Legacy of the Dark Sage

Going back an hour ago, after Kyran warped Osric and Tritus away and the latter two started their fight, their fierce battle took them a few kilometers closer to the border entering Meliora City.

It was unknown if Kyran warped the two near the border because it was close to the Boyd's Villa, where they imprisoned Neo. But one thing was sure; he had never been to or seen the villa.

In any case, due to the fierce battle between Osric and Tritus, they had already arrived at the Boyd Family's Villa.

The first to have arrived at the villa's periphery were the two sea serpents. Initially, the bluish-white sea serpent dominated the battle, but soon, the bluish-green sea serpent slowly turned the tables.

Such a turn of events was not surprising if the former knew the latter's abilities. The truth, the bluish-green sea serpent had the ability to grow stronger as time went by. Its strength increased the more it fought. Apart from this, as soon as it got the advantage, it would slowly drain its opponent's magic energy, weakening it in the process.

That was the situation of the bluish-white sea serpent as their fight dragged on. In the end, it tried to escape toward the Boyd Family's Villa. After all, it knew that there was a defensive array there that could protect it from the bluish-green sea serpent.

Unfortunately for the bluish-white sea serpent, it did not anticipate that the bluish-green sea serpent had the ability to ignore the array's restriction and entered along with the former.

When the bluish-green sea serpent rammed into the bluish-white sea serpent, they slammed into the main house, destroying it. The shockwave that followed penetrated the underground area where the darkroom was located.

Sensing that the Boyd Family's Villa was in a bad situation, Osric tried to shake off Tritus's pursuit to return. However, Tritus managed to keep up with Osric's speed despite the level gap between the two.

It should be noted that although there was only one level between an Arch Magus and a Legendary mage, the bridge between them was almost worlds apart.

There were three reasons behind this. First, their accumulated battle experience. The second was their magic energy capacity. And lastly, was the difference between their magic knowledge.

Tritus managed to keep up with Osric because the first two reasons did not disadvantage him. It meant that the former's battle experience was not inferior to the latter. As for the magic energy capacity, it was something that the former could not bridge easily. But with the Sigil's effect in play, Tritus did not have to keep track of his magic energy consumption.

As for the third reason, Tritus was certainly lacking. Although he studied a lot about Water magic, there were spells, incantations, and rune writings that he did not know. It was the limitations of his level and magic understanding.

Kyran knew this, which was why he told Tritus to absorb as much experience as he could with Osric. He believed that the only way for Tritus to advance was to absorb every magic knowledge Osric possessed.

There were two ways to do this. The first one was Tritus had to continue fighting Osric, observe every magic attack he unleashed, and take it upon himself. Doing so was tedious, and there was the possibility that Tritus's body could not hold on. But the latter had no problem with the latter as long as he was within range of Kyran.

With the Sigil's effect, any wound his body accumulated would heal quickly.

At the moment, he was still within Kyran's range, so it was still alright. However, he knew that once they neared the Boyd's Family Villa, the benefits he received from the Sigil would no longer be in effect. For this reason, he had to stop Osric from leaving the range of the Sigil's effect.

Otherwise, he could only resort to the second way: kill Osric and use Dark Arts to absorb his magic core.

The second way was risky because, as Caelan once told Kyran, magic cores did not hold the magic experiences of the mage only but also the emotions and even some of their memories.

If Tritus chose the second way, there was a huge chance that Osric's memories would sabotage him every time he used his magic.

Nevertheless, there was a way for Tritus to absorb Osric's magic core without going through such risk. But Kyran was the only one who could do this. Apart from this, even if Kyran knew how to do it if Tritus was not the one who killed Osric, it was impossible for him to do anything.

It was quite unfortunate that Tritus did not have the same ability as the bluish-green sea serpent. If he did, he would have long turned the tables against Osric and not only kept their battle in a stalemate— neither one could gain a huge advantage.

Moving to the matter of the blinding light, Kyran was the one who summoned it.

After confirming the location of the Boyd Family's Villa from the bluish-green sea serpent, he immediately attacked using the Light magic he learned from Light.

As for the matter of how Kyran knew the location of the bluish-green sea serpent, the latter was actually communicating with him.

That was right.

The bluish-green sea serpent recognized Kyran as the new Void Master and had opened up to him. One could say that he recognized Kyran as its master instead of Tritus. But since Tritus was more compatible with using the golden trident that served the bluish-green sea serpent's body, it had no choice but to let Tritus use it in battle.

In any case, they had an agreement, and after Tritus became Kyran's Sigil, the bluish-green sea serpent had been more agreeable.

Moving to the attack that came from the north of the Boyd Family's Villa, the ones who did this were none other than Styx, Dante, Owen and Hamish, and the rest of the mercenaries with them.

How they arrived there was all thanks to Stella. She used her magic— without Malek's knowledge because he was busy assisting the evacuation of the Regis Clan— and discovered where Kyran, Myst, and Raya planned to go. She then advised Styx and Dante of the location and to find a way to save Neo.

Initially, Stella did not want to interfere with Kyran's plans. However, she discovered a very bad outcome after using her magic to look into the future.

Matters about Time, and interfering with it never had a good outcome. The Fates were always watching, and they would notice even a small change in the flow of the events in every person's path. When something like this happened, they would punish the person who instigated the change. This was what happened to Sovereigns who meddled with the affairs of their original plane.

But Stella seemed not to be affected by the Fates' punishment. The only explanation she knew was that her Time magic was Ancient magic. Besides, those who tried to imitate what Time magic could do usually performed Dark Arts. It was a forced effect and was not a natural occurrence. Or at least, as natural as it gets— because her innate magic is Time magic.

When Styx and Dante received the news, they used a transmission scroll and directly appeared within the Meliora border. After that, they sneaked their way to the Boyd Family's Villa.

At first, they planned to sneak attack the villa, but after witnessing the two sea serpents fighting inside, they decided to launch a frontal pre-emptive attack.

With the unexpected turn of events between the two sea serpents' fight and two pre-emptive attacks, the Boyd Family was instantly thrown into a dire situation.

The blinding light that attacked from above was too abnormal, slowly destroying the villa's defensive array.

Nevertheless, a few Boyd family members could do nothing but endure the Light magic's attack, while the rest split up to either go after the escaping Tyr or intercept the perpetrators who attacked from the north.

The elders alerted their nearby allies to help them fend off their enemies as soon as possible. Because if they could not counter or stop them, the commotion would reach the other factions, and who knew what would happen if they discovered that the Crown Princess was there. Not to mention Disciple Tyr, whom they 'abducted.'

While the Boyd Family was in disarray, the meeting happening in Autumn Reach had far ended.

Olivia did not return to the north at once. Instead, she sets up a plan with Byron and Silas to catch the spy that the Boyd Family put inside the Aureole faction while also convincing Lauren to side with the Regis Clan when the time of war comes.

Of course, they were not saying they were hoping for a war to happen. As much as possible, they prefer the situation not to go to that point.

But even if a war did not happen, the Aureole still had to make a decision because every faction in the empire would be divided once news about a new 'Dark Sage' and 'Soul Emperor' reached them.