For the fifth time, Agnes had to intervene to stop Henry and Mark from saying something they couldn't take back. At first, Suya helped her, but after Mark accused his granddaughter of a calamity of nothingness, the old wizard formed an indissoluble bond with the Kilroy team.

Is there always so much meanness behind all this? Agnes wondered if she had known her friends over the years. In her view, no migration can change the fact that they are companions, comrades, and co-survivors.

She and Suliya kept in touch often, having lunch together every now and then. Henry was busy controlling the chaos in the tower, but he tried. Mark runs his own agency and has a shared working relationship with Agnes, who provides him with information and updates on her contacts and clients.

When Henry calls them all to Mark's café to meet, Agnes doesn't know that the friction between him and Mark has escalated to a boiling point. This was all too clear when she walked into the attic of Mark's Terrace. The mages, especially those at the mage and mage levels, exerted a mysterious pressure with their abundant mana, and entering the room was like trying to push through a wall of water.

Mark sat at the table and pondered.

Henry sat in a chair made of Sofina with a sad face.

Surya sat in another corner, behind a young assistant, whining.

Why is the terrace still standing?, Agnes wondered. If it had been her Bordeaux wine, the place would have collapsed long ago.

At the heart of the matter is Gwen. Agnes understands this, but it only simplifies a complex issue, like blaming a forest fire on a lightning strike.

Gwen was just a spark.

Over the years, the ashes and desires in the bones have piled up. According to Agnes' recollections, these old boys kept their problems to themselves, typical military men. They never let out their pent-up grievances again, and now the wall of fire is ten meters high.

Agnes felt that she should take some responsibility, after all, she had made her own request, but how would she have known? According to Henry, it was a real comedy. Gwen was supposed to come back with a bruised knee, perhaps upset, probably sullen, complaining about the gap between the wildling and the mage.

As it turns out, Mark has been making a huge mistake to prove Henry wrong once and for all.

Her mistake was that she kept all the information to Mark. After all, he was the soothsayer of the group, one of the best sickles in the city. Mark told her as usual: hooligans, homeless people, some desperate souls, they wanted to do something to Gwen. Stacy flirts with the blue man on the way home. It should be educational, eye-opening, and didactic. Gwen wants to have a broader perspective on the people she is trying to save, asking herself if she is willing to risk her life to save those who depend on the generosity of society to survive, whether she can endure the ugliness of it all, and making her understand the situation of those who don't have her advantage. Henry even prepared a speech, which was his favorite subject: the responsibilities of great men and the limitations of their exercise.

And then, of course, reality blew the door open with a fireball.

According to an enraged Henry, who burned his life mana like a screaming kettle, Gwen once hit the mage's stock harvester headfirst forward. A lair of slaves - not just any slave. This is a branch that belongs to a thief mage. A secret collective of investors run by outsiders and secretly backed by the House of Representatives, the military, and prominent industrialists. Often, the tower turns a blind eye to them and only stomps their feet when necessary. Henry's faction knew that this was inevitable as long as the black ghetto existed.

So they quarreled. Sydney's supreme mage, a decorated soothsayer, an old wizard: bickering like a demented old man in a mental hospital, roaring about the past.

"Shut up, all of you!" she shouted at them. They glared at her angrily. "Where is Gwen now?"

"As we spoke, Gunther was teleporting back," Henry replied, his tone decisively cold.

"Then we'll wait," said Agnes exasperatedly. "Tell her the whole story. For fucking sake, you should learn to look through your nose. ”

Henry and Suya grunted, grunted, and glared at each other with unfriendly expressions. Only Mark's eyes made Agnes tremble.

But now, they are still waiting.

A conveyor ring burned and died in the basement of the terrace. Gunther brushed the silver particles off Gwen's hair and clothes. Stacy was still naked and incoherent, so the radiant mage found a guest room, wrapped her in a blanket, and lulled her to sleep.

He returned to Gwen with a towel, which he wrapped around her shoulders as they made their way up the narrow staircase.

Before Gwen could break through to the top, she felt the pressure of the mana projected from the air. She could only move forward if she retreated to Gunther.

"Gwen!" Suya's voice shouted. "What did they do to you?"

Gwen burst out of Gunther's arms and threw herself into her grandfather's arms.

