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They were just mostly normal people, some not even D-grade. Miranda could admit that the security around their teleporters had been shit. No one expected an attack, and she still found any potential explanation for the attack nonsensical. Haven had done all it could to stay neutral, so why the hell target them?

Annoyed but pressed for time, Miranda did not have time to interrogate them. Considering their goal of escape, she would not have time to either as she made the call.

The man hid his face as he walked through the busy panicked streets. Everyone were confused as they had only heard that the Viper’s Chosen had returned to Earth and engaged the alien invader. This confusion turned to something akin to panic when the fight stopped, and a barrier encompassed the entire city.

None of it was his concern. The citizens were safe; they were never the targets. He saw them as victims, the lot of them.

People sought their homes, and so did the man. He got inside and quickly closed the door, and activated what defensive measures each house was equipped with. After taking off his cloak, he headed toward his living room.

Plopping down on the couch, he let out a sigh of relief. He and the others had not been discovered yet, and considering the lack of response, he doubted they would. All he had to do was wait now.

Feeling relatively safe, he got up again and went to grab a bottle from his fridge. Well, it was just a box with a magic circle to cool it down, but it worked as a fridge.

He walked over and opened it just as he heard a knock on his door. The door to his bedroom. His eyes opened wide as he whipped his head towards the door, with his hand still reaching for the bottle stashed in the back of the fridge. Yet rather than a bottle, he felt his hand meet something soft.

The man barely had time to turn his head before two hands grasped his wrist and dragged him into the fridge, slamming the door behind him. A faint sound was emitted from within before the door opened again – the only thing remaining a severed hand clutching a bottle.

--

Miranda quickly eliminated all of them after summoning the Drowned Swamp Maidens, using one of her more efficient rituals to kill those significantly weaker than herself and within her domain. How the skill worked exactly wasn’t something Miranda entirely knew. What she did know was that it called upon the spirits of the Drowned Swamp Maidens, which were more conceptual apparitions than anything truly real. They were living ideas.

Getting rid of the terrorists – because that is what they were – had only taken her around a minute. In that time, Ell’hakan and his two followers had not rushed over but simply walked up to the edge of the barrier at a leisurely pace.

She observed as the man stopped in front of the barrier. He raised his hand and touched it for a faint moment and waited five or so seconds before speaking. “Ms. Wells, I believe you should be able to hear me, am I correct?”

Miranda briefly opened her eyes and saw Neil was still hard at work, having even put his party members to work placing down materials in the circle. Closing them again, she decided to buy time. At that moment, when she felt his hand touch the barrier, she felt a pulse go into it, making her tremble. She did not know what it was and decided that if the guy wanted to talk… she would talk. Well, shewouldn’t talk.

Focusing, she took out a small doll and infused some magic into it. Placing it in the middle of the circle, she said an incantation and immersed her mind.

In the outside world, a figure faded into existence. A human-sized doll looking quite a bit like Miranda appeared, looking more than a little scary with its oversized buttons for eyes and amateur craftsmanship. Miranda had to sew it herself, and damn was she bad at sewing.

But the doll worked as its mouth moved. “Is it not a basic skill expected of a City Lord to have some level of perception within the domain they rule?”

“It is. I must say, this is my first time ever meeting a witch, and I am already intrigued,” Ell’Hakan spoke, looking at the doll. “I would like to apologize for before. I believed it necessary to show that I have ways to break barriers such as this to make you come out for a talk. Ah, on that, I would advise you to not rely too much on the Pylon for city defenses. As a noble with a significantly higher rank and a profession that allows it, I possess skills to combat it quite effectively. Instead, I would work on making your own skills the primary basis of the barrier, with the Pylon only acting as an auxiliary energy source.”

Miranda looked confused at the man speaking. Enough to doubt if Ell’Hakan could influence her through the puppet. But she quickly ruled that out simply by how she assumed it worked. If his ability was to influence emotions, he had to influence the soul, and the puppet she had sent did not contain anything to influence. Which begged the question:

“Why are you telling me that?”

