Chapter 352: The Phantom Bait

Despite Ray's devastating fire support, Svane was slowly being pushed back. The endless tide of heavy bodies slamming into his defenses was taking a toll. Ray’s tactical eyes noticed the terrifying adaptation of the horde: the beasts were getting used to the burning pain of the Light spell, actively squinting their seared eyes and throwing their weight into the radiant heat.

Worse, the Retaliation Shield is slowly getting weaker. As the shield absorbed impact after impact, the glow surrounding Svane's armor visibly dimmed. The kinetic bounce degraded, launching the Silverbacks only a few feet backward instead of throwing them into the air.

In the Ambient Presence of Ray’s mind, the archetypes delivered their grim assessments.

Commander: "The vanguard's line is breaking, He is taking on too much force. If nothing is done to instantly relieve that pressure, your soldier will undoubtedly die."

The Grizzled Commander stated, his voice clipping with cold, military precision.

Healer: "The Commander is correct; the physical strain is already critical, I doubt his body is trained to engage at maximum capacity for a long time. Even if your spell holds, his internal organs will soon rupture from the sheer concussive trauma."

Ray agreed with their assessment. He felt he had to do something drastic to change the situation.

As the troop of Silverbacks prepared for another overwhelming wave of impacts against Svane’s fading shield, the alpha leader of the corrupted giant Silverbacks suddenly roared, pointing its massive arm toward the edge of the ridge.

A figure had just emerged from the Aetheric Null-Veil, sprinting silently away from the defensive line and heading directly toward the distant Ruinstone mining site.

It was Ray. He was utilizing the frictionless footwork of the Stoic Assassin’s Flowing Shadow Technique, and draped over his right shoulder, perfectly visible to the naked eye, was the matte-black, bound body of the dark figure.

The Silverback alpha roared again, a guttural sound that commanded the entire horde. Like moths drawn instantly to a flame, the beast pack abandoned their assault on the invisible barrier. The entire horde pivoted, crashing through the mist as they blindly chased the young noble carrying their master.

On the opposite side of the clearing, Svane stumbled forward, the overwhelming pressure suddenly vanishing from his shield. He watched in absolute horror as his Lord sprinted into the foggy ruins, dragging the entirety of the mutated army behind him.

"No!"

Svane grunted, frustration and terror gripping his heart. He realized exactly what had happened. Ray had seen him getting overwhelmed. To prevent him from being crushed, his Lord had sacrificed himself, drawing the aggro of the entire horde just to relieve the pressure on the line.

Svane tightened his grip on his broadsword, preparing to charge out and chase his Lord and die beside him.

"Hold your position, Svane."

Svane froze. He whipped his head around.

A lone figure running towards him from the direction of the Aetheric Null-Veil, completely unharmed and nowhere near the Ruinstone mining site, was Ray. He was not carrying the dark figure. The bound, matte-black entity was still lying exactly where Svane had dropped inside the veil.

Svane stared at Ray, then looked back out into the mist, watching the "other" Ray who was now far away still at full sprint towards the Ruinstone mining site with the horde in hot pursuit. The figure running away and the dark figure being carried had felt real. It displaced the fog. Svane’s veteran perception had genuinely detected its physical weight.

"We are retreating now, while they chase the distraction."

Ray commanded,

Svane was stunned speechless.

(Moments before the fake Ray with the dark entity rushed out the veil.)

As Ray had watched his Vanguard's Retaliation Shield degrading and his body reaching its absolute limits, he had made a split-second, tactical decision. He needed to create a distraction, but a visual trick wouldn't work as long as the dark figure was actively broadcasting through the psychic tether.

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He had to silence the beacon.

Ray had immediately activated the Crimson Weaver’s ‘Arcane Improvisation’ skill. Drawing deeply from the dense ambient Aether of the environment, he prepared to cast a spell.

Under normal circumstances, this spell blanketed a twenty-foot radius. But using the Crimson Weaver's chaotic, intuitive manipulation, Ray violently compressed the spell's parameters, forcing the effect of the spell into a concentrated, single-target spell aimed solely at the bound dark figure at his feet.

“Quies absoluta.“

Ray cast the aether-infused 1st-Circle spell: Sleep.

He flooded the creature's physical form with suffocatingly dense Aether. It wasn't a mental trick; it was a forced biological shutdown. The dark entity, already expending all of its energy desperately fighting the internal purge of Ray's pure Primordial Aether, had absolutely no resistance left. The spell completely suppressed its life-force, forcing its body into a crushing, deathlike coma and temporarily severing its conscious psychic broadcast.

