Chương 146: Book 3 Chapter 24 - Attack In Easton

Kiara breathed a sigh of relief. She felt better about everyone's safety in Easton with a few heavy hitters hanging around over there. With Zoey and Yeager to back her up here in Portish, she was sure they could handle things if that strike team returned. She decided to bring up the real issue.

"The attackers were from the Silver Serpent Clan." She glanced at her parents.

"You remember Kane?" They both nodded solemnly. For the benefit of the newcomers, she gave some quick backstory.

"The Silver Serpent Clan is a powerful clan that operates out of The Capital, I believe, but they have a branch here in Portish. There was some trouble in Easton a few months back, and I killed one of their clan members in a public duel. A tier 4 named Kane Vondeer." Ben and Lily shifted in their seats a bit at that reveal. Up to this point, they likely hadn't realized that Kiara was capable of something like that. Kiara continued explaining.

"His boss here in Portish, Elsa Undril, is a tier 5. A strong one. She's apparently pretty upset about Kane's death, and rightfully so. He was a powerful tier 4, much stronger than the one that attacked us here today. I'm sure his death is a big hit to the clan." She looked around the room at the somber faces. Good. They understood the gravity of the situation.

"If she attacks us personally, I don't think that our entire combined strength would be enough to face her down, even with all of our forces from both estates." Gazes fell to the floor, heavy with worry. Kiara took a deep breath.

"I don't know what the attack today was supposed to accomplish, or if they'll strike out at us again. I knew Kane. We… talked a bit. Before the duel. It is my understanding that the clan here in Portish has a few teams, not just the one that attacked us here today. If Elsa isn't enough of a threat on her own, then the clan she controls certainly is. There's a reason that even Count Dremond is scared to take action against her."

Her mind suddenly flashed to Choppy's uncle, Bert, and she wondered what kinds of favors she could call in that he would actually respond to. Would this count? Did she even want to go down that road? She tapped her fingers on the armrest. No one pitched in any ideas.

"Do we hunker down and wait for them to attack us again? Do we think they're done moving against us, satisfied with the death and destruction they accomplished today?" she looked around as she spoke, but all she got was empty stares. None of them had dealt with anything like this before.

"What other choice do we have?" Janice asked suddenly.

"You pointed out that we aren't strong enough to go against them in any convincing fashion. We should keep our gates closed and hope for the best." Kiara didn't voice her hidden concern, likely couldn't voice it due to the World Engine's constraints, but Kane's delayed resurrection was only a few weeks away. His return would definitely upset the balance of things, and she didn't know in which direction.

Maybe Elsa's thirst for revenge would be satiated once Kane was apparently not really dead, and the attacks would stop. Or, maybe Kane would be mad that Kiara had killed him, and be out for revenge. * The next attack happened two days later. It was the same strike team from the Silver Serpent Clan. Kiara, Zoey, and Yeager were once again able to drive the attackers off, but a portion of their estate wall was destroyed in the process.

With the gate closed, they were able to respond to the attack before anyone inside the estate got injured, but a gaping hole in the wall was evidence that victor's enchantments weren't meant to hold up to the combined might of a tier 4 and multiple tier 3s. * Jaden was practicing his aura control on the estate grounds when an explosion near the gate happened. He'd been personally briefed on the situation by Shian, and immediately knew what was happening.

Knowing that Ben and Lily would be there shortly to back him up, he rushed to the gate. The estate in Easton had begun closing their gate during the day as well the past few days, ever since the council meeting in Portish. It made day-to-day business that required leaving the estate slightly more inconvenient, but gave everyone peace of mind, even though they lacked the wards that the Portish estate had. Similar to the first attack in Portish, the clan members targeted the gatehouse first.

It was an easy target near the gate, and presented a convenient place to start. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Due to what had happened in Portish, they had stopped stationing guards inside the gatehouse itself, so luckily no one was injured in the initial blast. A few tier 2s had been moved to Easton with Ben and Lily, but their main job in the planned response was to get people to safety. Jaden, Ben, and Lily would handle the attack.

As he rushed to the gate, Jaden reached out with his magic sense. There were four attackers: three tier 3s and a tier 2. This was the exact description of the group that Victor had told Shian about, the first one that had targeted the Portish estate months ago. They must be trying their luck out here. Jaden let his aura loose. He had learned to reign it in when needed, but still hadn't mastered the surgical precision required to only have it affect certain people.

When Ben and Lily arrived, they would have to either fight from outside his aura's range, or deal with the drawbacks of being inside it. The clan members formed up as Jaden approached, and instinctively pulled back a few paces as his aura reached them. They clearly hadn't been expecting such a strong defense here. In the two months since his breakthrough, Jaden had learned a third concept: fire.

