Supreme Magus

"I still have a question, Captain." Orders or not, Lith had no intention of charging blindly. Whatever was happening inside the building was of no relevance to him and so were the people in the basement.

He was there for the Code of Practice course, the only things that mattered to him were his own safety and the points.

"Just be quick, White." Captain Yerna snorted. "Red, keep me posted if anything else happens."

"Since the mission has changed, what are the new conditions to consider it a success?"

"Kid, do you think this is some kind of game? People are dying in there!" Lith could understand Khran’s righteous outrage, yet he found it annoying anyway. The Sergeant was a commoner, probably of humble origins just like him.

Unlike Lith, he had dedicated his life to protect the weak.

’What an irritating guy, always preaching his own ideas. I had hoped for having left this kind of zealots on Earth.’ Lith thought.

"So what?" Lith replied. "I took no oath, I’m no policeman nor hero. I’m interested in the mission, not in some nondescript ideal."

Captain Yerna grabbed Khran by the shoulder to prevent another outburst.

"We only need to get in and check the condition of those in the basement. If they are hostages releasing them takes priority. If they are soldiers, we can just blow them into oblivion before moving on the rest of the guards. Is it clear, everybody?"

The unit nodded in unison.

"Okay, then let’s move. We need to be fast. There is no way to get to the back door unnoticed, so prepare for a warm welcome."

"Actually, there is." Lith waved his hands in the only fake magic he really used. He opened a Warp Steps leading straight into the alley, in the last covered spot before their destination.

Many people flinched in amazement. For non mages, dimensional magic was something straight out of a fairy tale.

"Today’s our lucky day, people." Captain Yerna was grinning from ear to ear.

"Change of plans. My team and Khran’s will take point and assault from the back. The rest of you will remain on standby until we check on the prisoners. On my command, surround the building. Red, with me."

The others followed her through the Steps. Each unit was comprised of five people, leaving ten officers in the warehouse to close the perimeter or act as backup in case of need.

"You really are a d*ck." Khran stopped for a second before stepping through the dimensional corridor.

"Yet the gods know how much I’d like to have one like you on every mission."

Once on the other side, the Sergeant conjured a shroud of silence around them before asking Red for an update.

"Another life force disappeared. Now there’s only one person on the third floor."

"Damn!" Captain Yerna cursed. She had hoped it was some kind of internal strife, but three deaths in such a short time frame didn’t fit the scenario.

"What about the guards on the ground floor?"

Red focused for a second, checking twice just to be sure.

"There are none right now, but someone is coming down from the second floor. One person."

"Arrays?" Lith asked.

Red handed to the nearest officer a red mana crystal he was using as a focus. Without it, casting another spell would cause him to lose control of the Life Detecting array.

"I can sense something on the ground floor. It’s inactive at the moment." The unit inwardly cursed as one while Lith pondered on Red’s words.

’This means that neither Life Vision nor Solus can detect latent arrays. I need to learn the array detecting spell as soon as possible.’

"What does it do?" The Captain asked.

"No clue." Red shrugged. "Never seen anything like this."

"Great. Let’s finish this before we have to find out."

Yerna took out from her dimensional ring what looked like a clump of clay, sticking it to the wall near the door. It created a thin air dome, silencing the area within a ten meters radius.

The team entered the building, activating a new clump each time they neared the end of the air dome, generating a corridor of silence. It allowed them to speak and move while remaining undetected by the inhabitants of the building.

"At least the layout of this place is as we know it." Khran cursed. Maybe it was because he knew they were potentially stepping on a minefield, but since they had entered the house the Sergeant had an eerie feeling in his gut.

"The door to the basement should be on our right after the next corner. What about the person you mentioned earlier?"

"It’s closing in slowly. It should come from there." Red was pointing to the left branch of the t-shaped corridor.

The Sergeant put a clump of silence clay on his hand while three members of the units aimed their wands in the direction from which they were expecting the enemy.

"Shoot only after I do!" Khran instructed.

The figure of a woman popped out of the corner. She was dressed in a brown sweater and cargo pants. Lith noticed she was young, couldn’t be more than twenty years old. She was walking while spinning some odd handcuffs on her index finger.

Sergeant Khran generated a powerful gust of wind from his hand, propelling the clay towards the girl’s face. Despite the surprise attack, she managed to dodge it by rolling on the ground, taking out a wand from the back of her pants.

She screamed for help, but the clay was never meant to do damage. Lith could see her lips moving without emitting any sound, like watching an old silent movie. The same happened when streams of lightning made her slam against the wall in a seizure.

Khan objective was a silent kill all along.

"Hren, take care of the body and clean the scene. Red, stay with him and warn Hren if anyone else moves." Captain Yerna tapped on her ear to remind him of the communication earpiece in case he needed to contact her.

The unit moved forward until the door to the basement.

"White?"

"Locked and enchanted." Lith replied using Invigoration to study it. It was a very crude pseudo core with only two mana pathways. Not strong enough to block someone determined to open it, but enough to slow them down.

"Seriously, what do you usually do when you don’t have a forgemaster?"

"We mourn." Khran’s reply didn’t sound like a joke.

"Klaatu Barada Nikto." Lith’s fake magic word generated several tendrils of darkness that made short work of the pathways. Without something to contain its energies, the pseudo core faded away with a crackling sound.

Lith took point to search for more traps, but there were none. The wooden stairway led them to a cellar six meters wide and ten meters long. Contrary to the run down look of the rest of the building, the room was clean.

Behind a simple steel grille there were over twenty people of different gender and age, laying either on the ground or against the walls. They were all shabbily dressed, their appearance suggested they had spent most of their lives on the streets.

Yet they appeared to be well fed and in good health. There was no trace of dirt in their clothes. The weirdness of the scene didn’t end there.

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