A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Instantly, Emily, Emma, Astrid, and Seraphina jumped through the hole. Seraphina felt only a little better about their chances for success, but Emily and Astrid were clearly excited, while Emma was calm, even looking at the guards with a hint of pity.

Erik and Alice, meanwhile, remained behind. Erik was still pretending to be exhausted, while Alice was attempting to join the others, with excitement and fighting intent shining in her eyes. Unfortunately, she was being held back by Erik's large hand gripping her head.

"You're not going anywhere, Alice," he grinned at her, talking softly so as not to give up his act to the guards. "You'll stay with me, remember?"

Alice's lips pressed into a tight pout, her glare sharp enough to cut through Erik's feigned indifference, to which Erik simply responded by rolling his eyes, "You'll get to fight soon enough, don't worry."

Although still seeming unhappy, Alice was forced to accept that statement. She crossed her arms in front of her chest with a snort and settled for looking at the action through the hole in the gate.

On the other side, the four attackers had lined up, with Astrid and Seraphina in front, and the sisters safely behind them. A few tens of meters in front of them stood six second rankers, flanked by at least a hundred first rankers, who were all divided into groups.

Unsurprisingly, all these people were human Arcanists, which meant they kept a safe distance. They did have ways of fighting Runebound in close quarters, but it was always safer to start from a distance.

As soon as the four of them broke through, the second-ranked Arcanists began conjuring magic circles, while the various groups of first rankers started activating formations. The air thrummed with electrifying power, as several different affinities flared up.

These formations were different from the one they saw in Frostvik, which essentially involved several second rankers empowering their leader up to a level mimicking the third rank.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

These formations conjured 3-meter tall, spiritual warriors, clad in heavy armor and wielding a sword and shield, while those on the walls did the same thing, except they wielded large bows.

These warriors appeared to move independently of the groups that summoned them, while summoners remained in place, kneeling down as they fed their energy into their creations.

Emma, Emily, Astrid, and Seraphina took a second to look around at what they were up against, while the guard captain stepped forward to address them. His booming voice echoed across the courtyard, "Intruders! State your intentions and stand down! You are surrounded, outnumbered, outm—"

But that was as far as he got. The four of them were on the clock and had no time to waste, not to mention that any mention of Dimitri might give these people ideas about using the man as a hostage.

Thus, they left them in the dark about their objectives and charged forward. Or, at least, Astrid and Seraphina did, while Emma and Emily conjured their own magic circles.

Instantly, the castle descended into chaos.

The guards roared. Various spells were sent flying, and explosions reverberated. The spiritual warriors charged forward or began firing their arrows at the intruders.

Unfortunately, the guards quickly realized what they were up against, because their initial salvo resulted in nothing.

Six massive, light-blue arrows, made up of pure aetherium, were launched from the walls, but they were either nimbly, and easily avoided by the two vampires in front, or crumbled against the defenses of Emily and Emma.

At the same time, the spells launched by the six second rankers, which consisted of various things like arrows of fire, sprays of acidic mud, or large boulders, met much the same fate as the arrows did.

Thorn walls, a zooming golden disc, and hanging puddles of darkness absorbed the incoming attacks, reducing them to nothing.

At the same time, however, Astrid and Seraphina kept charging. Unfortunately, they were quickly waylaid by ten spiritual warriors, five from each side of the courtyard.

These warriors possessed power that reached the lower edges of the second rank, which meant they were really no danger to them in a straight-up fight, if it weren't for the fact that damaging them really didn't seem to do much.

Thus, their only choice was to turn focus from the six second rankers they were charging at before and turn to the ten groups of first rankers on the side.

Despite the fact they didn't like each other much, Astrid and Seraphina needed only a single glance before they quickly split up, with one going left and the other right.

Instantly, the first rankers instructed the spiritual warriors to chase after the vampires in an attempt to protect themselves. Unfortunately, that left Emma and Emily alone to deal with the six second-ranked guards and ensure they didn't attack Astrid and Seraphina in the back.

With great efficiency and skill, Emily and Emma harassed the six most powerful guards with ranged attacks. Emily's orbs of darkness were an extremely dangerous offensive presence, hard to curtail or protect against, while Emma's defensive ability was making it hard for them to strike back.

To the delight of the sisters, the guards were quickly growing increasingly frustrated, as they realized they couldn't find an opening, yet were forced to stay engaged with their attackers, lest the orbs of darkness pierce their own defenses.

Meanwhile, the six archers on the walls had already been forced to stop firing after the first salvo because they had their own troubles.

Even before the four women started their attack earlier, when the guard captain was still talking, the guards attempted an ambush of the seemingly tired Erik.

Still on one knee, and with one hand on Alice's head to hold her back, Erik waited patiently for the ambush he knew perfectly well was coming. Elora had naturally warned him, using her omnisense, that one of the second-ranked guards was still on the wall above them.

That was the reason he waited there. Well, one of the reasons. The main reason truly was his depleted aetherium storage, because if he still had the energy, he could have probably settled this matter by killing most of these guards with two or three of his lower-third-rank thundersnow blasts.

But, since he needed that energy to reach the castle in the first place, this was the next best thing.

When the supposed ambusher jumped down from the wall, he grinned at Erik maliciously while charging a spell of some kind, "I don't know what you people want, but you've made a grave mista—"

That was how far he got, because suddenly, Erik smirked contemptuously. Before the guard could react, Erik quickly stood up while activating his nearly instant transformation into wolf form, before lunging forward to tightly grip a hand around the man's throat.

"Wrong," he growled with a smirk. "I think this will benefit me greatly."

The guard's eyes widened when realization and recognition flashed in his eyes, "Y— You are—"

Before he could finish, Erik smashed the man's head against the castle wall, not hard enough to kill him, however, just to knock him unconscious. While Erik had no problem killing anyone, he also realized that second rankers remained a precious resource in the Council, and Earth as a whole.

A precious resource he might have to make use of later. Thus, he preferred leaving them alive if he had the choice.

Regardless, this guard would be incapacitated for a good while, so Erik quickly threw a yelping Alice on his back before scaling the castle walls with incredible speed and agility.

Then, just as the large spiritual archers located there planned to release a second volley on Erik's allies below, a terrifying howl echoed through the sky.

Instantly, the first rankers froze in fear.