“Captain, Luka.”
The leading officer from the reinforcement saluted at Luka as soon as they arrived.
Luka nodded his head and gestured for them to be at ease. He also noticed that the team with Jax earlier was included in their numbers.
‘Good, I thought there had been casualties earlier when I did not see them. Looks like Major Jax ordered their retreat on time,’ he thought.
“Major Jax is still inside this field with Lord Cade. We have yet to know the situation. For now, everyone will be on standby. We’ll proceed according to plan. If we first hear from the two infiltration teams inside the Regis Inner Wall, we’ll provide reinforcements as needed. Then the rest will stay and support the Major.” Luka told them.
“Yes, Captain Luka.”
“Harris, you and your members will guard Captain Vera while she is recuperating.”
Harris, a man with short dark brown hair and green eyes in green uniform, stepped out from among the officers and saluted.
“Yes, Captain.” He replied.
Together with three more officers in green uniforms, Harris went to Vera.
Vera was still sitting on the ground, meditating.
“Layton,” Luka turned to a man among the members of Jax’s team.
“Sir,” Layton stepped forward. He was a man with light brown hair and black eyes. Unlike most of the reinforcements assigned to Luka and Vera’s squad, Layton and the rest of his team were wearing a red uniform.
“Could you give me a brief report of what happened before the confrontation with Lord Cade started?” Luka asked.
“Yes, sir.”
For the next few minutes, Luka listened to Layton’s report. His brows creased when he heard Lord Cade’s words when Jax rebuked the Regis’s decision to hide Kyran.
Luka also thought Cade had a point.
But what got his attention was how Jax used the Summoning Token when Cade had not even attacked. At first, Luka thought Jax could have made the first move to catch Cade off guard, but he was surprised that the battle started because Cade said something about the Royal Family.
Luka turned to Layton and asked again, “Do you remember Lord Cade’s exact words before Major Jax summoned the minotaur?”
Layton pondered for a while before saying, “Lord Cade said, ‘What would the army do? Experiment with him? Execute him in public? Give him to the Royal Family to…’, then Major Jax moved. That’s all I remember, Captain Luka.”
“Are you sure Lord Cade said, ‘give him to the ‘Royal Family”? Not Royal Army?”
Layton nodded his head, “I am sure. The others can testify to that.”
“Thanks, Layton. I want you to lead the rest of your team and continue with the operation. Since you’re missing headcount for the transportation array, take Maxim with you.”
Layton saluted, “Yes, sir.”
As instructed by Luka, Layton approached Maxim, a tall, buffed guy with dark brown hair and dark blue eyes in a red uniform. Then they joined the rest of Jax’s team before going to the transportation array they were supposed to use. After checking that they had the things they needed, they left at once.
Luka only watched in silence as they left because he was thinking about Layton’s report.
He was grateful that as a mage, Layton’s memory was good. He even remembered what Cade said. However, even after hearing it, Luka could not make head nor tail out of it.
”Give him to the Royal Army and… what?” Luka pondered.
Never did a situation occurred that a forbidden magic-user was surrendered to the Royal Family. What Cade said about being experimented upon was true, though. And definitely, the execution part.
The more Luka ponder, the more he started to doubt Jax’s reason for using the token was to catch Cade off guard.
Jax obviously interrupted Cade. But he was not someone who would get angry with anyone just because they said something wrong against the Royal Family. Not to mention, Cade had not even said anything yet.
Scratching his head, Luka took a deep breath.
‘Stop thinking for now and focus first,’ he decided and looked at the light red field again.
The truth, he was starting to worry about what was happening inside.
‘Why is there no movement? It’s been more than half an hour since Major Jax summoned this field,’ Luka thought.
His Summoning Token was still intact, so his summon was still alive. Whether the cyclops was still fighting Cade or not, he did not know. Unfortunately, the token did not have the ability to let him know what his summoned monster was doing.
Apart from that, they could not hear anything within the field.
Luka’s communication device suddenly lit up. He looked at it and read the coded message sent by his team.
A smile appeared on his face. His team had successfully entered the Regis Inner Wall and created the array that would help boost the Heaven’s Rupture Array from within. Not only them, but Vera’s team also completed their tasks without any problem.
