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It began fairly slowly, with a subtle but noticeable shift in the way that magic flowed through the valley. Where it was only moments before natural and chaotic, as the wards in the outer walls activated in earnest, the magic within the valley was leashed and directed, creating artificial flows that directed power into the wards.

There was a tremendous amount of ambient power in the Nexus thanks to the proximity of the universe’s Origin Spark, and having four eleventh-tier mages around certainly helped, so the ward scheme for the walls, despite the length of the structure, wasn’t that limited by available power. Leon had to admit that after an inspection of the walls only a few hours beforehand, he was impressed with what had been wrought. Though he was hardly one to relish making like a turtle and hiding behind a shell, he had to admit that these fortifications made for a terrifyingly sturdy shell.

As more and more of the wards activated, the one key ward that he was waiting for finally started receiving power. Rather quickly, mist gathered in the gaps between the mountains, obscuring the sky beyond. This mist thickened and expanded, rapidly moving to enshroud the barrier mountains until they disappeared from view down to about the halfway point. On the other side of the mountains, meanwhile, the newly conjured mist continued farther, reaching the foot of the mountains and continuing into the plains to the south and east, and further into the mountains to the west and north.

Half an hour after the wards began to activate, a new misty veil had appeared all around the Artor Valley nearly two miles thick.

Leon grinned at the sight. It was a complex issue to ensure that the plants and natural wildlife of the mountains remained unaffected, but his nature mages were some of the best, especially after having Tikos around to learn from. But the mist, as it had for Kataigida for thousands of years, protected the Artor Valley. Humans and arks in the mist would be disoriented and magically turned around, while everything designated as friendly by the wards would be unaffected.

If everything worked correctly, Leon’s Lances in the towers would be perfectly able to see what was around them, while any hostiles in the mist wouldn’t—an undeniable advantage. Of course, this misty veil was stronger than what lay around Kataigida, but the complexity of the strengthened enchantment had required a number of wisps and several giants to maintain. This gave the misty veil a more active quality that allowed the beasts within the mountains to continue about their lives relatively unaffected, while any war beasts brought against the valley would be just as disoriented as their human riders.

As impressed as he was with what had been accomplished in only six months, Leon still feared whether or not it would be enough. He doubted even this strengthened enchantment would stand against a fifteenth-tier mage, as the Ocean King was, and even if the Ocean King himself wasn’t present, any powerful mage within this expedition might have the means to bypass the valley’s defenses.

’Mist is water, isn’t it?’ he drily noted as he flexed his aura, causing clouds to form above the mist even higher up. ‘Nothing is a guarantee…’

Some distance away, one of the mostly-repaired heavy cruisers took flight from a basic arkpad and steered into the mist. The veil had been rigorously tested already, but it would never be clear how well it worked until something flew into it.

So, taking his cue from the ark, Leon also floated into the sky, transforming into his Thunderbird form as he did. He went alone, the rest of his entourage waiting for him on the southern Talon fortress.

A few wingbeats had him matching the heavy cruiser’s trajectory, though a few hundred feet behind and above. He could feel the thrum of its magic engines resonate in his expanded avian chest and the disturbance of ambient magic in its wake. The heavy cruiser’s prow penetrated the mist and the ark cut right through, Leon passing by a moment later.

Having expected a novel experience, he wasn’t disappointed. As soon as his form entered the mist, all awareness of the world around him vanished. His magic senses were scattered as soon as they were projected from his body, leaving him entirely reliant on his physical senses, and the mist even messed with those.

All he could see around himself was white, like he was in the middle of a dense cloud. Even the ark he was following was lost to him; he could still feel the engines in action, but the feeling was lessening, indicating that he and the ark were parting ways. Aside from his eyes, the interior of the veil was almost entirely silent, without even the whistling of wind or the cries of beasts below.

More distressing than either his sight or hearing was the way the misty veil played havoc with his sense of balance—he could barely tell which way was up anymore, and he felt like he started spinning as soon as he entered the veil, leaving him utterly lost within the veil.

