Chapter 603

Nick turned his back on Inner Guardian and the core chamber, not feeling as bad about the loss of experience and coin as he’d expected.

I might be greedy, but I’m not an idiot. Destroying this dungeon would cause far more problems for me than it would be worth.

Armed with his new affinity, the twisted space of the Starlit Caves unfolded before his mind like a laid-out map. Tunnels that looped on themselves, walls that stretched and obscured his vision, once baffling hazards, now presented themselves as convenient stepping stones.

He bypassed sheer drops and inverted spirals by coaxing reality to bend, slipping through the environment like a drop of water over smooth glass. In a fraction of the time it had taken to descend, the crystal light faded, replaced by the mundane gray of natural stone. The dungeon’s pressure eased, signaling his return to the upper layers of the crust.

Ahead, the Vael mages had spent the time entrenching themselves.

Seems like they’re not stupid enough to believe nobody will find out. But it’s still not enough. Not for me, and certainly not for Bluetear.

A barricade of glowing runes spanned the primary tunnel, casting light on the rock walls. A dozen enchanters stood watch behind a layered grid of subtle snares and alarms.

All in all, he was willing to admit that their fortifications had gotten quite good. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to get through them before reaching Prestige, and only the Inner Guardian had the power to breach them with brute force, which was quite unlikely, given that it was stuck defending the core.

He could even sense multiple hidden layers that, if triggered, would encase any invader from the surface in separate spaces.

Huh. I didn’t even notice those before getting my affinity. I guess even a lesser Tower would have specialists in spatial magic.

It was the work of a Prestige mage, there was no doubt about that, but he couldn’t sense anyone with that kind of power, which likely meant they were hiding in one of those pockets.

The magic was even tied to the dungeon’s own warping, making it extremely cheap to maintain, which explained why he hadn’t sensed it before.

Even trying to bypass the blockade wouldn’t be easy. Several layers were meant to stop any kind of magical movement, from bull rushing through by flight to teleporting through.

And yet, it all failed to stop the Stillness. I really lucked out, huh?

The cloak he wore had become, by far, his favorite piece of equipment, aside from the Shard.

And now its worth had grown even further. It could let him slip through the defenses set up by a Prestige spatial mage, and was worth entire fiefs, which redoubled his determination to keep it secret while also increasing the threat level posed by the witch in Trelan. She’d been unable to sense him, but her defenses had been good enough to stop him from slipping through until she’d allowed it.

But now that I know they’re there and that the Stillness can overcome them… Well, it’d be foolish to miss such a good training opportunity.

Nick crouched in the shadows, studying the magical fields and noting how everything interlocked. Warding might never have been his passion, but he wouldn’t miss the chance to learn more.

Eventually, he determined that the anti-teleportation ward scanned the tunnel for ripples in reality, relying on the friction generated when a spell was cast to trigger its countermeasures. His cloak rendered Nick a conceptual absence, providing no friction for the ward to detect.

Satisfied he wasn’t about to walk into a trap, he focused his intent on the empty space beyond the barricade and fed power into [Spatial Relocation], coaxing reality to accept the coordinate swap. The casting required three full seconds to stabilize, a glaring vulnerability in a fight, proving it was not yet a true combat blink. Here in the quiet dark, however, time was an abundant resource.

Reality yielded to his command, and Nick vanished from the shadows, materializing beyond the line of enchanters.

His boots touched the stone without a sound, and the disruption ward remained dormant, blind to the shift. Unable to suppress a smug smirk, he climbed the final incline, leaving the foolish mages to guard the dungeon, oblivious that the true prize had just slipped through their fingers.

Emerging from the black fissure, Nick was met by cold winter wind. The sky above was a clear, star-studded expanse, unbroken by clouds, and the moon shone brightly enough that even without his senses, he could see the camp arrayed in the valley.

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Bora was likely leagues away by now, carrying the parchment that would ignite Alluria’s wrath. As a Mage Errant, Nick had the right to move as he pleased, unbound by local jurisdictions or the territorial claims of minor Towers.

He felt no urge to linger and watch Bluetear dismantle the Vael expedition. The political machinery was in motion; his role was done.

Channeling a whisper of mana, he launched himself into the air.

The ground fell away rapidly, and he angled east, pushing his speed until the wind roared past his ears. The last of the Western lands unspooled beneath him in moonlight and shadow. Higher and higher he flew, until mortals couldn’t even hope to spot him.

The sensation of flight never lost its thrill. A streamlined kinetic field around him deflected the biting cold, letting him enjoy the sheer velocity without discomfort. Below, the dark shapes of managed forests and farmland rolled by like the surface of a stormy sea, vast and indifferent.

Hours passed. Scattered hamlets gave way to larger settlements, glowing like embers in the dark as mana lights and torches dotted their walls. The roads below grew wider and more defined, linking the growing towns in a network of commerce and travel that was just beginning to take shape in the borderlands but was centuries old here.

Eventually, the city of Vael appeared on the horizon, nestled in the wide bend of a rushing river.

