"W-what was that?" Kyle nervously asked as he subconsciously looked at the Quince Furnace's room.
Luckily, the explosion didn't seem to be related to the furnace, so he shifted his focus to his Master. To his surprise, Mr. Heinz looked more scared than him!
Although he was also alarmed by the explosion, he didn't turn pale with fright like what was happening to Mr. Heinz.
"Master Heinz, are you alright? There must be an accident outside. We should get out and see what's going on." Kyle said as he tried to remind his master.
"Everything will be fine, Master Heinz…" Kyle added some reassuring words to comfort his master.
'Wait… It should be the other way around. You should be the one reassuring me with your words.' Kyle thought for a moment before shaking his head.
It's not important right now. They should know what's the situation outside.
As he opened the door of the laboratory, he finally heard his master speak…
"Be careful… Someone dared to attack the academy grounds. They're not simple…"
Kyle froze on the spot after hearing this.
"M-master… Did you say that someone just attacked the academy?"
'Aren't they crazy?! Who would dare to attack this place?! The Holy Arts Faction? The five churches?'
As Kyle's mind raced, another explosion occurred but this time, it was heavily suppressed, and the ground had only trembled a little.
This time, he decided to just run outside to see what was happening. Aside from his curiosity getting the better of him, he also felt safer going outside, as this is his natural reaction whenever there is an earthquake. He has to go outside in case the building suddenly starts collapsing.
In any case, his master seems to have recovered a bit after being shocked and he should be strong enough to protect himself.
As he went out, Kyle realized that most of the laborers and the kitchen staff had also stopped working as they figured out what was going on.
There, he saw Felix outside the factory and was looking at the dockyard like everyone else. Kyle followed their gaze and realized that the dockyard was indeed attacked!
Furthermore, there is an airship nearby that has a different emblem.
"Felix, do you know which faction is attacking the academy?" Kyle asked as he stood beside the man.
The dazed Felix jolted awake after hearing his words. Realizing that it was Kyle, Felix immediately relaxed and replied with a soft voice.
"Look at that emblem on their airship, that's definitely from the Holy Arts Faction's Sentinels… Order of the Untainted Sentinels, to be exact."
The emblem he was pointing at was the symbolic tree shrouded by a white flame… Below this emblem was a sentence in Oardic, "Let there be eternal light."
"Are they attacking the Academy? Isn't the war over?" Kyle asked in a confused tone.
"That may be true. But as you know, there are still a lot of people who hate the Dark Arts Faction. It's not that surprising…" Felix muttered thoughtfully before adding. "However, any conflicts would normally happen outside each other's territory. This is the first time that the Sentinels dared to cause trouble here… Ah, I just heard these things from Sir Gerard."
Kyle nodded and didn't doubt his words. He also felt that Gerard knew a lot of things since he had noticed a few mysticism books mixed with crafting books in his house before.
"Oh! They're here!"
Soon, the crowd noticed a few people going out of the Academy… From a distance, Kyle can tell that a few of them seem to be Variants…
There's also another horse riding squad that was from the nearby tower, and they are hurrying to the dockyard.
Kyle didn't have to ask as he could already guess the identity of these black-robed men…
"Vessels…"
Kyle muttered as he recalled the book he had read before. It was the History of Vermont, Academy of Dark Arts.
The book mentioned the Dark Arts Faction's Order of the Evanescent Vessels but he didn't think too much of it since he felt that it was not necessary or helpful in learning the Dark Spells.
As for the reason why these people are called Vessels, he had a few guesses after reading some mysticism books and he couldn't help but shudder just at the thought of it.
Soon, the two groups met at the dockyard where a couple of Academy's Airships were destroyed. These airships were still burning and crumbling into pieces, but as the group of Vessels arrived, the fire and smoke suddenly vanished, and the airships were left in an unrecognizable state.
'I wonder what kind of Dark Spell they used to extinguish that…' Kyle muttered as he saw the changes.
He looked at the group of Sentinels and Vessels facing each other but obviously, he had no idea what their conversation was about.
They were too far…
"Everyone, get inside and continue your work…" All the workers that were outside the factory, including Kyle, suddenly heard Mr. Heinz's voice.
Finally, the crowd realized that this was no time to gossip as they returned to work. Of course, everyone is still curious about this incident but they're all afraid of their boss.
"You too… Go and rest inside… It's too early for you to associate with them." Heinz said as he approached Kyle.
Kyle felt that it wasn't just a warning but also a reminder... As he was about to reply, he glanced at Heinz only to realize that the old man was no longer wearing his laboratory coat.
He's wearing a black robe draped over his gray frock coat, similar to those Vessels!
Whoosh~
At this point, there is also a sudden change in the dockyard... A huge dome that seemed to be made of shadow covered the entire dockyard and its surroundings!