Percy took a deep breath, spending a moment to appreciate the familiar feeling of the colourful motes flowing toward him. It was hard to gauge their exact impact on his regeneration when his reserves were already full, but he estimated he could convert the ambient mana to his own affinities twenty percent faster than usual. The effect would be even more pronounced once he and Micky crossed the final stretch separating them from the mountain.

The environment here appeared to synergize better with the external part of his boosting art than Circulation did. The motes changed to a blueish-grey colour rather easily as they approached the burning wisps dancing around Percy’s body, though some of them turned white instead when seized by the snowstorm spiralling around Micky’s.

‘It’s barely been two minutes, and I already want to stay here forever…’ Percy lamented, his lips curling into a bitter smile.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to spend too long at this place. He had to leave as soon as his new clones were ready. Hopefully, he’d be able to return a couple of days later to grab the egg from the wasps before leaving again, but even that wasn’t guaranteed to succeed.

‘Shouldn’t you be more worried about those elders right now?’ Micky suddenly asked. ‘I don’t think we can handle even a single Violet, let alone five.’

Percy sighed. ‘Of course I’m worried. But at the end of the day, they’re alchemists – not fighters. Who knows how many centuries it’s been since the last time any of them stretched their limbs. Besides, their job is mainly to manage the Guild and guard the settlement – not to chase fugitives or babysit the Starry Commanders. Even if they’ve heard that we’re heading toward the Spire, I don’t think they’ll be expecting us on the fifth level.’

Micky nodded, though the tension in the air was palpable. Percy wasn’t exactly convinced by his own words either. As much as he wanted to reassure himself and his companions that everything would be okay, they all knew that there were a million things that could go wrong.

Even worse, Nephthys was almost out of time. Percy had already asked Micky to check up on the pyramid, and it wasn’t doing great. The structure was covered in cracks, the goddess’s lingering wisp slowly spilling out of the holes, shrinking by the hour. At this point, Percy wasn’t even sure that he’d have time to look for a different body should he fail to grab one from the hive.

But he’d already rushed here as fast as possible. Even after spending all those months training, he and Micky had barely grown strong enough to handle the powerful groups they’d faced on the way. Attempting the mission any earlier would have only spelled their doom.

Percy was debating internally whether it would be better for the Amenthei goddess if he aborted the infiltration entirely and searched for a different host while he still could, when he spotted a tiny dot on the horizon. It rapidly grew into the silhouette of a person – just one – flying straight toward them.

‘What the hell?! Discovered already? Please don’t let it be one of the elders…’

Percy prayed silently, a frown marring his face.

Upon closer inspection, he saw a faint Blue glint in the newcomer’s frame, causing him to exhale in relief. In fact, Percy recognized the man not long after, despite having only seen him once in his life. He was tall, sporting a head of dull grey hair, his gaze intense and intimidating – though not as much as it used to be. He wore expensive-looking robes, a series of roots emerging from the underside of a cloud on his insignia, indicating that he was a member of Remior’s leading Great House.

For Percy, it had been over a decade since their last meeting. He hadn’t known the Blue’s name at the time, only learning it years later. Even so, the man had made quite the impression, as he had been one of the strongest mages Percy had encountered up to that point, falling short of just his grandfather.

He was naturally Deimos – the son of Hermes, and the very envoy of the Divine Root who had sent Jason after Percy and Nesha!

‘But why is he here by himself? He can’t seriously think he can fight both of us without help. Or does he think that I’ll spare him after all the crap he’s put us through?’

Percy instinctively scanned his surroundings again, to make sure that Deimos was truly alone. After confirming that the Blue really was that stupid, Percy brandished his scythes, urging Micky to rush toward their opponent.

He knew the man had originally acted under orders from above, but Percy still wouldn’t forgive Deimos for stripping Orin’s status, imprisoning Archibald, and torturing both of them. Breaking them out of the Guild wasn’t possible just yet – not without getting everyone into more trouble. However, avenging them wasn’t out of the question, now that their captor had so foolishly offered himself up on a silver platter.

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Hurling the weapons, Percy willed them to shatter into dozens of pieces each, the burning fragments repairing themselves into new scythes. He kept a pair to himself, jumping onto another.

Percy’s gaze sank into Deimos’s frame, the clone’s melody echoing in his soul as the crow appeared ready to attack. Killing a solitary Blue shouldn’t be very difficult for them – no matter who it was – but Percy wasn’t one to underestimate his opponents either. After all, he’d long lost track of all the mages who’d fallen by his hand after making that very mistake.

A human and a bird closed into their target, though Deimos kept flying toward them at the same leisurely pace, seemingly unconcerned.

“I knew you’d show up sooner or later,” the Blue suddenly said, his voice oozing with ill-concealed mirth. “I’m still not sure whether you’ve come for your mentor, your grandfather, or just to steal more elixirs – as you seem to enjoy doing – but I never doubted that waiting for you here was the right call.”

