Sometimes the ceiling of power wasn't a limit — it was an abyss. One you couldn't even see the bottom of. So what do you do? You weave yourself in your own little web of secrets, you hoard knowledge like it's gold, and you damn well memorize the shaky ground where you started.

Knowledge could be a crowbar — something to pry open opportunity, if you had the guts. Say you wanted to mess with a Gold Core: you could bait their attention, maybe even show them a trap tailored just for them. But knowledge couldn't patch the leaky roof of human instability. Even these demigods were still, at their core… human.

And no matter how well you studied human nature, there was no perfect script for what they'd do next. Just guesses. Educated guesses, if you were lucky — but guesses all the same.

Lysska had spent a lifetime turning that fact into a blade — molding knowledge into a weapon sharp enough to cut a path through the kind of life that would've chewed up and spat out anyone softer. Survival 101 where she hailed from: outwit, outlast, out-scheme.

As for the lower district? Barely a bruise from the aftermath of the attack. It just confirmed what Lysska already suspected: Vor'akh was never aiming for them. It was a feint, smoke and mirrors. Especially when you had three Gold-ranked monsters scrambling to keep the city from collapsing — no lone Gold was busting through that. End result? Almost no casualties.

Well. Almost. A few crushed homes, a couple of neighborhoods evacuated in panic. But that wasn't what kept Lysska pacing.

No, what gnawed at her was one burning question: What the hell did Jade do?

It clung to her brain, no matter how many times she told herself it wasn't her business. Jade had wiped them out — all of them. Also that creature that had almost slaughtered a Gold Core beyond the rift in space. Not only did Jade slam that rift shut, she deleted every last conspirator… and even managed to save a House Head on the side.

If it had all stayed hush-hush, maybe it would've been fine. The fewer peeping eyes, the better.

But here was the problem: Lord Veyan definitely saw what went down. There was no way he hadn't put two and two together — His talk with Lysska. Her bringing in a guest, that guest being Jade, and the way the pieces fell after.

Soon enough, every House Head in the city would know their names. Including the Flameclaw Matriarch herself.

Lysska bit her lip hard enough to taste copper. Unless you had the raw, brutal strength to weather that kind of attention, it wasn't a blessing — it was a death sentence. Not just for them — for the entire lower district.

Jade might be blissfully ignorant of it all, but Lysska knew better. She had ruled these streets long enough to feel the tension crackling in the air — the growing resentment between the lower district folks and the silk-robed nobles of the upper tiers.

Same rage that drove beastkin to bed with Vor'akh and knife-ear idealists. Betraying kin because hope felt like a rigged game.

Morons. As if burning the world warmed frozen hands.

"Should we head out there? No?" Vyra piped up beside her, dragging her out of the spiral of thoughts. They were slouched in Lysska's 'office.'

"Wasn't Jade working at the Alchemy Tower? That's where the attack's happening, right?"

"No. I think Iron Pact can handle it. As for Jade..." Lysska leaned back, watching her mental chessboard of surveillance flicker to life — her crows sweeping the skies over the middle district. She had spells woven into their feathers, magic subtle enough to hide them from casual eyes. But a sharp one — someone who knew how to sniff out the unusual — might catch a whiff if she let them fly too low. So she kept them at a careful altitude, just close enough to spy without setting off alarms. "I don't think Jade's the type to strut around in public anyway," she finished, voice dry.

Vyra squinted up at her. "Why d'you think they're hitting the middle district?"

Lysska tapped her fingers on the armrest, thinking. She'd spotted elves mixed in the chaos — knife-eared bastards practically advertising their allegiances now. Safe bet they were elbow-deep with the Vor'akhs. Plus, necromancy? That was practically an elven birthright.

"This whole thing stinks of desperation," Lysska said at last. "Timing's all wrong. Best moment to strike would've been during the summoning — hit them when they're already stretched thin. But this?" She shook her head.

"Someone's antsy. Jumped the gun waiting for a signal that never fired."

Vyra huffed, arms crossed. "Ugh! Should've been there! You two got front-row seats to the apocalypse! Stories don't cut it!"