"Opa!"

She wanted to bury her head in his chest, but her operating room was too short and skinny. Instead, the man hugged her awkwardly, giving the impression that she was the one who offered comfort. The others watched, some smiling, some expressionless.

"I brought a friend. Suya pointed to a girl behind him.

Gwen looked at Surya in confusion, then saw a familiar face behind them. The dark skin, the tall, slender figure, the shoulder-length hair that grew at the end.

"Deborah!" Gwen couldn't believe her eyes.

Gvora smiled nervously at her friend. The girl looked nervous. She stood in front of rare figures of eminence, even if they sounded like quarrelsome children at this time.

"What should I do?"

"I interned with a famous shapeshifter... He happens to be your grandfather. When this whole thing happens......" Deborah took Gwen's hand. "As soon as I heard about it, I took the initiative to come. ”

"Oh...... Oh, Debbie!"

Gwen left her grandfather's skinny canoe for Deborah's sake.

The two girls hugged each other, their similar stature and height allowing Gwen to hide her face, feeling surrounded by something soft and familiar. This was exactly what she needed, not a hug from a parent or a mentor, but someone at her level. In return, Deborah hugged Gwen tightly, and the two girls shared an intimate moment of empathy.

They were interrupted by an unpleasant snoring.

"Maybe we should continue this trial?" Mark asked mockingly.

The girls separated. Sofina summoned a bench and joined them. She likewise gave Gwen a tight hug, albeit wooden, and then gave her a glass of golden mead. Despite the support of the two allies, Gwen couldn't help but tremble.

When she finally looked up to meet Mark's glasses, nearsighted eyes, her blood boiled. I trusted this man! He sent her on a suicide mission! Wasn't he a friend and ally of her master and grandfather? Opa had said this man had saved his life countless times! Why would he do it?

Anger empowers her: Gwen straightens her spine, straightens her shoulders, and sits bravely forward.

"Why did you send me there?" Gwen called majestically, and she suddenly raised a few eyebrows in a stern tone. "You didn't tell me anything. I was told to pick up Stacy. But there is no intelligence. No, I should say, you deliberately misled me!"

The transformation from a meowing girl to a stoic prosecutor seems to have taken them by surprise.

Gunther raised an eyebrow. Considering what he had just made her do, she did a good job.

"Gwen, you've been sent to the test," Mark replied emotionlessly. "You too. ”

"That's nonsense!" Su Ya protested loudly.

"Mark, you're pedantic enough!" interjected Henry.

"The crime you accuse me of is rooted in your blindness! we are here because of your arrogance!"

"Who do you think you are?" Henry scoffed.

"I know I'm not one of ten, but what?" retorted Mark Are you going to banish me? Lock me up, strip me of my rank and membership?"

"Shut up, you two!" Agnes had to intervene again.

She straightened the hair that had fallen out.

"Gwen, I'm sure you're just as confused as everyone else, so I'm going to say it. The rest of you shut up until I'm done, or I swear ......"

Gunther stood behind Henry. Mark gave him an unfriendly look, but remained silent. Surya nodded to Agnes from her seat. Henry sat motionless, preserving his limited energy.

The scene seemed familiar, and Gwen suddenly realized that she was trying to come up with a metaphor from her past world: three wise men, nay, more like three monkeys: eyes, mouth, and ears, symbols of arrogance, ignorance, and arrogance.

Agnes took a deep breath and collected her thoughts. She walked around the room, her eyes scanning an old memorabilia to evoke her thoughts. The lumen recording lying in the middle of the bricks caught her attention. She took it off the wall and handed it to Gwen, pointing to everyone in the picture.

There is a serious but handsome middle-aged man with a slim mustache.

"This is Henry, your master. ”

A young man with a face like a skull with a dark expression

"This is Mark. ”

An old man with an Opa face.

"I'm Suliya. He looks old because he's ugly. ”

"Hey!"

"Shut up!"

Suya complained.

Next was a young woman with a heart-shaped face and piercing eyes.

"It's really yours. ”

Curiously, Agnes is not referring to the last woman, but to a girl in the back. She was cut off, but Gwen could see her bright, innocent face behind Henry.

"This is Jane Chandler, lovely girl. Agnes paused, she was Mark's sister. ”

Nothing was said in the room.