“Friendly advice from one ruler to another,” Ell’Hakan answered. “And a good icebreaker that shows my intent. I want to make an educated guess and say you are currently working on a method of escape or some kind of counterattack. Probably escape, considering I just defeated the Chosen of the Viper.”

“You did not defeat him; you just delayed him and pissed him off,” Miranda countered in a curt tone.

“I did what I intended. Today was not the time for an actual fight,” the man nodded in recognition. “I will just lay the cards out on the table. I have no interest in causing you any harm, Ms. Wells, but I have made a deal with the United Cities Alliance, as they call themselves. They very much would like to see you dead.”

“Are you really going with the “it’s not personal” line?” Miranda scoffed.

“Not really. I am going with the line of saying that you should escape. I will not stop you. But I will warn you that the United Cities Alliance will try to take you down. From what I heard, the Chosen’s influence on this planet would be significantly weakened and his current political position ruined if you were to die,” Ell’Hakan explained.

“Doesn’t sound like a reason to suddenly spare me and not break in here and now,” Miranda answered. She briefly disconnected from her doll, and Neil signaled her that he was soon ready. Entering it again, she saw Ell’Hakan shake his head and chuckle.

“We both know that entering wouldn’t lead to a pleasant experience. For either of us. What you are capable of is not pertinent information, and I would prefer not to take such an unnecessary risk. The Verdant Witches are notorious for their mysticism, and you are none the different. With me having no interest in attacking you, simply waiting for you to leave seems like the best cause of action. Ah, but do be warned that if you choose to stay, I will have to act at one point or another,” Ell’Hakan warned.

“You want me to just leave Haven in your hands?” Miranda shot back. That was exactly what she was going to do, but she had to at least act like the man didn’t have the upper hand. Also… she wanted to know what he was planning.

“I will lay no claim on anything here today. Someone from the United Cities Alliance will come and take charge for now. No one has any interest in killing the citizens, so rest easy,” Ell’Hakan assured her.

“Grand words coming from someone who is all about bullshit lies and making up stories.”

“But I do speak the truth, as no story matters if there are none to remember and tell it,” Ell’Hakan simply said.

“A story that is a lie. What are you even hoping to accomplish? Ruin our reputations? Even if you succeed in doing that, how will it matter? Can you truly call that an actual victory?” Miranda asked. “To me, it all seems like the pathetic actions of someone too weak to battle Lord Thayne head-on.”

Miranda hoped to get a bit of a rise out of the guy. Maybe make him temporarily lose his cool and overshare. She had confidence that even if he wanted to attack now, she could hold him off long enough for Neil to be done.

“Fighting… holds little meaning,” Ell’Hakan spoke. “A fight is always just a single line in the history books. A declaration of the outcome after the fact. Tell me, how many were truly aware of our brief battle here today? A few dozen? Add on a few bored gods gazing upon events they truly don’t care about, and it is little more than a handful. My words of the battle will echo more true than anyone else. All they know is that a fight took place, and it ended up with me left standing and the Malefic’s Chosen gone. I know what you are hoping to accomplish, but let me assure you; a story is better told if not spoiled beforehand. Killing the Chosen would have been a waste. I am not telling a small tale but a true epic.”

“One where you try to define what is the truth,” Miranda said.

“Precisely,” Ell’Hakan smiled. “I have enjoyed our brief conversation, even if it was rather one-sided. I would advise you to leave now or show your hand as I can delay no longer before my partners get dissatisfied with my dallying.”

He snapped his fingers as Miranda’s doll caught fire and burned down in an instant, throwing Miranda back to her real body. In the middle of the ritual circle, her small doll had now turned to ashes. She only had time to orient herself before she felt a pulse go through the barrier. The pulse seemed to attack not the barrier’s energy but the very framework.

