The decision was made quickly. Jack didn't believe in waiting for unfavorable odds to ripen. The two illuminated level powerhouses would be arriving upon Naoville Town within two to three days. They had to act fast.
"We leave now." Jack stated. His eyes scanned his inner circle. "Reina and I will search the girl. Leon! Chloe! You're with us. Bring Sparkle! Rune, you're the guide. The others... prepare the ship for sudden departure."
Rune, the tiny mechanical fairy, pulsed with a soft amber light. It was her way of acknowledging the command. She was hovering ahead. Ready to lead them to find the girl.
They moved to the deck of the Ocean Wanderer. The night air was thick with salt and the distant, woody smell of the town's main products.
Jack reached into his storage space and pulled out his steamrune engineering marvels. First, the [Steamrune Hoverboard]. A sleek, elongated plate of dark board etched with glowing runes and powered by a miniaturized high-pressure energy core.
It hissed as it almost touched the deck. Hovering a few inches above the wood.
Next, he brought out the [Lightning Hoverbike]. A much better vehicle in quality. This one wasn't just a steamrune engineering vehicle. It had fused with the system granted [Vessel Spark]. Turning into a legendary level personal artifact.
"Reina, you take the bike." Jack said. "Chloe! Carry Sparkle and get on the back seat."
His decision was quite logical. None of the girls knew how to operate the [Steamrune Hoverboard]. But Reina knew how to control the [Lightning Hoverbike]. Therefore, it had to be him who used the hoverboard.
"Understood, Dear!" Reina replied.
She swiftly moved with a grace of an agile cat. She stepped onto the bike. And the machine responded to her touch. The runes along its chassis glowed a fierce electric color.
Chloe, the teenage scholar, looked a bit nervous. But she settled onto the seat behind Reina. Clutching her lightning kirin cub, Sparkle, tightly. The cub chirped. It didn't feel afraid. Instead, its tiny horn sparked with excitement.
Leon Drake stepped forward. He didn't need a vehicle. He activated his primal sorcery power. A dark draconic armor immediately appeared. Covering his whole body. And then, wide draconic wings began to unfold from his back.
"I'll keep the high ground." Leon said. His voice was slightly muffled by his visor.
"No more than ten meter high. Stay within Reina's illusion range." Jack reminded him. "Reina! Cover us!"
Reina nodded. Translucent veil of thin, grey fog began to appear out of nowhere. It expanded, wrapping around the entire group. Enveloping them with invisibility illusion. To any outside observer, they simply vanished into nothing.
She excluded their perception from the effect of the illusion though. Or else, only she could detect the others. And Jack, who was practically immune to illusion.
"Move out!" Jack commanded.
He kicked off. The hoverboard surged forward with a muffled whoosh. The others immediately followed him.
They bypassed the town entirely. Cutting straight into the dense tree lines at the base of Mt. Shipmount.
The ascent was steep. The mountain was a jagged tooth of rock and ancient vegetation that seemed to resent the presence of humans. It would be hard for others to explore this mountain. However for Jack's team, it wasn't that difficult. With their flight capability, they navigated through the thick canopy quite easily.
During the journey, Jack's [Eyes of Judgement] were activated periodically. They cut through the darkness of the night to highlight the presence of the various factions already prowling the mountainous woods.
"Church acolytes at two o'clock." Jack informed his team. "Syndicate scouts at ten. They're disorganized, but they're covering a lot of ground."
"I see them." Leon replied. "They're using hounds to track the girl. Mystic-bred dogs. And they've picked up a scent."
"Ignore them." Jack said. "Rune, where is she?"
The fairy guide flew ahead. Her glow shifted to a sharp emerald light. She darted between the gnarled trunks of ancient oaks. Leading them higher and deeper into the wilderness.
They moved like ghosts. Invisible.
They passed within just ten meters away from a group of Church of Justice acolytes, who were busy chanting a detection prayer. The acolytes never even looked up as the invisible team drifted past them.
After thirty minutes of intense climbing, Rune stopped. She hovered over a narrow ravine. Her light was pulsing a cautionary orange.
Jack brought his hoverboard to a halt. Reina pulled the bike alongside him. Its engine was humming at a whisper volume level.
Below them, in a small clearing shielded by overhanging rocks, a small figure huddled herself.
It was Aella. She looked even younger than her eight year old age. Her clothes were rags. Stained with mud and dried blood.
Even from the distance, Jack could feel the raw, volatile power radiating from her. It wasn't just magic. It was an aura. A physical pressure. It felt like the air before a massive storm.
