Cloudy nighttime stretched overhead, blanketing the ever-watchful skies as the moon slipped behind a thick mass of charcoal clouds. The darkness grew heavier and more complete, barely a shade lighter than the Wraith lying crumpled in front of me.
'Huh... seems Luna, Goddess of the Moon and Protection, won't be witnessing the conclusion of heroics tonight,' I muttered inwardly, half amused, half disappointed, as I kept my distance from the downed creature. After everything—after clashing with that shadow-born aberration again and again—the last thing I needed was for the damn thing to mimic a mana beast and explode on death. I highly doubted it had that kind of flair left in it... Yet, never say never. A saying that always made more sense after a few brushes with death.
The stillness around me was unnerving. Too quiet. Too heavy. The tension wasn't gone—it had just changed its shape.
Thunder rumbled overhead, shaking the upper atmosphere as if something divine was clearing its throat above the clouds. 'Maybe the god of thunder was celebrating my victory.' At least someone was acknowledging my efforts. I smirked faintly, more out of irony than pride.
My line of sight locked in as I moved forward one step. Another. Then a third. Each footfall was slow, deliberate. I inched closer to the motionless Wraith. But something about it being so still, too still, sent a pulse of unease through my spine. It didn't even have a face—and yet it was making me anxious. Or obnoxious. It could be either. I'm not the best with upper-class fancy words.
'This kinda reminds me of that time, when I stood before Adith, that little spy of Goodman...'
I reached out with my senses, tried to feel the Wraith through my mana, through every ounce of instinct I had refined over the years, expecting some sort of- something...
Yet, Nothing.
Just... nothing.
Like staring into an endless ocean with no current. Or a boundless plain of grass under a starless sky. A presence that filled space but lacked definition. It was there, occupying the world around it, yet giving nothing away. No emotion. No mana pulse. No signal.
The darkness around it wasn't just a shroud—it was a wall. Opaque. Impenetrable. Like it was deliberately keeping me out, hiding whatever core or construct powered it. Whatever lifeforce governed its existence... I couldn't even guess. It was beyond me.
And then—
ZUP!
Something howled through the dark, straight at me, fast.
I've often wondered what it'd feel like to launch myself into the air like Edward—intentional, powerful, controlled flight. But now I know what it's like when survival launches you.
One second, I was grounded. The next, I was airborne—blasted upward by pure instinct, my legs exploding with desperate mana. If I hadn't reacted when I did, the scythe would've bisected me cleanly. Reflexes saved me again. But they had overcompensated—gone too far up. Too fast.
As I soared through the thick night, I saw the Wraith starting to melt into the shadows behind the tree it had leaned against—its movements impossibly fluid, seamless.
"No!" I screamed, rage flaring, as I hurled Snowhite down with all I had. The blade still pulsed with lingering traces of my telekinetic mana. A last-ditch effort to stop the retreat, or to do something other than witness from up above...
The Wraith caught it. Effortlessly.
Its scythe reappeared in its hand, like it had never left, and with a casual flick, it deflected Snowhite aside. The blade spun off and embedded itself halfway into a scorched log behind the clearing.
And then... it vanished, as I almost completed the creation of another mana arc.
The darkness embraced it, and the Wraith simply merged with it, like smoke into night.
Gone.
I had no choice. I tried to reactivate my telekinesis, and even that thought felt like someone was pressing a warhammer against each side of my skull, slowly, steadily crushing me from both ends. My nerves screamed. My vision pulsed red and white as my spell broke away, vanishing from existence.
Still, I managed it. Barely.
Telekinesis surged forward, tracing, seeking, chasing—but it lagged. Just a second too slow. By the time the surrounding mana had responded, the Wraith was already submerged in the void, like it had never been here in the first place.
It had escaped.
I let it escape.
That realisation triggered something in me—a weight that crashed down like a collapsing roof. My telekinesis immediately withdrew. I didn't even command it. My body just gave up as my head automatically faced downwards towards the rapidly approaching ground.
I landed hard, cracked earth breaking beneath my feet, the shock vibrating through my spine. The battlefield was quiet once again—eerily so. I looked around, scanning for movement, signs, any flicker of presence, any clues, it might have left behind.
Nothing.
No Wraith.
No reinforcements.
The knights? Still late. As usual. I couldn't even sense their presence. Either they were still miles away or... my own senses had finally degraded from the sheer overload... Though I don't blame them, I'm too far from the city and when explosions occur like these... The standard procedure is to safeguard the foremost infrastructure and citizens inside, then to wait for reinforcements before charging in. After all, the battles and the explosions took place around the mountain regions, not near the borders of Varis.
Whatever. I sighed, exhausted.
With trembling hands, I removed my headgear, the clasp clicking softly as it vanished into my ring. My shoulders dropped, my breath ragged and shallow.
The area around me... gods.
Devastated.
Trees lay shattered in every direction, branches burnt or blown clean off. Craters pockmarked the earth like old scars. Some bushes still smouldered, while others had been wiped from existence altogether. The battlefield looked like it had suffered a meteor shower—or thunderstrikes, as some trees were literally splintered apart equally.
By my own estimate, at least 10 to 15 kilometres of forest were affected. Maybe more. The shockwaves had stretched far. I could only imagine the damage visible from the skies, as I tried to remember the scenery when I was airborne.
