Thanks to the connection shared between clone and master, both Jester and Michael could sense each other's presence.
However, due to the distance between them, they could only get a rough sense of where the other was, and that brought another problem into focus imdiately. They were on opposite ends of the city.
Still, since arriving here this was the first genuinely good news
Michael had received. If Jester was inside the city, there was a good chance he was close to his family. There were many things Michael could doubt about Jester, but not his intelligence or his capability. At least before the danger of the cracks fully manifested, and given that what was unfolding seed similar Woodstone, Jester should still
be able to manage things on his end.
What Michael needed now was a way through the barrier. And he happened to have an idea.
He activated Wisdom's state imdiately.
The mont he did, his perception changed. The world sharpened. The barrier before him no longer looked like a simple transparent wall.
Unfortunately, even with his connection to the void strengthened in this state, he still could not teleport through it. The barrier was interfering directly with space. Any attempt to force a jump would either fail outright or send him sowhere far worse.
But what he saw next made his eyes flicker.
The barrier was not perfect. Strong, yes, extrely so. Sophisticated, certainly. But not perfect.
Like most things in the world, it had weak points. They were subtle enough that without Wisdom's state Michael doubted he would have found even one.
A cold light entered his eyes.
Without hesitation, he moved. His fist drove into one of the weak points.
Boom.
The ripple this ti was different. Still small, still nowhere near enough to break through, but noticeably larger than anything his strikes had produced before.
Michael's gaze sharpened imdiately. He attacked again. Boom. And again. Boom. The weak point quivered slightly more with each impact, but it still wasn't enough.
However, those results were enough for a theory to form.
"If I keep hitting the sa point, maybe I can create a temporary opening."
Even a gap no wider than a single person would be enough.
Michael drew in a slow breath. Hope returned to his expression for the first ti since he arrived.
He knew it was easier said than done. A single weak point was still too resilient. Even with his attacks focused precisely where the barrier was least stable, progress was minimal.
Then another thought ca.
His eyes moved across the barrier again. With his deepened perception, he could see that many of the weak points were not entirely isolated. They were separate, yes, but not truly independent. Several of them were connected through the sa broader network of instability.
Which made him wonder. What if he attacked enough of them simultaneously?
If he lacked the individual power to force open one point alone, then perhaps overwhelming several connected weak points together would produce the result he needed.
The mont the idea ford, Michael acted on it.
He reached into his soul space and brought out the Damaged Coffin
of the Forgotten. The coffin erged beside him in midair and Michael did not waste a second.
From within, undead began to erge. One after another. Then by the dozens. Then in a flood.
hundred of his strongest undead appeared in the
their presence imdiately thickening the atmosphere.
around him,
Beginning was absent, still focused on comprehending the path toward Rank 4. Lily could not be summoned for far too many reasons.
And Lucky remained within Michael as an engraving.
So these were the next strongest.
Ghost. Fade. Blue. Purple. Prince.
Undead humanoid warriors, casters, beasts, and more, all carrying at
least Rank 3 power. For a brief mont they hovered in silence
around their master.
Then Michael's voice cut through the air. "Spread out."
They moved imdiately.
Under Wisdom's state, Michael identified one weak point after
another, assigning groups to each location. Several undead rushed to each flawed section of the barrier he marked for them and stopped
only when they reached their designated positions.
Michael's eyes burned with cold focus. "Keep hitting."
The next instant, the sky outside Brightgate erupted in a storm of
impacts.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
The barrier rippled across multiple points at once. An undead elephant ramd into one section with its full force. An enormous undead goat slamd into another. Spells burst outward from
casters, striking weak points with concentrated energy. Heavy undead brutes hamred with fists, weapons, claws, and horns.
Michael himself struck the central point of the pattern he had chosen, coordinating the sequence while the others assaulted the surrounding flaws.
This ti the result was imdiate.
The ripples grew far larger than anything produced before. They
trembled across multiple sections simultaneously, waves interfering with one another as the strain began spreading through the connected weak points.
Michael's eyes narrowed. "Yes..."
The transparent wall began flashing irregularly under the combined assault. The distortion in the mana around it thickened.
Michael did not relax. "Harder."