She looked up. Her eyes weren't like human eyes. They were swirling vortices of amethyst and void-black.
"She sensed us." Chloe whispered. Her natural instinct overrode her fear. "Her bloodline... it's reacting to our mystic energy signatures."
Aella didn't scream. She didn't cry out. She didn't attack. She simply stood up. And before Jack could even raise a hand to signal peace, the space around her buckled. With a sound like breaking glass, she disappeared.
"She teleported." Reina said. Her brows furrowed. "It was further away than my [Absolute Blink]. She's... panicked."
"Let's follow her. But don't corner her." Jack ordered. "If we scare her too much, she might blink into her hunters."
They tracked her. Aella was fast. She used her teleportation in short bursts to navigate the treacherous terrain. But Rune was a superior tracker. No matter where the girl blinked, the fairy guide could easily sense the lingering trace of her 'faewitch' presence and pointed the way.
However, the Black Market Syndicate wasn't as incompetent as Jack had hoped. On the contrary, they were very capable and... ruthless.
As they rounded a jagged cliff face, they saw them. A group of Black Market Syndicate. Jack sharp senses caught more than just their visual appearance. He could perceive the smell of decay. It hit him. A sharp blood and flesh stench that made him narrow his eyes.
"Stop!" Jack signaled.
They stayed hidden in the shadows of the trees. Looking down into a natural bowl in the mountainside. About twenty members of the Black Market Syndicate were there.
They weren't scouts like the ones they previously encountered. These were the heavy hitters. Transcendent combatants dressed in reinforced armors and wielding enchanted weaponry.
In the center of the bowl, they had set a stage. A cart stood there. And upon it lay a mangled, unceremonious heap of flesh and bone.
Jack's [Eyes of Judgement] confirmed the grim situation. It was the corpse of a woman. Her features were twisted in a final mask of agony.
"That's the girl's mother." Leon hissed in rage. He had come to the same conclusion as Jack. "Those sick animals."
Aella appeared at the edge of the clearing. She had been lured here, either by the scent or perhaps a lingering spiritual connection. She stared at the cart. Her small body shaking.
One of the Syndicate members, a scarred man with a massive heavy, enchanted crossbow, laughed. "Found you, little freak. Your mother's been waiting. Why don't you join her?"
The grief that erupted from Aella wasn't a sound. It was a shockwave.
The air around her turned purple-black. Her space-time power manifested in a strange form of fire. Jack had read about this. It was the Void Flame. The cosmic fire that had the property of chaotic space and disorderly time. The flames didn't burn like normal fire. They caused unpredictable chaos.
"Get her! Take her alive if you can, but kill her if you have to!" The group leader shouted.
The twenty transcendent combatants charged. They were fast. Leaping over rocks and firing volleys of enchanted bolts and spells.
Aella went berserk.
She moved like a blur. Her bursts of teleportation were now seamless and lethal. She appeared behind a syndicate combatant. And her hand, cloaked in void flame, passed through his chest as if he were made of smoke.
The man didn't even have time to scream before he collapsed into a pile of grey ash.
Aella was a whirlwind of destruction. She effortlessly dodged a fireball. Blinked above another opponent. And brought down two pillars of void flames that vaporized one of them and melted the other one instantly.
"She's slaughtering them." Chloe noted. Her voice was grim.
"Good." Jack replied coldly. He had no pity toward the Black Market Syndicate members. They brought this to themselves.
Half of the Syndicate group was gone in less than two minutes. The mountain air was filled with the smell of chaotic destruction.
But the remaining Syndicate members weren't running. Instead, they were chanting.
The leader was missing a hand. Being vaporized by Aella's void fire. But he ignored it. Instead, he slammed a cube-like object into the ground.
"By the sacrificial blood of the fallen, we open the gate!" He screamed.
The ground groaned. A vertical line of red fire tore through the air in the center of the clearing. It widened. Revealing a swirling vortex of spatial energy.
A woman stepped out of the rift. She was tall. With pale skin complexion, and thick hair that was deep red in color.
"Lady Kaelan, the prey is ready!" The leader said. Trembling in fear.
"Forcefully opening a spatial gate through sacrifice?" Reina muttered. Clenching her fists. "To make her come here early. Crap! They were insane."
This was Lady Kaelan. The vice leader of the Black Market Syndicate. An illuminated level being. The pressure she exerted was immense.
The situation had changed...
=====
If you, dear readers, enjoy the story, please share a review.
And if you are willing to support my work, please consider visiting and joining patreon.com/Alkrishna. It should be about 15+ chapters ahead there.
=====