In theory, Micky could fly much faster than the three lackeys, though shaking them off proved impossible. The problem was the space user, who clearly had no trouble keeping up with the crow.

Percy and his familiar had yet to actually see the man, but the insidious black lines never stopped shooting at them, making their life harder. The assassin’s domain didn’t travel in straight lines – it took sharp turns every dozen or so metres, creating a zigzagging network of willpower to guide the deadly arrows. Percy and his clone did an admirable job steering the crow away from the projectiles, but a few still found their mark. Even those that missed played a decisive role in slowing the bird down.

‘Any ideas?’ Micky asked.

If nothing changed, they might still escape, eventually – once the Insomnia trait allowed them to outlast their pursuers – but Percy wasn’t happy with the idea of leaving a hidden danger of this magnitude alive in the area.

‘I’ve been trying to map out the limits of his spells,’ he replied.

‘And?’ the clone asked, joining the conversation.

‘You have the same mind as me, you know,’ Percy said, rolling his eyes. ‘You could try helping me come up with a solution instead of waiting for me to spoon-feed you everything.’

The clone sent a mental shrug back. ‘I’m not the one with a pile of Wiseman’s Murmurs swirling inside my head. Hell, I don’t even have a body of my own. Come on, don’t keep us in suspense.’

Percy was about to respond when Micky dove to evade another barrage, one of the projectiles narrowly missing the bird’s neck, causing Percy’s heart to skip a beat. Only when their flight stabilized did he resume his explanation.

‘The farther he has to stretch his domain, the longer the interval between his attacks seems to be, and the weaker they are.’ He wasn’t just guessing – Percy had long noticed that the assassin’s onslaught tended to ease slightly whenever Micky picked up the pace or changed directions abruptly. ‘The same is true when he increases the number of projectiles. I think that’s the reason he’s never gone past three.’

It was easy to see why the space user’s opening blow had been so much more sudden and powerful than his subsequent attacks. He had probably hoped that a single arrow would have been harder for Percy to spot, and that it would have been deadly enough to penetrate his defences. And, well… he’d nearly been right on both counts.

Since then, it had made more sense to fire three arrows at a time, however, to put more pressure on Percy and his familiar. Any more and they might not be strong enough to pierce Percy’s armour or the crow’s heavy frame from that distance.

‘That’s great, but this doesn’t really tell me what I’m supposed to do,’ Micky protested. ‘We don’t even know where he is, and we can’t risk fighting the other three while avoiding the arrows.’

Percy nodded, scratching through his beard as he tried to think of a solution. He wanted to help his friend block the attacks, but he wasn’t sure how to do that. He doubted he’d be able to stop the blasts with his scythes – they were too thin to intercept the projectiles, and the window to do that was way too narrow. Not to mention that Percy’s weapons were far flimsier than his armour.

‘The armour…!’ he thought, raising an eyebrow.

The Phantomwoven Cloak was equipped with just as many self-repairs as his Harvesters – several times as many, actually. And, unlike his old Regalia, it wasn’t comprised of dozens of little pieces. Percy should be able to replicate it rather easily. Of course, the assassin would still be able to pierce through the constructs with enough effort, but it would cost him a lot of mana and willpower.

‘Micky… if I stop him, do you think you can keep the other three busy for a while?’ he asked, worried about his friend.

The crow had never tried fighting more than two Blues by himself – not even briefly. And Percy had no idea how long he would need to take the space user out of the picture. At the same time, he understood that this was their best bet, and that Micky had grown a lot stronger over the past few months.

The bird didn’t reply immediately, taking a couple of seconds to discuss the plan with the passenger in his body. Eventually, he nodded, a wave of determination gushing through the cord. ‘Just… don’t take too long…’

Percy began working immediately. He tore a few strips of fabric from his sleeves, already drawing ambient mana to regenerate them. Seemingly realizing that he was up to something, the assassin intensified his efforts to harm Micky, his attacks growing more frequent and violent by the second. Percy guessed that his opponent had drawn nearer to facilitate this change, but he still struggled to locate the Blue.

Either way, he was finally ready to do something about those pesky projectiles. Letting go of the four Cloaks fluttering in the wind, he allowed them to fly straight to the nearest guiding lines, the enchantments lighting up in dim flashes of grey to stop the attacks.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The space user tried to move the black lines around the obstacles, though two of the constructs still managed to intercept an arrow each. The first got stopped entirely, while the second made it through the fabric after losing most of its momentum, ultimately failing to put more than a scratch on Micky’s plumage. As for the third and final projectile… it was far easier to dodge in isolation.

‘Slow down,’ Percy said once he was certain his plan could work.

The other three Blues seized the opportunity to shrink the gap, but Percy didn’t care about them. His priority was to put an end to the space user’s constant harassment.

The assassin didn’t seem happy about that. Clearly unwilling to let go of his advantage so easily, he straightened the black lines further, making the trajectories shorter but more predictable. He drew nearer too, a faint silhouette of a man finally appearing in Percy’s vision, a few hundred metres behind the trio of henchmen.

