"Are you guys sure that's okay?"
"What are you referencing?"
Although it was a mere idle question from Clair as she lay sprawled out on the floor of her jail cell, she was immediately answered by the robe-wearing guard outside as it was a part of his job to listen whenever she felt like sharing any kind of information.
"That thing up there."
Instead of explaining, Clair simply pointed to the ceiling of her underground jail cell, only she wasn't pointing at the bricks above her, but the entity from beyond the veil currently floating above the castle.
"Even with my powers restricted I can tell that thing is bad news, if that brat freaks out or has a fit it'll break free of his control and eat most of the souls in the capital, including your oh so important old fart with the crown."
While Clair was talking nonchalantly, she took the threat seriously and was prepared to defend herself if it came to it.
"... What does it look like, to you?"
"Hmm, great question…"
Focusing on the mass of malignant magic again, Clair used the tiny bit of magic she could while her powers were restricted to examine the thing again.
"It's a half alive mass of tentacles, wrapped around some kind of… Core? Frisure? I'm not sure, it's hard to assess from this distance."
Glancing at the guard when he didn't answer for a bit hoping he didn't realise she had lied, Clair clearly saw his distress as he struggled to come up with a reason Clair couldn't leave her cell at the moment.
(Hmm? What's this?)
If she couldn't be let out due to normal circumstances, the guard would've just told her that, but it seemed there was something going on on the surface they didn't want her to know about.
"Are you sure you can't see the core from here?"
(Of course I can, but I can't kill it from here with my powers restricted… But it seems like there really is something going on.)
"Nope, it's too blurry, it has been that way since it grew powerful enough to vaguely see a few weeks ago."
While Clair was sure there had been some rumours about that brats influence over others, it had to be pretty clear to the mages now that they could literally see the entity making his words law.
"But good luck with all that, I'm going to take a nap right here, the floor is nice and cool."
Getting the guard to shut up and leave for the moment, Clair who was spread out on the prison floor put her ear to the stone and focused.
(Hmm… Is it nothing, after all?...)
Straining and enhancing her hearing, Clair listened for whatever she could for a few minutes, but right when she was about to give up she heard the unmistakable sound of a nearby explosion, no more than a kilometre away at the inner wall.
(What the fuck is going on out there? Better prepare just in case.)
-
"Cover! DET NOW!"
Hitting the command right as the explosive-packed Boar reached the closed gate, Tom ducked out of the way of the shockwave the explosion created as a series of Wasp drones drove down from the sky to complete the job and blow open the gate entirely.
"Clear! Advance!"
Confirming no movement with his neural implant and aerial surveillance, Tom gave a quick go ahead to Lisa and Victor as he brought up his rifle and started moving into the smoke ahead. As Lisa heard Tom's command she gathered the surrounding mana with a quick breath before leaping off of the ground, landing on the side of the destroyed gate on the wall as she scanned the area for targets. While they were burning through ammunition at an alarming rate, things had gone well so far, so Lisa was on the lookout for kingdom mages who could tip the scales against them.
(Nothing so far…)
Scanning the mansion roofs and wide, clean streets of the inner city surrounding the castle, Lisa found no signs of magic or the mages who could prove a challenge, her scope did however pass over a lone knight in full plate armour that she put a round into before continuing her overwatch. From what she knew of human mages Lisa figured they wouldn't see any before reaching the castle itself as they were a strategic asset which any king wouldn't let go of unless their own life was at risk, but that still wouldn't stop a few reckless outliers from potentially fucking things up for everyone involved.
(Hmm?)
Having just completed her initial scan and let her rifle down from her shoulder, Lisa caught some movement from the corner of her eyes where there shouldn't have been any. Focusing again on the lone knight in full plate armour she had seen before, Lisa was puzzled to see him standing again, still with blood pouring out of the hole she had made in the centre of his platemail armour.
(What the? I'm sure I hit his heart..)
Placing another shot in the centre mass of the knight, Lisa didn't let her attention slip this time and carefully observed the knight as he went down again.
(Was my first shot a fluke?)
Just as she was about to admit to herself that the first shot had been poorly placed, Lisa watched the knight stand up again before she shot him a few times in the head, steading her rifle on the wall and emptying the rest of her magazine into the downed knight to make sure.
"Tom! Something's wrong!"
"Tell me about it!"
On the ground and slightly ahead of Lisa, Tom had already encountered a set of knights in full plate armour just like the one Lisa was dealing with, only these ones weren't just slowly getting up again after he shot them, they were silently charging him with little care for their already destroyed heads and thoroughly ventilated torsos. Seeing the corpses still somehow undeterred to end him, Tom switched tactics as he lowered his rifle slightly, blowing apart the undead corpses' thighs and knees, finally stopping their charge.
"Go for their legs! Kneecap the fuckers!"
Although Tom used his somewhat effective knowledge on zombie flicks, it was Lisa who finally realised what was going on.
"Shit, they're under control of that thing in the sky!"
"Yeah, no shit!"
Using fully automatic fire to saw the lower body off of another corpse, Tom had already figured that these people weren't running into automatic gunfire on their own accord, still that wasn't Lisa's point.
