MUTE BUT ALMIGHTY: Return of the Archmage

C4

"Check the dark corners, he's probably already rotted into a puddle of grease."

The lead assassin’s voice rasped against the damp stone walls of the Cursed Wing. Three figures in midnight-black leather dropped lightly onto the flagstones, their muffled boots making no sound against the filth.

Lucas sat perfectly still in the shadowed alcove, his back resting against the icy rock face. He did not move a muscle, but his heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"Master Damon said to bring back his head," the second assassin hissed, flicking his wrist to ignite a sphere of crackling crimson flame above his palm. "I don't care if he's half-eaten by miasma, just cut it off so we can collect our spirit stones and leave this foul pit."

"Keep your voice down, idiot," the third assassin grunted, pulling two curved bone daggers from his belt. "He was a coreless cripple when they threw him in here two days ago. A normal person dies in six hours from the air alone. He's dead."

"Let's make sure," the first assassin sneered, stepping forward with his glowing fireball.

Lucas narrowed his eyes in the pitch darkness. He didn't have a cultivated core, and his meridians were still cracked like dried clay, but his perception was crystal clear. To his eyes, the red fireball floating in the assassin's hand wasn't just fire. It was a crude, unstable arrangement of sixteen mana threads spinning in a sloppy counter-clockwise circle.

"You're slanting the third vector too far left," Lucas said softly into the dark.

The three assassins jumped back, their weapons swinging toward the sound of his voice.

"He's alive?!" the fire caster gasped, his eyes wide with shock behind his black cloth mask. "How are you breathing in this air?"

Lucas stood up slowly, brushing the dry dust off his torn sleeves. "Your spell structure is garbage. Who taught you to weave fire elementals with open stabilization loops?"

"Shut your arrogant mouth, trash!" the fire caster roared, thrusting his right palm forward. "Burn to ash!"

The crimson fireball surged across the narrow corridor, screaming through the air directly toward Lucas's face.

Lucas didn't dodge. He didn't even raise his arms to guard. Instead, he snapped his left hand forward, extending two bare fingers into the path of the incoming heat.

A faint, glowing geometric sigil flared into existence directly on Lucas's left palm. The air around his fingers distorted instantly like intense heat shimmer above summer asphalt.

Flip.

With a subtle, lightning-fast twitch of his index finger, Lucas mentally grabbed the core anchor thread of the moving fireball and inverted its vector ninety degrees.

The flame stopped dead in mid-air two inches from Lucas's nose. For a fraction of a second, the sphere trembled, turning from dark crimson to a blinding, brilliant azure.

"What... what did you do?" the fire caster stammered, his eyes bulging as he felt his connection to his own spell snap like a dry twig.

"I fixed your mistake," Lucas whispered.

Lucas flicked his fingers back toward the caster.

The azure fireball reversed direction instantly, shooting backward twice as fast as it had come. It slammed directly into the fire caster's chest before the man could even raise his arms.

BOOM!

The explosive shockwave blew the assassin backward off his feet. His leather armor disintegrated into burning rags, and he hit the far wall with a heavy, sickening thud, screaming in agony as his own reversed flames consumed his torso.

"Brother!" the second assassin shrieked, panic cracking his voice. He spun toward Lucas, his hands flying through complex binding signs. "Earth-Chain Immobilization Array! Lock him down!"

Yellow magic circles flared on the stone floor beneath Lucas's boots. Four heavy stone chains erupted from the ground, wrapping around Lucas's ankles and pulling tight to crush his bones.

Lucas felt the stone pressure crushing his legs, but he didn't panic. He looked down at the yellow spell circles spinning on the floor.

Sixteen nodes. Four anchor points. The structural pivot is right under his own left foot.

Lucas raised his left hand again. The geometric sigil on his palm burned brighter, lines of silver light tracing complex equations across his skin as the air around his wrist distorted wildly.

He slammed his bare left palm down onto the nearest stone chain.

"Collapse," Lucas commanded.

The silver geometric light surged from his palm straight into the earth array's circuit. Instead of breaking the spell, Lucas simply altered the targeting node, swapping his own location coordinates with the caster's.

Crack!

The stone chains around Lucas's legs shattered into harmless gray dust. Simultaneously, four massive, jagged stone pillars erupted from the floor directly beneath the second assassin's feet, wrapping around his chest, arms, and legs like a crushing stone vise.

"Argh! No! My ribs! My core!" the second assassin screamed, his face turning purple as his own binding spell crushed his internal organs into pulp.

Blood spurted from the man's mouth as the stone pillars snapped his spine with a terrible crunch. He hung limp in his own trap, his eyes rolling back into his head.

In less than ten seconds, two late-stage Foundation cultivators had been neutralized without Lucas using a single drop of martial physical force.

The third assassin stood frozen ten paces away, his curved bone daggers trembling violently in his hands. Cold sweat soaked through his black mask, dripping onto his collar.