In exchange for betraying his position, the space user was able to increase the number of attacks to five, and even shrink the delay between the guiding lines and the arrows slightly. He said nothing, but Percy still caught the unspoken challenge underlying the man’s actions: ‘So what if you can see me? Can you get past my men to reach me?’

Well… Percy had every intention of trying.

Watching the powerful mages approach, Percy took a moment to consider how to bypass them. Summoning his newest scythe, he broke its shaft into pieces, letting a strip of cloth wrap tightly around each one. Then, he stood on Micky’s back, gathering as much strength as he could muster and hurling the constructs forth. He didn’t stop there, however, already preparing a second wave, and a third.

The shattered constructs spun soundlessly through the air, torrents of greyish-blue mana rushing into the self-repair enchantments to regenerate them. The shafts grew into complete scythes as the cloth turned into cloaked phantoms clinging to the weapons.

Some of the constructs fell within the Blues’ domains, soon getting destroyed by their violent spells. Many flew around them, however, as Percy sought to intercept as many of the black lines as possible. Of course, the assassin only had to adjust their trajectories slightly to aim at Micky again, but blocking the spells wasn’t Percy’s only goal.

‘I’m counting on you, buddy,’ he said, getting a nod back from Micky.

Clenching two scythes tightly in his hands, each wrapped in several strips of grey fabric, he leapt off the crow’s back, stepping on a pair of crossed shafts. The constructs bent under his feet, launching him toward the next pair.

Step by step, he picked up speed, soon entering the three domains. The stacked willpower slowed him down slightly, but he mitigated that somewhat by aiming for the spots were the ink-coloured cloud was thinnest.

By the time the trio registered what was going on, Percy had already flown past them, his surroundings turning into a blur as he homed into the space user. The only things still visible to his eyes were the man’s soul – a bright silver flash betraying his location – and several zigzagging lines already moving to stop Percy.

Through the senses he shared with his familiar, Percy caught a glimpse of the Blues turning around to chase him, but he knew the crow was about to reach them. Percy filtered everything out, trusting Micky and the clone to keep the assassin’s underlings at bay.

He was tempted to head straight toward the space user, but he ultimately chose to halt his steps, standing on a makeshift platform some distance away from his opponent. Even with his First Parade, catching a Blue with a space affinity wouldn’t be easy. Trying to approach half-assedly would only give the man a chance to ignore him and attack Micky from behind.

‘Before I move any closer, I need to make sure he can’t get past me,’ Percy decided.

The assassin had already manifested a new round of black lines – seven of them from this distance – sending three at Percy and four around him, aiming at the crow. Releasing the batch of cloaks wrapped around his scythes, Percy intercepted the lines heading toward his familiar while dodging the ones threatening his own life.

The space user didn’t give up after the first barrage, however. He was now close enough to attack a lot more frequently. Realizing that he didn’t need as many arrows to put pressure on Percy, he only aimed two of them at him this time, sending the other five after Micky. As long as a single blow landed, they both knew it would distract the bird enough to give the other Blues a chance to finish him off.

“In your dreams!” Percy hissed through gritted teeth, his constructs breaking and reforming one after another as he scrambled to keep all the projectiles away from his friend.

At first, the cloaked phantoms were just a hindrance for the space user – obstacles he had to bypass in order to strike the crow. Identifying the real Percy wasn’t very hard for the assassin, and neither was harassing him. That slowly changed over the course of the battle, however, as Percy got used to his new constructs.

In the past, his illusions had been easy to see through – an experienced Blue wouldn’t have needed more than a cursory scan to tell them apart from the original. Things were different now, since each of the phantoms wore the same exact clothes as him, their fleshless bodies concealed beneath the same layer of dense, Yellow mana.

The only weaknesses in their disguise were the exposed “skin” on their faces and their lifeless movements – both things that Percy had an answer for. Spreading his minions around the battlefield in pairs, he had each of them tethered to another through a shared scythe, using the back of their Cloak to hide their partner from the assassin’s senses. Percy mixed with the crowd of ghostly figures, the entire army of phantoms dancing to the mournful tune of their own wails.

The spinning Cloaks bloomed like grey roses plucked from a graveyard, the torn pieces of their fabric scattering in the wind like withered petals. The assassin lost track of the real Percy entirely at some point. Probably realizing that it would be pointless to waste his mana shooting down the phantoms one by one, he focused entirely on Micky, trying to sneak all seven lines past the ghosts.

Sadly for him, getting through the blockade was impossible at this point, as dozens and then hundreds of crying phantom turned the battlefield into their private ballroom, blocking every single opening leading to the others.

The assassin tried to circle around them, of course, but the phantoms multiplied rapidly, and Percy strategically moved the wall of constructs along with his opponent, never giving him a way through.

Faintly hearing the assassin click his tongue in irritation, Percy struggled to suppress a grin of his own, the name of his new technique softly leaving his lips:

“Carnival of the Savage Gods, Fourth Parade, Masquerade.”