All of a sudden the three of them stopped outside of a store, hardly even a moment later, their vision was lost in a white flash. The ground shook and there was an ear numbing explosion. When their vision returned, there was nothing but a steep dirt slope in front of them. Ardonis was drained of his mana in practically an instant, along with Viana who was slouched by his side. The pinkish galaxy barrier around them dissipating. Lucy looked with wide and confused eyes.

  The entire area around them was gone, there was no more town, instead, they found themselves in the center of a massive crater with water pouring in from one side. She knew this wasn’t a time for questions though as the water was pouring quickly and would reach them in a matter of seconds. She quickly chanted an arcane spell, lifted the other two up, and jumped high into the air. Far above the wall of the crater. Another quick incantation and they landed on an invisible platform that she made.

  “Everything is just gone…” she whispered in shock as she looked below. “How? What happened?”

  “I think you… already know… the answer to that,” Viana said as she caught her breath.

  “Milsa,” Ardonis said with dark anger.

  Viana nodded, “She’s the only one who could pull such a thing off.”

  “We discovered she wasn’t who we thought, but this?” Ardonis asked as he stood up. “Destroying an entire town out of nowhere?”

  “It was clear who the targets were,” Lucy chimed in, looking at the other two.

  Ardonis sighed, “So, chances are, she found out that not only did we free Viana, but about my power up. And if she hadn’t known about the second part, she certainly does now. She’ll be tracking us wherever we go. I mean, it’s quite obvious she was stopping us from going to find Eradis.”

  “I do want to make a slight correction,” Viana said. “Though yes, Milsa is the true culprit behind this, it wasn’t her who actually did it. I sensed their presence a moment too late, but this was the work of one of her angels.”

  “Angels?” Lucy asked, “I thought they served Celestial, not independent gods.”

  “The truth is that it is both, but these aren’t simply the angels as you know them,” Viana said. “It’s a double meaning, you see, they aren’t actually angels, but their cousins, the Valkyrja. Yes, they are also Odin’s creation derived from the angels in Celestial. However, they are just as widespread as the angels as well considering he made them over twelve billion years ago.”

  “So they aren’t merely Odin’s servants, but their own race of angel,” Ardonis chimed in. “I think I read about that somewhere before but I can’t recall what book it actually was. In any case, the important thing is that we now know it isn’t only Milsa we have to watch out for. For now, I think the best course of action would be for Viana and myself to refrain from using magic unless we absolutely have to. If my suspicion is correct, she only found out about us because Viana got released and we’ve already suspected that she found out about my power increase.”

  Viana nodded, “That seems like the best course of action to try and hide from her and her angels. Concealing our magic within ourselves takes a lot of control though, to a masterful degree. Are you sure you can do that with your now combined mana?”

  It was his turn to nod, “I believe so, if not then our efforts are in vain anyway, so I’m going to have to do it.” He turned to Lucy, “Which means all of it will be up to you as I don’t think she has a lock on your magic signature. Not like she does the two of us anyway.”

  “I mean… I’m using magic right now and nothing is happening, so we can only assume you are correct,” Lucy said. “Then again, we were just attacked so we can’t be entirely sure either. If that was meant to kill us, I am fairly sure that whoever did it would have taken a closer look just to be sure.”

  “Eh,” Viana said, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, part of why Milsa chose them is because they are as confident and prideful in their power as she is. That is to say, there is a good chance that the bitch just shot a powerful magic blast at us and called it a day. Thinking that there would be no way we could have survived.”

  Ardonis sighed, “It seems the only thing we do know is that Milsa is, or was, after us. Either way, the two of us suppressing our mana is a must just to hide our location if nothing else. With your power restricted as it is Lucy, I don’t think it is quite detectable like ours. Besides that, the other thing we need to figure out is how to get off of this continent and over to the next one. We could try another ship in another port town, but after what happened here… hidden or not I don’t want a repeat.”

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  “Then our only chance is a dragon,” Viana said. “Assuming they are still around and that one is willing to take us that is. The other problem with that is they are also a variation of Milsa’s angels. Not all of them of course, but the main faction is. So finding a dragon that not only won’t rat us out but will let their pride down enough to let us ride is slim.”

  “And unfortunately, I can’t simply teleport us there,” Lucy said. “Or even make a portal for that matter. With my current restrictions, I can’t just view the place and take us there, I would have to actually have visited before. Honestly, though, I think a dragon would be our best bet. I’m with Ardonis on not wanting a repeat if we go to another port town.”

