Blade Over Magic

Chapter 67: Consequently

Consequently

Yeah, needless to say, the actions of Xander and co sent the entirety of Landor into an uproar. And rightfully so.

It didn’t take long for news of their exploits to circulate throughout the military base, and later throughout the entire town. Many people doubted it, but there were so many witnesses that it was difficult to disprove. As a result, their reputation spiked dramatically. freewebnoveℓ.com

However, there were three issues.

First, the group had operated largely on their own terms. And while they were justified due to the existence of the traitors, they had still technically broken the rules. As such, they were all put under house arrest temporarily while their ’punishment’ was getting discussed.

The second issue was the traitors. Even if the higher-ups wanted to keep that matter under wraps, the truth was that the vast majority of Landor’s soldiers had witnessed the two higher-ups getting jumped and consequently sealed. So even if the squad leaders who participated in the meeting where Xander explained his thought process were told to keep silent, the other soldiers weren’t stupid, and it didn’t take them long to put two and two together. As such, in addition to the joy of having both the Azure Tree and the Ravine subjugated, there was an additional tension that spread among the soldiers. The idea that the traitors had been so well integrated was both terrifying and enraging. Especially when one remembers that many of said traitors were other soldiers and squad leaders, people whom many considered no less than brothers.

It was absolutely disturbing.

The last issue regarded the ants themselves. freēwēbηovel.c૦m

Now this was kept under wraps well enough, and only the higher-ups, the captain, squad leaders, and some trusted soldiers were let into the loop early. And, well, in addition to discussions on how to deal with Xander’s group, intense discussions regarding how to deal with the threat of the ants were fully underway.

After all, the recording device showed off everything the newbies had seen regarding the ants, including the model of the colony Aubrey had developed using her abilities and Mary’s estimated timeline. Couple with the sight of the obscene number of ants in just one of the large caverns, the queen, and the dwindling food supply, they spared no expense in developing countermeasures.

However, none of them were naive. They knew that any countermeasures they could make would be woefully insufficient to deal with something like the and colony now that they had an idea of its full scope. As such, they spared no time in relaying this information to people in the main kingdom, requesting aid and more.

But even then, things were bleak. To mobilize a force that could put up an effective resistance against the ants in a short amount of time was a pipe dream. So they could only hope that Xander’s father had seen his message and would respond.

Regardless, a large scale evacuation operation had begun, as the citizens of Landor were getting urged to pack their things and escape. Now that their eyes had been opened, they were preparing for the worst case scenario.

...

And there was one more thing.

The traitors themselves.

Mary had later explained what she meant when she said that the demons were ’inhabiting’ the bodies of the two ex higher-ups.

Demons were beings whose abilities tended to defy logic. An example of this would be the item that was used to freeze the elite team in the ravine. However, there was one thing that demons were infamous for.

Contracts.

Demons had the notorious ability to create and sign contracts with beings from different races, following the law of equivalent exchange quite strictly. For instance, if a being signed a contract with a demon asking for more power, the demon is obligated to give them that power, as per the terms of the contract. However, also as per the terms of the contract, the person has to give something they think is of equal value, and this could be something like their lifespan, soul, family, etc.

In the case of the ex higher-ups, Mary judged that they made a contract with a demon that allowed it to inhabit their bodies. And while she wasn’t sure what they asked for, she could infer that the demon’s request was to stay in their bodies and gain occasional control to do what it wanted, as shown when they infiltrated the meeting. So they weren’t killed and had their skin worn by the demon, but they had willingly chosen to sign a contract. Meaning that they were indeed traitors in every sense of the word.

Also, her wording implied that both of them had been inhabited by a single demon that had perhaps split itself into two to inhabit both their bodies.

Anyway, there had been an issue when interrogating the ex higher-ups because according to the captain, the moment the seals keeping them in place were undone by even a little bit, then even if they couldn’t escape, the demon was entirely capable of killing its hosts and itself. A result which would suck for everyone involved.

Xander had wanted Mia to do what she did back in the ravine when she stopped the traitors from self-destructing. But she refused, telling him that he had the means to do it himself.

