Chapter 551

As the glowing array faded into the dirt, the ashes of the debt contracts fluttered in a cold breeze, scattering across the clearing.

The Consortium guards shook off their initial shock. A lieutenant shouted an order to form up, raising a loaded crossbow at Nick’s face. A dozen more weapons were leveled at him, their steel bolt tips glinting with the light of an enhancement skill.

Tipping his head back, Nick gave them his best dismissive sneer, compressed his mana, drawing it tight against his skin, and released it in an omnidirectional pulse that targeted only the human minds in the camp.

Such a thing would once have been beyond him, but [Spiritual Sovereign] gave him more than enough finesse, especially when his targets were so weak. The strongest among them was barely level fifty!

Pressure slammed into them, scrambling the delicate threads of their short-term memory and tearing the last ten minutes into disjointed, unrecoverable fragments.

Overwhelmed, the guards' eyes rolled back, and they crumpled to the dirt in a discordant clatter of armor as they dropped their crossbows and swords.

They lay still, but their chests rose and fell, and he smiled, pleased he’d calculated the necessary force correctly.

A mind mage attempting to read their memories later would find only a blurred mess. Someone at the level of a Shadow would get more, perhaps even enough to reconstruct that a ritual had taken place, but the details would be too far gone.

Despite all that had taken place, the Beastmen laborers stood frozen, staring at the fallen guards.

The giant ferret spirit remained coiled by the brazier, even as a subtle tremor ran down its spine. It hid its reaction well, but Nick’s heightened senses caught the primal unease filling the creature. The spirit's instantaneous subjugation of two dozen minds clearly marked the gap between them.

"Gather your people," Nick ordered casually. “You must move southeast quickly and avoid Alluria if you want this whole thing to succeed. The Ducal patrols will notice a migration this large sooner or later.”

The ferret chittered in agreement, shaking off its shock.

"Guide them to the hidden temple in the grassland marshes," Nick instructed. "Caò-leò resides there and still remembers the Old Pact. He will offer sanctuary until the scrutiny shifts elsewhere. From there, you can head south.”

If anything, that seemed to shock the spirit even more, and Nick had to remember that very few living people knew of the Guardian Lion.

Mmmh, maybe I should have sent them elsewhere. Caò-leò can definitely put things together.

But in the end, the other options were even worse, and the lion had shown it could be discreet. He’d have to hope it didn’t voice its suspicions.

I’ll pay it a visit when I come back, just to be sure.

Eventually, the ferret bowed its head in acknowledgment.

With that done, Nick had done his part to save them. Now he needed to take care of his last traces, and he’d be gone.

He drew Stillness around himself and layered his own traits over its enchantments, blending light, sound, and the ether around his form. To the Beastmen and the spirit, he simply vanished.

Then he began systematically scouring the ambient mana. He scrubbed every bit of power from the air and the soil, erasing the ritual's signature and his own presence, leaving behind a sterile background hum.

Fortunately, the magic he’d cast had been contained by its very nature, and without the sympathetic anchors, it offered very little resistance, so he was able to cleanse everything until only a very powerful post-cognition could hope to learn anything, and even that would be hindered by the fact that most of what had taken place was in the ether, a place where time wasn’t as easy to navigate.

The spirit looked around, unnerved by the changes it could feel taking place, but unable to pin him down. He allowed one last chuckle to echo through the clearing.

With the camp secured and the evidence purged, Nick launched himself into the sky without looking back. He’d done all he could for the Beastmen. Their destiny was now in their hands, ironically enough.

He pushed his flight speed to the absolute limit, tearing through the air while keeping his shields up so no one noticed his passage.

The journey to his next destination normally took three days of steady walking along the King's Highway, but he covered the distance in a single hour.

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In fact, he’d put so much juice into the flight that he had to slow down a bit to keep from creating sonic booms.

Who would have thought this kind of speed was even possible? I cannot use it in battle, given how demanding it is to maintain, but I'm genuinely impressed that I can fly this fast. I’ll need to set aside some time to experiment with it.

His schedule looked quite busy in the coming days, but as long as he kept himself from getting entangled in yet more conspiracies, he should be able to work through it by the time he reached Siderea.

He certainly wanted to be at his very best before presenting himself to the King.

Since he needed a well-documented alibi in case anyone tried to link his trip to what had just happened, Nick angled his descent toward a series of ravines miles southeast of his actual destination. He dropped into the crags, expanding his spiritual senses to locate suitable prey.

Fortunately, he quickly found acceptable targets: a pair of scaled razor-boars rooting through a patch of luminous fungi near a spring. The creatures were muscular and covered in overlapping plates of dark gray bone.

Both registered as just past level sixty and would have required a B-rank adventurer team to take care of.

Not that those ranks are worth much. Some people rise very high through connections and artifacts, while others, like Arthur, languish because they have no interest in glory or recognition. But I suppose it’s a decent approximation of strength for daily life.

