Slashing away the doubts and hesitations in his Heart, Alnea reached out to the Path of Stars once again, calling for another Mystery. This time, one of his own. The Mystery behind Yuri’s Dominance. A Mystery so domineering, that it showed not discrimination between friends and foes. And a Mystery that suited all his needs. Everyone around him was his enemy anyway. The only person he did not want the Mystery to affect was Zain. But he was carrying the man, so the Mystery should not affect him. Probably.

  He had never tried casting Yuri’s Dominance while carrying one of his teammates. Though, even if it did affect Zain, it was not time for him to hesitate. With his white robed teammate in one arm, and his dagger in the other, Alnea rushed into his enemies, glowing in the red light of Slaughter. So what if they outnumbered him by close to fort—

  It should be thirty times, Alnea noted, glancing at the nearly twenty Wanderers on the ground, either dead, or too injured to move. And that was not counting the Wanderers, whose only remains were the red stains on the ground. Then again, Zain was not in any shape to help him either. So, if he counted correctly, he was outnumbered by fifty times. But it did not matter. It was just a number anyway. And he was never afraid of numbers. As long as—

  Just as Alnea rushed into his enemies, weaving his way through them in streaks of red and golden lightning, clashing against them one by one, searching for their flaws, he noticed the fog around them churn once again. Though the fog had been churning for quite some time. From even before he clashed with the Lotus clan. And their subsequent battle only made the movements in the fog even more violent.

  Yet, somehow, as he dodged in between a sword’s slash, and a spear’s stab, Alnea could feel that the movements he was observing were different from before. They were not from any Mysteries and Aspects unleashed in their battle up till then, and they were certainly not from any of his clashes. They were from something else entirely. From a different Mystery… From a different Arcana…

  Alnea blasted his Aspects into the ground, and rushed out—

  A surge of white, green, red, yellow, blue, black, and all sorts of colours rose up from the ground, forming layers upon layers of barriers, blocking his path. And not just in one direction. The barriers rose up all around him. And some other Wanderers, of course. There were about twenty other Wanderers trapped within the barriers. But they were not afraid. Because the barriers were not meant for them.

  “Finally,” a green robed Wanderer said, observing Alnea from outside the translucent barriers, as he turned around to face the Wanderers trapped with him. “I thought he would never run out of Glyph Tokens.”

  “When did he even use all those Glyph Tokens?” said a Wandered in yellow robe, while mumbling some incomprehensible words from time to time, manipulating one of the yellow barriers to send down a lightning strike, interrupting Alnea every time he came close to dealing a fatal blow to the other Wanderers.

  “At least I did not see him using one.”

  “Except for the first one he used,” said a brown robed Wanderer, manipulating the ground within the barriers to grab Alnea’s ankles, and sometimes, even form a spike, stabbing them towards Zain, forcing Alnea to keep moving constantly, wasting his strength and Spirit Power. And stamina.

  “But that would still not explain all those Glyph Tokens he used later.”

  “…Maybe he was using Arcanas…”

  “From so many different lineages?”

  “So?” said a blue robed Wanderer, manipulating a blue barrier to launch water arrows at Alnea, harassing him with the rest of his colleagues. “It is not as if there is a restriction to what lineages of Arcanas he can use.”

  “But it does not make any sense,” a pink robed Wanderer said with a frown on his face, while releasing toxins within the barrier, the antidote to which, the other Wanderers had already taken.

  “It is a common knowledge that the more similar an Arcana is to the Arcanas one has already mastered, the easier it would be to master the new Arcana. Even within the same lineage, mastering Arcanas from two different Series can take months, if not years. Focussing on Arcanas from so many different lineages at once…”

  “Indeed,” a red robed Wanderer said, adding a touch a fire to the chaos already unfolding within the barriers. “Not even that useless Arcanist next to him dared to be so presumptuous. And he is from the Enhall clan, known for mastering all sorts of Arcanas.”

  “…I think you two have made a mistake,” said the green robed Wanderer. “What you just said may be a common knowledge, but only amongst those Favoured by Gods. An unfavoured like him…”

  “Did he not get the favour of the Serpia clan?”

  “Do you think they will tell him all their secrets?”

  “Why not? They do not seem to care about going to a war with the Lotus clan for him.”

  “…That may be true, but there are some rules that even they would not dare to break.”

  “…You are all missing the point here,” the pink robed Wanderer said. “To use Arcanas as proficiently as he did, he must master them completely. Do you understand what that means?”

  “…He is even more talented than we took him to be.”

  “No wonder those Serpents wants to protect him.”

  “Or why the Lotus clan is so interested in him.”

  “Though I guess it is a little too late for you to bring him back to your clan now,” the brown robed Wanderer said, as he glanced at the Whitebud man. “After all the things that have happened between you… Why is your clan still so interested in him?”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “…That is not something you should worry about,” the Whitebud man said, not even bothering to look at the brown robed man. “Do not forget the agreement between our clans.”

  “…Tsk. You do not have to remind that agreement every time I ask you a question.”

  “Then do not ask a question about something that you should not know,” the Whitebud man said. “Just do your job.”

  “What do you think we are doing right now?”

  “Playing with him,” the Whitebud man said. “Something that you should never do with your prey. Even beasts know that much. How come I still have to remind you to hurry up?”

  “…You do not understand. There is a certain way to doing things. A certain way to capturing people—

  “The same way you used earlier, blaming me for all your losses?”