She wilted, kicking at a loose floorboard. "But… if they rushed, they'll flop, right?"

Lysska arched a brow. "Flip that."

Vyra blinked.

"They already got what they wanted: chaos. And they're leaving lasting damage behind, too. Smash up the middle district hard enough, and the Upper's gonna lock the whole city down tighter than a miser's vault. And who's gonna bleed for it?"

"…Lower district," Vyra answered quietly.

Smart girl. Lysska let a small smile twitch at the corner of her mouth.

"Exactly," she said. Her voice had taken on that low, grim edge she couldn't seem to shake these days. "No matter what we do... no matter how many times we claw our way back up... we're always the ones who end up losing."

Not anger. Just arithmetic. Unflinching as a tombstone.

She couldn't bend fate into a shape she liked — not with the power she had. All she could do was read the twists and turns ahead of time, like a gambler counting cards and knowing the house was still going to win.

And the cards she saw now?

Bad hand. Worse odds.

Today's chaos was just the overture. The real show was still loading its guns backstage. The Vor'akhs had taken a hit, sure, but the elves… the elves were still out there, slinking through the shadows, and Lysska's instincts — which had kept her alive this long — told her something ugly was brewing.

She needed answers. And fast.

Then, like a match sparking in the dark, her face lit up.

"Bingo," she hissed.

Vyra nearly faceplanted into the floorboards. "Bingo what?!"

"The portal. The one those elves must've used."

Vyra groaned. "Why's it always portals? Can't they just… ladder over the walls like honest crooks?!"

Lysska barked a laugh. "Sure, if they fancy becoming pincushions for arrow turrets. Portals are deniable. Plausible. Someone local's playing ferryman — and they've got a degree in subtlety."

She leaned forward, tapping a mental map of the city against her mind's eye.

One more thing she'd figured out: These portals were mostly temporary. Wherever they connected, the portal would drain its anchor dry — burn it out, erase the traces when it collapsed.

A tidy little vanish act. Hard to track. Harder to prove.

But not, apparently, impossible to find.

That was exactly what had happened at the hideout Jade destroyed — a portal feeding on its anchor until it burned itself out. Lysska figured this was the same design.

One of her crows perched atop the hidden chamber now, giving her a clear look: the place was stuffed to the rafters with mana stones. Lysska arched a brow. Wraiths were drifting in and out at intervals, carrying stones away, feeding them somewhere else.

After a moment's thought, Lysska expended a pulse of mana into the crow. Its feathers shimmered, bones cracking slightly as a glow rippled through it — and then, without a sound, the bird split into two identical copies.

"Something's happening…" she muttered.

"Ooo, fireworks?" Vyra wiggled.

"Pray it's not."

One crow stayed hidden near the portal. The other took off, tailing a wraith into the labyrinth of tunnels.

The portal chamber was hidden behind a veiled illusion, tucked into the sewer systems. Lysska's eyes followed the fleeing wraith, while other sets of borrowed eyes kept sweeping the aboveground battlefield.

Iron Pact reinforcements were closing in from the distance, but the skirmish seemed mostly contained by now. The Alchemy Tower guards weren't amateurs — especially not Zharitsa. That woman always managed to sense Lysska's birds whenever they got too close. Keen senses tuned to the wind, just like Jade.

It wasn't a coincidence, Lysska thought grimly. Some people didn't just see the world. They felt its currents.

Another crow perched deep inside the Alchemy Tower itself. Last time, the attackers had gone after the alchemists. If the focal point of tonight's chaos was the tower again... then maybe Lysska's hunch was about to pay off.

That was when she heard the shouting.

Normally, she tuned the sound out — too many eyes was already enough strain on her mind; adding in the noise would hammer her into a migraine. But the Alchemy Tower wasn't as chaotic as the battlefield, so she risked tuning in.

The commotion bubbled from the healing wing.

Wait. Jade's last known coordinates.

A crow flitted through sterile halls, perching high as the scene unfolded below:

A mountain of an urgoth was roaring at cowering staff. "Where's Jade?!"

"Sh-she said… washroom?" A healer's voice frayed at the edges.

"SHE'S GONE!"

