Chapter 8

“How much longer are we going to stand in this DAMN LINE?!” Yan finally snapped, clutching his head.

They were standing in an enormous line leading to the city’s main gates. And it stretched for about two miles.

“Aren’t we sorcerers? I mean, you gentlemen are, right?” The lad pointed at Morik and Chadun. “Why are we standing in the same line as all the other ‘commoners’?!”

“Are you serious right now?” Sovt rasped, but the rogue skillfully ignored the reproach.

“Hah, well, you see… there’s this little problem…” Morik stammered nervously, his crazed gaze darting around the cabin.

“They took away our magical licenses, slap-dash,” Chadun replied, spitting straight onto the wagon’s windshield.

Yan, Sovt, Lekh, and Mekh exchanged surprised glances.

“What? Took them away? Is that even possible?” Sovt asked in surprise, then suddenly fell silent. “Though, wait. That’s kind of the wrong question. What even is a ‘magical license’? I’ve traveled all across Existence, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of one.”

“The Vault doesn’t do that sort of thing,” Yan remarked. “At least, I’ve never heard of licenses like that.”

The Collegium of the Vault Mages was something like an organization governing interworld magical law. A law created exclusively for mages.

“Yeeah… Tsagat doesn’t exactly obey the Vault’s laws and rules all that much,” Morik waved it off. “The world is independent, don’t forget. The Academy runs things here, mostly. Well, along with a couple of powerful magical houses. The Academy issues licenses to all mages, giving them the right to use magic. And so on.”

“And they took yours away?” Yan asked.

“Yeah, and along with it, slap-dash, all our privileges.”

“What for?” the rogue continued.

“Because apparently our magic isn’t like everyone else’s!” Chadun snapped, spraying spit in every direction. “In Tsagat, it’s always like this—mana has a nature. The standard nature is elemental. Fire and all that. So elemental mages run everything. And what do we have? Morik over there has letter magic. Some high-order sorcerer he is.”

“And you?” Sovt asked.

“Spit magic,” Chadun replied, spat, and this time burned a hole straight through the windshield.

“Right,” Yan remarked, dumbfounded, twisting his face in disgust. “And that is exactly why we’re standing in this endless line. Instead of already being behind the walls of this beautiful city!”

“SLASH!”

Something thin and invisible suddenly sliced their wagon clean in half.

Yan and the knights flattened themselves against the back seat, their eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.

Desperate screams and panic erupted somewhere outside.

“What now?!” Sovt snapped irritably, losing the last scraps of his composure.

A gigantic human skull appeared in the opening left by the wagon being split in half. Red lights burned inside its eye sockets.

“Holy mother!” Yan blurted out.

And then an enormous stone cleaver was raised above their hearse.

“Everyone abandon ship immediately!” Morik commanded.

They all spilled outside into the sunlight.

And beneath that sunlight, utter chaos was unfolding.

Gigantic skeletal monsters, having appeared from nowhere, were attacking the long line of wagons heading toward the city.

The screams of the wounded and the moans of the dying sounded everywhere.

“Undead… again,” Sovt rasped, instinctively reaching for his blade, only to immediately realize that he could not even lift his arm.

And then a gigantic shadow loomed over the captain of the Blue Paths.

A massive blade came down on him like a scythe striking stone.

Sovt froze helplessly in place.

“Is this… the end for me?”

But then a shower of sparks burst through the air. Yan’s dagger managed to intercept the stone cleaver in a fraction of a second, knocking the blade’s trajectory aside.

Even so, the impact was so powerful that the skinny rogue was hurled backward like a rag doll. And if Mekh had not grabbed the hem of his cloak in time, Yan would already have been flying headfirst off the damned bridge.

“Now that is some strength,” the rogue blurted out, catching his breath as he somehow got back onto his feet. “Now I understand why this is an Independent World!”

“Really?!” Sovt shouted sarcastically while Lekh fought the creature in front of him—and rather successfully, it had to be said. “And here I was wondering how Tsagat managed to preserve its independence despite its location! Who in their right mind would even want to own a world where the dead attack passersby in broad daylight?!”

“Tsagat is located very close to the Intersection of the Abyss,” Morik suddenly cut into their conversation, dusting dirt and debris off himself. Panic and screams were still raging all around them. “Here, the undead can crawl right out of your damn shitter. By the way, have you seen Chadun?”

“No,” Yan and Sovt answered simultaneously.

Then the rogue suddenly spotted a familiar bald head among the remains of what used to be their transport.

The sorcerer was unconscious. His entire robe was soaked in blood, and part of his body was buried beneath the wreckage.

There was no way to reach him.

A crowd of undead separated them, feasting at the approaches to the city and tearing apart what remained of the wagons and carriages.

And then an immensely powerful wave of luminous energy erupted from the walls of Aradeyn.