High Artificer, Ch 16: Night Wings

Jasperi’s Perspective

Jasperi looked around at the Night Wings who had gathered together. 

It had taken a couple of days to teleport them here, but now there were a full dozen. Each was around Level 450, just under her own Level 465. 

That was the mark of a full Night Wing, one of the elite hunters of her people. Other races whispered of them in hushed words if they knew, but officially they didn’t exist. Only an exile would dare to betray their movements. 

For ages uncounted, this had been the way of her people. 

Shadows clung tightly around her as she looked down at the academy courtyard. Her eyes flared red with the hunt and she bared her fangs. 

Lesser races sometimes thought her race were divine beings with their white wings and pride, but a few knew the truth. Her people had always been hunters. 

Light in the day and dark at night.

Where there was the divine, there was the demonic. 

Her people’s ancient instincts to hunt prey and slaughter those weaker than them was something they had difficulty controlling, but the true Night Wings were those who lived for it. They had given up everything else to dedicate themselves to the hunt. Their training was intense and had no room for weakness.

They were the spirits of the night. 

Many saw them as upholding the greatest traditions of their ancestors. Much of what their race had set aside to be part of the High Nine was exemplified in them. 

The hunt, blood, and death.

The High Nine tolerated their presence and helped to cover up those situations where the truth came out. It was one of the benefits of their old ties.

The only time it was really a problem was if they hunted one of the other High Nine races, which was rare. 

Then punishment would be dealt in secret.

She glanced across the rank of those who had gathered. They were crouched in a circle around the courtyard, but she could see them hiding in the shadows, their wings drawn tight as they waited.

Like her, most of them had an innate ability to become one with the shadows and to turn their wings black. Others like Solecea accomplished it with a spell.

Those were the lesser hunters. 

Jasperi hissed out a silent, mocking breath, the sound blending seamlessly with the wind. She was obedient to the mage’s orders, but that was all. Once she was strong enough, the tables would turn. 

The Fifth Evolution mage was nowhere to be seen, but she was sure that Solecea was somewhere nearby. Hopefully, she would be too slow to interfere.

Jasperi snarled silently as she turned her attention back to her prey. The human’s workshop was below, its strange gate and walls shimmering in the night. 

He hadn’t left in days.

She was sure she could kill him in an instant if he wasn’t prepared. Those golems had been the only thing that blocked her before. Without his toys, the human was just another member of that weak and wingless race.

She could sense a strange vibration of mana from the wards, so minute that it almost wasn’t there. It was like the distant warmth of sunlight. She wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it didn’t seem that powerful.

Despite the delay, her body was still and her muscles were relaxed, slowly tightening and loosening again as she breathed. A couple of days was nothing to a true hunter, much less one at her level. 

Whenever the human dared to show his face, she would take him down. She just had to beat out the Night Wings. For all their training, she was a higher level and a stronger hunter. 

Solecea was an even higher level than her, but that only meant Jasperi had to get there first. 

The night passed as she waited, just as she had the other nights. As it unfolded, she debated if the human would come out at all or if he had gone somewhere else. 

The teleportation wards around the academy should have prevented it, but perhaps he had found a secret route or dug a tunnel like a mole. Wingless creatures were always digging in the dirt. 

That was why her people and the dwarves never got along. They had nothing in common.

At that moment, something below changed and her attention turned crystal clear. The heat from the wards was increasing at a rapid pace. The starry surface of the walls brightened as they crackled with power. 

Her muscles tightened and every tendon prepared to launch her forward. Her eyes were dark and bright.

The door hummed as it opened.

***

Sam’s Perspective

As Sam walked out of his hall, it was still dark in the courtyard. It was more early morning than night. 

There were only hours left before the first day of classes would begin. 

As soon as he crossed through the door, however, the aura signatures of fourteen Winged Furies appeared in his senses. 

They were all racing toward him. 

Winds blurred around their wings and their forms were covered in shadows, which hid them like black arrows in the night.

He only shook his head. They were fast, but he was faster, both in his thoughts and in Agility. He could see both Jasperi and Solecea among the group, as well as twelve others who were new. 

The Winged Furies he’d met so far lived up to their name, with more fury than sense.

It seemed that he had been too kind in teleporting them away, but he had given them a chance, and that was enough.