“How long?” Miranda asked.

“Done, was just waiting for you,” Neil said.

Miranda nodded as she hurried over to the teleportation circle. Just before stepping on it, she briefly spoke a final spell before getting teleported away along with most other notable characters in Haven – besides Sultan and Arnold.

No one liked sand. As spoken by a not-that-wise man long ago: It’s coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere. And that was normal sand. Magical sand was even worse. Not because it was finer and somehow more everywhere, but because it sure as hell was coarser and rougher by a significant magnitude.

And then there were sandstorms. Sandstorms on Earth before the system could be devastating, but a post-system sandstorm was on an entirely different level.

Jake was already in an even worse mood than usual when it arrived. He had tried to hurry through the desert while hunting down sand worms, but the fuckers were borderline impossible to kill. Even the peak D-grade ones Jake could not easily get rid of. Their bodies were massive, and they clearly had an equally massive health pool, but the worst part was their behavior. He had yet to have a single one even try to fight back. He had even tried to attack a C-grade, done all the preparations, been as ready as he could, only for him to land a single Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter before the worm dove straight down and swam away for him to never see it again.

That is when he truly realized… these worms did not at all care about fighting. They just ate stuff. Jake had wondered how that would even work, as the surface was bound to run out of natural treasures and high-energy items at some point.

Which is where the sandstorms came in.

It was like the very horizon had moved towards him. A towering wall of sand reaching into the sky for several kilometers had barreled towards Jake as he tried to fly through the desert. He had reacted quickly and tried to mimmick the worms by boring into the ground and hiding until things blew over. This should work, right?

Wrong.

Because this sandstorm was a true marvel of the elements. It was a zone of earth and wind mana that mixed and created what could almost be called a moving domain. A true wonderland for creatures that relied on these energies. Or one to spawn such creatures.

Elementals simply came into being within the massive sandstorm, and while the sand worms did not want to fight, these elementals sure did. Like as if a giant vacuum cleaner had been turned on, several elementals sucked up all the sand around Jake and pulled him out of the desert.

He felt sand hit his body and himself take damage as it impacted him with near super-sonic speeds. Sand even found the eyeholes of his mask and hit one eye, forcing him to close it. Jake was well and truly pissed as he used his one good eye to Identify one of the elementals attacking him.

[Sand Elemental – lvl 184]

One would maybe think that this kind of environment was bad for Jake. And they would be right. But that did not really matter much when all he faced were D-grade elementals.

Arcane Awakening in the stable mode activated as a faint arcane barrier covered his entire body. This passive shield was usually not a big deal, but when it blocked thousands of small “attacks” every second? It allowed him to effectively ignore the environmental effects and move to kill his foes as he did the one thing that always worked: blow them the hell up with destructive arcane arrows.

Meanwhile, Jake made his way out of the sandstorm. As he traveled through it, he saw entire sand worms had been dragged out of the ground and into the storm, as well as hundreds of other creatures. The sand worms seemed to make it out, though, as they worked together and used sand magic of their own to help others escape. Elementals consumed the creatures that could not get away, and it was as if the sandstorm itself absorbed some of the energy whenever something died.

However, while the sandstorm took, it also gave, as it left behind treasures. Treasure generated from the sandstorm itself that simply dropped onto the sand and was left behind. If not for being stuck in the middle of the damn storm, Jake would have marveled at the ways the ecosystem had evolved.

After more than an hour of struggle, Jake finally made it out of the sandstorm and saw the massive natural phenomenon just continue sweeping across the desert. His momentary sense of relief from being out was promptly broken as he realized he had been flying back in the direction he had just come from to get out of the damn storm.

“Fuck me,” Jake muttered as he wondered what to do. As he was flying up in the air, he saw dozens of sandworms begin to emerge below to consume the natural treasures dropped from the sandstorm. As Jake stared at them, he got an idea. An idea that just might work.

He just needed one of them to eat him first…