He had already been close to learning a few more concepts before his breakthrough, and his advancement to tier 4 seemed to help as well. Something about mana-based magic just seemed slightly simpler now that he had broken through to the next level. Victor had mentioned that tier 4 is where the spirit started working with new types of magic, such as his aura, or the ability to officiate in soul oaths. Prior to tier 4, the spirit simply didn't have the maturity or durability needed for such magic.

Now that he had progressed to this point, mana-based magic was less daunting than it had been before. His two concepts that he learned at tier 3 were with earth and lightning. They were both basic elemental concepts, but they complemented each other well. They had also been worked into his aura as part of his breakthrough, and his opponents now would be feeling a slight electric shock in addition to the natural inhibitions that accompanied any aura.

Their feet on the earth underneath them would be slightly less stable than they were used to. Both effects were subtle, and peripheral to the main aspect of an aura, which was to press down on your opponents in a way that made them less effective than they otherwise would be. Even so, the effects added a unique flavor and spice to Jaden's aura, one that the clan members were now trying their best to ignore as he began launching spells at them. Jaden also pulled out a spear.

He was a close-range fighter primarily, but had been practicing both close and long-range fighting styles over the past few months, trying to expand his skillset. Combination fighters were less common than specialized roles, but not unheard of. He formed stone armor around his person, extending his leg length and arm length in the process. Inside his stone armor, he stood nearly eight feet tall, with a similar wingspan. The stone formed around him as he ran, and he layered it with raw mana shields as well.

Lightning erupted from his spear, aimed at the tier 2, and he enforced the attack with his lightning concept. It allowed him to pack way more lightning mana into the attack than he otherwise would have been able to, and sped up his cast time. His metal spear served as the perfect conduit for aiming his attacks, something he used to his advantage. The tier 2 took the blast surprisingly well. His mana shield held, even though the impact pushed him back a few feet.

The man was in his forties, and had probably been stuck at tier 2 for decades, giving him plenty of time to practice and improve. It wasn't like sparring with a tier 2 fresh from the academy, that was for sure. It seemed this team consisted of two front liners and two back liners. Jaden wondered if that was standard for a strike unit from the Silver Serpent clan, as it fit the same mold as the group that had attacked the estate in Portish more recently.

He pulled up walls of earth and stone to interrupt the charge of the two close-range fighters, who were attempting to close the distance to engage him. His aura helped weaken the initial barrage of attacks from the two backline mages, and his mana shields handled what was left without any issues. As that initial clash ended, Jaden was already weaving his next attack. A stone dome materialized on top of the two back line mages, which Jaden had infused with his stone concept and his aura.

It wouldn't hold them for long, but would give him a chance to fight the two front liners unimpeded. The ground under the feet of the two warriors charging at him softened, and their steps began sinking lower and lower each time. Jaden hardened the earth around their feet into stone, heating it with his concept-infused fire mana. The fighters were forced to focus on ripping that ability apart, giving him the chance to jump in with his spear.

Unfortunately, the backline mages had already broken out of the dome he threw up around them, and he never got the chance to strike the other two with his spear. The backline mages' spells drove him backward, away from their immobile teammates. Jaden did his best to dodge the onslaught of spells the two mages launched at him, which would help his shields last longer.

The spells that did make it through were caught by his mana shields, and when those fractured in some places, the stone armor around his body protected him from the worst of it. He released lightning bolt after lightning bolt from the tip of his spear, striking back at the two backliners. The tier 2, one of the backliners, was quickly running out of mana, and his shields began wavering with each subsequent hit.

Jaden channeled mana through his body, using the sudden burst of speed to create some distance between himself and the two frontliners closing in on him. He sprinted at the tier 2, launching a stream of concept-backed fire mana at the man. Blinded by the fire attack, the man didn't react in time to Jaden's spear, which pierced the man's remaining mana shield at the point of impact and took him through the shoulder. He fell to the ground screaming.

The other backline mage had already unleashed a new wave of mana constructs at Jaden, sharp wind blades that cut through his mana shields. Luckily, they were less effective against his stone armor. The two frontliners had caught up to him now, and he backpeddled, fending off their attacks. Jaden re-formed his mana shields, and the thought crossed his mind that this could turn into a war of attrition. Each time a mana shield was destroyed, a new one took its place.

He felt that, given enough time, he could fend the attackers off, but it was taking longer than he would like, and they were performing better against him than he wanted to admit.