With the beacon silenced, Ray had immediately woven his next spell:

Ray didn't just bend ambient light to trick the eye; he wove dense Aether into a highly dense, temporary physical matrix.

“Veritas falsa, forma solida!”

He cast the aether-infused 1st-Circle spell: Silent Image.

He shaped a Hard-Light Mirage into a perfect, physical duplicate of himself carrying the bound dark figure over his shoulder. The illusion possessed actual mass and kinetic resistance.

With a sharp motion of his hand and a focused tactical command, Ray had sent the physical mirage sprinting silently using the Stoic Assassin’s ‘Flowing Shadow Technique’ out of the Aetheric Null-Veil.

(Back to Present.)

Svane didn't ask questions. He didn't demand an explanation of the impossible magic. The tactical window was wide open, and his relief at seeing his Lord alive eclipsed his shock.

"Understood, my Lord,"

Svane said, his voice laced with relief and awe.

With the terrifying horde currently chasing a phantom of hard-light through the foggy ruins, Ray and Svane turned their backs to the ridge and sprinted directly into the mist, finally making their hard-won retreat toward Greywood Keep.

The oppressive, damp fog of the Whispering Hills finally began to thin, giving way to the crisp air of the Greywood Domain.

Ray and Svane did not slow their grueling pace. They maintained a relentless, punishing sprint for miles, putting as much distance as physically possible between themselves, the Ruinstone mining site, and the dense ambient aether of the Ruinstone mining site. Within Ray’s sharply cast shadow, Nox remained completely silent, the void-malkin happily asleep and digesting his meal of dungeon cores, entirely oblivious to the frantic retreat.

Only when the jagged silhouette of the Whispering Hills was far behind them did Svane finally allow his stride to drop into a heavy, ground-eating jog. The Vanguard was covered in sweat and grime, his armor heavily scored, but his breathing remained strictly controlled.

"My Lord, the dark entity. What exactly happened to it?"

Svane broke the long silence, his voice raspy from the exertion.

Ray kept his eyes focused on the treeline ahead.

"I left it lying in the dirt, exactly where you dropped it, entirely contained within the boundary of the Aetheric Null-Veil."

Svane frowned slightly, piecing together the tactical timeline.

"But the psychic tether. If the beast pack finishes tearing apart the mirage bait and realizes it was a trick, they will simply lock back onto the entity's soul-beacon."

"They won't, before I cast the decoy, I made some arrangement, I casted a modified Sleep spell on it which resulted with the dark entity into a deep sleep. It should have halted its conscious psychic broadcast."

Svane absorbed the information, glad that his Lord possessed such terrifying, adaptable magic.

"And leaving it there? You did not wish to bring the prisoner back for interrogation?"

“It was too massive a risk. I did use a modified spell on it, but I couldn't be certain how long it would hold. I couldn't take the chance of its internal pathways adapting to the magic. If it woke up and that psychic beacon activates again, we would have unknowingly led an army of apex predators directly to Greywood Keep. Leaving it blind and buried in an invisible array was the only acceptable tactical choice I could make.”

Ray said frankly.

"I agree with your assessment, my Lord."

Svane said, his voice thick with relief. He had no desire to invite that nightmare horde to his Lord’s home.

By the time the sprawling stone walls of Greywood Keep finally came into view, the sky had already bruised into the deep purples and burnt oranges of late dusk.

As they crossed the outer threshold of the estate, Ray finally brought them to a halt. He turned to his Vanguard, noting the subtle tremor in the man's massive arms and the pale exhaustion beneath his stoic expression. The magical backlash had done severe damage, and pushing his physical limits in the skirmish hadn't helped.

"Head to your quarters, Svane. Get out of that armor, get a hot meal, and rest. After dinner, I want you to report directly to my private quarters. I need to conduct a thorough medical evaluation of your meridians and heal your internal injuries."

Ray ordered gently but firmly.

Svane wanted to decline, to insist that he did not need coddling and that he was perfectly fine. But the words died in his throat. He vividly remembered the last time Ray had sat him down for a medical evaluation. Ray had miraculously cured the old, lingering combat injury that had. He remembers Ray had helped him unlock his suppressed potential which allowed him to ascend to a Gold Aegis.

Svane bowed his head deeply.

"I hear and obey, my Lord. Thank you."