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One second I was standing on the warm, dry floorboards of our new guildhall, smelling the leftover scent of Martha's tea. The next, a blinding wall of freezing white powder slammed straight into my face, nearly blowing me right off my boots.
I stumbled back, my loose trousers instantly whipping against my shins like crazy in the howling gale. The northern peaks were an absolute disaster. A brutal blizzard was tearing through the crags, turning the entire mountain range into a roaring, featureless void of nothing but white.
Great, outstanding choice, Merlin, I thought, ducking my head as the high collar of my white coat snapped violently against my chin. You just had to wear the flashy magician threads to a mountain range during a winter storm. My toes are gonna freeze off before I even find these creeps.
I jammed my staff deep into a snowdrift, leaning my weight against it just to keep from being thrown off the cliff edge.
Solomon. Calibrate my coordinates. Tell me I didn't completely overshoot the jump.
[Notice: Spatial transit successful. Current location anchored on the northern ridge of the Akane mountain pass. Ambient temperature is currently minus fourteen degrees. Calibrating internal thermal regulation to prevent cellular frostbite.]
A strange, numbing warmth instantly spread through my chest, radiating down to my fingers and toes as the system locked down my body temperature. The biting chill of the wind didn't go away, but at least it stopped hurting.
Where's that purple smoke we saw from the window? I squinted into the whiteout. To a regular person, the storm was a solid wall of blinding white, but the second the gold swirl hit my eyes, the blizzard basically turned transparent. I could see right through the roaring wind, tracking the greasy trail of dark magic straight to the mountain face.
[Report: The localized blizzard is artificially generated by a dual-attribute Wind and Ice Magic boundary. The core dark magic signature is originating exactly three hundred yards ahead, hidden beneath a cloaking barrier inside a limestone cavern.]
I yanked my staff out of the drift, a smug grin hitting my face despite the freezing sleet. My eyes easily pierced through the solid mountain rock ahead, mapping out the entire cave system before I even took another step. An artificial storm, huh? Cute. Let's go see how these Zeref fanboys handle a real wizard.
The trek through the knee-deep snow didn't take long because I didn't have to guess where I was going. My vision stripped away the rock face, tracing the hidden layout of the cave tunnel like a glowing blueprint.
Three outer sentries were crouching just past the lip of the cave, huddled around a small, magically insulated brazier. They had cheap iron shortswords resting across their laps, and their magic containers were leaking a greasy, foul purple aura that practically screamed dark magic.
Past them, I could see a faint, vibrating wire of negative energy stretched across the narrow floorboards inside the tunnel. A curse tripwire. Anyone steps on that, and it probably liquefies their marrow or sounds a massive alarm to the inner chamber.
[Notice: Analysis of the defensive grid complete. The curse tripwire is linked directly to the lifeforces of the three outer sentries. If their magic signatures disappear or alter drastically, the internal alarm will trigger automatically.]
So I can't just snap their necks from the shadows, I mused, twisting the wooden staff in my hand as I approached the cave mouth. If they die, the whole base goes on high alert. Solomon, can we override their signatures using Reinforcement?
[Answer: Affirmative. By applying 1% optimized Reinforcement Magic combined with a localized space-isolation boundary, you can freeze their magic containers in stasis at the exact moment of impact. The grid will perceive them as still being active and alert.]
Perfect. Let's keep it quiet.
I stepped right inside the cave mouth, my boots making zero sound on the frozen gravel. The three guards never even looked up from their warm brazier. They were too busy shivering and complaining about their shift to notice a kid in a flashy white coat sliding into the tunnel.
I lifted my staff, aiming the green gem right at the nearest sentry's skull.
One percent flow. Lock it down.
A dull, heavy thump echoed through the stone tunnel as the reinforced wood connected with the first guard's neck. I spun the staff, catching the second guy right under the jaw before he could even widen his eyes, and swept the legs out from under the third.
The three of them collapsed onto the gravel before they could even register the flash of wood. I stepped right over their unconscious bodies, keeping my eyes on the purple line ahead as it buzzed silently, completely tricked into thinking the guards were still standing watch.
I casually stepped right over the tripwire, heading deeper into the dark.
While I walked down the tunnel, I let my sight wander down to the lower canyon pass miles below the mountain crags. The fog down there was heavy, but to my eyes, the whole scene was perfectly clear. I could see the kids crouching behind a frost-bitten boulder, watching the massive mercenary blockade.
Just fifty yards ahead of them, the main road was completely blocked off by a massive, ugly wall of reinforced iron shields and spiked barricades.
