Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 284: Infiltration

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Toren Daen

I kept my back pressed to the rock, my mana signature utterly and completely masked as a squadron of blade wing riders soared overhead. The large mana beats flew in clear formation. Their stoney beaks clacked ominously and their metallic wing membranes reflected the setting sun.

The men atop the mana beasts were attentive. Far, far more attentive than I would have expected.

But I shouldn't have underestimated Dicathen's scouts. Especially not this close to their central base of operations. Each of them was at least a yellow core mage, and their spellwork was honed to a precision point.

Their focuses and spells rang clearly in their intent ambient mana like alarm bells as they swept over me. I huddled against the rock on the forest floor of the Beast Glades, keeping my heartbeat and manaflow even.

Finally, the triangular formation of mana beasts wheeled in the sky, returning to their patrol routes. I watched them go high above, calculating the speed and direction I'd need to fly to get closer to the Dicathians' flying castle. Those patrols were infuriatingly common as I got closer, and they always made me halt in my progress for fear of being spotted.

I had the location of the flying castle burned into the back of my skull. Before I'd set out on this mission, I'd sent out a desperate plea to Cylrit's soul. In it, I bound up all my care for Seris. The understanding that she—we—needed hope. That his life needed to be saved to prove to us all that things weren't empty.

And, just like Tessia, he'd allowed me past his soul-wrought barriers. I hadn't been able to heal the Retainer I called friend; that would be too risky for his position. But I'd narrowed down exactly where he was.

The flying castle always traveled over the Beast Glades, shrouded by illusory mist and covered with djinni aether weaves. Seris had made cursory attempts to locate the center of command for the Triunion Council, and while it was simple to narrow down its location to a radius of around fifty miles due to the constant aerial patrols, that was still a large section of ground to cover.

My hand drifted up to my neck, clutching at the pendant there. Seris' cloaking artifact felt warm in my hands, the illusion stamped over my body filling me with paradoxical calmness. With the dark clothes I wore, I blended into the night like nothing else.

She'd granted me this as we worked out a haphazard, risky plan to infiltrate the castle. And with the pendant active, my intent and mana signature were forcefully suppressed, alongside my heartbeat. My physical features shifted, granting me an entirely new appearance. My hair—normally a vibrant, strawberry blonde—turned black as pitch with streaks of alluring navy. The structure of my face changed ever-so-slightly, and the scars and runes that singled me out were covered in a thin facade. My orange eyes turned to a dark, stormy gray.

In short, I looked like Renea Shorn's brother.

And with this, I thought, resolve flowing through my veins like liquid fire, I can complete this plan.

I waited for a few minutes, making certain that the blade wing patrol was gone for the time being. Then I allowed mana to flow along my limbs, before blurring along the ground. It wasn't uncommon to run into S-class mana beasts this deep in the Glades, but I was far too fast for them. In a streak of crystalline white, I wove like a serpent at speeds incomprehensible to most in a desperate surge north.

I didn't have much time. I knew from that otherworld novel that Agrona was more than happy to condemn his Retainers to death if they proved to be a liability. Perhaps his end had changed in this timeline, but I knew Uto could have died from the High Sovereign activating a spell hidden deep in his core. And with the war reaching a crescendo, neither Seris nor I knew how much time her Retainer had left.