Bymor was having a terrible day. The herald had promised to make an example out of the first big offenders, but the actual thing had been both too much and too little.

It was too much to kill his people just because he deemed them guilty after his private investigations on the matter. People were wondering whether there had been any investigation or if he was just saying that because he wanted the people dead. They wanted to see what he had seen, hear what he had heard, witness what he had witnessed. By not presenting any evidence to the public, he had painted himself as a tyrant.

Sure, the rules allowed him to do just that, but people hadn't expected him to go through with it. Even Bymor hadn't. One of the involved parties was the son of a powerful Champion who was also in the crusade. When his son had been imprisoned, the man had first contacted the herald but got nothing out of it. Then he approached the makeshift jail, obviously to take his child away. Bymor had been stationed in the area and the man left after his veiled attempts at bribing him failed too.

Now, the man had disappeared, and the threat in the shadows worried Bymor.

The judgment had also been too little. People expected a show, a big and long judgment. Instead, the herald had killed the two men less than a minute after it started. It was as if he didn't value them enough, as if he couldn't care less about killing people who a moment ago had been willing to risk their lives for him.

Oh, the message was clear, very much so. The people had understood it. Rule-breaking had dropped sharply, for if the herald was willing to kill the Five Star son of a Champion in a heartbeat, he wouldn't care about killing them at all. But that hadn't won the hearts of the people. Desertion was on an all-time high, and the herald had told Bymor to let people leave that day. It was the last chance he would give them to do so before the rules for desertion were also enforced.

Could they afford that? Should they? They were at war, they needed every able body they had.

But then, a little before evening fell, scouts brought reports that made his terrible day become one of the best ones yet.

And at the same time, the herald told him of something that made it one of the worst days he had ever faced.

Aaron felt the stink of a ritual right at lunchtime.

Truths were, roughly, sapient-made Laws that ruled over the weak. One could only free oneself from them at the Prime Immortal level. However, cultivators learned to use that power much earlier.

Such usage was first — and mostly — perceived as what was commonly known as aura suppression. It was a misnomer, for auras couldn't be used in such a manner. Instead, from the Master level onward — or equivalent threshold back in Aaron's home universe — a cultivator's willpower, visions, and self-confidence affected those around him unconsciously. That created a kind localized Truth, a dominion of sorts, where their beliefs affected the world to a very limited point.

It wasn't strange that they could do that. With enough power, you could do just about anything in the universe, and Truths were as susceptible to it as anything else. At his peak, Aaron had been able to erase Laws from existence altogether, much less mere Truths.

Of course, much like the universe would create something to fill the void of a missing Law, the people that kept believing a Truth would also cause it to be remade anew. Completely erasing a Truth required a lot of work on changing the minds of people.

Anyway, rituals were ways of using the power of numbers, all of them focused on a single goal, to force a temporary and also localized Truth in a set region or people. Primitive people chanting meaningless words around a firepit could actually accomplish something if they were numerous enough, powerful enough, or chanted for long enough.

Rituals came on all levels of power — the Ritual of Virtue the king had gone through should be one — but it was at the Master level that one became able to influence it more directly and achieve more solid goals. The Ritual of Virtue had accomplished a goal so small no one even perceived it, but Master ritualists could, for instance, make fire fall from the skies for days if they were good ritualists and had the right resources.

Thus, Masters could use their power and willpower to make reality conform to their will. That usually involved many people, and the Master funneled that into a small, localized Truth. The more meaningful the actions for those involved, the more power it had, which made sacrifices common stance in rituals.

Death auras were created in a more or less ritualist manner. The more beings you killed, the crueler the deaths were, and the more the victims resented you for it, the more that all of that became a Truth that affected and was affected by your heart — where it was stored — and could be felt by those around you. A society Aaron had visited once called it the Mantle of Murder. An apt name for something killers wore with pride and warned others of what was to come at a single sight.

When paired with essence absorption, rituals could achieve great heights. That was the most common way for self-appointed gods to be born. They rose to power and kept there by taking from their people, both from rituals and their very lifeforce. Aaron had seen nothing of the kind in this world, which surprised him. The gods here took a little Vital Energy straight from their Devouts, and the repeated ceremonies in their temples accomplish nothing.

To feel a ritual, one had to be attuned to the Truths of the universe. Aaron barely felt the chains of those Truths affecting him, and only because he had studied them to a high extent and had strong willpower. That also allowed him to feel the raw meaning fragments escaping through the sloppily constructed ritual that was approaching him.

He called it a stench, for it was stained with blood. Lots of people had been killed for that. Many of them willingly so, he recognized from the feeling. The sacrifices had been thousandfold and not weak either; at least a couple hundred were at the Champion level at least. All that power was revolving around a focus, barely kept together by the current lack of conclusion of the ritual and by whoever was behind it.

So it wasn't a weak ritual made by weak people; someone with the power to keep the ritual going was approaching. Thankfully, Grandmasters wouldn't need the lives of just a few hundred Champions to accomplish anything, as rituals weren't very energy efficient. They could accomplish more by themselves unless the lives of Masters or millions of people were involved. The incoming ritualist should be only a Master

Instead of weakening over time, the ritual strengthened with the approach of the sunset and the darkness that would come with it. That meant it wasn't a sloppy ritual as he had thought, but a deceptive one. It had meaning within meaning, layers of goals. That was complex and hard to pull off, and the complexity explained why some meaning was slipping away from the skilled ritualist.

Eventually, Aaron felt a few threads lock in on him. Unlike aura suppression, it was a targeted ritual, not something more general like bringing prosperity or aura suppression. He was at least one of the targets too, and it didn't feel it was in a good way.