Now both teams were on their way to perform their second task. His team’s second task was to secure the water source located in the southwest area of the Regis Inner Wall. At the same time, Vera’s team needed to find where the Regis were keeping their food supply. Unfortunately, they did not know where the Regis store their food. They only deduced it was somewhere north of the estate because the outer wall’s food storage was also there. In terms of transporting foods inside and outside the walls, they should be in the same direction.
Jax’s team was supposed to infiltrate and control the communication tower. This way, the other two infiltrating teams could work with less obstruction. But since they had been delayed, the other two teams would have to practice double caution.
====================
After Luka’s team successfully blasted a hole from the underground working area’s ceiling, they made their way up.
But no one expected the scene that greeted them as soon as they surfaced inside the Regis Inner Wall.
An array immediately activated around the hole, and all of them plummeted back into the working area. Some of the members were able to land without a scratch. Some who were unfortunate suffered broken bones. Others who hit their head also lost their consciousness.
They had spells to break their fall as mages, but the array used against them had a stunning effect, and all of them failed to summon their arrays.
To make matters worse, ten people in black leather armor and half face masks appeared after they fell back to the working area.
The moment these people appeared, Sander, the acting team leader, paled. He recognized their uniform and the insignia of the Regis on their gauntlets.
These people were part of the Regis Special Force. They were small in number, but their teamwork and top-notch abilities could rival the Royal Army’s Special Ops. Furthermore, they were all combat mages with specialized magic. They were also the reason the Regis successfully evacuated their people within the Inner Wall with fewer casualties.
After these men appeared, it was a no-brainer what happened to Sander and the rest of his team.
The Regis Special Force subdued them, confiscating all their magic items, including their communication devices. Then tied them up.
Sander and the others did not even have a chance to notify Luka that their mission had failed.
Then the man who seemed to be the leader of the Regis Special Force used one of the army’s communication devices and even sent out a coded message.
How did he know the Royal Army’s coded letters? And all their communication devices had their own magic code to prevent outsiders from using them. But the man was able to use it without a problem.
“I’m done,” the man said and threw the communication device to the side where the gathered army’s items were.
“All yours,” he said and turned to another man beside him.
The other man nodded, he lifted his hand, and two light golden arrays appeared beneath and above the items.
Sander’s eyes widened, “W-What are you going to do?”
Sander was actually waiting for their side to notice that their signal had not left their spot and realize something was wrong. However, if this man did destroy their devices, then it would alarm the army even more. He was not complaining, but if the others arrived and were ambushed, he would not forgive himself.
The other man’s arrays rotated and met at the middle, then exchanged places. As soon as the arrays went past each other, the items made crackling sounds. Light green arrays appeared on all the communication devices and hovered above each. The arrays crackled, and the still conscious army officers witnessed the runes on the light green arrays started to reassemble.
‘This-!’ Sander was shocked. ‘But it’s impossible!’
This was clearly Rune Reconstruction. However, this ability was only a theory. Because if a mage wanted to reconstruct an array, they had to have a clear understanding of the runes used on that array.
It was true that a mage could learn and use other runes apart from the runes of their innate magic. However, it was different from understanding it. Basically, a mage was only borrowing already made runes to summon particular magic.
It was like writing words without fully understanding each character.
Most magic items were composed of different types of rune writings, and one main array would keep them together.
The army’s communication devices were the same.
However, this man from the Regis was actually reconstructing their devices. It meant this man understand every type of runes there were in their communication device!
“I’m done here,” the man finally said after the crackling sounds of the runes within the light green arrays faded.
“What did you do?” Sander demanded.
The man with the reconstruction ability looked at him, and a faint smile appeared on his face. Instead of answering, he turned and looked at the man who was leading them.
“Hey, lead. Are we really not going to silence these guys? I mean those still conscious did see me use my ability,” he said.
Sander paled after hearing this.
The man called as lead chuckled. He replied, “There’s no rush. We still need them.”
He looked at Sander and smiled, “But you’re right. We can’t have them report back what they see here.”
Light gold array formed on his palm as he approached Sander.
“W-Wait! In this situation, its unlikely that we can report anything back to our superiors!” Sander tried to reason. “It’s not like we can escape from you guys. Y-You can actually use us as prisoners of war or-!”
The man placed his hand on top of Sander’s head.
Sander immediately froze in fear.
“Relax. I did say we still need you guys,” the man said with a smile as the light golden array on his hand expanded and multiplied before circling Sander from the top of his head.
“Aahh!” He screamed.