Hairline cracks covered on one of the shardflies, followed by a grain of unease within it. The moment he saw it, Dallion reacted. Faster than lightning, three instances leapt at the target. Three blades struck it, all shattering the creature in two.

TERMINAL STRIKE

Damage dealt has been increased 1000%

The fragments of the defeated shardfly shifted color, switching to purple.

AETHER SHARDFLY has been defeated.

A purple rectangle emerged, confirming Dallion victory. He had gotten the right one. This had been expected; the guardian had been linked to the vortex cage, as any guardian was linked to its object, but still Dallion felt a weight fall off his shoulders.

The standard process followed. Within seconds, the vortex was drained into Dallion, leaving him and Ruby back into the warehouse room.

MAGIC ABSORBED

Your magic trait is now 20

“You okay Nox?” Dallion asked. A subtle meow indicated that the crackling puma was well enough. “Ruby?” Dallion turned to the shardfly.

Yep. Came the answer.

“Thanks for the assist. I owe you.”

Ruby didn’t respond, flying back to his usual place. Only the slight decrease in the moodiness emanating from him indicated he was somewhat pleased.

The room shook again, lasting for a full five seconds. Whatever was happening on the outside was getting worse.

Dallion glanced at the vortex cages. There was enough magic to add ten news skills to each of his familiars, at least. In a matter of minutes, he would be able to boost Gem and Lux considerably and in turn gain an advantage in any upcoming fight.

You don’t have to, Harp said. You have everything you need to win.

“Are you sure?” Dallion still hesitated. This was his only chance to access this much free magic.

Yes.

Dallion laughed. Once again, life was offering him a choice between what he needed and what he wanted. There was a time when he thought that being strong would give him the option to choose both. Now that he had close to twenty times the level since then, Dallion found that little had changed; only the stakes were higher.

Taking one moment to recite the names of the Moons, Dallion rushed out. New symbols had emerged on the walls of the administrative building, shining through the solid texture.

“Nil, will the space distortion hold?” Dallion leapt down the staircase.

There are enough constructs and artifacts to ensure that. It’ll be easier to destroy the building itself, which is what I think they’re doing.

“What about the other mages in the Academy?” Dallion asked. “Are politics so important that they’ll sit by and watch?”

Most definitely, but I fear you have larger worries. The echo paused. Go to the main admin building. The best exit is there.

“Why not have one here?” There was no point in keeping a low profile now. Dallion’s instances rushed along walls, avoiding the corridor crowd and flying apprentices. The panic had reached new heights and the meager attempts at order had been fully abandoned.

This was a common room during my time. Why’d anyone bother to put an exit here? And before you ask, all exits are on the first and top floors.

Hardly a good decision. Adzorg probably never considered it possible anyone would attack the Academy. The “exits” weren’t there to give him a way out, but a way in.

“Is the spell difficult?”

Yes, but nothing you can’t handle. I’ll show you when you get here.

“You mean there?

Yes. And here.

The blue building was refreshingly empty when Dallion got there. It was also locked. A bit of negotiation with the lock guardian, and an appropriate spell taught by Nil, Dallion made his way inside.

Immediately, he closed and locked the door behind him. Next, he went to the center of the lobby and looked down at the floor. Nothing was there, not even the standard magic symbols that were present in the rest of the Academy structure. That was the point. Adzorg had made sure to cover the escape locations with several layers of illusions, each as real as the last. Without knowing the precise spot, no one would ever notice. Then came the hard part.

PERSONAL AWAKENING

Reality shifted. Only one person was waiting for Dallion in his realm.

“Hello, Dal,” Nil said in a calm fashion. Not a single emotion was visible within him. Surprisingly, he was wearing his usual clothes.

“No archmage outfit?” Dallion asked.

“I’m not the archmage anymore. It doesn’t matter that the buffoon that holds my office isn’t either.” The resentment in his voice was unmistakable. “So, let’s get on with it.” He pulled up his sleeves. “This is more difficult than your garden variety of spells, so you’ll have to pay attention. The order of the symbols matters, as does the speed at which they are drawn. That’s the only way of keeping spells hidden. I suggest you come up with your own spell signature at some point, otherwise every average mage will be able to copy your spells as you have been doing.”

“Why?” Dallion asked.

“Why?” The echo arched a brow. “Why what?”

“Why are you helping me? Why use me to begin with?”

The left side of Nil’s mouth curved up in a semi-smile.

“Finally, asking some of the right questions. I see why the Moons like you so much. Each time you become desperate, you grow further. If you manage to grow without the constant external pressure… you could have ruled the world.”

Like was hadrdly the word Dallion would use. The Moons had demanded a lot of him, and while they had without doubt helped him considerably, they had also cursed him for a reason he remained unaware.

“That’s what the Star tried,” Dallion frowned.

“Did he? In all of recorded history, the Star has never tried to conquer the world, just convince others to do it for him.”