"You... you aren't human," the third assassin whimpered, taking a shaky step back. "Your core was destroyed! Young Master Damon swore you were a coreless cripple!"

"Damon is an idiot," Lucas said coldly, taking a calm step forward. "He thinks power only comes from hoarding spirit energy in a tiny organ inside your gut. He doesn't understand how the universe is built."

Lucas raised his left palm toward the remaining man. The glowing geometric sigil spun steadily on his skin, bending the light around his hand so severely that his fingers seemed to blur and warp in space.

The third assassin stared at the spinning pattern on Lucas's palm. Suddenly, his eyes dilated with absolute, paralyzing horror. The daggers slipped from his numb fingers, clattering loudly onto the blood-stained flagstones.

"That mark..." the assassin choked out, his knees buckling beneath him as if an invisible mountain had landed on his shoulders. "That... that's not a martial array... That's the Prime Equation of the First Era!"

Lucas paused, his eyes narrowing slightly. "You recognize this?"

"The ancient blood!" the assassin shrieked, terror stripping all reason from his voice. He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, kicking wildly at the floor to put distance between himself and Lucas. "The legends were real! The old blood is waking! The clan is doomed! We're all doomed!"

Without waiting another second, the assassin pulled a rare spatial escape talisman from his vest and jammed it against his chest.

"Escape!" the man screamed frantically.

A flash of blinding white light enveloped the assassin's body. Before Lucas could extend his geometric field to sever the spatial connection, the man vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the smell of ozone and burning paper.

Lucas lowered his left hand. The glowing sigil on his palm faded beneath his skin, the spatial distortion around his fingers smoothing out as the air cooled down.

He looked at the two dead assassins lying on the floor, then down at his own hand.

"The Prime Equation..." Lucas muttered quietly to himself. "So this geometric matrix isn't just a spell language. It's an heritage from the previous world cycle."

He walked over to the bodies, quickly stripping their storage rings and taking three high-grade recovery pills to restore his exhausted stamina. He knew he didn't have much time. The fleeing assassin would reach Damon in minutes. The illusion of his helplessness was completely shattered now.

In the grand high tower of the inner estate, Damon sat behind his carved cedar desk, sipping hot tea from a porcelain cup. Jessica sat across from him, her fingers nervously twirling a silk handkerchief.

"You're overly anxious, Damon," Jessica said softly, though her own eyes darted toward the closed double doors. "He's just one broken man locked in a sealed wing. Even if he survived the miasma, three Shadow Blade assassins are more than enough to handle him."

"I don't like loose ends, Jessica," Damon snapped, setting his cup down with a harsh clatter. "Until I hold his severed head in my hands, I can't sleep. The elders are already pushing for an audit of the family vault. If Lancelot stays alive long enough for the Grand Ancestor to exit seclusion, we are both finished."

"He won't survive," Jessica reassured him, though her voice lacked conviction. "The Shadow Blades have never failed a contract."

FLASH!

A violent tear in space ripped open in the center of the office.

The third assassin tumbled out of the spatial void, slamming face-first onto the polished marble floor. His clothes were torn, his face was pale as chalk, and bloody foam bubbled from his lips.

Damon leaped out of his chair, his chair flipping backward onto the rug. "What happened?! Where is his head?!"

The assassin dragged himself across the floor, grabbing the hem of Damon's silk robes with a bloodied hand. His entire body trembled violently, his teeth chattering so hard they sounded like rattling dice.

"Young Master..." the assassin gasped, his breath coming in ragged, terrified hitches. "It failed... all of it failed..."

"What failed?!" Damon screamed, grabbing the assassin by his collar and lifting him off the floor. "He was a cripple with no core! Did you kill him or not?!"

The assassin looked directly into Damon's eyes, his pupils wide with unadulterated nightmare.

"Impossible," the survivor whispered, his voice trembling so hard it was barely audible. "It's... impossible."

Damon’s face went completely white with fear, the blood draining from his lips as he stared at his fleeing operative.

"Speak, you useless dog!" Damon shrieked, shaking the man violently. "What did he do?!"

The assassin didn't answer. His head rolled back as he fainted from sheer psychological shock, his limp body slipping from Damon's grasp and hitting the floor with a dull thud.

Jessica gasped, pulling her skirts away from the unconscious man, her face pale with horror.

Damon stood frozen over the fallen killer, his breathing fast and shallow. His right hand trembled uncontrollably as he stared at the dark entrance leading down to the dungeons.

Before Damon could summon the guards, the heavy wooden doors of his study creaked open.

Elder Vane rushed into the room, holding an official parchment sealed with a glowing, royal gold wax stamp. His expression was grimmer than death itself.

"Damon, stop whatever you are doing right now," Vane said, his voice trembling with panic.

"What is it now?!" Damon yelled, his voice cracking under the intense strain.

Vane held up the parchment, reading the dark red text written across the top. "The Imperial Sect Inspector just arrived at the front gates. They aren't here for the succession trial. They have issued an immediate, binding summons for Lancelot to appear before the Imperial Court."