Chapter 138: Standoff
Emma and Jessica pushed forward with the newly rescued captives at speed, and despite the swelling numbers, the formation held steady. Emma took point, with Lucas, Peter, Carpenter, and Barbara forming a combat cluster close behind her. Behind them came Professor Damire and the students just freed from the beastmen, flanked by two more combat clusters covering the sides and rear, Jessica bringing up the back.
Chaotic as it looked, none of them had forgotten Evan's teaching — lessons hammered in through real experience, and every one of them still had their nerves stretched tight from the fighting behind them.
The lead group came to a sudden stop. Damire heard Emma call out sharply, "Who's there?" A light globe rose into the air almost in the same breath, and a half-dome of yellow light snapped into place around the group. Whoever was out there had clearly been caught off guard too — a thief collided straight into the yellow barrier, his form flickering into visibility, short blade in hand. He froze for a moment, stumbled back, and began to fade — too late. Barbara already had a fireball ready, her wand pointed, sending it after him. He hurled his blade at the incoming fire, catching it dead center — the explosion sent him tumbling backward through the air.
He'd barely had time to feel relief at surviving that when a bolt of lightning flared to life, a crackling arc slamming into him mid-chant, convulsing his body before he collapsed. Peter caught him with a Wind Bind, dragging him in close. Emma flung out her hand, and a chain of fireballs erupted — not aimed at the fallen thief, but at whoever stood opposite them, where a Wind Blade had already flared up to meet the flames, the two colliding in a burst of light bright enough to fill the whole clearing.
The exchange came fast, one blow after another, lightning-quick — before the enemy could get their bearings, one of their own had already fallen into Emma's group's hands. Damire's students surged forward. "Take him alive!" Emma called out.
The moment they'd moved, the other two combat clusters flared with the same yellow light, quickly linking together, spells of every color flashing out to meet the enemy. The other side had clearly come prepared, even sending someone ahead to strike first — but Emma's group had reacted with a speed no one expected, catching them entirely off guard. They only managed two or three fireballs in retaliation, weak and scattered, most of their mages too busy shielding themselves to fight back properly, while their knights stood ready with blades already gleaming.
"Stop!" Emma called out. She could see the enemy had lost the ability to press an attack for the moment, though her own side's strikes hadn't landed with much force either — and with a hostage in hand now, calling a halt made sense.
Both sides froze at once, only the protective wards still shimmering in the dark. The captured thief lay under Damire's blade, still twitching, clearly not yet recovered from the shock.
"Who are you, and why did you ambush us?" Emma's tone carried no warmth at all. If not for two days of Evan's drilling, they'd have suffered real casualties tonight, and the thought alone made her voice go cold. She flicked her hand, sending a signal flare shooting into the sky.
The party facing them belonged to Viscount Modi, who'd tracked them here — five mages, two apprentices, over a dozen knights, three thieves. A genuinely formidable force, and though light on mages, its composition was far more balanced than Evan's own group, which was made up entirely of spellcasters, strong at range but vulnerable up close. Mages couldn't always break through a knight's defenses either, and once a knight closed the distance, it spelled disaster for any mage caught without cover — barring one built for dual cultivation, like Evan himself, and none of this group carried that gift.
"A misunderstanding — purely a misunderstanding, honored mages," Viscount Modi said, bowing gracefully. "We're an expedition exploring this half-plane. We heard the sounds of battle nearby and rushed over through the dark, only to run into you by accident. I'm Viscount Modi. All a simple mistake."
"You're the ones who ambushed us earlier?" Professor Damire asked.
"No, no — you're mistaken. We've only been in this half-plane for about two days. How could we have ambushed you? We've been out here capturing beastman slaves in this jungle. This is the first we've seen of you — you're mistaken," Viscount Modi said, shaking his head, sparing Corey a brief glance out of the corner of his eye. He understood well enough what was happening — since he genuinely hadn't done the ambushing himself, he could tell himself he wasn't lying, whatever the truth about whether he knew the people who had. A smile settled on his face. Whatever he said, it wasn't technically a lie — and besides, a few of these lady mages were rather lovely. As slaves, they'd fetch quite a price.
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"Why come here at all, then? There aren't any beastman slaves in this direction," Emma pressed, stalling deliberately for time, waiting on Evan. As an Arcanist — a necromancer especially — his skeletons alone could go a long way toward evening the odds.