  The two women looked at Ardonis and after thinking for a few minutes, he spoke, “Let’s go with the dragons. If we ended up ratted out, at least we wouldn’t have to feel that guilty about what would come next. There’s also that it would be much faster flying on a dragon than taking a ship to begin with. I would simply ask Lucy here to keep these platforms going until we reach the other continent. But the problem with that is-”

  “I don’t have even half the mana something like that would require. Even at full power, I think the furthest I would get is a little over halfway.”

  “Then the dragons it is,” Viana said. “I’m glad the three of us discussed this instead of blindly following a suggestion made by our leader.”

  Ardonis raised a brow, “I’m not conceited enough to believe I can come up with a foolproof plan. Besides that, we really don’t know much of our situation, so putting our heads together to come up with a way forward is the best thing we can do. And the both of us will be relying a bit on your advice Viana for such information about this planet. Even a king needs advisors to help him make certain decisions.”

  She smiled warmly at him, “Good, that’s exactly the answer I wanted to hear. Now then, if memory serves, the dragon factions should be on this continent. The farthest reaches of it towards the Edgelands.”

  “Then I say we get going, find and convince a dragon to give us a ride, find Eradis, then somehow either sneak off the planet or find a way to gain enough power to fight against Milsa,” Ardonis said. “That’s the general outline of the full plan at least.”

  “Then let’s get started on the first part of that,” Lucy said, “My mana is being eaten away by this platform so it would be best if we started moving unless we want to take a swim.”

  Ardonis and Viana nodded and Lucy led them down to the top of the massive crater by creating smaller step-like platforms. “I believe the only way to truly test out whether or not my magic is being tracked, we have to take the risk of me using it once we are out of here,” Lucy said. “It is just a matter of if it is worth the risk of attracting Milsa’s attention again.”

  “We won’t know until you try,” Ardonis said. “I don’t think it would be too risky, for now just don’t bother suppressing it like the two of us are doing.”

  She nodded, “I’m actually quite impressed, even looking closely I can barely make out the faintest mana signature on the two of you. I didn’t know you mastered it to this degree Ardonis, especially after your power up.”

  He shrugged, “A bit more challenging to keep down, but I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it. Besides, I’m partly just copying Viana with how she’s doing it.”

  “The fact that you can imitate it so well even though this is your first time seeing me suppress it is scary,” Viana said with a slight shudder. “God or not, you shouldn’t be able to just imitate a genie’s technique like that.”

  They continued talking as Viana took a slight lead to direct them. Taking on a quick, but casual pace. Before they realized it, the sun was already setting for the day, and only now decided to break for a bit, or rather, make camp for the night. The area was more forest-like before, only less dense with smaller trees.

  “You know,” Viana started as she made a firepit, “Once we get back to mortal civilization, we will have to at least pretend to be tired and exhausted from such journeys. Going at the pace we were with no break isn’t something they can do. Not unless they are extremely powerful, but by that point, they could hardly be called a mortal. The only other way is if they had artifacts, potions, trinkets, that sort of thing. But even those have limits.”

  “I mean…” Ardonis said, “I’m not exactly looking for attention, we were kind of already doing that anyway. But when it’s just us traveling, I don’t see why we should limit ourselves.”

  She shrugged indifferently, “I was just giving a heads-up, that’s all. We don’t need our cover broken because of carelessness like that.”

  “The two of you are fine,” Lucy said between breaths, “But the limiter is actually working against me here. I didn’t get a power boost like a certain someone. It is a lot harder to keep a pace like that up than I thought.”

  He raised a brow, “Then why didn’t you say anything? We would have taken a break sooner so you could catch your breath. It really wouldn’t have slowed us down much or anything.”

  “Because I have my pride you know, restricted or not, I’m still a goddess and should be able to do this much.”

  “But if you admitted that you were tired,” Viana said with a mischievous smirk, “You could have had Ardonis carry you in his arms.”

  Lucy opened her mouth to say something before she turned her head to the side and clicked her tongue, “Damn, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Now then, Ardonis, be a dear and gather some firewood for us, please. I wish we had a tent, but we don’t have one and I can’t magic one up in our current predicament,” Viana said.

  “That’s ironic, the genie wishing for something yet can’t grant her own wish,” he said as he got up. She glared at his grin.