Despite the magic tool being used to isolate the sound of the room both inside and outside, I can still feel the vibration outside. Surprisingly our hideout is right next to a large, low quality slave house, tonight there is an event there.
A lot of blood is being spilled, it seems that many citizens of Canos are taking their anger out on the poor slaves which is a great opportunity for the slavers to sell fewer valuable products, but that serve as victims for the enraged citizens.
But I still doubt that most of them had any relatives among those who were killed by the attack during the day, most of the dead were warriors and mages from the army that come from other places in the realm and not from Canos, but that is not so important now.
My current problem is watching the perimeter while the targets are interrogated, luckily, I wasn't asked to participate, as the little manpower ended up being necessary for me to stay and watch as most of the group is looting whatever they can from the buildings and unprotected warehouses.
Raven decided that we should steal as much as possible since both buildings are poorly protected, the event nearby is not unique. Scattered throughout the city, there are several events of different natures, but which have slaves suffering in common.
The officers and soldiers of Mirue's kingdom are completely mired in problems as most of the forces are concentrated on guarding the slaves and protecting the camps from further attacks the very few soldiers inside the city, most of the soldiers who are still within the walls. of the city are concentrated on top of the city walls waiting for an attack they probably won't see tonight.
The robberies will start a few hours before dawn so we can stay as little time in the city as possible after the guards protecting both places are killed. During the night I had a good opportunity to see how the interrogations are going, the warrior Jack Pine had to face Raven and Faustos stayed with Mia, unfortunately these two interrogations were very different.
Jack didn't really warm to Raven who has a lot of experience in this kind of task, because of our short time she got tough with young Jack. There won't be much left of him when the sun lights up the sky, but Mia is having some difficulties with Faustos' lack of cooperation, he doesn't know how to play as a team.
Mia got really hard on Faustos, but he didn't break. The smell of burning meat must have come from the next interrogation room, it looked like someone was barbecuing inside a closed room.
Without the sound barrier, his screams should have alerted the entire block, but that wasn't enough, Mia scowls out of the room that reeks of meat and burnt hair.
"Trouble?"
"Unfortunately, yes, the idiot doesn't want to cooperate. But I managed to find out a few things, he was hired to change the office records before they were made official, but he didn't describe his contact. The bastards have his family and girlfriend hostage, he won't deliver anything valuable in such a short time."
"Are you going to want to take him away with us?"
"No, that wouldn't help at all. You can't question him on my trip and we can't waste too much time standing on the road, such intense pain in a short time ends up strengthening the idiot's silence, I need time to break his will and we don't have that."
"I'm sorry, but if we're not taking him with us, you only have two more hours before we have to leave. I hope Jack broke it more easily."
"Okay, I'll try one last time, but I doubt it will work. Keep an eye out in case my elemental energy comes out of the barrier, that barrier is pretty cheap and I'll stop holding back."
When Mia came back to finish Faustos and I went to the center of the rune arrangement and started to power it up. Mia is right to categorize this rune arrangement as cheap, but it's still strong enough to operate for another hour and a half after I overload it.
There won't be much left of him after he hangs up, but he's not really important, as I turned my sights outside the house, I saw something I hadn't expected. A light that shouldn't be in the sky is lighting up the night, the night sky is red.
I exit the shed I'm in and climb onto the roof to get a better line of sight, the eastern part of town is on fire. The extremely wild flames of fire attack all the houses and buildings around them like a monster looking for food, but with almost no smoke in the air, this can only be the work of a powerful mage, at the very least he must be a mage. fire element's red core to create so many flames in so little time and within the city.
The flames that devoured the city began to unite and advance towards the wall the city like a wave of unstoppable fire formed, the flames hit the wall like a war hammer, even far away I could see the wall tremble with the wave's pack massive fire. But I didn't focus all my attention on the flames, on the sea of red and blue I looked for the person responsible for it or any other figure that stands out.
No matter how crazy the cultists might be, a mage would never attack a city like this alone. When the advantage of having taken the soldiers by surprise ends this mage will be surrounded by enemies, no matter how much his destruction power is he will run out of mana when fighting so many enemies alone.
But in the sea of colors brought about by this huge scale magic I could not find the one responsible, but I could find a group that was hiding in my flame. Among them was not even a mage of the fire element, but there were warriors and orange core mages, an elite team ready to attack anyone who tries to attack the mage responsible for the flames.
As the living flames attacked everything near them the soldiers who are outside the city have already arrived outside the east gate of the city, the warriors and mages who serve in the kingdom's army have to face the very city wall they are supposed to protect.
But instead of facing enemy warriors on top of it they have to face countless flames of fire that dominated that whole part of the wall, this would be a comical sight if the flames weren't expanding even further. I was wrong, an ordinary red core mage wouldn't have the ability to create something like that, at the very least he's on the edge of red core.
Maybe this is my chance to see a blue-core mage for the first time, but unfortunately, I can't watch the spectacle.
I jumped off the roof of the shed and went to warn Mia and Raven that they have no idea that the city of Canos is being attacked by the cultists. Well, it could be another group, but I highly doubt it was.
When I knocked on the door where Mia was interrogating Faustos, I got no answer, but with the current urgency there's no reason to wait for an answer. When I open the door, I see poor Faustos being burned by countless rays of electricity, the bones of his feet and hands are completely black.
Fixing that level of damage should require the treatment of a very skilled red-core healer.
"What are you doing here?!"
"Trouble, we have to leave town immediately."
"What happened?"
"The city is on fire, I'll warn Raven, but you'd better clear our tracks and deal with poor Faustos."
"Have no mercy on enemies, Wolf. Their lives are not important to us."
"And I know, but I still have to avoid getting comfortable with this part of the job, I don't want it to come naturally or to become unimportant. I feel like I might miss something important if that happens."
Mia's serious face grew a lot darker as she got bored of my worries.
"I can't say you're wrong, Wolf, but I can say it's not healthy to say those words out loud. We must all deal with it using our own solutions to this kind of dilemma."
Leaving Mia behind I head towards the room where Raven is, when I open the door, I find her organizing her blades and I can see the alcohol spread on the floor. Looks like she's ready to go.
"What happened? There's still some time before it's time for us to leave."
"The city is under attack by an elite group, a fire elemental mage is setting a good part of the city on fire."
"What is the shape of the fire?"
"Flames of fire, not in a very specific way, but the flames are like whips attacking and devouring everything around them. It is quite obvious that the mage has enormous control over his elemental magic, must be an apex mage of red core power or greater."
"Unlikely to be bigger, but that's not the most important part. An attack is now not a common strategy, there are a lot more events happening that we don't know about and they seem to be connected with the cultists."
"Did I get you, their location?"
"Yes, poor Jack is too shrewd for his own good. And a pity for his sister, she was kidnapped by the cultists, but rumor has it she's already dead or wishing she was dead. Cultists never return hostages, Wolf, the bastards always find an opening to sentence hostages to death, even when they are rescued."
"The room is ready, when Mia is done with her side, set fire to the building. I'll go ahead to appraise the rest of the team, you two should meet us at the rendezvous bridge near the south gate to get out of town."
"OK."
With that Raven left behind a room reeking of blood and alcohol, I think I'd better go help Mia get out of this burning city as soon as possible.