Keilan had encountered assassins from Shadow Hall once, and that experience had left him spiritually crippled for a painfully long amount of time. Those assassins had been trained and limited to resources on Ra.

  Here, looking at the figures that slowly stepped out of flowing shadows, Keilan was very certain these weren't as limited as the ones on Ra.

  How did they find us?

  Thankfully, he wasn't the only one who thought the same.

  “How did they find us?” Vanis growled, red lightning flickering threateningly around his body.

  Four figures stepped out of the shadows and into their path. They were all clothed in dark-purple leather combat armor, with raised hoods covering their face.

  A shiver ran down Keilan's spine when he tried to look through those hoods, only to be met with a wisping wall of darkness. Nothing of Spirit lord make should have been able to hide from him like that.

  A nudge to the wind for answers and his grip on his weapon tightened when the wind gave him their answers; they couldn't see through those masks, and they were fleeing.

  The image of a raven in flight was emblazoned on their armored chest piece, the same raven that had painfully appeared on Keilan's wrist. Three of them wielded weapons, one with two short swords, the other held a combat staff, and the third held two metallic glowing orbs. The fourth figure held nothing, but Keilan felt a brewing headache just from looking at them.

  “Shit,” Huiron hissed as he stepped up beside them. “Four, that's almost a full hand. There has to be a fifth somewhere. A Sharpshooter, most likely.”

  Keilan nodded. “I deflected some kind of projectile just before these four showed up. None of the weapons in their hands correlates with any that can shoot something like that.” He eyed the orbs, "The orbs?...”

  “No, that is a close-range construct—a grenade, perhaps,” Sareina said.

  They all paused when one of the figures, the one with the swords, raised one of their hands and pointed it at them. Their voice came out otherworldly, all scratchy and slimy. “The rest of you should leave. We only want him,” he pointed at Vanis, “and him,” and then his sword shifted to Keilan.

  Keilan didn't look, but he was sure Huiron was looking between both of them. “Shit, what did you two do to warrant a full hand sent against you?”

  “We will ask them once we're done,” Vanis said.

  “Hey, dark hoods! Um, just in case you didn't know, Van van here is the grandson of Attrevia Verrille, y'know? The big scary old crow that tyrannizes this section of space. I swore to her I'd help little Vanis find a girlfriend at least before the year is done. She'll definitely have my head if I don't deliver. So, um, if you can tell me what he's done, I ca—”

  The man with the swords—the leader, most likely—cocked his head and Keilan snapped his spear up again, slapping aside the projectile fired at Huiron. Another building exploded.

  Tension spiked, and cold sweat ran down Keilan's brow. Huiron squeaked. “Well, I guess we have our answer then. A full hand." He turned to the assassins. “Um, sir assassins, I'm sorry, but I can't let Vanis die. Look at him, he's basically a child who just got into puberty. He needs to be shown the ropes, y'know, teach him all the do’s and don'ts...”

  There was no reply, and that was a reply in itself.

  They all moved at the same time. The empty-handed assassin and the one with the orbs moved for Sareina and her maidens, while the one with the staff headed for Huiron. Vanis clashed with the one with the sword and Keilan was left to deflect the projectiles sent by the sharpshooter.

  He was already wearing good armor, but out of precaution, he wrapped himself around with another armor, this one emerald and made of wind essence.

  The armor had barely wrapped around him when another projectile came for him, and this time Keilan didn't dodge fast enough.

  The air rushed out from his throat as he was thrown violently into the air, the wind armor he'd wrapped around himself shattering into tiny pieces.

  Keilan groaned as he rolled onto his back. His head rang loudly, and his body, unrested from continuous, countless battles, ached like hell. It felt like he'd been marching endlessly for days with a mountain strapped on his back.

  He felt the approach of another projectile even without looking. If that thing touched him, then he was very doubtful there'd even be a piece of him remaining to find.

  A cloud of darkness rose before him and swallowed the projectile, and Huiron hopped close by, chased behind by the assassin with the staff. They wielded no aspect that Keilan could detect, yet they deflected Huiron's sneak attacks with eerie precision, like they already knew beforehand where he'd appear.

  Keilan didn't have much time to analyze the man's technique before he was forced back to his feet, dodging and letting a projectile miss him by an inch.

  He frowned; so close to that thing, he'd felt the essence of the wind… alongside a second essence, likely what shrouded it and prevented him from detecting it until it struck.

  Shadow? Darkness? They weren't called Shadow Hall for nothing, which meant Shadow.

  He dodged to the side again, letting another projectile miss him by an inch, and through the periphery of his vision, he was able to catch the long streak of streaming twilight that flashed by him.

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  Not a bullet then… an arrow.

  He couldn't detect the arrows until they were almost on top of him, which made it almost impossible to detect where they came from. For all he knew, the wielder was changing positions after every shot.

  If he couldn't trace the arrows origin, then he'd just have to do it the hard way and find the sender.

  A scream of agony reached his ears, and Keilan turned to find Sareina lying on the ground with blood spurting from a stump on her leg. Her maidens were trapped within an invisible cage that glowed as they fought to break out of it. The other part of her leg was also trapped in with them.

  Before her stood two of the assassins, one holding one of their glowing orbs, which thrummed in response to the energy shield being struck.

  Sareina sent a stream of golden fire, which was deflected as the other assassin waved their hands, a huge piece of rock interposing itself between her and them.

  Keilan grimaced at that. Any second now and she'd be dead. There was no doubt about that.

  Without even thinking, he stabbed his spear into the air, blade of wind materializing out of thin air and cutting into the wrist of the assassin holding the orb.

  There was a hiss and a curse as the construct fell to the ground. Unfortunately, it didn't shatter nor did the cage turn off.

