, embodying the City of Glass's most famous attribute.

"It almost feels as though you are intent on offending my sensibilities," Ryland said. Several of the Enforcers tensed. His Inscribed Glyph of Biology sensed their muscles tautening like they were getting ready to dodge if he tried to banish them to random Realms.

"Why would you say that?" the first Senior Enforcer asked. Ryland couldn't keep a growl from filling his voice and making the air shiver at the same time.

"Because I specifically said that, whatever you did, the academy was not to come to harm. And yet, you seem to be drawing me deeper and deeper into Arcoryx."

"We have been ordered to bring you to a specific location. If said location offends you, please take it up with the one seeking your audience." Ryland had been about to simply stop going along with the Enforcers because he was quickly running out of patience. But the woman was canny. Now she was mentioning someone seeking an audience, which she hadn't before. His curiosity was piqued a bit too strongly. Especially because he was sensing something odd about the powerful aura that had spread all over Arcoryx City.

Ryland had originally thought they were heading towards the Prime Minister, since that was where he had seen the piece of him the Enforcers had somehow identified. But would he already be within Arcoryx Academy? That seemed difficult to believe. Surely they were moving away from the Prime Minister. Yet, why did it feel as though the aura was strengthening in Ryland's vicinity?" [Broken Realm]," Ryland intoned as he continued walking.

The spell with his Soul Glyph of Rift as the Centreglyph came alive in the blink of an eye. Golden lines cracked through reality like bolts of electricity. All the Enforcers immediately tensed, but every single one of them failed to react in time. They failed to react at all. There were few people who could react to this specific spell, after all.

"What did you just—?" The first Senior Enforcer moved rigidly. Almost gingerly.

"Everything's sharp."

"I've broken reality," Ryland said simply.

"I've taken it to the verge of shattering entirely. A bit more magical pressure and it will crack entirely. I suggest that you do nothing to make that happen." The Enforcers were still as statues for a good while before eventually keeping pace with Ryland. They didn't fight back or protest. He was tempted to wonder if they had silent communication methods like Inscribed Glyphs of Telepathy, but he had sensed no such thing yet. The more likely case was that they had no response to magic of the kind he had just used.

To be fair, there were very few people who did. The cracks in space started smoothing away. Ryland came to a stop. He frowned. Foreign magic. The aura he was sensing had grown weirder than ever, spiking everywhere and completely erased in certain spots. Ah. Now he got it. Someone was purposefully making the aura difficult to read. So that mages like Ryland, who had experience in sensing through the field of mana to locate its origin, could make neither heads nor tails of it.

And it was that same mage who had just smoothed away Ryland's Tier [24] magic. The growing surety in the Enforcers' footsteps confirmed they were nearing their destination. As did the fact that more of the cracks started dissipating. Ryland kept forging onwards, ignoring the tampering with his spell, determined to solve this little mystery that had practically taken over his whole day. It wasn't long before a figure appeared in the distance. A faintly familiar figure.

One who was carefully and precisely wiping out the cracks Ryland had created with… soul magic? Ah. The familiarity was starting to grow towards recognition. Especially once he saw the person in full. He had aged a great deal. No longer was his brown skin smooth and unblemished. His hair had migrated southward to grant him a magnificent white beard, but that had left the liver spots on his dark pate easily visible. Yet, despite his advanced age, his might and his standing were undeniable.

His robes of purple and gold shone like every thread was made of mana. His manasoul was resplendent with power, one that was carefully suppressed. And yet, even in that suppressed state, he was causing the aura to spike and warp all around them.

"It's been a long while, Marionys Ryland," he said.

"It probably has," Ryland said. The old man stared at him for a while. His moonlike irises glimmered with the depth of ages.

"Probably?"

"Well, that's what I assume you feel. But I for one have lost sense of the scale of time, unfortunately."

"You… don't recognize me, do you?"

"Oh, I do. The lone Empyrean-ranked Archmage in Androvia and the last living legend of the Realmbreaker Wars on this side of Vyrd. Sokolo Dyron." Ryland's eyes hardened as his manasoul began rippling into greater and greater potency.

"You've made a mistake bringing me here."