Year 2, Winter, First Month, Third Week.

With everything moving as planned, the rescue team left and soon was time for Omero to go outside. Karl had given him the go signal and they would soon start forming the earth barrier, so he moved.

Time seemed to pass very slowly, they could barely hear the conversation outside. Only a few key members waited for Omero close to the border. The rest had already been moved to the opposite side of the barrier, and everything they could spare was placed between them and the place where the explosion would happen. They were positioned in a way to put the children, then the elders and sick, and last the healthy ones, so any impact could be smoothed by the ones that could resist it. Additionally, the defenders formed a line of protection around them, holding their shields tight ready to activate all Arrays at the key moment.

Karl and the archers had to stay near the border to prepare their attack. Together with Omero, they would be the most exposed to danger. Fortunately, Karl had crafted an emergency tool that formed a small barrier around him, it wasn’t very strong but luckily, it would be enough to protect them. Soon, their wait finally ended as Karl heard Omero’s loudly spoken words that indicated they should start shooting.

“… dangerous at night.”

With a simple command, the archers started shooting as Karl activated the earth barrier. Now, he only needed to wait for Omero’s decision about which crystal they would use. It didn’t take long.

“Farewell.”

Karl didn’t even have time to lament. He started drawing the Focus Rune on the HQ crystal tied to an arrow, pushing all of his remaining spiritual energy into it. As soon as he finished, the crystal started to react erratically, so he quickly commanded the archer to shoot it, and so, the crystal flew. Omero had to jump over the earth-forming barrier, but he met them on time to get inside of Karl’s hastily formed blue barrier.

At this time, the crystal flying towards the Kingdom’s forces finally broke. The energy exploded from it and spread through the surroundings as fast as anything could in the material world. When it met the first living thing, a bush, it transformed it into a giant plant before it couldn’t contain the plant energy being stimulating inside it and bursting, similar things happened around as the energy spread. In a millisecond, the energy met with lighting energy and potentialized its properties, transforming it into arcs of purple lighting that raged around. Then, it met with dense wind energy, which was dismantled into a hurricane in an instant.

The energy continued to spread, taking lives and transforming matter. It collided with a bubble barrier that tried to push the expanding energy back, but it also couldn’t stop it. Next came a thick soil barrier that offered some resistance before it was too dismantled. However, the energy lost density, and although it continued to expand through kilometers, it wasn’t as strong as initially. Even so, it caused great impact.

Seen from above, the space around the crystal’s rupture point formed a crater or destruction, while in the epicenter, arcs of dark purple lightning still raged.

Three kilometers from the epicenter, a battle unfolded. The participants felt a wave of energy passing and heard the sounds of destruction it caused. The three Fighters, who had the upper hand in the fight and were pressing the other side, looked concerned towards the explosion’s location. Lew took this opportunity to absorb another good amount of energy from the MQ crystal before attacking them all together. The attack barely made any damage but created an opening for his three battered comrades to jump back and take a breath. Lew looked mockingly at their enemies and said something, despite Sania’s attempt to stop him.

“Hahaha… Your Masters should be dead or dying by now. Even if you defeat us, we already won…”

The Fighters panicked as they imagined the consequences of the two young Masters dying here. They looked at their current adversaries and hesitated, should they finish their task or return to help their Masters? Fortunately, Lew’s attempt paid off and the Fighters fled. To complete his plan, Lew even tried to pursue them for a couple of minutes, even exchanging some blows with one of them and gifting him a cut to his arm before they disappeared into the forest.

Sania’s dissatisfaction was evident, but the panting Tael ignored her curses and asked:

“What’s the plan now?”

“Now, we run…”

***

Through the wildlands close to the Wind Capital, a gale swept through the ground moving towards the east. Windsor’s rage made his hair even more white, to the level that it was almost transparent. Most high-level wind Mages would prefer to fly when they needed to get somewhere fast, but he had a better option. One of his most useful wind servants was a gale horse that could sweep through the land faster than any bird or flying Mage could.

When he thought about all the investment he put into Thundery’s breeding and training the hate inside him increased to unmeasurable levels. Although he didn’t saw her dying, in his mind he was certain that she did. Whatever killed his wind servant that fast, wouldn’t leave her alive, not even the Lighting Transfer spell would save her. What made him, even more enraged, was the fact that he had sent her despite knowing that this was probably a trap. In his mind, sending the Long Leaping servant was enough to protect her from anyone weaker than an Evoker. Unfortunately, someone stronger enough to kill his wind servant before it could transfer Thundery far from the dangerous location had acted. Even now, he couldn’t understand how such a stronger opponent he slipped into his region without him noticing and why would that person dare to cross him. Anyway, in a few hours, he would find out.

***

Karl pushed through the dizziness and gathered his strength to stand up. The dust around them hadn’t settled, he still remembered the magnificent and scaring sight of the magic energy exploding, his heart had trembled when he saw the earth barrier being transformed into dust before being blown over them. At that time, he thought their lives and his dreams had come to an end, but apparently, the barriers had been enough to stop the destruction. He only hoped the others were OK too. He checked on his close comrades and after helping Omero get up, they started looking around.

Unfortunately, regardless of the others’ condition they would soon need to leave this place, the big explosion wouldn’t be missed by their enemies. After this, they would probably draw even more attention, so any distance they could put between them and the Kingdom would be welcomed. Karl was about to go check on the others when Omero reminded him of his task, so he reluctantly let them go instead, then he ran towards the Arrays’ location to look for their crystals.

Everything that wasn’t being used was buried, so he would only have to check on the crystals powering the barriers, which weren’t in any way less important. When he realized the barrier wasn’t active his heart skip a beat, could the crystals have been destroyed? When he saw shards of ice carved into a broken piece of wood his heart tightened even more, were his parents OK? He knew that Omero sending him to take care of the magic resources was a way to keep him from losing it if something had happened to his parents. Karl understood the elder’s logic, even so, he couldn’t help but resent the man.

As he thought, the crystals weren’t inside the Arrays. Even tied, they wouldn’t be left in place after such an impact. Fortunately, he located all of them after some minutes of search. At this time, he heard a familiar scream coming from the center of the outpost. His mother ran to hug him, Karl could barely contain the tears bursting from his eyes as he could finally breathe normally again. However, he saw a trace of sadness and fear on his mother’s face, for a second he thought something happened to his dad, but the image of the limping man soon appeared in his sight brushing away his worries. But then, a wave of guilt surged in his heart, he shouldn’t be happy, not everybody would have escaped from that impact, probably many.

Mother and son stared at each other while smiling bitterly. They understood each other’s feelings very well. Reiner held Karl’s shoulders firmly and said:

“Now, we run.”

He matched her resolve and agreed:

“Now, we run.”