Lysska pinched the bridge of her nose. Classic.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Trouble?" Vyra leaned in, smelling drama.

"Jade's clocked out early. Ghosted her babysitters."

"They'll catch her, yeah?"

Lysska snorted. "Catch smoke. Girl's got more escape routes than a sewer rat."

She shifted her focus back to the crow shadowing the wraith. It was leading her deeper — three tunnels south — into a wider chamber.

There, kneeling on the ground, was an elf, mid-ritual. Mana stones dimmed and guttered around him as he worked, feeding their energies somewhere unseen.

Lysska's frown deepened. She didn't recognize the script etched into the ground — necromantic, definitely, but unfamiliar.

Still, she didn't need to know the exact spell to recognize bad news when she saw it.

"Not ominous at all…" she muttered.

Her crow stayed back, keeping a cautious distance. It was invisible to casual sight — but who knew what skills these bastards might have up their sleeves?

No point getting cocky now.

Upstairs, Iron Pact's cleanup crew rolled in late to a party that was already last-call. Either this attack was half-baked…

Or the main course is still in the oven.

Her gut voted Option B.

Another thing caught her attention. The elves commanding the wraiths — the ones holed up across various buildings — had been... neutralized. Brutally.

Their unconscious or broken bodies were getting hauled back toward Iron Pact lines by a figure Lysska couldn't take her eyes off.

A drakkari, silver-scaled and unmistakably powerful, moving like a force of nature through the shadows. At first glance it looked like a red core warrior in beast form — but then she noticed the details: four tentacles sprouting from its back, weaving mid-combat to cast spells.

Silver hair, silver scales, crimson eyes.

Lysska narrowed her gaze. Since Jade had vanished — and hadn't shown up anywhere since — well, it was a leap to conclusions. But somehow she didn't really doubt herself.

After a moment's deliberation, she fed another burst of mana into her crow, splitting it again to tail the drakkari — who she very much suspected was Jade.

It didn't work. The figure simply disappeared from view, slipping into invisibility with unnerving ease.

Lysska's crow blinked at empty air. Fine. Priorities.

Down in the sewers, the ritual was escalating. The elf now had a small mountain of burnt-out mana stones piled around him — enough, Lysska realized with a cold jolt, to blow half the district sky-high.

What the hell was he doing?

The answer hit almost immediately. With a pulse of power that made even her distant crows' feathers prickle, a massive spectral eel materialized before the elf.

Bigger than a several carriages combines.

Pale and translucent, brimming with the energy of hundreds of drained stones.

It immediately lashed out — and standing in its way was the silver-scaled drakkari. Jade.

But something was wrong.

Lysska could see it, even without full senses: hesitation.

Jade looked reluctant to attack the eel.

Lysska gritted her teeth. She wished she could sharpen the crows' senses — sight and sound were all she could siphon without splitting her mind further, and it left her guessing too much. Still, it wasn't hard to piece together: something about that eel had Jade spooked.

The elf — smug bastard — muttered about her being too late just as the spectral monster tore through the sewer ceiling, bursting into the streets above.

Jade struck at the elf with her tentacles, trying to catch him, but the attack was futile. She even lost one of her appendages in the attempt. Not that she cared; Lysska could tell — her focus was all on the eel, ignoring the elf entirely.

The elf, sensing his opening, slunk away, retreating toward the portal chamber.

Lysska let him go — for now. The crow she'd stationed near the portal snuggled deeper among the remaining mana stones, masking its mana signature. If she was lucky, she might get a shot at spying through the portal itself. Last time her crow's connection had been severed instantly when it crossed — but maybe this time, wherever it led, would be different.

Aboveground, the main attack was reaching a boiling point. And now, Lysska understood why Jade had hesitated.

"By the ancestors…" she whispered. The elf had fed all that mana into the creature.

It wasn't just dangerous — it was catastrophic. If that eel went fully berserk, the entire middle district could be obliterated.

Vyra's voice buzzed into her mind. "What's happening?"

Lysska's mind was already juggling too many threads, but she forced a sharp reply through the noise. "We're but ants watching a landslide," Lysska snapped. "Pray the Pact's got a leash for that thing."