He attempted to get some kind of orientation, but no matter how hard he pushed his magic senses or how hard he tried to right himself, he simply couldn’t get a good idea of his surroundings or where he was flying. Even trying to use wind magic to hover in place was out of the question as his magic was disturbed when he tried to use it. He estimated that he could still use his lightning or fire given his greater skill with the elements, but wind or water was out of the question.

Though, from what he felt, greater skill with water magic might not aid him given how hard it was to control his magic within the veil. Were it much thinner, a water mage could brute force their way through, but the veil was to be several miles thick, encompassing the entire line of mountains around the Artor Valley; it would take a special mage to get through, to be sure.

Satisfied that the veil would work on most mages, Leon decided to test something that only he and three others could: origin power.

He called upon that densest of energies and used it to fuel a burst of elementless magic, and to his mild dismay, the veil around him was pushed back several feet and he regained some measure of balance—he realized he was flying directly up, and he swiftly leveled out.

Several more times he used this origin power burst and then tested a few lightning attacks. His dismay lessened every time, as he realized it would require an inordinate amount of origin power to cut through a meaningful amount of mist, leaving it rather unsustainable for an eleventh-tier mage on their own, at least.

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His tests with lightning magic were more mixed, as while the veil didn’t do much to directly stop his power, the way it messed with his senses prevented efficient use of magic.

When he was finished, he was satisfied that the misty veil would prove a formidable defense against attackers, though it would not be the only one that needed testing. He did a pre-arranged signal, performing five consecutive barrel rolls, and a moment later, all effects the misty veil had upon him ceased, returning his sense of balance and hearing. He was still in the middle of the mist so his sight was limited, but when he pulsed his magic senses, the mist didn’t hinder him.

Using blood magic, the veil could key into specific people to refrain from affecting them. Leon had given a drop of blood to his mages to be stored in the southern Talon, where along with a few hundred other blood samples, it would be placed at one of the loci of the veil’s controlling enchantment. Now that his blood was reintegrated, the veil did not affect him.

With his ability to perceive the world around him returned, Leon flew downward and landed upon the wall close to one of the upgraded Lightning Lances incorporating Aurichalcum. The heavy cruiser was not far away, having stopped in mid-air, neither advancing nor retreating. It appeared that the veil was working, as the ark captain had standing orders to retreat if the veil had no effect upon his vessel.

There Leon stood, perched on the wall, observing the tests and quietly toying with the idea of heading to the heavy cruiser to see what was happening on the bridge when the next test began: several hundred boulders were launched thousands of feet into the air, the launches staggering so that not all were launched at the same time.

The Lances around the wall immediately started firing their bolts. Most of them were Lightning Lances, but Leon could see several enormous Flame Lances closer to the Talons open up, too, firing enormous balls of fire into the air. Few of the Lances missed their first shots, and fewer still their second. A few of the boulders first launched into the air hit the ground intact, but after the second wave, their numbers shrank.

Leon notionally smiled, his avian eyes at least narrowing slightly even though his beak couldn’t bend. It seemed that his Lance operators could still work their weapons even with the misty veil around them. He was especially pleased with the upgraded Lances, as they performed magnificently, their bolts flying unerringly and obliterating their targeted boulders with an efficiency that the other Lances lacked. While all boulders hit by Lightning Lances were rendered fine sand from the energy, Leon could tell from the shockwaves that spread through the mist that the upgraded Lances hit with considerably more power.

With a sigh, Leon took off again, intent on returning to the southern Talon. While he wasn’t completely convinced that the Artor Valley was untouchable, he was at least far more confident about their chances now that he’d seen this take place.

Now, the only thing that weighed upon his mind was just what in the hells the Ocean King’s forces were doing out in the water. Days had passed since their envoy had declared war, and yet they remained far away from shore, as if waiting for something.

Whatever that something was, Leon was sure it spelled awful news for him…

---

The leading ark of the Ocean King’s punitive expedition was almost more palace than war ark. It was an immense creation, though it was no more heavily armed or armored than the light carriers in the water beside it. What it had far more of, however, were command rooms and meeting halls, the latter of which was packed with dignitaries about to receive guests.