The last one did. Arthurows was messed up in many ways, but he had realized his limitations and had set out to break them early on. That was why he planned to obtain skill gems of forgotten skills. If he had gotten the magic gem, he would have had it all; Dallion would have never gone to the Academy and the current crisis would never have occurred.

“I just wanted to retrieve what is mine,” Nil continued. “Have been for years. The problem was that it was so Star-damned slow.” The echo clenched his fist. “If I were lucky, I’d get half a dozen scraps per year. Even during the artifact boom, I was only able to get a few dozen. You coming here, though…” he made a small circle in the air with his hand. “I’ve gotten ten times more than the last few years combined. I’m talking about things that normally I wouldn’t be allowed to set eyes on. Just by being at the Academy, so many opportunities appeared. Call it weakness, if you will, but I couldn’t ignore that.”

“You made deals with people,” Dallion muttered. “The dwarf wasn’t your “friend” he was a go-between.”

“He was an acquaintance. And yes, you made a lot of things possible. Nobles, ambitious mages, all of them were thrilled to take advantage of you, and I was thrilled to take advantage of them. It’s how the world works. Only the very strong have the luxury of playing it straight, and often even they can’t afford to. Just look at what’s happening in Nerosal.”

“Did you cause that?”

“No.” Nil shook his head. “That mess was in its own making. If you’d believe it, I tried to stop it early on. I knew that Countess Priscord was ambitious. I warned Ch??? about it, but the guild master ignored me, as did Archduke Linatol. They were convinced that the countess could be crushed at any point, and they were right… until someone else stepped in to make a deal with her.”

Alien, Dallion thought. It remained unclear what he had gotten from it, but it was quite convenient that a member of the imperial family had died during the Star’s attack. Furthermore, no one had been punished, or nearly no one. The lord mayor of Nerasol had taken the blame and was quickly replaced by Countess Priscord, who doubled her direct influence within days.

“I didn’t know what they planned,” Nil said. “In fact, you did most of the work on your own. I just took credit for it. Never pin all your hopes to one horse. I only had one rule: you weren’t to be harmed.”

That explained how Phoil had obtained the prison item, and why Nil was so insistent on Dallion remaining in the Learning Hall. It was no accident it had been used on him, nor was Nil’s presence in the prison realm itself.

“What went wrong?” Dallion asked.

“Strictly speaking, nothing went wrong. I already received everything I wanted. There are a few minor trinkets that still need to reach me, but they will in time, and even if they don’t, it wouldn’t be a monumental loss. The problem was you, dear boy.”

“Me?”

“Despite the assurances regarding your safety, they must have a way around it. The moment you were asked to make silver glass, I knew your life was at risk.”

“Is that why you insisted that it wasn’t worth it?”

“I needed time to figure out what was going on. By then, sadly, our dealings had largely come to an end. With each side getting what it needed, there was no reason for communication to continue. In short, I was ignored. I had already told them how to get into the prison sphere, but that was no guarantee. Make no mistake, if you hadn’t broken out there was a three out of four chance that the boy would have killed you.”

Dallion suspected as much.

“Who did you make the deals with?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that. Moon vows were made. I cannot reveal any names of even make subtle hints.”

By the sound of it, Adzorg had to have been quite desperate himself, given that he hadn’t asked for the same assurances when Dallion’s life was concerned. Dallion would have liked to think that the old mage had requested a Moon vow from the people involved. If that were the case, it must have been a very generic one. No doubt it had some exception that allowed people to kill him if Dallion threatened their life. After all, it was only after Phoil had killed Enroy that he had shifted his attention.

“You really don’t know what’s going on?”

“No.” Nil sighed. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. And even if I had the chance, I’d probably not care. We all have our priorities and having the Academy burn a bit wouldn’t cause too much harm in the grand scope of things.”

“And the empire?”

“Dear boy, the empire cannot fall. True, things seem tense right now, but it’s not the first time. Back when the Fury alliance challenged the empire, many feared that it would mark the end of the world as we know it. You know quite well how that ended.”

There was no denying that. However, it was thanks to the Academy’s intervention that the furies had been defeated. Without mages, there would be no one to stop a threat from the sky, regardless of the disbalance of powers. All the awakened in the empire would be virtually powerless.

The timing of the chaos near the Learning Hall was chosen perfectly to coincide with the territory losses in Dreud province. If it fell and there was no mage support, the imperial capital would become vulnerable.

“Teach me the spell,” Dallion said.

After hearing Nil’s part in everything, he knew precisely what the people behind this planned. It wasn’t merely to disrupt the Learning Hall. That was the pretext to get the archmage involved. If he were to be killed in an open assault, that would shake the foundations of the Academy for months, maybe years. Nil had to know, but because of personal circumstances had chosen to go along with it. Despite himself, Dallion couldn’t.