Nick dropped from the sky, deciding not to use his Saga-spells because he didn’t know what residue they would leave in the beasts' flesh. Instead, he condensed a blade of kinetic mana over his forearm and decapitated the first boar in a single motion, before it even knew it was being hunted.

The second beast charged blindly, its tusks glowing with enough mana to gore a mid-tier Knight and crack the ground beneath its hooves.

Still invisible to it, Nick drove his boot into the creature's flank. The impact sent it smashing into a wall, shattering its ribs. He ended its life with a precise thrust to the base of the skull.

It was a mere drop in the bucket, but he’d take it.

After scouring the land to ensure no other high-value target remained, he took to the sky again, flying low until the dense trees gave way to a wide, paved trade road. Nick landed, dropping the Stillness active concealment. He also dismissed the [False Personhood], returning his features to their natural, youthful state.

He adjusted his dark coat, ensuring the golden swords of the Crowley sigil were clearly visible on the lapel, then pulled the star-metal Mage Errant medal from beneath his shirt and let it rest prominently against his chest.

Once he was satisfied with his appearance, he walked the final mile to the city gates.

Trelan housed roughly twenty thousand people behind walls of fused stone, enchanted with runes to make them more resilient. It lacked the towering spires and polished marble of Alluria, and its protections were significantly weaker, favoring squat, defensible architecture built to protect the vast storehouses and merchant guildhalls that formed its economic heart. Yet it was still a lively city, and much wealthier than Floria.

When Nick got within a quarter mile of the gates, he projected his spiritual senses over the walls to gauge what he was walking into.

Six Prestige auras burned within the city limits, immediately noticeable even through the etheric ripples caused by so many people in one place.

Four were focused on a specific path and were probably non-combatants. Powerful in their respective fields and not to be underestimated in a fight, but posing no immediate threat.

The remaining two were sharp and dangerous. One carried the disciplined edge of a veteran warrior and sat near the city center, likely either the ruling noble or their Captain, given the golden hues he knew meant someone who considered themselves honorable.

The other was a cold well of esoteric power, significantly denser than Nick's. It had a vaguely feminine aura, though it was hard to make out specifics, sequestered as it was in an estate near the northern wall behind powerful wards.

He filed the information away and approached the gates, joining a sparse line of early-morning travelers waiting to enter.

When his turn came, two guards crossed their halberds to block his path. Their eyes darted from his clean cloak to the golden swords embroidered on his clothes, and finally to the star-metal medal resting on his chest, which drew wide eyes.

They snapped to attention, drawing their weapons back in synchronized movements.

Oh, thank my lucky stars. I was afraid this would be far more complicated, with them blocking me until someone could be called to verify my claim and inevitably forcing me into conflict with some spoiled noble, but it seems I was spared such a cliché.

"Mage Errant," the guard on the right barked, offering a crisp salute. "Welcome to Trelan. Business or pleasure?”

“Just passing through," Nick replied. "I ran into a pair of razor-boars in the crags and will sell the pelts and restock provisions.”

"The Adventurer's Guild is three streets down; take a left at the fountain," the guard directed, stepping aside. "The quartermaster there pays fair coin for fresh kills.”

Since there was no obvious way to transport his loot, they correctly assumed he was keeping it in a spatial artifact.

Nick offered a brief nod and passed through the archway, ignoring the murmurs behind him. Mage Errants weren’t exactly rare, but people still rarely encountered them, especially one so young.

He’d grown quite a bit over the past year, and the palpable aura of restrained power around him gave him some gravitas, but he still looked no older than his mid-teens, and even that was generous.

That didn’t mean much, since mages had many ways to restore their youth or fake it, but it was still pretty unique, so he didn’t begrudge them the interest.

The city streets were already crowded. Carts loaded with grain, ore, and timber rumbled along the roads. Mercenaries in mismatched armor haggled with provisioners, while guild clerks scurried between squat stone buildings, carrying stacks of ledgers.

All in all, it was a lively place, though some underlying tension lingered, and he sensed more than one person simmering with discontent over the prices.

I doubt it’s the ferret’s doing. Perhaps the war in the north? It’s been a while since it ended, but things take time to return to normal. Some High Noble may have decided to hoard most of the resources that came to the market after the routes reopened, to refill their stores.

Nick navigated the crowds, following the guard's directions until he reached a wide, two-story building bearing the Adventurer's Guild's crossed-sword-and-bow crest.

He pushed through the double doors and was met with a cacophony of shouting voices. Despite the early hour, many were already drinking or gambling.

Suppressing a snort, he walked straight to the appraisal counter, bypassing a group of low-level warriors arguing over a bounty poster.

The clerk, a balding man with a protruding belly, looked up and frowned. "Line starts at the back, friend.”

Nick tapped the Mage Errant medal against his chest.

The clerk’s eyes widened. He sat up straight and swept a stack of parchment off the counter. "My apologies, my Lord. How can the Guild assist the Tower today?”

Nick waved a hand over the counter. The two razor-boar carcasses materialized from his iron ring, thudding onto the floor and filling the room with silence.

“I have some things to sell.”