"No, not like that! The other people had one tendril in their head, but these ones are like puppets, each of the limbs are restrained!"
"Okay then, this changes things how?"
Having discarded his borrowed rifle as he wasn't proficient enough to target the walking corpses' legs with it, Victor who was rapidly running out of throwing knives was open to any possible solution to their issue.
"It's simple really!"
As Lisa's eyes started glowing bright green she switched her rifle to semi automatic and spread her feet in a recoil compensating stance, injecting the chambered bullet with a surge of mana which rapidly constructed a spell intertwined with the full metal jacket round.
"We just blow away those creepy tentacles with a concentrated burst of mana!"
Targeting the nearest living corpse, Lisa squeezed the trigger as a bolt of green light shot out from the barrel of her short rifle, charring the corpse and blowing out its spine as whatever eldritch control over it was blasted away by Lisa's mana.
"... Well, yeah. That is surprisingly simple, I guess.
(Something is definitely going on out there… And where have I seen that shine before?)
Staring up through the ceiling using what little of her powers that weren't restricted, Clair had watched as the veteran mages who would normally be guarding her slowly leave over the last few hours as the anomaly in the sky seemed to be way more active than usual, then there was the issue of that glow of magic she had seen sporadically for the last while, it seemed to gnaw at the back of her mind that she should know this shine, but for whatever reason she didn't.
Watching all the capable mages leave their clueless disciples behind gave Clair ideas to get out and get some fresh air herself.
(Still, there's something familiar about that shine…)
As she was thinking about escaping, Clair caught another burst of magic of that familiar looking shine yet again. Although it had been faint last time, coming from the edge of the capital, this time it came from the inside of the inner city and was therefore far more radiant from Clair's viewpoint, and although she still couldn't place the mana signature Clair felt pain in her heart every single time she saw it, it felt nostalgic, bitter and precious all at the same time, and hear heart yearned to see the light again even if she didn't know who was creating it.
(I swear I know who that is… It's not my older sis, not that brat from across the street…)
Although it started gradually, Clair's memories returned to the point in her life she regretted the most, after her husband died and she tried to follow him.
Then she realised who it was, she remembered that tiny hand that held onto her ring finger with remarkable strength for its size, those adorable green eyes, and that shine. From there Clair made her decision fast.
Springing to her feet, mana started swirling around Clair with murderous intent, making the ethereal shackles draped over her activate as her right leg was broken with a sharp crack.
"Stop that! HELP! I need help over here!"
Seeing the prisoner clearly wield magic and the safeguards preventing her from doing that kicking in, a nearby initiate mage realised he had forgotten how to call for help with magic, so he did it the old fashioned way. As Clair's leg started rapidly healing due to the blessings of her most ruthless lady, the initiate mage was joined by another that was slightly more competent.
"What's going- fuck!"
Figuring out the answer to his own question as he turned to the jail cell swirling with mana, the second mage at least remembered the restraining spells that he had been taught by his master, so he raised his staff and started chanting. Meanwhile Clair's leg had healed enough for her to stand on it again, so she walked over to the metal cell bars which had marked the border of her personal space for the last 10 years and bent them open like they had been made of soft clay.
"S-stay away!"
Having finished his chant just as Clair stepped out of her jail cell, the second mage activated the invisible chains that were draped all over her body. The effect was almost instant, as Clair was covered in chain-like marks all over her body her movement was instantly sealed, but she hardly cared for the spell as she continued trying to move. In response to the perceived act of defiance, the containment spell activated its second circuit, turning the chain-like marks on Clairs right arm red as they started rotating, forcing her arm along for the ride of rapid dislocation and pulverised flesh. In just a few seconds, Clair's arm looked like someone had tied it to an aeroplane propeller and turned it on.
Unknown to the greenhorn mages, this was exactly what Clair had been waiting for as the hold over the rest of her body was temporarily weakened as her arm was mutilated.
"What? Is that the worst you can do?"
Hardly even flinching as her arm twisted around itself a dozen times, Clair ripped what remained free from the control circuit, leaving behind her horribly disfigured hand that had broken off at her broken wrist.
"You people tortured me for years, remember? This isn't new to me."
As one of the mages puked up his last meal from the sight of Clair's arm getting mangled, the one barely managed to voice his vain attempt to escape from reality.
"H-how aren't you dead!? Y-you can't survive that, t-this has to b-be a n-nightmare…"
Taken slightly aback by the newest guard's comment, Clair stifled a laugh as her broken arm started regenerating like someone had put time in reverse.
"Die? Now that's funny! I can't die, remember!? Even when I wanted to die! I'm a living saint of her noble lady, remember?"
As her arm finished regenerating, Clair used it to grab the throat of the mage, lifting the man larger than herself off of his feet with little effort.
"Even with the restraints on me, I can still strengthen myself enough to slaughter every single one of you worms. So in the end I'm left with a single question to you, Worm; Do you want to release me from these feeble chains, or should I get your buddy over there to do it after I've pulled your spine out through your mouth?"