"Tch, buy something instead of just wasting my time will you?"

"Sorry about that, I'll be back in a bit to buy something."

(Time to disappear.)

(DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED.)

As Dax turned away from the shop keeper to leave his presence changed slightly. In the corner of the shopkeeper's eye, the demonkin briefly flickered like a mirage and if he had looked at Dax's back as he left the store, the shopkeeper would have been unable to properly identify him.

(INITIATING AMBIENT MANA ABSORPTION, ALLOCATING PROCESSING POWER FOR SCRIPT… COMPLETE, MANA FORGE ONLINE, RUNNING AT 5% OCCIPITAL LOBE TYPE INHIBITION CLOAKING ACTIVE.)

(Perfect~ Now let's go take a look at how the h.e.l.l thinks it's a good idea to track me while emitting so much bloodl.u.s.t.)

-

"He's around here somewhere, stay alert."

Looking at the busy street Silas kept circulating mana trough his body in an attempt to stay combat ready as he warned his knights so they would do the same. Using a specially made mana crystal Silas had traveled for a few weeks in search of the one who had kidnapped Xi and when they had arrived at this border town on the fringes of Greendale, the crystal had reacted. Now that they were considerably closer to their target, the crystal would tell them how close they were to the target and in which direction he was based on the mana that all living beings pa.s.sively emitted. 

(We're within 5 meters now, he should be right in front of me...)

Looking up and away from the crystal Silas scanned the busy street for any and all demonkin that matched the description he had been given by his aunt.

(Not here… Wait, what!?)

In the few seconds Silas had scanned the street his target had somehow pa.s.sed him, without him or his knights noticing. 

"He's here!"

Alerting his knights one of them challenged mana into his body and used it to enhance his voice.

"This is a royal inspection! All citizens of Greendale stop what you're doing until this inspection is over! Failure to do so will lead to detainment!"

Immediately all the citizens stopped moving before they lined up by the sides of the street, while only some of them complained most knew that something like this would only happen if the knights were looking for a dangerous criminal.

"Find him!"

"""Sir, yes sir!"""

Having started the knight's on their task Silas looked down at his tracking crystal once more, what he saw first confused, then it terrified him. Suddenly it was like their target had disappeared completely, or rather it's mana signature had. With no other choice, Silas and his knights checked each and every one of some 200 people for anyone which matched their target's description, but even after half an hour they still hadn't found him and the people were starting to get annoyed.

"Sir, there's still no sign of him, what should we do?"

"... Let them go."

"Sir? What about the culprit?"

"There's no way we're going to find him, he saw us coming and managed to somehow escape us."

"Understood sir!"

While the crowd slowly dispersed and went back to their daily life Silas started calming down a tiny bit, what currently occupied his mind was how their target had escaped them.

(Some kind of mana interference?... No, that doesn't explain everything. Maybe it's some kind of teleportation?... But I didn't feel anything like that…-)

While thinking about how the demonkin escaped him and his knights, Silas' eyes slowly wandered around on the crowd that was dispersing and by chance, he saw something strange.

"Hey, you! Stop!"

(Well, s.h.i.+t…)

(That's all because you wanted to know who was after you Dax~✿ If you escaped immediately-)

(Yeah, yeah. I know…)

Turning around to face the knight that addressed him, Dax put on a large smile as he inspected the knight for weak points in his defenses. The knight in question seemed like the one the others took orders from, he was a youth around the age of 20 with long blue hair which was braided and fell to the side of his shoulder that was covered in white s.h.i.+ning plate armor. The knight's golden eyes looked at Dax with slight hints of alertness clearly visible, telling Dax that he was still immature.

"Can I help you with anything? I already talked with one of the other knights."

In response to hearing Dax's voice which had pa.s.sed through the spell that kept him from being recognized by the knights, the one in front of him slightly narrowed his eyes and kept looking at Dax with suspicion.

"... What are you?"

(Oh~ This one has really sharp senses… Can I eat him?~✿)

(Not yet.)

"What do you mean? I'm a normal demonkin from the north, my name is-"

"I don't care about some fake name, why don't you come with us? I want to ask you a few questions about the current whereabouts of the Ta'ia clan princess."

(Well, f.u.c.k. ICI I'm blown, it seems like there are still some improvements to do with the inhibition type cloaking…)

"I'll answer that and so much more if you honestly tell me what I look like right now?"

"... Some kind of creature that's pretending to be a demonkin, please come with us without a fuzz."

While the other knights slowly surrounded the mysterious demonkin and silently drew their swords Dax still wanted to avoid an outright fight.

"Now now~ There's no reason for all that. If you could tell me your name I'll tell Xi that you're looking fo-"

"Don't call her name so casually!"

Immediately the knight leader's mana signature flared as charged towards Dax in rage. Swinging down his drawn sword as it was covered in a thin layer of high pressure water, making it clear to Dax that the knight was aiming to cleave him in half.

(Really can't take a joke huh?... ICI.)

(ROGER, a.n.a.lYSING SPELL STRUCTURE… COMPLETE, DISRUPTING.)

Reaching out to catch the blade as it was swung down towards him, Dax canceled the spell the instant he touched it, stopping the blade by pinching it between his thumb and index finger.

"Calm down, it was just a joke. No need for anyone to lose their head."

"Wha!- Let go of my sword this instant!"

(He really is a brat huh?... Well, a brat that just tried to cut me in half.)

Deciding to take the situation a bit more seriously Dax let go of the knight leaders sword as he dodged the other knight's spells and blades the qiton started emitting a large amount of bloodl.u.s.t as his smile completely disappeared.

"Let's just let each other go and be on our separate ways, you seem like one of Xi's friends so I don't wanna have to kill you and your friends here."