A flicker of his essence warped the space of the courtyard, sealing everything in a dimensional bubble that would keep the fight from disturbing anyone else.

He was alone in the courtyard, but he didn’t bother to summon his golems this time. He just turned his head to look straight at Jasperi as she flew toward him. 

There were two new daggers in her grasp, replacements after he’d broken the others in their duel.

“Jasperi,” he said calmly as he reached out a hand. His voice resonated across the courtyard, and where it passed, space folded.

His hand closed around her neck, stopping her momentum dead.

Her daggers rose as she tried to slash at his neck and arm, but he ignored them as he reached out with his other hand.

Solecea was a dark bolt of shadows and wind as she slammed into it. 

His fingers tightened into golden spikes as he broke through the shroud around her and closed his hand around her neck as well. She slammed to a halt against his palm, her bones cracking from the force.

“Solecea,” he added, just as calmly. “Welcome back.”

Despite their struggles, his aura crushed down onto them, keeping them both contained. Then he turned to look at the twelve other Winged Furies who were approaching. 

“Enough.” 

The word rang out as golden radiance swelled around him, filling the courtyard in all directions. 

Shadows disintegrated under the light, as did the summoned attacks and spells. 

The wave of light continued, blazing like a sun. 

The twelve assassins slammed into the ground, suppressed beneath the power of his aura. Their heads were bowed toward him, their knees cracking as they struck the stones of the courtyard with the full force of their charge.

That was the effect of Majesty of Starlight again. It blocked attacks and overwhelmed any opponent who was too weak to resist his aura, which was basically everyone under the Sixth Evolution.

He could have killed them, but for now they sprawled there, unable to move as he turned his attention to Jasperi and Solecea. 

This time he didn’t hold back the power innate to his race. His body crackled with stellar flame and his height began to rise. He didn’t let himself grow too tall, just enough that the academy buildings were at ankle height. 

He looked down at the two of them, who now looked like winged dolls in his hands.

“A poor way to spend your night, don’t you think?” he asked. “You crossed a line here, one that I thought I made clear.”

Given the difference in their strengths, they weren’t capable of making him angry with the attack. He was just irritated. 

At the same time, he wasn’t going to let them go. 

They couldn’t be trusted to have either common sense or common fear, and that was a dangerous combination in an enemy. 

He spent a moment considering how best to deal with it. 

Killing them would be the simplest, but then there would be a gap on the faculty and the trail might eventually lead to him. He’d just fought a duel with Jasperi and teleported all of the Winged Furies away, so he would be the first one people looked at when they saw that she’d disappeared. 

He could deal with that.

“What...who...are you?!” Solecea gasped out the words as she tried to struggle in his grasp and made no headway. “How are you so powerful? You are at the Sixth Evolution! You have to be!”

“What race or devil...are you?!” Jasperi cursed as she tried to fight his grip and failed. She couldn’t even move a finger. All she could do was draw enough air to speak. 

“You can’t be a human!” she snarled. “No human has your strength!”

“The High Nine will not let you go!” Solecea swore as her fear and fury combined. “You will die for this! How dare you trick the academy and come here in the guise of a human! The High Nine will take your head!”

They were spitting as their anger and fear merged, turning them both wild. They weren’t able to believe what was in front of them. 

Their auras were a tight snarl of confidence and hatred. 

“This is disappointing,” Sam said, shaking his head. “If you are this unbridled and so willing to kill a new human professor that you dislike, what else have your people done without consequences, and for how long? ”

He didn’t need to ask them questions directly. 

Instead, he began to scan their auras, reading the history imprinted on it. It was a high-tier version of Analyze, one that was part of his aura abilities. 

He usually used it to read the history of stars and parts of the Void, which was easier, but with some effort it was possible to read a person’s history as well. 

Their lives were chaotic, so there were a lot of unnecessary things included with it, but in a case like this, it was the best solution.

He linked into the Path of Stars and pulled their histories from that as well, and then he set the Titan Star to sorting through the mess. 

Within a few moments, it was all organized. As he studied the result, his mood turned darker.

“It seems that you have done as you wished for too long,” he said as he shook his head. “And your entire people are the same.”

He looked down at the twelve Night Wings as he scanned their history as well. It was a long list of assassinations, hunts, bloodlust, and elitism. They believed they were the strongest hunters around and able to kill as they pleased. 