The undead obeyed instantly. The impacts intensified.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
From inside the city, anyone looking toward that section of the barrier
would have seen sothing deeply unsettling. A hundred undead suspended in the sky beyond the sealed wall, relentlessly hamring at it under their master's direction like an army trying to tear open
the heavens themselves.
In a secluded part of the city, hidden beneath an uncompleted complex, several figures stood around a massive magic circle. The chamber was dim, lit only by the unstable glow of inscriptions carved into the floor. Black-blue lines pulsed slowly through the formation like veins.
At the center of the circle stood a figure with both hands raised slightly, eyes closed, maintaining a complicated flow of energy through the array. Around him the others waited in silence.
Then one of them spoke. "How's the barrier?"
His voice was low, but the tension inside it was impossible to miss. "The higher-ups want confirmation it's functioning properly. If not..." He paused briefly. "We'll have to use our lives to compensate."
A chill passed through the room. No one doubted that for even a
second. This was the demonic faction. Among them, the strong preyed on the weak. If a mission of this scale collapsed because of incompetence, lives would indeed be taken. And not only one. The figure maintaining the circle finally opened his eyes. "Yes," he
said. "It's stable."
The room loosened by only the smallest amount.
He continued calmly, his voice carrying quiet pride. "In any case, we've been preparing here for years. Though the Federation's recent actions forced us to move ahead of schedule, we were never unprepared. To break this barrier they would need multiple Emperor-class supernaturals working in concert. And that's not sothing we're lacking on our end either. For all we know, both sides could be fighting right now."
Hearing this, the other supernaturals smiled and began discussing among themselves, failing to notice that the expression on the face of
the figure at the center had shifted briefly before he quickly
concealed it.
"Did I sense that wrong?"
For just a mont, he had felt sothing. A gap, faint and fleeting,
opening sowhere in the barrier. But the sensation had disappeared
as fast as it ca and he found himself genuinely uncertain.
He almost said sothing. Then he stopped himself.
It would be embarrassing to announce that a gap had just opened in
the barrier imdiately after declaring it stable. And besides, he had
most likely sensed wrong.
Most likely.
Back at the city's edge, Michael found himself staring at the transparent wall behind him with a trace of fear still lingering in his
eyes. Just now, exactly as he had hoped, the combined pressure on the connected weak points had been enough to force the barrier into instability. For a fraction of a second, a gap had opened. Michael had moved the instant it appeared, not allowing himself even
a mont to think, recalling his undead at the limit of his speed. Even
then, it had been too close. If he had not been fast enough to pull the coffin back through before the gap closed, he would have lost the hand holding it on the other side of the barrier.
Michael exhaled slowly. Only after forcing his breathing to settle did
he stop looking at the barrier and turn his focus inward.
Jester.
The connection was still there. And unlike outside the city, space
within the barrier was still usable.
Without hesitation Michael vanished, teleporting in Jester's direction.
Each jump cut through large sections of the city, his figure appearing and disappearing so rapidly that to anyone who might have caught a glimpse of him, he would have looked like a flickering ghost. The ruined streets below blurred into fragnts. Panicked civilians. Ground cracks splitting open. Supernaturals rising into the air. The darkened sky. Screams.
Michael ignored all of it. Every jump brought him closer to Jester.
On the opposite side of the city, Jester was still standing near the
edge of the barrier with Aunt Mia and Lily in his arms when his eyes flickered slightly.
A small smile ford on his lips. "Master."
The thought had barely crossed his mind when the space a short
distance in front of him twisted. A figure stepped out of it.
Michael.
For one second neither of them spoke.
Then Michael's eyes moved imdiately to the two unconscious
bodies in Jester's arms.
Aunt Mia. Lily.
The tension in his chest loosened at once. He let out a breath he had
not realized he was holding.
Michael stepped closer quickly, his eyes scanning both of them. Then
his gaze lifted to Jester.
"What happened?"
"Lily reacted badly to the cracks in the sky. And though Aunt Mia was
cooperative, I needed to make things easier." Michael stared at him. Jester stared back, perfectly calm.
After a brief pause, Michael said, "... You knocked both of them out?"
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