The stars burned faint above the temple fortress, veiled by wisps of winter cloud. The mountains slept beneath a blanket of silence thick, and suffocating.
Unseen beneath that silence, a net of intent was closing in.
From five directions around the fortress, five separate strike teams moved in tandem demons and angels working side by side in the kind of precise unity once thought impossible. They came from the northeast cliffs, the southern slope, the eastern forest basin, the western icefield, and the hidden lake gorge to the north.
Each unit was small six to eight members light and fast, no mounts, no conjured beasts. Their magic was sealed behind cloaking glyphs and tight psychic discipline. No magical signatures leaked. No heat shimmered. The land barely knew they were there.
They had one shared purpose.
Measure the breath of the wards.
From the eastern forest, a cloaked demon crouched low beneath thick boughs of pine. Her skin glistened faintly like oil in moonlight, barely visible. Beside her, an angel with hollow eyes pressed his hand against a moss-covered stone.
"Fifty meters out," he whispered, tone emotionless. "No pressure change. Move again."
They stepped forward.
In the south, over loose shale and narrow ravines, a second team crawled just beneath the outer ridge line. An older angel—not winged, but haloed—paused as he felt something strange. The air tensed. Not magic exactly, but memory.
"Thirty-five meters. Closer than I thought. Hold."
The demon beside him, crouched on clawed feet, didn't speak. He simply placed a mark on a bone-carved slate and gestured them back.
From the western glacier pass, another team braved the slippery descent, approaching low where the terrain was least defensible.
"Twenty-two meters," one murmured. "Still nothing."
Then—
A pulse.
A flutter against the skin. Not light, not sound presence. The feeling of being seen.
They halted immediately. A second later, their commander gave the sign: retreat.
They moved back in silence, their footprints vanishing behind them with each step.
At the northern lake gorge, the team approached differently. They sent a bait—an animated mass of elemental ice shaped like a stag—walking toward the outer wards on a predictable, limping path.
Nothing happened for forty meters. Then, at thirty-one, the air snapped like twine drawn taut. Glyphs in the trees blinked once, barely perceptible to mortal eyes—but blinding to divine ones.
"Trigger ward," the lead demon hissed. "Pull it back."
They yanked the elemental back into the mist and vanished into the gully, unseen.
Only the northeast team, descending from the windward cliffs, pushed farther.
They reached seventeen meters before feeling the first flare of perimeter magic—a thin thread of detection that whispered through their bones like cold lightning. One step farther, and it would have triggered visible alarm.
They marked the location carefully, then split: half withdrew into the stone-shadowed slope. The other half stayed low, using veil lenses and ethereal eyes to observe the humans' reaction.
From all around the mountain, the fortress stirred.
Soft pulses lit beneath the snow.
A pair of sentry orbs hovered into the air.
Three runes along the southern ridge glowed and vanished again faint signals of awareness.
No bells were rung. No mass deployment followed.
But the watchers could see it in the movement of the guards, in the silent alertness of the sky-casters now scanning the cliffs:
The defenders knew.
They didn't panic.
They simply adjusted.
The test was complete.
Hours later, in an underground convergence point several miles southeast, the various strike teams rejoined beneath a canyon's buried dome.
Maps were unrolled. Notes shared. Magical detection markers etched into glass.
"Seventeen meters," one angel confirmed. "That's the tightest trigger point. Most zones are between twenty-eight and thirty-three."
"They're consistent," said a demoness, tall and broad-shouldered. "No gaps in their range. But… no overreactions, either."
"They're controlling themselves…" another added. "Efficiently." In disgust
The lead angel folded his arms, gazing at the sketched fortress from above.
"They knew not to attack or we would know where they would be positioned."
***
Kazuki stood beside the northern balcony of the temple's inner sanctum, eyes narrowed as he watched the distant treeline flicker with scrying motes. One by one, the ghost signatures of intruders faded from the perimeter each vanishing into the wilderness the same way they had arrived: silent, careful, and cold.
A few runes along the inner map shimmered faintly, signaling contact had been made. Measured. Withdrew.
Beside him, Morpheus remained still for a long moment, hands clasped behind his back.
Then, with a faint breath of amusement, he smirked.
"They're retreating," Kazuki said, not taking his eyes off the board. "Every approach. I've counted at least five zones tested."
"Seven," Morpheus corrected. "Two came from higher ridges used phase cloaks. I felt them skirt the upper mesh."
Kazuki turned. "Why didn't the outer alarms trigger for those?"
Morpheus stepped forward, gently brushing his fingers over a shimmering section of the magical map. "Because they weren't touching the real wards."
The scrying field glowed brighter as the last ghost signature disappeared into the trees.
Then Morpheus reached out and tapped a rune hidden beneath the map's surface. The entire layout shifted—revealing a second, invisible shell nested between the visible wardlines. Smaller. Tighter. Thicker. Veined with sigils too old for even most ICW wardmasters to decipher.
"They didn't feel these," he said, smiling faintly.
Kazuki blinked, stepping closer to study the invisible pattern. "You wove a sublayer?"
"Several. They felt the outer decoys. Smart of them to pull back when they did," Morpheus said, rolling his shoulders once. Then he reached up and clapped Kazuki lightly on the back. "But they're working with bad information now."
Kazuki allowed himself the smallest smirk. "They think we've shown them the edge of the blade."
"They haven't seen the steel yet," Morpheus murmured.
He turned back toward the balcony, eyes fixed on the snowy ridgelines vanishing beneath moonlight.
"They'll plan their next assault based on faulty metrics. Their generals will think they know how close they can get. But when they breach the decoy line… that's when the real wards will respond."
Kazuki gave a soft exhale. "I'll adjust our unit placements. Keep the outer response minimal."
Morpheus nodded. "Let them think we're cautious. Let them think we're just holding the line."
He smiled again, this time colder.
"Because the moment they commit to a full breach… we will be ready."
Although he wasn't used to them being sneaky, Morpheus's heart pounded wildly in his chest.
He could hardly contain his excitement.