The Return of the wilderness God

Secrets of the Capital

 

A man cannot speak when his blood is boiling from a magician's curse.

"Get away from him!" Valerie shouted, throwing herself backward as the purple light flared violently across the small room. "That is a high-tier execution brand! If you touch that energy, it will crawl straight up your arms and liquefy your internal organs!"

Ethan did not move away. Instead, he slammed his right palm flat against his uncle's burning chest, his expression completely blank. "Be quiet and hold the light steady."

"Are you completely mad?" Valerie pressed her back against the wooden door, her hands shaking as she pulled out a glowing alchemical stone to light the dark cellar. "You cannot counter an imperial silencing curse with physical force! It is woven into his life force!"

"It is just an aggressive knot of foreign energy," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a low, focused tone. "If you press the correct meridian points around the throat, you can isolate the flow before it reaches the brain. My second mentor made me practice this on poisoned hunting hounds every single night for three years."

"Dogs are not humans!" Valerie yelled.

"The anatomy is surprisingly similar when it comes to energy channels," Ethan muttered.

He drove two fingers sharply into Craig's collarbone, then slid his thumb up toward the base of the older man's jaw. A dense, cold wave of spiritual pressure erupted from Ethan's hand, forcing its way underneath the sizzling purple brand. The burning smell filled the cellar, but Craig's violent twitching suddenly stopped. The glowing eye symbol beneath the skin began to fade, turning into a dull, harmless grey scar.

Craig let out a long, shuddering breath and collapsed back onto the pillow, his eyes closing as he fell into a deep, natural sleep.

"His life force is stable now," Ethan said, wiping a line of black sweat from his uncle's forehead. "The curse is asleep. He will live."

Valerie stepped closer, her eyes staring at Ethan's hands as if he had just performed a miracle. "You just suppressed a divine silencing brand with simple physical pressure. Do you have any idea what you are? The royal mages spend hours chanting complex counter-spells just to dissolve a minor hex."

"They waste too much time talking," Ethan said, standing up and pulling his cloak over his shoulders. "I am leaving for the capital now. The trail is getting cold."

"You cannot just walk into the capital looking like a wild hunter," Valerie said, crossing her arms and blocking the ladder. "The city walls are guarded by three separate layers of magical scanners. The moment you step near the gates, your massive spiritual signature will trigger every alarm in the kingdom. You will be arrested before you can even ask where the prison is."

"Then I will climb the wall," Ethan replied simply.

"The walls are fifty feet high and coated in liquid silver that repels physical touch," Valerie countered, her voice sharp. "You need me, Ethan."

Ethan looked down at her, his dark eyes studying her face. "Why are you helping me? You are an academy scholar. Your life is comfortable. Why risk your neck for a stranger from a burned village?"

Valerie looked away, her fingers gripping the strap of her alchemical bag tightly. "Because the holy knights murdered my older brother three years ago. They claimed he died in an accident during an Abyss containment mission, but I found his research journals. He discovered that the high council was intentionally letting monsters breach the border towns to justify their high taxes and consolidate their power. I have been looking for an opportunity to infiltrate their inner archives for months, but I lacked the firepower to survive the attempt. You are that firepower."

"So you want to use me as a shield," Ethan said.

"I want to use you as a key, and in return, I will be your map," Valerie said, looking directly into his eyes with absolute determination. "I know the secret schedules of the guards. I know how to bypass the magic circles at the main gate. I can get us past the perimeter without a single alarm going off. Do we have a deal?"

Ethan stared at her for a long moment before nodding once. "We have a deal. How do we get inside?"

"First, we lose those wild clothes," Valerie said, tossing him a bundle of grey linen garments from her traveling pack. "Put these on. They are standard low-tier alchemist assistant robes. If anyone asks, you are my mute courier carrying raw ingredients from the rural districts."

An hour later, the two of them were walking along the main cobblestone highway leading toward the massive white stone walls of the capital. The towering structures loomed over the landscape like sleeping giants, their surfaces gleaming under the midday sun. Ethan walked half a step behind Valerie, his head lowered, but his hand remained firmly hidden beneath the long sleeve of his robe, gripping the hilt of the golden sun dagger he had recovered from his ruined home.

"Keep your head down and do not look the guards in the eye," Valerie whispered as they joined the long queue of merchants and peasants waiting at the western checkpoint. "The guards use a passive resonance stone to detect high levels of active sorcery. Since you do not use magic circles, you should pass right through as long as you keep your internal energy perfectly still."

"The stone they are using has a hairline fracture on the western side," Ethan murmured back, his eyes catching a tiny flaw in the large blue crystal hanging above the gatehouse. "If I tap my foot against the ground at the right frequency, I can shatter that entire detection grid from here."

"Do not touch anything!" Valerie hissed under her breath, her face turning pale. "Just walk normally."

They stepped up to the primary iron gate. A guard armor-clad in silver plate glanced at Valerie's academic badge, gave a bored nod, and waved them through the heavy archway.

"See?" Valerie whispered, letting out a sigh of relief as they cleared the internal threshold. "Total stealth. They have no idea who you are."

As they took their first steps into the bustling outer plaza of the capital city, a deep, grinding sound vibrated through the earth beneath their boots.

Ethan stopped dead in his tracks.

In the absolute center of the metropolis, a massive stone tower shaped like an ancient telescope began to rotate with terrifying speed. The heavy metal rings of the great astrology tower groaned, spinning against each other as bright silver beams of light shot from the apex, slicing through the clouds before snapping down to point their glowing cosmic dial directly at Ethan's head.