Agnes finally pointed to the last woman. A girl with a gloomy face, black hair, and bright eyes. She is short in stature and well-proportioned, with a short stature and slender limbs. Despite her dignified and low gaze, she was unusually beautiful. Gwen knew such girls whose needs drove men's protective instincts wild.

"In the end, this is the source of all our troubles: Elizabeth Winsted Sobel. ”

The room held its breath. Gwen was sure that someone was going to break the peace, although both Henry and Mark were silent.

"She's ...... Or should I say 'ever'...... Void mages like you, Gwen. ”

Someone took a breath. Deborah gasped and stared at Gwen with wide eyes. Gwen squeezed Debbie's hand and promised to explain later. She finds it ironic that her former rival Deborah will be the first friend to know the truth.

Agnes paused awkwardly and looked at Henry. The owner of the tower casually waved his hand and told her to continue.

"So, before we go any further, I want to make this clear," Agnes continued. "The root cause of your incident, Gwen, is not your fault. You're the innocent party, regardless of the personal opinions of these old people, understand?"

Gwen didn't understand, at least not yet, but she nodded.

Mark snorted sarcastically, drawing glares from the others.

"Yes. Agnes nodded. "That's ......"

"The five of us were the first magicians to be sent to the Brisbane Defence. At that time, we didn't have the technology to fight in the city or survive in the wild, so the attrition rate was high. To teach you a little historical lesson, the Coral Sea War began in the 50s, and by the 70s, we were conscripted by lottery. Do you know that's right?"

The girls were sure they did. Compulsory military service for mages evolved from earlier conscription.

"Good. So, it's five of us. The three of us are Australian natives, Henry is from a Tier 1 city, although he has been in the country for five years, Elizabeth turned out to be Londoner, and not only that, she was only with us because Henry ......"

The situation deteriorates faster than the weather changes in the jungle. The order was received to hold the position at all costs. The militia had already conceded in the northern half of Queensland, losing hundreds of mages for every kilometre back. The new line of defense was their walls, and behind them was the city of Brisbane: no more lines of retreat.

First of all, the Ripper and Gonas, merely fodder for teeth and claws, testing the barrier and wasting the mage's mana. Then there are the speartips of the besiegers, the heavily armored lizards, who carry out savage attacks with cunning and bravery. As the mages were about to collapse, the bipedal dragon exhaled a sour smell from the sky.

What began as a purge to reclaim lost land quickly turned into a rout. Humans have ruptured the hornet's nest.

Henry could feel his part collapsing from Sofina's tendrils. He is a plant mage, a rare and powerful magician in this forest battlefield, but he also has his limitations. Agnes was exhausted, and one fireball after another, turning the entire colony to ashes. Mark is still giving orders telepathically and through shared spirits, trying to strengthen the courage of these people with perempuan and transfer the wounded to the triage station. He hadn't slept in days, his eyes bloodshot and sunken deep into his haggard face. Surya was meditating, trying to restore his mana. He strengthened their defenses with iron sheets and elements of mass resistance. And Elizabeth. Poor Elizabeth. She left her shelter in the City of London for Henry, and now she is trapped in this vibrant frontier hell. She was a summoner, a prodigy of the air element, but even then she was ill-prepared for the brutal trenches. She's the kind of girl who takes a shower twice a day and takes a shower for an hour, and she likes to chat over tea and cake. But now Henry's "Lily Bird" is stained with blood and pale yellow, and her once-flawless skin is covered with wounds and infected rashes. Henry watched as she fired another volley, knocking out a dragon knight before he could drop the sulphuric acid. Their eyes met, and he saw her confusion, an unbalanced sense of hopelessness that hinted at fear churning in her mind.

"!" Agnes fell into the trench again, a barbed arrow stuck in her shoulder. "It's better not to poison this shit. ”

"You know," Surya said worriedly, when did you run out?"

"I don't know. Agnes winced.

Surya flipped the bag inside out and pulled out a bottle of potion.

"The last one, better count. ”

Agnes grunted and shot the arrow through, bouncing the middle part open. She poured a little potion over the hole in her shoulder and gulped the rest.

"Sofina!" Henry ordered.

A wave of positive energy appeared next to their wounds. Agnes watched as his flesh healed, leaving a red scar.