  Keilan materialized a shield of air in front of him, angling it a bit to the side just to let the arrow tip scrape its surface, and as he'd bet, it exploded.

  Already angled, the explosion sent him careening right into Sareina's opponents.

  The Mind wielder reacted fast, a Psionic shield materializing right in front of them just as Keilan brought his spear down with his full might.

  Mind wielders, for all the terror they brought with them, were awfully terrible at physical combat. They lacked the powerful physique granted to those with destructive aspects. This one made up for it with a great use of psychokinesis. And even that didn't help them when his spear slammed into their shield, shattering it with such force that it sent the mind wielder flying into the air, blood sprouting from their hood.

  The second one slammed another orb against the ground and a wall of energy rose into the sky, stopping his approach. Keilan could have hopped over it, but he knew that was tantamount to suicide. Flight or not, he'd be picked off easily the moment he rose above ground.

  He tried stepping through space only to find out that the area had been spatially locked down. No one was teleporting any time soon.

  That opened up his options. If the area was locked down, then the sharpshooter was moving by leg… unless they were outside the lockdown perimeter.

  “Don't take this the wrong way, Sar, but you reeeaaally need to get up now. You're a sitting target for that sharpshooter, wherever they are.”

  A shiver was the only response he got. He frowned and stepped aside. Sareina, who was usually in control of her expressions, was gone. Hovering above the ground was a woman fuming with wrath, her flaming eyes burning at the assassin with the orb.

  Before Keilan could do or say anything, she screamed, and a tornado of golden fire erupted from around her, quickly rising to a hundred feet.

  Sareina wasn't thinking very straight, and Keilan didn't want to be in the crosshairs of her vengeance, so he scrambled out of the way, which unfortunately put him out in the open again.

  An arrow struck him on the shoulder and Keilan screamed as his vision darkened.

  For a moment he thought he could sense a shape in the distance, but all that was washed away as pain flooded into his mind. He only needed to open his eyes to see what he'd felt; his right arm was gone.

  Pain spiked through his mind and exhaustion numbed his throat. His body was already at its limit. He groaned, blinking tears from his eyes as he fought to stay lucid.

  His heart sank as a metallic orb appeared over his head. He felt it as the energy dome snapped up around him. No wonder they hadn't sought to finish him. They wanted him alive.

  Life energy washed down from the orb and Keilan felt his body's healing kick up. His mind cleared up a little but his hopes stayed down. With how slow he was healing, he'd be long locked in whatever place he was being taken to before he hand enough strength to mount an escape.

  Through the dark skies, he thought he could see a star. No, not thought. There was a bright star in the sky. Where did that come from? There had not been a star this large in the system when he'd arrived, and neither were there any one as large as this near the system.

  As seconds passed, the star kept growing, expanding until the battle around him ground to a halt. Even the streaks of energy flashing in space stilled and vanished.

  A vast, blinding radiance washed across the world, as though the heavens itself had torn open the sky to reveal something great and ancient. Light poured outward in flashing arcs—wings not made of feathers but of pure, trembling energy, each humming with a power that felt both beautiful and terrifying. At its heart Keilan spied a sphere of pure radiance, a blazing sun held within a single point, pulsing with great power. Beneath that blazing core hung a silhouette, a slender, ethereal shape, its edges dissolving into streams of golden luminescence. The air around it warped and hummed, as though the thing's presence alone strained the edges of the world.

  Above the haloed form, the clouds roiled like a stormy ocean. The land went silent, and Keilan couldn't blame them. It was as if everyone and everything was afraid of drawing its attention.

  The being did not move, yet it gave the impression of breathing, its form expanding and unfolding. Its aura alone pressed against the world, filling Keilan with a constant threat of annihilation.

  “Lady Kuno,” Vanis said.

  The light dimmed to reveal a woman of breathtaking beauty. She hovered beneath the dimmed light shape, like how Keilan and the others did with their Astral images.

  Her hair was pale as snow and her face was warm like the sun. Her summer gown drifted slowly under the wind as white rimmed eyes gazed down at them.

  “Little Vanis, I received your brother's message,” she said with an unsmiling face.

  “Wait, what? What's happening?” But the woman had already turned away from him. “I see your assassin friends are gone.”

  That was when Keilan realized that the assassins from Shadow Hall had vanished, disappearing without anyone noticing. The orb above his head was also gone.

  “That would be because of you, Lady Filenus,” Huiron stepped forward and gave the woman a graceful bow. “Your heavenly beauty chased away our foes. Thank you kindly.”

  “How goes the evacuation?” She asked.

  “Steady, Lady Filenus. A few more days and we'll have the rest of this world's population safely protected in our ships.”

  “Mm, admirable. Unfortunately, you do not have that much time, not any longer. You should flee this world, immediately.”

  Keilan blinked away tears as he stared up at the woman in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  At that moment, his earpiece came to life again, and Solis’s voice reached through, thankfully clearer and stabler than the last time.

  “Vanis! Can you hear me?!”

  “I can. What's all this about?”

  “You need to flee the planet immediately! The Spirit King you feared was hiding within the system, it's gone! Something else prowls this system, and it's on the planet!”

  “What?!”

  “You seem awfully hard at hearing today. The world Spirit is gone! Dead!” Solis shouted. “This world is infected! You need to run!”

  The world turned red at that moment, the buoyant life-filled color that streamed across its surface suddenly drained into a whirlpool of blood red.

  A debilitating shiver swept through Keilan's body as he felt the consciousness of something vast and eldritch sweep across the earth, something that was terribly hungry.

  “A hollow,” Keilan breathed.

  “No, a demon.”