Their histories recorded hundreds of deaths at each of their hands, most of them from other races, but a few hidden ones from their own and other members of the High Nine.

Over half were humans. 

“You’ve used your position to avoid responsibility for your actions,” he said as he finished recording it all and came to a decision. “It is time for that to end.”

“A human has no right to speak in such a way!” Solecea snarled. “You might be stronger than me, but your people are weak. They will pay for this insult.”

Sam didn’t bother replying. 

Instead, he considered the best solution to get rid of them.

The twelve Night Wings could simply disappear, since they weren’t supposed to be here, and only the Winged Furies would care, but Solecea and Jasperi were more important.

If he killed them publicly as a human professor, it would draw attention and perhaps start a war between the Winged Furies and humans, and possibly even more of the other races. 

Neither side was without allies.

They would use it as an excuse to push for political gains and to take out old aggression. There were enough people who disliked humanity’s greater numbers and saw them as a threat to their position that it was only a matter of time until something like that set off a war. 

That was what Asperio was the most afraid of when it came to the position of humans in the academy and why he acted so delicately in his position. 

It was also why the kinder members of the High Nine allowed the Winged Furies to hunt and helped to cover up their tracks, even if they didn’t like it. It prevented outright civil war and resulted in fewer casualties. 

From their perspective, it was the pragmatic choice. 

The other method was to kill them silently, so that no one knew where they had gone.

That would cause a flurry among the Winged Furies and perhaps get some attention. These two were fairly highly placed, especially Solecea. Their superiors would investigate the disappearances.

That would lead the Winged Furies back to him fairly quickly. It would also bring in the High Nine when they leveraged their position.

It might cause some trouble with his disguise, but it would take longer for it to happen and he might be able to fight all of the battles away from the academy. 

As long as he kept the connection between himself and his sister a secret, it wasn’t really a problem.

Depending on how far the Winged Furies wanted to push it, he would eventually need to reveal himself to keep it from exploding into a civil war. 

If that happened, only a few of the High Nine were likely to challenge him. The Winged Furies and the Wind Wraiths almost certainly, while the Dragon Spirits would want to test themselves against him, but the rest shouldn’t cause too much trouble.

It was possible that they would act against their old benefactors, but he was powerful enough that even if all of them attacked at once, it wasn’t a serious concern. 

But it would be best if he reached the Sixth Evolution and Sixth Star before then.

As for leaving the current status quo in place, it would permit the Winged Furies and others like them to continue their hunting of humans.

That was something he wouldn’t allow.

“It is time to institute some changes at the academy,” he said as he came to a decision, “followed by the rest of the galaxy.” 

 His grip tightened on Solecea and Jasperi and then a flare of golden light washed over them and across the twelve Night Wings in the courtyard.

When it passed, there was nothing left.

He dusted his hands off as he let his height settle back to a normal human one and looked around. 

The courtyard was quiet again.

As he did, notification from the Ocean Core flared in his mind, asking if he’d like to claim the experience from the Winged Furies. 

It normally would have collected the experience for other purposes, since the Path of Stars forbid harvesting it from civilized races, but his authority was high enough that it left the decision up to him.

He shook his head and rerouted it into the academy’s reserves, where it would go toward supporting the students. It was a lot of experience for them, but not very much for him. 

It wouldn’t even give him a single level.

It was also distasteful to take experience from civilized beings, even ones like these. He didn’t feel like carrying the memory of Jasperi and Solecea with him. At least this way, the experience would go toward something useful.

A wave of his hand removed all traces of the battle and then he released the dimensional barrier around the area. 

The courtyard was silent, waiting for the students to come to their classes. Only the night wind blew through the stone arches of the buildings.

He would probably have to take care of that councilor, Yuris Highwing, as well, but it could wait  until he caused more trouble. 

It would be his last chance. 

Coming to the academy with his sister was turning out to be more problematic than expected, but there should be a little time before things came to a head.

He was going to teach the first class today regardless of who else came to kill him.

After that, it seemed he would have to make a detour on the way to Alora’s world...or perhaps on the way back.

“Now where is the Winged Furies’ capital...” he said as he looked up into the stars. 

He might as well see how their race was living before he made a final decision on what to do with them.