It was a prosperous hub, and even a quick look told him it had thrived on being a primary trade route. Magical streetlamps cast a glow over the paved avenues and slate-roofed manors, painting the city in soft light. Merchant barges, lined with lanterns, bobbed at the extensive docks, loading and unloading cargo even in the dead of night.

He had no intention of stopping here, knowing better than to tempt fate, but he couldn’t resist the temptation and expanded his spiritual senses as he passed over the city.

The local Tower stood near the riverbank. It was shorter than Alluria’s, but still quite pretty, made of marble and lined with millions of tiny runes that could stop siege spells cold. Its spiritual protections, however, weren’t anything to write home about, allowing Nick to sense the ruling Archmages within.

They were strong, all of the Prestige rank, burning like beacons in the ether.

Yet compared to the immense figures he knew in Alluria, the masters of Vael seemed stagnant. These were administrators and enchanters grown fat on tolls and tariffs, lacking the lethal edge forged in genuine conflict.

When the Spellblades arrived to contest the dungeon, bringing the fury of a frontier Tower tested by constant conflict, these scholars would shatter, and that was to say nothing of the true monsters, like Bluetear or Tholm, who could probably erase the Vael from existence with a single spell.

Suppressing a chuckle at their ignorance, Nick kept his course steady, flying over the river and leaving Vael to its impending political ruin.

He used the quiet isolation to mentally review the spellforms he had modified in the dungeon. The spatial affinity made the vast distances beneath him feel malleable, and he ran theoretical calculations, pondering the eventual goal of true teleportation.

The control and power required to safely disassemble and reassemble a human body across a distance were staggering, and it reminded him again how far he was from his Master, who could send an entire group into the Sunlands from Alluria without batting an eye.

It would take weeks, if not months, of careful study before he attempted a self-targeted blink without a predefined anchor. The risk of materializing inside a solid object or something important behind him was far too great to rush the process.

For now, Expert-level relocation and spatial severing provided more than enough tactical utility.

By the time the moon began to wane, the landscape below shifted dramatically. The last forests faded into meticulously cultivated fields, forming perfect geometric grids, divided by straight, paved roads and dotted with sprawling estates he knew belonged to wealthy landowners and favored Knights.

The manicured perfection signaled his arrival in the central province of Berea, where the core nobility ruled, and the King’s law was absolute.

Though he could have kept going much longer, he decided he was far enough from the dungeon clusterfuck to allow himself some rest. After all, he’d been working on his spatial magic and exploring the dungeon for the last forty-eight hours.

“Mom would say a growing boy needs his sleep,” he chuckled.

He spotted a crescent-shaped lake nestled between two low hills. The water's surface reflected the starlight, disturbed only by the occasional ripple. Angling his flight, he descended and touched down lightly on a gravel beach.

“Well, isn’t this quite pretty,” Nick said as he unbuttoned his coat, shook the chill from his shoulders, and stretched his arms overhead. He needed a meal, and the lake offered an immediate solution.

The water teemed with small life—schools of silver-scaled fish darting through the reeds and snapping turtles buried in the silt. His senses bypassed them, diving deeper and locking onto a larger presence near the muddy bottom.

Around level seventy. Quite strong for being this close to civilization, but I guess it stays unnoticed by staying too deep.

He crafted a lure of glowing mana, shaped it into a fish, and sent it down into the water. It pulsed with an inviting light, an irresistible beacon in the pitch black.

Settling down, he waited in silence.

It wasn’t long before the water began to roil. A dark shape rose from the depths with alarming speed, displacing a wave that washed over the shore and touched the tips of Nick’s boots.

His lure shot higher until the creature broke the surface in a spray of white foam. It was a gargantuan carp, easily the length of a merchant's carriage. Its scales were interlocking plates of bronze-colored bone, gleaming wetly in the moonlight. Its jaws were lined with crushing, flat teeth designed to pulverize armored prey, and barbed whiskers as thick as a man's arm whipped through the air, seeking the source of the light.

The beast lunged at the glowing lure, its jaws snapping shut on empty water as Nick extinguished the light with a thought.

Before the carp could sink back into the depths or even realize the danger, Nick flicked his right hand and summoned the newly refined [Spatial Sever].

A blade of pure black sliced through the intervening space, striking the carp just behind its armored gills.

It sheared cleanly through the bone scales, thick muscle, and spine, meeting little resistance. The carp went rigid, its momentum carrying it forward until it crashed onto the shallow gravel bank, lifeless. Water cascaded off its armored flanks, splashing against the stones in a sudden wave before the night fell quiet again.

Processing the kill took only minutes, as wind blades, far more responsive to his commands, cut into the scales and filleted the monster.

Once he was done, he moved back from the shore and chose a sheltered clearing surrounded by tall pines, where the ground was carpeted with dry needles, making it a comfortable place to sit. He gathered dry deadwood, stacked the branches in a pyramid, and sparked a small fire.

The flames crackled to life, pushing back the shadows. Nick skewered a thick slab of carp meat onto a sharpened stick and propped it over the fire with a pair of stones. The fat began to render almost immediately, sizzling loudly as it dripped onto the glowing coals below.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like he’d get to enjoy his quiet meal.

“Come on out,” he called without turning.