"Enough. "Agnes spat between his teeth, I hate you for being so itchy, worse than it hurts. ”

There is news coming. That line is all down. The militia is calling up the last reservists, but this will be the final decisive battle. Their troops were confiscated, but the retreat was suicide. Little magicians know that they can make it easier for every little magician to make a profit.

Mark dispelled the glyphs, and the message was no longer important.

"We're the only part of the area left," he said with a cold smile without any particular emotion, and I think that's where we say our last words. ”

"Wall of Fire!" Agnes used up the last of her mana and brought herself a few more minutes.

The team members looked at each other, orange flames casting a warm glow on their tired faces.

"It's been a pleasure working with you guys," Mark began.

"You guys are more real to me than my six siblings," Agnes continued.

"I'd rather not die," Surya said sullenly, but I couldn't find a better companion. ”

"It's an honour and an honour," Henry added.

Elizabeth has nothing to add. Henry hugged her with emotion, feeling that his lover had repaid her in a wooden way. Very good. Not everyone can drink the danger as much as the wine of life, joking around as they stumble and fall.

"I'll protect you until the end, Liz," Henry promised at the last minute. ”

"I need a glass of water," Agnes said.

"I'm much better. Henry gestured to Sofina, who held a golden mead in her palm.

"Heroic stuff!" Agnes cheered, imagining that if we had this at the time, we could hold out for weeks. ”

"Okay, what happened next?" asked Gwen. They did a great job. She didn't want to get caught up in it, but Agnes was an excellent storyteller. The old men even stopped sighing, nodding and purring at each other, agreeing.

Agnes drained the glass of water.

"Okay... Just as we were about to find out if there was a god on it, a lizard beast broke through the wall of fire. The thing didn't care about my spell at all, it climbed over the wall, and the mage with its mouth full was still screaming and screaming. Then it shook its head, and we were covered in the blood of old friends. ”

"As you can imagine, it was horrible. I mean,, death is death, but being eaten alive and turning into lizard is a terrible way to do that. Just as we were wondering if we could launch a suicide attack and shoot it down, Liz finally lost her marbles. She started yelling that she didn't want to be eaten alive, how could we kill her first and save her trouble. ”

At the mention of Elizabeth, Mark's softened face stiffened again.

"We're not going to kill her, of course, the rest of us are going to fight to the last man. Damn, Henry would stop me even if I wanted to. Then she grabbed Henry and began to scream hysterically. "Kill me! Kill me, please! For fucking sake, don't let me get eaten!" I remember as clearly as yesterday. ”

The group fell silent again. Agnes is a good actor. The desperate plea was real, as if they had heard Elizabeth hysteria.

And then Henry fell like that. None of us knew what was going on at the time, and we thought it was an ambush capability, a poisoned arrow. Sofina starts to go crazy, saying that something is draining her life. Then the behemoth extinguished the flames, and with a bang, the swarm of bees pounced on us, and just like that, he to a painful end. ”

"Of course, we're all here now, so there's no spoiler," Gwen continued when she heard Gwen's panting, especially for you, Gwen. You can probably guess what happened next. Liz must have been aware of her Void element, because when she channeled everything she had into a suicidal vortex of air, she instead opened a black hole in the quasi-elemental plane of the Void. ”

What?!Gwen wanted to call her out of Agnes. No amount of magic can create the gravitational pull of a collapsed star, but then she realizes that this is not a "black hole" in the scientific sense, but an unstable entrance. In fact, it seems to work on the principle that it acts as a vacuum into the void.

"Everything was sucked in. Trees, grass, stones, rippers. Have you ever seen a lizard the size of a house sucked into a hole the size of a coffee table? The lizardmen are going crazy! They keep coming, and they keep sucking. Still, Sofina had been invigorating Henry for the entire time, while Liz had drunk him like a milkshake!"

"That terrible woman ......," Sofina recalled some unpleasant memories.

Henry shook his head.

"Anyway, we're alive. Agnes reached for another glass of wine.

"It's a light-hearted way of saying it," Surya blurted out that we were almost in a vacuum in another world, Agnes. You speak as if we have eaten some bad kabab. Come on, you've got to be a little more dramatic......"

