Chapter Text
The sky is red like the drops of blood spilled this night. The thunder strikes down from purple clouds, angry and vicious, sound booming over the loud battle below, silencing the screams.
A pair of black shoes steps over the bodies of the fallen, steady, silent as death itself.
"It's the last time I will need to step foot in this carnage," the man says, not faltering in his advance. "...soon enough, I will stop breaking and killing, lamenting and mourning. I will... leave war behind."
The man continues forward, finally reaching the front lines. The soldiers part before him in respect, and the real bloodbath begins anew, under his lead again.
"Is it ready?" The hooded figure whispers, fretting over their companion's magic rune circle on the jade table in front of them. The circle glows faintly - responding to a hand above, clenching and unclenching accordingly. The figures smile in a bout of tired excitement.
"Excellent! Looks about ready- now all we need to do is--"
"Stop right there!"
Lisa stormed in, immediately causing the other mages to flinch back.
"Master Lisa, is something wrong?" A third hooded figure spoke, peeking from behind their 2 companions. They were the first to snap back into reality, the other two being stone-still in surprise and fear.
They re-focused on the circle as Lisa pointed at it.
"There," she scoffed, "Didn't you notice? The runic number is off by 10! God, just how tired are you all, dears? We have no room for mistakes."
All three bowed their heads in apology, silence as their answer. Their hoods hid away the shame, downturned gazes resting on the filthy floors.
"Alright, that's enough self-pity... Let me see this, students." Baizhu said, full of tiredness also, passing his apprentices as he entered. He took one look at the circle, nodded, and went back to pull the needed chemicals from the broken shelf.
Materials now in hand, he mixed them in a bowl, dipping two fingers in and putting them to the ground, repeating the circle one by one except the mistake, fixing the number. Just like a patient mother bear, Baizhu calmly let his students observe him and learn.
"...Thank you. This means a lot." Lisa commented, taking mercy on the students.
"Of course, of course! We are all in on the prize, anyway. I hope our efforts were useful."
Lisa just smiled mildly, her tired eyes half lidded yet happy, sighing out: "I hope so too..."
"..."
Just outside, the thunder wrecked against the windows, striking the glass with icy hail. The 5 people flinched, hugging themselves to feel safer. Everyone was on edge already, and the neverending tiredness dialed up the paranoia up to a hundred.
Moving in haste, they quickly secured the circle with a wave of elemental magic, their movements hurried and tight.
Everyone just wanted to be done with this, go back to their own quarters, outside of the wrecked and damaged lab.
The windows were broken and leaking, the water dripping down the glass, a completely unfit environment for studies, the scholars couldn't have dispersed faster. Being done with their job, their turned backs didn't merit masking two empty eyes staring at the rune circle from the window, memorizing it's shape.
Unbestknown to all mages previously in the room, as observant as they were, their eyes had no hope of spotting the disturbance now. A trail of blood behind the hiding figure mixed with the red sky was the only evidence of it being there a second ago, as it disappeared into a portal.
"Queen..." It murmured as it teleported far away to its kingdom, bowing to its master, elegance in voice but not in spirit.
"It seems there's been something we... missed."