Offering a final chance at de-escalation while formulating serval plans of attack and escape, Dax noticed a pair of eyes on him that didn't involve the knights or spectators.

(Now what are you?... ICI?)

Establis.h.i.+ng a high bandwidth connection with the drone that had been following him since he had entered the Empire, Dax quickly found out what was following him.

(A scout?... No more likely it's some kind of observer… So that's why this brat is so eager to fight me, although he has probably been tricked into it.)

"There's simply no way we can let a heinous criminal like you go! Tell me where princess Xi is and I might let you live!"

Slightly narrowing his eyes Dax formed a thin smile.

(Well that works out in my favor~ Time to raise my stock with this mysterious observer. Sword, no killing.)

(Boo!~)

(I can also just not use you.)

(Ha! As if-)

Immediately getting tired of swords voice Dax tossed it cleanly out of the city, heating up his mana forge as two crystal short swords formed in both of his hands.

"Then let's get this s.h.i.+tshow underway."

Instantly disappearing from the knight's view Dax reappeared right in front of the one which was furthest from where he had just been.

"s.h.i.+!-"

Bringing his sword and kite s.h.i.+eld up to parry, the knight didn't even get to utter a full word before his sword and s.h.i.+eld were cut apart by Dax's crystal swords. Taking full advantage of the knight's defenseless state the qiton kicked the knight in his chest and sent him flying into a nearby building.

"Howitzer."

Tossing one of his swords into the air Dax pointed his freed open hand towards another one of the knights as a large ball of compressed air shoot out towards the knight and also sent him flying.

(That's two, 3 to go.)

a.s.sessing the state of battle Dax dismissed his two swords and slammed one of his fists into the stone tiles below, challenging mana into the ground and forming a thick wall of stone that was immediately cut apart by multiple jets of high pressure water.

"Tch, buckshot."

Not having been granted the time he needed to formulate a more complex spell Dax waved his hand as he created more defenses, sending small blunt slugs of golden crystal towards the 3 remaining knights to keep them busy. Hugging the ground Dax closed the range once more while a crystal spear formed in his hand, clearly targeting the knight which was closest to him.

"Formation 4!"

But Dax had made the mistake of allowing his opponents a moment to reorganize themselves and as a result of their extensive training and combat experience, they did so perfectly. Forming up to make Dax unable to simply keep picking them off one at a time, the knights worked together so that two of them constantly kept Dax out of range of his clearly more potent close quarters combat while the last one kept bombarding him with spells.

(s.h.i.+t… In that case!)

Avoiding another jet of high pressure water by ducking under it Dax dug his hand into the stone tiles below and ripped one of them out, keeping up his momentum and spun around before flinging the stone tile towards one of the knights as he also created a golden spear which he also tossed, then he kicked up a shotgun hail of rock shards by partially destroying another stone tile with a kick.

In response to the sudden onslaught of attacks, Silas formed a barrier of wind which dealt with the hail of rock shards while one of his knights simply deflected the stone tile with his s.h.i.+eld while the other one sidestepped his spear as they formed more blades and jets of high pressure water supplied from pouches at their hips.

(Oh how I would very much like to have a gun right now…)

Forming a large s.h.i.+eld of golden crystal Dax was once more on the defensive and opened up the range.

(WARNING: LOCAL FORCES ALERTED AND IN ROUTE, ETA 2 MINUTES.)

(s.h.i.+t, ICI I need more resources, time for a partial ascension.)

Realizing he was running out of time and still had no chance of retreating, Dax decided to reveal one of his trump cards.

(DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, FORMULATING HIGH BANDWIDTH QUANTUM DATABRIDGE TO KINGSTEAD TACTICAL DATA CENTRE, CONNECTION ESTABLISHED OFFLOADING PROCESSING… COMPLETE, FORMULATING SPELL ARCHITECTURE, SYSTEM ONLINE, INITIALIZING ASCENSION SCRIPT…...)

As the name implied, ascension was Dax's own attempt at replicating the spell angels used to vastly increase their ability to manipulate mana for a short amount of time and like the angel's spell it had its restrictions. Pulling off an ascension with at least some resemblance of control and safety using the mana forge Dax was currently equipped with required a ma.s.sive amount of processing power, even more than what his coprocessor which replaced a large part his spine could offer. Real time 3 dimension wind pattern a.n.a.lysis within 1 kilometer of Dax acuate to 1 pascal of pressure (one thousand of a bar), as well as constant mana concentration scans which could only be obtained from orbital satellites among with countless other points of data and calculations presently made Dax unable to use such an advanced spell without external help, but even despite all that it was fully worth it.

"s.h.i.+t! Kill him now!"

Having completely given up on capturing the strange demonkin he still couldn't see clearly the second he realized what type of spell it was invoking, Silas stomped down his foot into the ground and sent out a pulse of mana which traveled about 5 meters from him, turning every speck of water within that range into a high pressure blade which shoot towards the demonkin.

(ASCENSION PROTOTYPE ARCHITECTURE ONLINE, HOLDING STEADY 5 BY 5. HEAT GENERATION NOMINAL, 10 MINUTES TO SYSTEM FAILURE. HOLDING AT 20.1% POTENTIAL OUTPUT.)

But he was too late. When the demonkin once more opened his closed eyes they glowed in an eerie golden hue.

"Aegis."

With a single word a complex array of golden runes spread out around him, creating an invisible barrier around the demonkin which perfectly blocked each and every one of the incoming attacks aimed to reap his life. As the demonkin pointed its empty hand towards Silas he got an extremely bad premonition, but before he could act the demonkin spoke out once more.

"Air pressure control: Starvation."

Instantly falling to his knees as he was suddenly unable to breathe, the last thing Silas saw before pa.s.sing out was the cold looking eyes of the demonkin he was still unable to identify.