Shades of the New World

Chapter 263: The test

"To be honest, it could be anyone, really. It's not like the West doesn't have layeq citizens, and it's not like the East doesn't have any human citizens. And it's not like we're going to do anything different because of it," False Lord said with a scoff.

"You could be right, but balance of probabilities will suggest that they're most likely a team from Tower City. It's still good to think on these details a bit before moving... but you are right in the fact that we're still going to do the same thing," Sannah said, "Anyone else have other opinions?"

No one in the group other than False Lord seemed to disagree, and Sannah nodded lightly.

"Can you make an educated guess on their strength, Ertu?" 

"Judging from the fact that they still didn't notice us in the air, and the fact that their covering illusion is a bit botched, I don't think they're anything too difficult. The way they're move around also suggests the same. Perhaps one of them can't fly," Ertu replied.

"In that case, let's do it like this," Sannah said and turned to Evin, "Evin, please incapacitate the two of our covert guests and leave one conscious for interrogation. If something unexpected happens, we'll provide assistance. We have a very talented healer here, so I don't mind if you're a bit forceful in your approach as well."

[Ooh, a test,] Evin said to Runa. 

[I'm sure it won't be anything too exciting, judging from Worrisome Sister's verdict,] the skinshifter replied.

[It would be best if it's like that, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious. Also, how can you still be so arrogant even after all the stories of arrogant young masters I've told you about?] Evin replied to Runa, before nodding to Sannah. 

"Before you go, wear this mask," Sannah said and gave Evin a basically featureless white mask, with a cross shaped black star on its forehead. 

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'Is that like the mask that Kena and some of the Cobfolk were wearing?' Evin thought, reminded of the featureless masks he saw in the City of Nevernight.

The rest of the team also put on their masks. They also started to feel less noticeable to his mind like if Evin wasn't looking at them directly and not conscious of the fact that they existed, he wouldn't really be able to take notice of them.

Evin put the thing on and weirdly, couldn't really feel it anymore. It was basically the same as not wearing anything, but judging from how everyone else looked, Evin was sure that the mask was working properly.

'Pretty cool,' he thought before putting his gaze onto where the three-man group was supposed to be.

Taking care not to expose himself, he started to peek through the illusions they've created. Like Ertu said, the illusion itself was ill-made so Evin didn't really struggle to overcome it and the vision of the three became apparent to his eyes.

Like Ertu said, the group didn't really look like anything special. A ragtag bunch of men, who didn't even look like proper mages in Evin's eyes. In the kingdom and the North, every mage that fell under Evin's eyes looked clean and suave, donning their bodies with the latest styles fashion had to offer.

But these guys looked like nothing more than a bunch of rather healthy and fit carriage drivers. Evin wondered briefly if they were just that, and were using some magical artifact that didn't need mana. 

'Are the mages in Tower City not so well off as the rest of the world?' Evin thought.

'Well whatever. Not my problem to worry about that. Let's just perform my orders in the safe and easy manner,' Evin thought and flew towards the group steadily, his mind automatically weaving a spell after receiving the code word. 

He disabled his rings of Time Beams, since currently, they were basically only useful as an alarm system of some sorts. Runa turned into a spear in his hands, as he willed the ready spell to manifest near the group while he himself lunged at them with high speed. 

The group started to choke on nothing, and a moment later one of the humans fell prey to Evin's precise attack to their head. With his daily practice of his Authority Style, Evin could make these attacks in his sleep and even then he wouldn't accidentally kill his opponent. 

Evin expected the group to panic at the sudden attack, making his job a bit easier, but surprisingly, the two mages retaliated almost instantly. 

The remaining human emitted a Shockwave from his palm towards Evin's direction while the layeq seemed to conjure a box of stone around Evin in an attempt to inhibit his movements.

Evin quickly grabbed the unconscious man, threw him into some random location in his shadow, while he himself stayed on the border between the two worlds (inside the thick dark area? I'm gonna revisit the old chapter where Evin discusses this ability and make some stuff weaker since it's much too op in its current state), observing the remaining two men. The layeq could have a method to wake the man up, so he didn't wish to turn the 2-man fight into a 3-man one again.

He then casually observed how the two might react and saw them almost synchronously cast a Luminous World spell, in an attempt to uncover Evin's location. It wasn't very hard to do, since while everything around Evin's location reflected the glaring amount of light from the two's spell, Evin's shadow greedily absorbed it, making it look like a black stain on white paper.

Then, while the layeq was focused on maintaining the light source, the human conjured a huge ball of fire shaped into the form of an unknown to Evin rune and threw it at the black spot.

Evin didn't know what the rune did exactly, but he was pretty sure it was pretty damn good at dealing with the Dark World. But, Evin didn't feel very threatened, as he casually increased the size of his shadow and turned it into the Dark Room. At this point, the effects of the two enemies' Luminous spell was practically non-existent as everything inside the Dark Room became pitch black. 

This also made it so that Evin's own location wasn't so easy to target. After all, he wasn't invulnerable in this state.

The ball of fire then hit the dark area and burst into flames. Evin could feel that in the parts where the fire burnt, the Dark Room experienced some unexpected changes. 

'It looks like the Rune's effect is to make things undertake random changes,' he thought as he noticed what was happening to his shadow.

Some part of it was turning into World of Fire energy, some part of it was turning into Earth energy, while other parts turned into Time energy. 

'These guys are pretty strong,' Evin couldn't help but think as he worked on replacing the changed areas of his spell with new and healthy darkness. 

He was sure that the rune he just saw was pretty high end stuff, judging by its effects. After all, the only other similar ability he knew with a similar effect was Relvek's Purifying Darkness. 

'No It's still quite far from the Absolute that Relvek's famous for. Maybe spells made with a rune's help can never become absolutes?' another idea appeared in Evin's head very casually.

This spell only seemed to be a pale imitation of that. The conversion process was quite slow, so there was no risk of the Dark Room disappearing The effects were random and Evin wasn't even sure if the rune would work against other Worlds. The spell could something that targeted the Dark World only for all Evin could know. He also noticed that the process took a bit longer to be completed in the thicker areas of Evin's shadow. He tried sending some more energy to some parts that were burning and the conversion didn't even happen. 

And that wasn't the end of the problems. The human that cast the spell started show very clear signs of mana-core exhaustion raspy breath, swaying body, painful grimace on his head, all that good stuff that spelled one's impending death.