Chapter 4535: Fight Murder with Murder (Part 1)
Chapter 4535: Fight Murder with Murder (Part 1)
"Manohar learned how to switch light and darkness as an adult. If you show this trick to Dhiral, you will become his hero. Never explain to him how you do it, though. Give him something to wonder at and let yourself be the amazing god that all children believe their parents to be." The Master said.
"What about you and Duke?" Ryssa asked.
"Did you ever see us use Void Magic in front of Dhiral?"
"No." She shook her head. "Don’t tell me..."
"Yes, we did it on purpose." Vastor replied. "Duke noticed that something was wrong despite your reassurances and came to me. We decided that Void Magic would be your thing. We already have lots of things we can jabber about with Dhiral. We were just waiting for you to decide to open up."
"Thank you, Zogar." Ryssa threw her arms around the Master’s neck, embarrassing him to no end. "Thank you so much for everything you’re doing for us."
"You’re welcome, Ryssa, but if Dhiral sees us like this and talks with Duke, he’s going to kill me with Zin’s help." He said, making her chuckle. "Now, have some tea and relax a bit while I show you how it’s done."
Vastor dispelled the curtain of light and Dhiral’s Hush zone. He sat beside the young boy and took the book from his hands, reading the Chapter on the light and darkness elements to Dhiral as if it were a bedtime story.
Vastor often stopped to offer insights into what they had just read to the young boy, and to answer the questions Dhiral asked after pondering each subject. Seeing her son smile and talk excitedly like a regular child lifted a huge burden from Ryssa’s heart.
’Zogar is such a kind man. Zinya is a lucky woman.’ The Dryad thought, unaware that was just the human side that the monster called Zogar Vastor showed the rest of the world.
***
After the Master and Dhiral finished reading the Chapter on mending broken bones and Ryssa found her confidence back, the Professor accompanied mother and son on a stroll through the White Griffon Forest.
"Thank you for your advice, Zogar." The Dryad walked hand in hand with Dhiral, and for once he wasn’t trying to escape. "I’ve already applied to the Healing and Void magic lessons, and I’ve been accepted."
"Your husband is the Headmaster, I’m the Light Department head, and you are on a first-name basis with the Supreme Magus of the Kingdom." He snorted. "Anything but an enthusiastic yes would have been asking for trouble."
"True." She chuckled. "Have you ever been to the Dryads’ Glade?"
"No, but I often fantasized about it as a hormonal teenager." The Master replied, making her laugh harder. "Jokes aside, are you sure I won’t be a bother? From what I know, your kind is jealous of its spaces and welcomes humans in their havens only as food."
"You are partly right." Ryssa giggled, her amber eyes sparkling like gems under the sunlight. "If you found the glade as a teenager, it wouldn’t have ended up well. Now you’re coming as my guest and Dhiral’s godfather. No one will bother you."
"It’s a great honor you’re giving me." The Master gave her a polite nod.
"Don’t mention it. It’s nothing compared to all the help you’ve given me with D-"
A rain of tier five spells struck mother and son, turning the green grass of the forest into a deep crater. Raging Suns blew the ground open for almost a hundred meters (320’) while Skybreakers filled the air with black lightning bolts and the pungent smell of ozone.
"Stay on guard. This is no kidnapping attempt. This is a murder attempt." Vastor spoke softly as he held his Grimbark staff with both hands and repaired the Spirit Barrier that had saved Ryssa’s and Dhiral’s lives.
The ground where they stood was unscathed and the air inside the emerald dome clear, yet what looked like a warzone filled with poisonous gases waited for them on the other side.
"It’s not working!" Ryssa pressed all the alarms on her dress, communication amulet, and Consort Ring. "I can’t get in touch with anyone."
"That’s rule number one of assassination, Ryssa. Isolate your target." Dhiral noticed that while his mother panicked, his uncle talked with the same relaxed tone he had used to explain the connection between the light and darkness elements. "Now focus. These people won’t wait for you to try everything you can."
The Master was still talking when a group of people donning military-level camouflage enchanted suits seemed to appear out of thin air. They made no noise and released no smell as they moved.
Without the distortion in the cloaking enchantment as it adapted to the shifting background, they would have been invisible even to Dhiral’s Earth Vision.
The assassins unsheathed their blades and threw what looked like colored mud on the barrier. The mud was an alchemical substance that stuck to the emerald dome and imploded, condensing its destructive power in a single point.
One lump of the magical implosive was no match for Vastor’s magic, whereas dozens of them from every side tested his focus, blinding Life Vision as the assassins positioned themselves to combine their magical formations into an inescapable trap.
"Stay here." Vastor planted Grimbark in the ground, making it hard to understand if he was talking to the artifact or his friends. "Ryssa, protect Dhiral." The Dryad crouched down, shielding the boy with her body. "Dhiral, protect your mother."
The Master seemed to rip off his clothes, but his professor uniform held. Only the silvery mass of his Dominator armor stuck to his hand, and he threw it over mother and son, covering them like a metal blanket.
Ryssa tried to shapeshift into a mass of vines to escape, but Dhiral was frozen in place. He was too scared to react and remained deaf to his mother’s cries.
’Gods, this is all my fault!’ Ryssa thought. ’I’m not Lith. I never thought about teaching Dhiral what to do in case of danger, nor how to disassemble his body into vines. What if his human side gets damaged or left behind in the process?’
The assassins moved like lightning and were upon them before the Dryad could finish those thoughts. Unfortunately for them, Zogar Vastor was faster.
He activated his tier five Battle Mage spell, Glide, and moved across the battlefield with short bursts of air magic. He intercepted the blade of the nearest assailant with his open palm, pulling the man closer and bisecting him with a knife hand.
The assassin’s eyes went wide and then blank as death replaced surprise. His equipment lost its imprint, making both halves of the corpse visible.
Losing a member of their vanguard didn’t slow down the assassins. They let Vastor cut deep into their battle formation, sending a single five-man unit to deal with him while the rest surrounded mother and son from every side.
’I have so many enemies that I assumed these guys were after me, but I was wrong.’ The Master thought. ’Someone sent an entire murder guild after Duke’s family.’
He threw the dead assassin’s upper half and kicked the lower half at those who dared ignore him and focus on completing their arrays.