Three moons — one blue, one yellow and one red — hung in the dark sky. Such a sight was normally associated with a peaceful night, but for the man running madly for his life, tonight was anything but that.
"Get back here!"
"Swarm him!"
"Mages, on command!"
Claud Primus, the (self-professed) greatest thief in the whole of Grandis, kicked off a tree and hugged his loot tightly. "Presence Nullification!"
A small square at the top right of his vision, one that depicted a circle with a line drawn straight through it, dimmed out. An umbral light covered his body a moment later, racing through his body and coursing through his nerves. Dismayed shouts followed a moment later, each of them yelling that their target had vanished.
Their commander responded a moment later.
"It can't be helped! Mages, prepare to use Grand Cross!"
Claud's lips twitched. 'I just stole a single lifestone, so why on Grandis would you use ritual magic against me? Do my actions really warrant such an excessive response? I just want to live longer! Is that wrong?!'
Throwing himself off the well-trodden road, Claud hurtled through a whole bunch of brambles and thorns. His cloak, which had durability-increasing enchantments, protected it from the worst of it, but that didn't stop his face from being scratched.
"We call upon the holy of holies, the great god Schizel, he who touches upon the five grand skies…"
Claud froze up at those words, and then shimmied up into a tree. Scaring away a few curious monkeys, he leaped from tree to tree, willing his body to make as much distance as was humanly possible before Grand Cross was complete.
It had a fancy name, but like all other ritual spells that invoked a god's name, there was nothing noble or good about it. Grand Cross, Starfall, Moonbeam…these spells, and any others like it, simply targeted an area and turned it to ash. The only difference was the visuals that accompanied them.
In other words, they were weapons of mass destruction.
Wind whistled in his ears as he continued to flee. Somewhere deep in a corner of his mind, Claud couldn't help but mock Duke Istrel, who was the only person who had the capability in this area to authorise the invocation of the White God's name during ritual spells. This was definitely absurdity on so many levels that Claud didn't even know when to begin, but fortunately, this wasn't the first time he had the honour of being the sole target of such an attack. Calling on a god's name, however, was a first for him.
"…O Lord, your will is mine. Let our devotion shine everlasting. Let our hope stand tall. Let our faith take form…"
Slapping aside two monkeys in his way, Claud glared at another square at the top right of his vision, which was darkened out. The self-proclaimed master thief had used it nearly twenty-four hours ago on a whimsical bet, which he'd won, but now…it was very possible that he would be the biggest loser.
His eyes fixed on the dimmed square, which was now blinking, Claud found himself holding on to the most absurd wish he had ever thought up, which was for one of those mages to cough and disrupt the ritual.
'Five.'
"…Sanctify the land…"
'Four.'
"…and all sinners within…"
'Three.'
"…to bring salvation for all!"
'By the Moons, hurry up and get off cooldown!' Eyes wide with fear, Claud forced himself to continue staring at the only skill that would save him right now. An incredible might had locked on to him from somewhere beyond the horizon. The mana signatures he was sensing was off the charts; the next heartbeat or two could be his last.
'Two…one.'
An odd calm descended upon him as he pulled himself up onto an oak tree. Grand Cross had been activated — he could feel the spell formation racing through the ground at impossible speeds.
It reached him a moment later, and the ground lit up with the promise of certain death. A white cross, inscribed with a million runes, was directly underneath the tree he was on, with his own body as the centre. Light erupted outwards a moment later as Claud kicked off the branch, pushing himself to the highest jump he'd ever done in his life.
Hope returned as the dimmed-out square lit up, and with all his might, Claud yelled, "Absolute One!"
The deadly geyser of white light rushed over him a moment later, but the ten seconds of absolute invincibility Absolute One granted him turned it into a gentle hot spring. An unbelievable amount of energy washed through him, passing through Claud's body like it wasn't there, thinning out over the next three seconds.
Heart pounding madly, Claud sat on his bum as the eruption of divinity-empowered mana rushed into the skies, curving to slam into the red moon that shone down on him. A small crater, one barely visible from Grandis, appeared on its surface a moment later, but this wasn't a big deal. The three moons of Grandis had been abused more than enough times in the First, Second and Third Godsfall. This was just a pimple.
Shaking his head to clear it of random thoughts, Claud got up. A familiar sight — barren wasteland for five hundred metres all around — greeted him. This wasn't his first time tangling with ritual magic, but this was the first time it'd ran this close to the knife's edge.
Making a mental note to never use Absolute One to show off right before a heist again, Claud began to run once more. Duke Istrel's men were experienced hunters and knights; none of them would be dumb enough to assume that no one could survive ritual magic, even one that was backed by a god's might.
"Impossible! He's still alive!"
Shouts echoed from far behind him, right before he jumped into the jungle. Claud clicked his tongue, and then burrowed himself into the deep undergrowth. There wouldn't be a second Grand Cross headed his way — invoking a god placed every single skill one had on an enforced cooldown of twenty-four hours, the cooldown of a level zero skill.
"Chase, chase! Don't let him get away!"
"Whoever gets the items he stole back will be made a count!"
"Take his mask down! Do so, and you'll be a baron!"
Chills ran up Claud's spine at those insane offers. For a moment, he was tempted to simply return the Pure Life Gem to them — it was merely a half-formed gem that had two days' worth life energy. Sure, it was a hundred percent pure, but for a duke, such lifestones weren't all that rare. Shaking himself awake a moment later, Claud began to traverse through the place, making sure to give any annoyed wild monsters a large berth.
Those would be settled by the pursuers behind him anyway.
Weaving and bobbing through the dense undergrowth, Claud thought over the heist he'd just completed. There really wasn't much to the small box he just stole from the Duke. After all, Pure Life Gems, while rare, weren't a big deal to the Dukedom of Istrel. Pure-ranked lifestones were easily obtainable by them, after all.
Rubbing his nose innocently, Claud skipped over a few fallen logs.
"By the Moons, though. Why would they actually go so far for a Pure Life Gem?" Claud wondered out loud. "Maybe…there's something special about it?"
Waving hi to a curious rabbit, the thief took out the small box and opened it. A little prismatic stone sat snugly on a little indent on a raised platform, and Claud stared at the tiny treasure lovingly. Eventually, however, he plucked it out of the box, and then tossed the stone into his mouth, where it promptly dissolved into a sweet fluid.
Shivering as concentrated amounts of life flooded his body, Claud turned his attention back to the box. Other than the raised platform the gem sat on, there was literally nothing else to it.
"That's odd," Claud muttered. "From the way those hounds were chasing me, you would think that there is some divine treasure in it. And from the way that Pure Life Gem was being placed in this box, you'd think that there was something special in it too. But there's absolutely nothing there."
Putting the box back into his pocket, he continued to traverse through the area. Now that he managed gain two days to his current lifespan — which was, at last count, 142 years, 288 days, 1280 minutes and 5 seconds — Claud couldn't help but feel a bit chuffed.
Of course, he didn't steal that much life in a single go. It was the cumulative effort of twenty years' work, as well as untold drops of sweat expended while training his skills.
Most importantly, if he didn't have Absolute One…
He would be ash by now. Keeping his fear in check, Claud finally burst out of the undergrowth and onto a well-trodden footpath. Now that his noble work was done, the next thing Claud would do was to stay low-profile. After all, of his five skills, only three were left. Fancy bladework would only get him so far; it was far safer to hide in a crowd and let the wind blow over.
Breaking into a light jog, Claud made his way to the nearest town.