He had been riding a liguru with Lana behind him, Tatou running happily beside them on the ground. He made it stop and sighed. "Lana, I must go."

She bit her lower lip and embraced him silently. They had talked about such departures when the garrison had come for him. He expected her to forget or contest the need for his absence eventually, as any human would do, but today wasn't the day for rebellion.

He dismounted, brought her down from the liguru, took her by the hand, and kissed her. "Stay safe."

She nodded, incapable of speech. She didn't like the situation, and he guessed she also didn't trust herself to speak. He respected her resilience.

He turned to Lun. "Plan D, variation fourteen."

Aaron had discussed many plans with Lun, who had to memorize them all — an easy affair for a Champion. D-14 meant he was to take Lana away and protect her until he got word from Aaron that it was safe through a communication device previously provided to them by the guardian. Aaron didn't trust the man completely, but he was still the Champion who felt more honest to him. It had been no coincidence that he had been the first to be teleported to Illyria with the guardian, despite being from a nearby kingdom and not the Arcane Circle.

Lun acted at once. With a skill, ice grew from thin air beneath both his and Lana's feet, around her shoulders and hands, and behind her back and head. An instant later they were flying away at high speed.

Aaron nodded at the man, who hadn't even taken a second before acting. He was leaning. If an enemy attack had been imminent — and for all Aaron knew, it was — that might have been the difference between life and death.

Then Aaron himself flew to Bymor, who was riding a floating carriage not too far. Most people in the crusade walked, as cultivators didn't really need to ride. However, it was still a show of status to have vehicles. Aaron had only been riding the liguru because Lana enjoyed it and the proximity with him.

He had become capable of flight ever since his Arcane Energy reached the Five Star level, but he had forbidden everyone from flying unless needed — for scouting, for instance — or urgent. They were at war and it would be stupid to not be the closest possible to peak condition in case they walked into an ambush. That made wasting energy flying unjustifiable.

Only the ships — five now, as more had reached the crusade — could keep to the skies, and even then, only after they proved they could sustain flight for at least two months. It wouldn't do to have to divert people to protect a ship that had run out of energy either.

Bymor had done as ordered and kept a detection ability on at all times, so it was par for the course when he opened his door as soon as Aaron approached the carriage. It was a relatively small one, purple with silver details, including an eight-point star on the doors, the symbol of the Arcane Circle. It only fit four people, and badly at that, because Bymor had added a small table to the interior, though he stored the table and the documents on it to make space when Aaron entered.

Before Aaron could say anything, a scout breathing raggedly appeared on the still-open door. "Sir, we made contact with Mouth-Men!"

"What?!" Bymor stood up, leaving the carriage. "Put the men on alert at once!" Some nearby runners rushed to obey, though despite their names, they sent orders by communication devices.

"Sir!" the scout said again. Scouts were only to use such devices in case they were attacked, to prevent enemies from tracking the main army or the chain of command from the signal. "They say they want to surrender, but they want to see the herald first!"

"That sounds like a trap," Bymor said to Aaron, who was leaving the carriage.

"How many are they? And their levels?" Aaron asked the scout.

"Five Champions, sir!" The man said with much more enthusiasm than before. Unlike Aaron's expectations, people looked up to him more than Bymor. His title provided him with status at least close to what he had been told, it seemed. "Their clothes are blooded and smelly. They look like they just came from a war."

"Sacrifices," Aaron guessed. "They are either a distraction or are here to complete a ritual. There's a Master with them, their female if I had to guess. This is a trap, and a good one."

"A ritual? Should we leave?" Bymor asked.

"I can't," Aaron replied. "I'm already under the ritual's influence. I can only leave if the ritual concludes or is destroyed, or if I take the focus with me."

Much like altars in temples, objects had to be used as the focus of the ritual. The ritual master decided which object it was, and Aaron doubted he would see it with the Champions. There was a small chance though. Blood sacrifices sometimes required the focus to be closed to the sacrificed. They might even have multiple foci, and he only needed one.

Bymor's face fell. "I know little of rituals. What can I do?"

"Stay close to me. I must see the ritual for myself to determine how we deal with it. Be ready to react at a single command; every second count. Also, be prepared to fight; I doubt their Master will just watch silently as I undo their plans." He turned to the scout. "Lead the way."

He saluted and turned tail to lead.

"There's another way for me to leave," Aaron explained to Bymor after erecting a soundproof dome around them. "Freeze the space around me and push me through a portal. Taking me away after I have been more or less grabbed by the ritual will cause a backslash that might seriously injury you though, so you have to come with me to have the time to heal yourself before the fight I expect to come. Make preparations for that, it might be our only choice."

He would never have approached the ritual when he first felt it unless he had a way out. Stopping your enemy was more important than fleeing sometimes, hence his decision to approach. He had to keep that option a secret from the others though, for it was never good for the leaders of an army to escape and leave their people behind.

Unfortunately, escaping was the only choice if they failed to stop the ritual. They were just too unpredictable in what they could do. Aaron would be safe in case it was a ritual trying to affect his mind, but it would be different if it gave the Master the same power as a Grandmaster when attacking Aaron or whoever protected him, for instance. Though such an impressive effect would only last for a few moments, that would be enough to kill the guardian and Aaron multiple times over.

"And bring every Champion with us," Aaron ordered. "We might need them."

Half an hour of flight later, Aaron, Bymor, and over thirty Champions reached the Timelords.

The five beasts kneeled as soon as they saw Aaron, who flew at them at high speed. "Freeze them all!" He shouted to everyone.