"We entered this half-plane because a captured beastman slave told us there was a false god's temple hidden inside. All I want is wealth — the ring of gold coins, what a lovely sound. As for the rest, my mage assistant can explain," Viscount Modi said, offering another graceful bow.
Every eye turned to Corey. He gave a cold, private laugh, though outwardly he offered a mage's bow with a pleasant smile. "Honored colleagues, I can vouch as a fellow mage that the Viscount speaks the truth. We came here for the beastmen in this jungle — the new continent has a desperate need for labor — though I'd heard, several years back, of a half-plane belonging to a false god somewhere in this region. Someone claimed to have entered it once, though without a precise location, so I never pursued it myself. Traveling with Viscount Modi, I heard the same rumor again, and it seems likely this is that very place. If this truly is a false god's half-plane, the significance for any mage would be enormous."
The words didn't fully dispel Emma's suspicions, but they did wear some of the edge off — everything he'd said checked out against what the real beastmen had told them, given that a group had genuinely entered this place three years earlier and been eaten for their trouble. The account sounded true, and carried real sincerity in its delivery.
Emma offered a small curtsy. "If it's all a misunderstanding, then step aside and let us pass."
Corey smiled. "Of course."
He turned and gave Viscount Modi a subtle look. The viscount understood at once, thinking privately with contempt: academy people, still too green for this game. Once they'd closed to knight-striking range, they wouldn't have a choice in the matter.
He gestured for his knights to fall back to either side, signaling quietly at the same time, and without a word spoken aloud, the knights and mages fell naturally into an attack formation.
As for the captured thief — his fate was his own concern now. For the greater goal, anyone was expendable.
Emma had just started forward when Evan's voice reached her mind. Don't move. There's a trap. She froze at once. Evan stepped out from the trees. "You've cleared the path — though isn't this distance a little close for comfort?"
Evan had arrived some time earlier, keeping himself out of sight. Xiaoshuang murmured quietly at his ear. "That one reeks of lies."
She meant Corey. Something clicked into place for Evan, and he studied their formation more closely. Nobody else might have caught it, but Evan had spent time embedded in an army once, and he read the setup instantly — the knights stood coiled and ready to spring, and though the gap looked wide enough for ordinary people, a knight could close it in a second or two flat. If they'd meant to act, the students would never have seen it coming. Behind the knights, the mages had pulled back to a safe distance while staying close enough to support them, and two thieves had slipped backward into the darkness, vanishing from sight entirely — visible to Evan only because his faint sight was open. All of it added up to exactly one thing: a trap.
The moment Evan spoke those words aloud, Corey startled visibly. Looking closer at Evan's face, something tugged at his memory — a moment's thought, and it clicked: Evan Wang, the man the Gonuo Society had been hunting for so long. His expression shifted at once. In the dim light, even with Emma's light globe still glowing, nothing showed as clearly as daylight would have — no one else noticed the change, but Evan, with his faint sight active, caught every flicker of it.
Corey's brow furrowed slightly. He seemed to recognize Evan, and yet had no memory of ever meeting him — which meant only one thing: he'd seen a likeness of him somewhere. In a world where magic existed, magical imaging could recreate a face with striking accuracy. Evan's mind ran quickly through the organizations that might hold his likeness — two assassin guilds, the Silver Hand and the Harpist's Alliance, might have a portrait of him, though it seemed unlikely. The Church kept its own likenesses, but they typically sent divine-art practitioners for that kind of work, and nothing here suggested that — this was a false god's half-plane, after all, and if the Church had found it, they'd have mobilized far more than this.
That left only one group — the one that had come after him again and again. "So the Gonuo Society's reach extends even to the Barbarian Continent," Evan said mildly. "Something tells me slave-catching isn't the whole story here."
The words landed on Corey like a thunderclap, and even Emma and the others froze at hearing them. Corey spat out, venomous, "Evan Wang. Sharp of you. How did you know it was us?"
"I guessed," Evan said flatly. The answer nearly made Corey jump — he'd assumed Evan had recognized him for certain, spoken with such confidence, only to learn it had been a guess all along.
"Lord Evan Wang. Do you really think you'll walk away from this today?" Corey said through gritted teeth, eyes locked on Evan.
Evan smiled faintly, his body flickering. Steel rang, and the blade in his cane flared with white light stretching a dozen cubits, faster than lightning. A scream cut through the air — twenty paces from where Evan stood, a thief materialized abruptly, Evan's blade already buried in his gut. Evan gave the blade a twist, flickered again, and reappeared exactly where he'd started.
"I hate people who sneak around," Evan said.