"Shut up, Surya," Agnes snarled. "So we wanted to join the lizardmen, and that's when Surya confessed to me. He told me he wanted to die in my arms. ”

Surya choked as she tried to swallow the water in his cup.

There was some laughter. Agnes continues her story.

"Then, just as it started, it was all over, we cleared half of the colony in our district, and the rest were on the run. Bang! Mission accomplished. A black hole completes the work of an entire bat in ten minutes. We only found out the reason later. ”

"Of course, Leeds, like Henry, was exhausted. None of us knew what was going on. We brought them back to the front. The trip was easy though. It wasn't until a few months later that we discovered that the lizardmen worship the sun god, so you'll know when a black hole that devours all the light consumes half of their shock troops. ”

"When we finally got back to base and recovered, Liz told us she woke up. Some form of negative energy. She wanted us to keep it a secret because we hadn't seen anything like this before. She didn't want to be fooled, to be dissected, probed, cut. ”

Mark suddenly said, "If we had reported her, that would have ended the matter." ”。

"yes, well, in hindsight it's twenty-twenty, hey?" Agnes retorted that Liz was still our partner then. She's a bit moody and not very brave, but she's a Sheila who's the best in a difficult situation. Anyway, if one of your partners doesn't want someone to get her guts probed, who else can we refuse? She saved all our ass!"

"We thought we were going to lose Brisbane, and now all of a sudden, we're the winners. All because of Commander Kilroy. No one saw what was happening, and Henry made up a story that we had killed a high priest. I mean, we've got thousands of lizard carcasses around us, and there's a mammoth that has been almost crushed in front of our trenches! When they pick the bodies, there are at least six priests!"

"We got promotions, we got bonuses, and our families were relocated to safer areas. We revel in success. No one knows how we did it, only that we did it and saved it today. The situation was simpler: there were no towers, no hegemonists, no gray factions, no shadow guilds, no nonsense of these ghosts. People are trying to survive, savages and mages. They started taking us out to get the word out, we didn't complain, we were like celebrities. ”

"Big mistake. Surya sighed.

"It doesn't matter. Mark cynically spat and spat that they separated us. We had to go to different areas to support the troops. That was the beginning of the end. ”

Henry stayed with Elizabeth as much as he could, but he was groomed to be a big shot. Leeds is the darling of the gang. She's a good talker, a nice family from a first-tier city, a real poster girl, you know what? Do you think I'm good-looking? You haven't seen a real doll until you see Leeds in that uniform, and I heard that they cut her hem two inches higher and the hiring went up 10 percent. Oh my God, she's such a brilliant person. ”

Henry smiled nostalgically. Mark's face darkened.

"Anyway, they sent her to the FBI to call up the army and so on. Mark was transferred to the intelligence department. Henry stays in Ikol. H. worked, I wanted to retire, so I didn't attend that feast. ”

"What is Opa doing?" asked Gwen curiously.

There was an awkward silence.

"I'm drunk," Surya finally said we lost a lot of friends......

Nodding understandingly. "I've been with him for a while......"

Sulia turned the beets red. "I later confessed to your grandmother......"

Agnes coughed.

"Anyway ... While on a propaganda mission, the base was attacked. This time it's not the lizardmen, it's the merfolk, and apparently they don't believe the lizardmen's story about the angry sun god, think about it, right? And then it happened. ”

"Something ... Did it happen?" Gwen looked at them in confusion. Why the blurred details now?

"Yes, stuff, because no one knows. Elizabeth Winsted Sobel was the only one who returned from the base. A woman with only five hundred mages and more than two thousand names. ”

"Nobody," Mark suddenly interjected that someone knew, but Marshall Kilroy covered it up. ”

"And how do you know?" asked Gwen. Mark wasn't there; Is he stalking Elizabeth?

"I know......" Mark spat between gritting his teeth. "Because my sister was at that base when it happened. ”

"Nonsense!"

There's a crack. Mark had a minor fracture in his gold-rimmed glasses. Opposite Mark, Henry mused. His throat shook once or twice, but he eventually chose not to say anything. The next time Mark spoke, his voice took on the hostility of the Blade Barrier.

"Let's say Master Kielroy won't shut me up in the next ten minutes and let me tell you the terrible truth hidden in this world!".