The rival merchant coalition had brought a whole army of thugs. At least forty mercenary wizards were stationed behind the spikes, wearing heavy leather armor and looking eager for a fight. Two high-tier Caster mages were standing on the elevated ledges above the road, their hands glowing with a steady, defensive blue light that maintained a massive magical barrier across the bottleneck.
"Talk about a full lockdown," Yuri growled down in the valley, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the hilt of his sword. Small, impatient sparks of lightning began to crackle along his forearm. "We can't just walk up and knock on that iron. Those jerks on the ledges have the high-ground advantage. The second we step onto the road, they'll rain fire spells down our throats!"
"Yuri's right," Warrod said, his face dead serious as he looked over the defensive line. "We don't have the sheer numbers to force a head-on bottleneck like this. If we try to rush them, we're just turning ourselves into target practice."
Precht scowled, his thumb tracing the edge of his dagger. "Fighting a whole guild for a few wagons of winter flour is a terrible deal. Maybe we should pull back and find another route through the eastern forests."
"No," Mavis spoke up. Her voice was small, but it had a hard, unyielding edge that made all three boys look down at her. She was staring at the narrow, steep western ridge of the canyon—the exact cliff face I had told her to watch.
She took a slow, deep breath, her green eyes reflecting the thick, rolling winter fog that was currently pouring through the pass.
A sudden, sharp smile hit Mavis's face. All the anxiety left her eyes, replaced by the sheer, calculating focus of a natural tactician. "We aren't retreating, Precht. And we aren't fighting them head-on either. We're going to make them fight a ghost army!"
Yuri blinked, his lightning sputtering out. "A what?"
"Warrod!" Mavis called out. "Get to the base of the western ridge. Use your Green Magic to trigger a massive screen of dust and loose snow along the cliff face. Make it as loud and messy as possible!"
Warrod looked at the steep, impossible cliff, then back at Mavis's confident expression. A slow grin spread across his face. "You want a distraction? I can definitely manage that!"
"Precht, Yuri," Mavis turned to the other two. "Get ready to move the second they look away. We only have one shot at this!"
Back inside the dark, winding tunnels of the northern cavern, the air had turned thick and rancid. The smell of old iron and burnt blood was strong enough to make my throat itch. I kept my footsteps light, already seeing the massive, vaulted underground chamber waiting at the end of the path.
In the center of the cavern, a massive, jagged purple ritual circle was carved directly into the stone floor. It was glowing with a sickening, greasy light, pulsing like a heavy, dying heart. Dozens of cages were lined up along the far wall, filled with terrified, shivering locals from the outer mountain villages. In front of the altar stood the cult leader—a gaunt guy in tattered black robes, holding a jagged bone dagger over a massive, unholy iron chalice.
My eyes dissected the arrays in a fraction of a second. Three hundred years of studying magic meant I didn't need a summary—I knew exactly what this garbage was. A classic, bottom-tier Soul-Binding Curse Array designed to siphon human suffering into an unholy storage cell.
Solomon. I don't care about the curse parameters, I know how to break them. Trace the anchor. Who is funding this circle?
A sharp, alarming weight suddenly pressed down against my consciousness as Solomon ran the high-speed data cross-reference.
[Notice: Analytical tracking complete. Traces of the active magic circle indicate the core energy is not originating from the cultists in this room. Cross-referencing Ethernano frequency with known targets within Magnolia town borders... Match found.]
[Report: The structural foundation of this ritual circle is tied via a direct soul-link to the leader of the rival merchant syndicate currently orchestrating the trade war.]
I kept my pace steady, my smug smirk completely vanishing. Well, damn. The trade war blockade is just a cover for human trafficking. Mavis thinks she's out there fighting a business dispute, and she's actually dealing with a complete monster.
[Query: Shall this unit authorize the deployment of a spatial erasure spell to eliminate the cavern coordinates?]
I looked through the stone at the cages, then back down toward the canyon where the kids were currently fighting for the town's survival.
No, I thought back, stepping out of the tunnel shadow and letting my white coat catch the dim, purple glow of the altar. Don't erase it yet. If we blow up the mountain, the evidence connects to nothing. We do this clean. We take out the grunts, save the villagers, and then we take this artifact back to town to show Mavis exactly who she's dealing with.
Down in the chamber, the cult leader finally noticed a small, white-haired kid walking casually right toward his sacred altar. He raised his bone dagger, his face twisting into an ugly, furious snarl. "Who the hell are you?! Guards—"
"Save your breath, ugly," I laughed, the gold world-sight flaring to life in my eyes. "Your guards are currently taking a nap outside. And you're about to join them."
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[ If you want to read an extra chapter ahead, go check out the p@treon
Search for foresight_geek or https://[email protected]/c/foresight_geek,
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