2026-03-02 21:39:04
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Chapter 452
Mira looked at the ash one more time. Then forward.Beatrice crouched slightly, looking at the grey on the ground. "They were clones." She said. "All of them."Caius crouched beside her, touched the ash, rubbed it between two fingers. "Flame clones. Yeah." He stood up. "Which means the real one is somewhere nearby.""So where is he?" The defence captain said, looking around the clearing."Had to be watching." Asta said. "Staying back. Keeping himself out of it."Everyone went quiet for a moment.The tree line. The undergrowth. The spaces between the roots where the dark was thickest.Then, from the right side, maybe twenty feet into the bushes, the sound of something moving. Low and careful and almost quiet. Almost."There.” Beatrice said.Her bow was up before anyone else had turned all the way.“"Flame Arc Technique — Binding Web."”The arrow left the string and fanned, splitting into a wide net of burning threads, spreading fast and dropping over the area of movement in o
Chapter 451
The voice came from the far side of the remaining group. Taller than the others, standing a little ahead of them, the bearing of someone who was used to people listening to him in rooms like this. His hands were raised and his eyes were fixed on her and the expression on his face had gone past regular frustration into the specific place that people reach when they are being coached during a fight."Shut your mouth and FIGHT!"Mira looked at him.She stood completely still for a moment.Then she closed her eyes.She breathed in through her nose. Held it #!£ then breathed out.When her eyes opened, she stepped sideways.And kept stepping.Except the original Mira stopped.And the one that kept walking didn't.The clone separated from her cleanly, same height, same build, same twin sabers burning steady at its sides, same posture, same expression and stepped forward into the space between Mira and the remaining group, coming to a stop directly in front of the tall man who had been yelli
Chapter 450:Clones and Ashes
The circle had not moved yet.Twelve men in black cloaks standing in a tight ring around the two of them, close enough that Asta could see the heat shimmer coming off their hands in the cold night air. Nobody had launched anything. Nobody had spoken since the whistle. They were doing what people do when they want the numbers to do the talking before anyone has to move a foot, just standing there, letting the math of twelve against two settle into the space between them like a wall.Mira looked around at all of them slowly.One side. The other side. All the way around.Then she looked at Asta.The smirk hadn't left her face since the moment they appeared. If anything it had gotten a little wider."There's twelve of them." She said, the same tone she would use to comment on the temperature."Yeah." Asta said. "I can see that.""Just twelve." She said again."I counted them.""Right." She rolled one saber slowly in her right wrist, the flame blade turning lazy circles in the dark.
Chapter 449
One clean cut, diagonal, across the binding that held the basket sealed and the flame solid material split along the cut line with a sharp crack that echoed through the trees."Jabber!"From below, almost before the word had finished leaving his mouth. "Already on it."The flame shield came up from the ground,wide, cupped, angled perfectly and the basket fell into it, not crashing, just settling, the broken seal falling away as Jabber brought it steady and slow and set it down beside him on the ground with the careful hands of someone carrying something that couldn't afford to be dropped.Asta dropped from the branch and landed beside him.They looked at each other for one second.Then Mira was there, already reaching for the broken seam of the basket, pulling the edges apart, the flame material dissolving at her hands as she worked it open.The basket opened.Fifteen children.Pressed together in the center of it, some sitting, some curled against each other, all of them in the cond
Chapter 448
Then the side of her mouth moved. Just slightly."I won't kill you." She said. "You're too useful to me." She looked at him for one more beat. "Don't do it again."Gull exhaled.The exhale was quiet and controlled and the relief in it was absolutely genuine.He stepped back to his position.Dero looked at the men still kneeling on the ground."Is there a bed somewhere in this place?" She said. Not specifically to anyone. "Somewhere I can rest and recover my strength."Two or three of the kneeling figures began to speak at the same time.She held up one hand.They stopped.She looked at the competing voices, then at the ceiling, then back down."You know what.”She said. "Never mind. I'll find it myself."She turned.And then she looked at Web.The look she gave him was different from anything else she had produced in the last hour. It was slower. And warmer. In a way that was not entirely comfortable."Web.” she said.Web looked at her."Would you mind accompanying me?" She s
Chapter 447
"I genuinely didn't think he would die from that." She looked around at all of them with something approaching mild surprise. "Anyone else? Don't be shy. Come on. You can say it out loud or you can mutter it to yourself,your choice. Either way I'll hear it."Complete silence.Not one person moved.Not one person appeared to even be breathing in a way that could be considered voluntary.Dero looked at them all for one more moment, then straightened up.……………………."She can hear human thought."Kyx said it quietly, from just behind Dero's right shoulder. Not alarmed, Kyx didn't really do alarmed. Just stating it, the way you state a fact that you want on record."Yes." Gull said immediately, from the left.Web turned and looked at Gull. "How?"Gull looked at Web with the specific expression of someone who has been asked to explain something technical to someone they are not sure will fully appreciate the explanation."She has a built-in flame technique." He said. "Passive. Always ac
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