After some thinking, he came to an answer.

Keir.

At this point, he had a pretty good idea of what the baby dragon’s flames did. So after some convincing, he managed to get the Captain and the people in charge of the interrogation to accept Keir’s help.

And the results had been very pleasing.

Without much hassle, Keir was able to ’burn’ the demonic contract, effectively forcing the demon to exit the bodies of the traitors. What’s more, the seal still affected it, so it couldn’t escape while the traitors were removed.

Now they were getting interrogated more thoroughly, and everyone was awaiting results.

After that, though, Keir had fallen into a deep sleep. And according to Mary, since the mana core Keir had ’eaten’ contained a lot of the stuff, and with very high quality, it was going to take him some time to digest it all. The good thing about that was that when he awoke, his growth would have accelerated significantly, meaning he could draw out even more of his latent potential. The bad thing was that he was effectively out of commission, and no one except maybe Mia knew when he’d wake up.

And unsurprisingly, the small girl made no move to elaborate.

’Well, there goes our plot device.’ Xander exhaled as he ate lunch with the group.

They’d all gotten much needed rest after dealing with the Azure Tree, so everyone was refreshed. But sadly (for Xander), as they were under house arrest, they couldn’t even go out to train.

Still, it gave them time to consolidate their gains. And gains there had been.

As it turns out, repeatedly pushing yourself to the limit and occasionally almost dying caused one to grow rapidly. In Xander’s case, after repeatedly squeezing his mana pool dry, its overall quantity had increased by quite a bit. His body had also gotten stronger after repeatedly getting pushed to the brink. On top of that, his ability to interact with vibrations had also increased significantly, and that state he could enter, one he’d aptly named ’Resonance’, had become just a bit easier to use.

But most importantly, his ability to sense the background ’buzz’, the underlying frequency that was space, had improved. It was still difficult to do, immensely so, but no longer as difficult as before.

Xander sensed that like many things, the more he did it, the easier it would become.

And that was just for him. The others has also gained a lot.

In the case of Aubrey, she’d pushed her perception to the limit consistently, whether by scale—like in the catacombs—or through precision, which was pretty much every consequent time. Especially in the fight against the beast leaders and the Void Raptor where she had been sensing spatial distortions for when it teleported.

As such, her perception range and accuracy had increased significantly. On top of that, her use of the bow had also improved after repeated battles, and Xander was now considering the next step of her training when it came to body magic, intending to milk her perception to its greatest capacity.

For Curtis, his subconscious use of ice had risen dramatically. Not only did he need to chant less due to understanding how to make his ice tougher via molecular composition, allowing him to make it as tough as a chanted spell without chanting, after using it against significantly tougher foes than he was used to, like the Verdant Boa and Azure Tree, this specific ability had improved a lot.

And amazingly, without Xander teaching him, Curtis had figured out that cold = molecular activity reducing. So not only was his ice tougher, it was also much colder.

According to him, he figured this out when he fought the Boa, which was how he managed to kill it on his own.

Finally, there was Falael.

Surprisingly, it turns out the attack they used on the Azure Tree was the first time they’d ever used the artificial star in their mana pool to its full capacity. Or rather, the full capacity their body could handle.

Yeah, turns out that the literal nuke of an attack they unleashed still wasn’t the full extent of what the artificial star was capable of. Their body was simply incapable of unleashing it due to the sheer potency behind it all. The mana burnout they faced was actually the best outcome, as any worse risked them exploding, which was kinda daunting. However, after they recovered, Falael sensed that their upper limit had risen.

But he wasn’t satisfied with this. So after swallowing their pride, they asked Xander if he could teach them a way to strengthen their body in order to allow for better usage of the artificial star, something Xander naturally agreed to.

After they finished eating, Xander smiled wryly when Aubrey and Curtis stared at him expectantly, and he knew what they wanted.

They hadn’t been lying when they said they wanted him to help them develop something akin to Falael’s artificial star in their own mana cores. And if he was being honest, he thought it was time to take that step as well.

The only thing that remained was how.