Percy ignored the man’s ramblings, intent on eliminating him as quickly as possible. A dozen scythes spun toward Deimos, their edges not even disturbing the glowing motes as they phased soundlessly through the air. The violent winds disturbed them plenty, however, icy shards carving narrow paths through the colourful mist as they shot toward the Blue from every direction. Not waiting to see if their attacks landed, Percy and Micky were en route to meet Deimos, ready to finish him off if he somehow survived the barrage.

To his great shock, Percy watched the Blue dodge the attacks rather easily, twisting his body through a narrow gap between them. A few of the projectiles still found their mark, only to shatter harmlessly on Deimos’s skin. Clearly, cutting through the thick willpower wouldn’t be easy.

Luckily, Percy and Micky were ready. The former swung his scythes personally this time, their tips about to sink into his opponent’s neck. The crow was drilling a path behind Deimos, about to turn the man into minced meat the second he took even a single step back.

The Blue surprised them yet again, spinning vertically to duck beneath the grey crescents aiming for his head, delivering a powerful kick on Micky with his heel. The bird’s left wing shattered as a result, but Deimos wasn’t done. Before Percy even processed what had happened, Deimos landed a slap on his chest with his backhand, knocking the wind out of his lungs as the enchantments on his Cloak flashed, trying to absorb the impact.

Percy and Micky were sent flying in opposite directions, though Deimos merely floated in the same spot, clearly not in a rush to chase after them.

“The rest of Remior hasn’t had the ‘privilege’ of talking to you in person – as I have – so they don’t understand the sheer extent of your audacity,” the Blue said, shaking his head. “But I do. I know that you have zero respect for authority. That nothing is sacred or off limits for you…”

Percy tuned out Deimos’s words, still struggling to wrap his mind around the ease by which the Blue had dealt with their attacks and struck them back. Stepping on a pair of crossed shafts to arrest his momentum, Percy rubbed his bruised ribs with his forearm, checking up on his familiar. The crow had used his mana to stabilize his flight, his severed wing slowly growing back.

Overall, the damage they had received wasn’t that bad, but Percy was still shaken to his core. ‘How is he doing this? Some sort of bloodline? I don’t think he’s used a single drop of mana!’

He knew that domains could turn tangible, of course, and that they could be shaped into some nasty attacks, but flying solely through one’s willpower was quite difficult. It wasn’t just a matter of producing enough force to support a person’s weight – the problem was doing it for an extended period of time, while accelerating and decelerating rapidly.

Until today, Percy hadn’t thought it possible for a Blue to wield their domain with such finesse – let alone while retaining enough spare willpower to fight back. As much as he despised the man, he had to admit that Deimos was the most talented Blue he’d seen on Remior. At the very least, the space assassin wouldn’t have survived the last attack.

‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to waste on this asshole,’ Percy reminded himself, his soul lighting up with resolve.

Perhaps, he and Micky could beat Deimos once they figured out how his bloodline worked, but that would only give the other Blues time to catch up. Or worse, the elders to crawl out of their labs and put an end to Percy’s invasion.

Besides, Deimos was the son of a god – there was a non-zero chance he possessed a blessing too, among other trump cards. No matter how Percy reasoned about it, his best course of action would be to go all out to end this quickly.

Pouring mana into the tattoo on his chest, he forced the brown ink to seep into his bloodstream. The liquid reached his heart in an instant, causing it to beat loudly. Each violent thrum rattled his bones, causing his veins to bulge, his muscles to squirm, and his frame to swell with power.

Already, the Yellow trollsfury tattoo appeared as effective on him as the Orange one had been before his advancement. However, the strain was a lot more manageable this time, thanks to the new mutation. Percy grinned, knowing that he could probably try a Green one in the future, though that would have to wait.

Shrugging, he pushed more phantom mana into his channels, forcing his boosting art to its new limit. He even asked the clone to add some additional soul-freezing mana into his spare networks, having more space for the resource than a second ago.

Grey wisps flared around him erratically, dancing in wide arcs, almost in sync with the clone’s Symphony. Their mournful faces sang to the tune with renewed passion, their shrill cries filling the aerial battlefield.

Micky didn’t let himself fall behind either. He might not have a potion or a tattoo to fall back on, but he still pulled in as much mana as his crystalline body could contain – more, really, his frozen fresh cracking as plumes of white spilled forth, the howling winds joining the melody.

Percy and Micky circled around Deimos, a storm of icy shards and enchanted weapons doing the same. The scythes kept breaking and reforming into more copies, the few strips of cloth that Percy had inadvertently shed during Deimos’s counterattack now drifting toward the weapons. They joined them, cloaking their ghostly wielders, forming a flock of armed phantoms that glared at the Blue with cold disdain.

Then, they moved.