Terris grinned from his throne as he looked around at all the men and women assembled before him. The finest warriors in his Despotate, including four of his Strategoi, were with him, representing the best of the best that he could offer. His military was much greater in number than what he’d assembled, but given his intelligence held that these upstarts in the buffer zone had four Strategos-level mages, he thought that bringing a smaller, but stronger on-average detachment would be more prudent.

Besides, with the Ocean King’s attention far to the west, he was wary about starting too much even in the western Storm Lands. After all, though the Lightning Anakes were focused more on the east and the struggle to determine the next Storm King, any one of them could intervene and show that they were the rightful Storm King, not another Anax.

Of course, Terris had no doubt that the Ocean King, mighty as all the oceans of the Nexus combined, would win that war, but his concerns lay with avenging the depravities of the Mountain King’s recent raids, not with some wannabe Storm King. So starting a war on the King’s Ocean’s eastern front while Ocean King Ahndhas was preoccupied in the west would be punished, not rewarded.

Still, Terris’ heart beat with greed at the thought of not only exerting his power and piling the glory of a successful campaign upon himself, but also gaining access to all that Titanstone that the newcomers had so graciously located for him.

Wealth like that would turn the head of even King Ahndhas, and might even see Terris given a better Despotate to govern, if only he could secure it without starting a war with all the Storm Lands…

The doors soon opened and their guests were shown in. Though the ark was hundreds of feet below the water’s surface, none of the half-dozen mages who entered the meeting hall were even slightly damp. They were led by a severe-looking eighth-tier blond woman dressed in white, loose-fitting robes. Around her neck were three pendants, while the signet ring upon her finger that denoted her rank in the culture of the Storm Lands was primarily made of Lumenite.

This woman, despite the titanic gulf of power between her and the twelfth-tier Terria, confidently strode to the platform in front of his throne and stood there, defiant in the face of his overwhelming aura.

No words were said, the silence that followed the woman’s introduction stretching for several seconds.

Terris eventually stated, “Bold as a minnow stealing the prey of a shark. Tell me, woman, have you found a husband yet?”

Without missing a beat, the woman answered in a cold tone that sent a pleasurable shiver down Terris’ spine, “What is your purpose in assembling such a force off the coast of the Storm Lands?”

Terris scoffed. “Right to business? I’ve seen stagnant lakes more playful. Given how lately you arrived, I would’ve thought you weren’t in such a hurry, but apparently, you are as the waters of the river Hasder: rushing.”

One of Terris’ Strategoi angrily added, “We could’ve drowned these newcomers already, and swept their pathetic city into the sea, if you’d only arrived on time!”

Dismissively, the woman replied, “Neither the Storm Lords nor the Iron Orders are yours to command.”

“Heh,” that same Strategos responded, “perhaps next time we’ll skip the courtesy and bring the seas to you. We are not limited by the tides, and recede only when we desire…”

“Enough,” Terris ordered, and though he still gave their guest a condescending look, he at least shut his mouth. “The ice of Glacius is warmer than you, woman; it wouldn’t hurt you to smile. But no matter, your Lords Kamran, Halbast, Adrasis, and Jensis are held in esteem by gobies and whales alike; I can forgive the curtness of a single envoy. Now, don’t pretend that you don’t know why we’re here; what has your master decided, woman?”

The woman’s cold glare landed upon him, and she declared, “The honorable Strategos Djoser, as both Lord of Ishtorpor and Captain of the Third Iron Order, has decreed that so long as your arks do not violate the boundaries we have long agreed upon, then he sees no reason to interfere!”

Terris grinned. If Djoser would not get involved, then that meant that Archelaus was washing his hands of this business, too—though Terris hadn’t expected Archelaus to intervene, given how little the man seemed to care about anything at all. Regardless, the Storm Lords were clearly of a mind to only watch his actions in the border zone, and not interfere.

“Take my good wishes back to your lands, woman,” Terris stated, thusly dismissing his guests.

He waited not a moment longer than he had to in ordering his arks to begin their work. Waiting for this guarantee had already cost them time, but in the end, it wouldn’t matter. These newcomers couldn’t stop the tides no matter how they prepared, and now a hurricane had come to show them the folly of building in forbidden land…