I reached up to push my hair back, only to be greeted by a sharp, biting pain in both arms, particularly my left. My dominant side. My right arm still worked, barely. The other felt... unusable, for the time being, I hope, since I've got a mission in 30 hours, or less.
At least being a left-dominator has some perks, I told myself dryly, trying to inject humour into a moment that had none.
The clouds above still gathered, thick with thunder, but the moonlight had finally begun to pierce them. Pale silver beams reached the broken landscape, giving everything a surreal afterglow, like sunlight after a long storm. There was a strange serenity to it. Hollow, but present.
The mist, too, had thinned. What once danced across the battlefield like silent spirits was now fading, slowly retreating. A few wisps still lingered, clinging to broken roots and cracked stone—but they would be gone soon.
Just like the Wraith.
Just like this fight.
Now then… time to head back home. Call it a day—or night, I suppose.
I turned away from the chaos I'd left behind, heading off in the opposite direction from the approaching knights. Toward Varis. Not the main path, though—definitely not. I chose a different route, one less patrolled, one they wouldn't expect. The last thing I wanted was a group of armoured idealists dragging me into custody like I was some wild spellcaster who blew up half a forest for fun. Not tonight. I was done—for real this time.
I could report all this to Captain Mercy, Edward, or whichever commanding knight decides to grill me later. I'll deal with them after the Chimaera hunt. Until then, nothing comes between me and the one thing I've longed for since the moment I unsheathed Snowhite—
Rest.
Real, undisturbed, well-earned rest.
This battle wasn't just exhausting—it was mentally debilitating. The kind of strain that doesn't show up in bruises or broken bones, but in the way your thoughts start blending together and your limbs move on muscle memory alone. I've been tired before—physically, endlessly—but that kind of exhaustion is something you learn to fight through. You push. You adapt. You keep going.
But this? This was different.
This was the first time I truly went all-out with my telekinesis. Not just fragments. Not subtle shifts or minor assists. Full force. From start to finish. During the Valgura raid, I used it, yes—but nothing like this. Nothing on this scale. Back then, it was just an extension of me—an edge. Tonight, it was the only edge I had.
And the Wraith forced me to lean on it like a crutch. Forced me to tap into something far beyond what I was ready for. It exposed me, mentally and otherwise.
And yet it escaped.
That thought lingered like poison in my mind as I carefully descended a sloped ridge, the kind that eventually flattened out into the outer ring of Varis. A mountain-cliff stretch, quiet and winding, away from the usual entry checkpoints.
The Wraith had infiltrated the city. And for the first time in their recorded history of a few months, they had attacked.
Me, without any provocation, unlike those knucklehead hunters... Lucky bastards.
I was the first. Tomorrow, it might be someone else. Someone stronger. Or someone weaker. Someone… unprepared.
Maybe next time, it won't come alone.
Maybe next time, there won't be a next time.
But if there is—if they begin appearing in groups, targeting Saints or Commanders—then we're facing something far worse than a mutated mana beast. We're looking at extinction-level warfare... And who's to say all these Wraith might possess the same level of strength, and intelligence...
Shit! This is exactly going towards those infamous old legends...
Yeah. I remember those stories, Sia always loved sharing them, especially to me, as I've heard them more than a thousand times now.
The legends of 'Asuras'. The legendary Sentient legion. A handful of mages and warriors—humans, blessed beyond reason—who carved their names into the myths of the Great War. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their leader, the former emperor, The Godly One, as he led the charge against the Demon Armies. While he duelled Acrocis, his legion wiped out their greatest generals, their most ancient monstrosities, and severed their command structure from the inside out.
But that was then.
This… is now.
And unlike the Asuras, the Wraiths don't need groups.
They don't need numbers.
Their strength lies in their silence. Their stealth. Their mystery. Their absence of logic. An entity like that doesn't attack because it needs to win—it attacks to confuse, to instill fear, to break laws.
The basic foundation of combat between mana-wielders has always been this: If you cannot see it, you must sense it. If you cannot sense it, you must see it.
Simple. Logical.
But the Wraiths?
They break that law. They were made to.
Or worse… they were created that way. Deliberately engineered to exist in defiance of our understanding. Not beasts. Not creatures.
Instruments... And if they're, let's suppose divided into groups...
Yeah, about that.
I don't wanna talk-think about it.
Another day, another theory. I shook my head as I crossed my fingers. Please don't manifest this useless stuff my brain comes up with, I begged with my eyes closed to the Almighty, or Almighties.
Though for tonight, I was done. No more conjecture. No more shadow-chasing. I needed to return to my residence and stay low until I finish this mission.
Before I go, though, I'll ask Lavya and Sara to stick with Sia for a while. Not because I think she'll be lonely without me, not exactly. But because the Wraiths might not be done. And Sia? She always puts others before herself. If anything happens again… I'd rather someone be at her side when it does.
That thought clawed at me, twisted its way around my chest and stayed there.
I looked up.
The city was in view now—the grand line of Varis rising against the moonlit sky, its glowing spires half-obscured by clouds. The Lunar Walls stood tall in the distance, quiet… for now.
They'd been there the whole time—I just hadn't noticed them until now.
Because I'd been too lost imagining the future. A dark future...
A future where the entire city, the eastern front, perhaps the entirety of the Verdun empire, is turned into a battleground.