  “Those losses were the fault of your clan, and you know it too. Do not go around shifting the blame.”

  “As for the kid, you do not have to worry about him running away. Since we promised you, we will naturally capture him at all costs.”

  “You just need to keep your end of the promise.”

  “…I know what I promised you. But let me remind you that my promise will be valid only if you can keep him under your control.”

  “Do you think we cannot contain him?”

  “I am just asking you to not let your guard down. If he can escape through your claws once, he can do it again. And I do not want any more surprises in our plan.”

  “…Do no teach us how to do our job, Mathias.”

  “Then you should do your job properly, and not let your arrogance get the better of you…”

  The Whitebud man paused, and glanced at the Wanderers around him, all looking at him with grim faces, before continuing with his words.

  “Do not think that just because he is trapped right now, he is under our control. I should not need to remind you what happened the last time you—we underestimated him. How many more of us should be sacrificed before you will be willing to learn your lessons?”

  “…You do not have to worry,” the brown robed Wanderer said, turning back towards Alnea, urging more hands within the ground to lunge at the black robed boy, intensifying his attempts to interfere with the latter’s actions. As did the other Wanderers around him.

  “We will not give him any chance to cast his Arcanas.”

  “…How did he even get his hands on those Arcanas in the first place?”

  “…The Serpia clan, perhaps?”

  “Those muscleheads?”

  “They may be muscleheads, but they are still a Grand clan. Be sure to watch your words, lest you bring trouble to your clan.”

  “My clan is not afraid of those muscleheads.”

  “But they would also not go to war with them for just a False Wanderer who does not know how to control his tongue.”

  “…I am not afraid of them either,” the red robed man said with a scoff, but did not continue insulting the Serpia clan. Instead, he quickly shifted the topic away from himself, adding, “In any case, I do not think he got his Arcanas from those Serpents.”

  “…The Enhall?”

  “It does not seem impossible…”

  “Does it matter?” said the pink robed man. “Our mission is just to capture him, not to investigate where he got his Arcanas. If anyone wants to know these details, they can slowly search for it by themselves. For now, everyone should focus on taking him down.”

  “Indeed,” the green robed man added. “This farce has been dragged on long enough.”

  “It is time we brought an end to this meaningless battle.”

  “Are we going to do it together?”

  “…Just pay attention to how much strength you use. We do not want him to die before we bring him back to the Lost City.”

  “We know…”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “…Do it.”

  Giving each other a terse nod, the Wanderers around the Whitebud man intensified their attacks once again, urging their other clansmen to do the same, giving Alnea no time to even breathe, let alone plan a counterattack. And though they were wrong about how he was manifesting all kinds of Mysteries, in the end, their plan still worked out as they had hoped it would.

  Alnea, however, was stuck in another dilemma. The Path of Stars did give him access to more than thrice the number of Mysteries he had mastered, but it did not allow him to summon them instantaneously. On the contrary, since most of the Mysteries were not his own, he had to be even more careful when manifesting them around his enemies. Summoning them hastily would only give more troubles to his master.

  Then again, even if those Wanderers would not have intensified their attacks, he probably would have still just kept running around within the barriers. It did not matter how many Mysteries he had access to. Without enough Spirit Power to support the manifestation of those Mysteries, he could not do anything. Especially with Zain hanging by his side, he could not even dare to take any risks.

  Thus, as the Wanderers of the Lotus clan’s alliance had hoped, they had him dancing within their palms, running around to dodge their attacks. And with the passage of time, as their attacks continued to intensify, both in number, and in strength, his waning strength and Spirit Power, along with his concern for his teammate, forced him to begin taking their attacks head on, wasting even more of his Spirit Power, dragging him into a vicious cycle, that pushed him to the edge of despair.

  “…It is all because of me,” Zain said, when he noticed their deteriorating situation. “If only I was not with you…”

  “Then I would not even have had a chance to fight before being killed. Stop thinking so much, and just rest.”

  “…Leave me. Maybe then—

  “Shut up,” Alnea said, not even bothering to hear the rest of what his stupid teammate had to say, as he continued dodging the attacks that he could, and deflecting what he could not. “If I asked you to rest, then just rest. Stop creating more troubles for me.”

  “…It is exactly because I do not want to be a burden—

  “When did I say that you were a burden?”

  “…You do not have to say it. I know—

  “You know nothing, stinky mouth.”

  “…You always were so wilful.”

  “…Can anyone be more wilful than you?”

  “…Taking me in when no one would…”

  “…Are you trying to flirt with me?”

  “…Even when the girls were against it…”

  “…I think they were right. I really should not have let a stinky mouth like you, who does not know when to shut up, into the team.”

  “…You were a good Captain, Alnea.”

  “…What do you mean by were? I am still your Captain. Now, shut up, and let me think.”

  “The best Captain I could have hoped for.”

  “…You really are not going to shut up, are you?”

  “…If there is a next time… If…”

  “Fine,” Alnea said, glaring at Zain, as he stopped in place, and let go of him, allowing him to fall on the ground, all while ignoring the attacks falling on his back. “You want me to get rid of you, right?”

  “…I… It is the best choice…”

  “If that is what you wish,” Alnea said, using most of his Spirit Power to cast one last Arcana, one of his most proud works, encasing Zain in a layer of light and shadows, making him vanish from the eyes of all the other Wanderers. Even from the senses of their Spirits. It was as if he had been teleported away from their midst…