She did spot one hopeful thread — an old Light Mage from the Iron Pact's ranks, shouldering his way toward the chaos.

If anyone could bind a mana-swollen spectral beast like this, it would be him. Light magic was a natural counter; spectral creatures struggled to break free from it once bound.

Lysska just hoped he'd be fast enough.

They seemed to have a similar idea, working together to trap the monstrous thing. Lysska watched anxiously, her main crow still poised in front of the portal.

Below, the elf finally arrived — shoving everything in the chamber through the portal with rough telekinetic magic. Grimoires, mana stones, enchanted bindings, paralytics — anything he couldn't carry himself, he just hurled. Not that he needed the bindings anymore, not after dropping that literal bomb upstairs.

He muttered curses under his breath, frustrated and hurried.

Lysska's crow seized the chance — snatching one of the mana stones in its talons. When the elf flung the rest inside, the crow let itself be carried too.

The elf didn't notice a thing.

Miraculously… her spy didn't die the moment it crossed through.

The portal dumped her crow into a large open chamber, eerily calm compared to the chaos of Varkaigrad. Definitely a different place — not the fort, not the ruined city.

Through a window, she glimpsed a sprawling skyline of unfamiliar towers reaching toward a purple-orange evening sky. Massive city. High magic density, judging by the architecture.

More importantly, glowing sigils ringed the left-side windows — alarms, probably. Moving blindly would be a bad idea.

To the right was a closed gate. Maybe her ticket out if she needed it later.

For now, she waited.

The elf stormed around the room, angry and twitchy. With a final gesture, the portal behind him collapsed, the light draining from the black stone runes.

Meanwhile — back above Varkaigrad — the mana bomb had been contained. Light chains wrapped the eel's form, locking it in place.

Victory. Or so it should have been.

The pendant around the elf's neck blared, a harsh pulse of mana. He grinned.

A spike of dread hit Lysska.

He grabbed the pendant, muttering new incantations — and from the eel's body, smog-like mana began to erupt.

Lysska's blood ran cold. It was going to self-detonate.

Before she could even form a coherent thought, she saw her — Jade — burst into view.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, JADE?! RUN! FUCKING HELL, RUN!

Of course, her voice couldn't reach across dimensions.

Jade didn't run. She flew—a silver comet ramming into the eel, tentacles hooking its translucent flesh. Up they spiraled, a death spiral into the clouds.

Lysska stared, stunned.

She'd never taken Jade for the sacrificing type.

Hell, it made her question if that even was Jade.

But if it was — she had to have some trick hidden up her scales.

Lysska's crows tried to follow, but Jade's speed was impossible to match.

Within moments, she and the eel tore through the clouds, vanishing from sight.

And then —

Light.

A sun bloomed above Varkaigrad. The shockwave shattered her crows mid-air, lenses bursting into ash.

Lyska's real body flinched, phantom heat scorching her cheeks. She gritted her teeth, praying Jade had survived. She fucking had to.

***

The chamber became a stage for the elf's one-man opera of rage. "Mangy vermin!" he spat, hurling a crystal orb against the wall. It shattered into a symphony of spite. "Rot-brained heroic gutter-trash!"

His mana crackled like a storm trapped in a wineglass—unpredictable, overpriced, liable to scald bystanders. Lysska's crow observed his tantrum with avian disdain. Real mature, knife-ear.

He kicked a chair. It skidded into a mana-stone pile, scattering his "carefully organized" hoard. "Nothing sticks to the script!" he seethed, voice fraying. A beat. Then, quieter: "Not my fault. Couldn't be."

Straightening abruptly, he brushed his robes with rehearsed dignity—a peacock pretending he hadn't face-planted in mud. "Those Vor'akh swine sold us out. The Lord will see reason."

Sure he will, Lysska mused. I'm certain terrorists love excuses like "the sacrificial eel ate my homework."

The elf swept toward the exit, delusion trailing him like cheap cologne.

Her crow detached from the debris—feathered spy, debris-camouflage champ—and fluttered after him, silent as a shadow's cough.

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