This was his opportunity to make a difference in this shadow war, and actually do something for once. That was the mantra running through George's mind as they set off.

It was nearing midnight, plenty of revelers still out on the streets, but other than the taverns, most everything else was closed. Which meant they were creeping in shadows and silence as they approached the trade depot.

Slipping into the building was easy. Which was setting off every alarm George had. Two guards on the front door, and that was it? A sinking feeling in his gut almost had him grabbing Reynard and turning back. Almost. Because they would never get another chance.

Sascha had only given them a rough idea of where to go, and the depot itself was massive. George settled in for a long search.

The pair fell into a rhythm and were able to check the entire first floor in half an hour. No one stopped them or came in. The biggest scare was when one of the guards outside stretched in a yawn while the two of them were moving past. That only made things worse.

On the second floor they found more of the same. Empty offices and no sign of the Core interface. George approached the final staircase, then flung his hand out to stop Reynard from moving in front.

Just above the second step, George could see something reflecting in the moonlight. Getting closer, the form resolved itself into a wire. Not a magic trap or a clever cultivation technique. A stars-cursed tripwire. They were onto something.

Careful steps carried them around it, and then further up the staircase at a snail's pace. Each step thoroughly vetted before they would place any weight on it. They arrived on the third floor without setting anything off.

Unlike the lower levels, labyrinths of storage areas and offices crammed together without any attempt at order, the third floor was simple. One long hallway, a single door on either side. If self-importance had a physical manifestation, it was an office bigger than anything someone could truly need.

He turned to Reynard, who shrugged back. Up to him then. He went left.

Turning the knob, as slowly as he could, he found it wasn't locked. The door hinges were well-oiled, and didn't squeak at all as he pushed it open.

Maybe it hadn't been locked because whoever worked here was still inside.

No time to waste, George was in the door and halfway across the room with his pistol pointed dead ahead, faster than he could come up with a plan. Reynard entered behind him, shutting the door with a faint click and leveling his own weapon.

The man was around their age, late twenties, with blonde hair and blue eyes so uncommon in the empire. And a spiritual scan said he was a cultivator. As strong as George, maybe stronger. Definitely in the right place then. He opened his mouth to speak, but a violent gesture with the pistol was enough to stop that.

Keeping the gun aimed, George used his peripheral vision, enhanced with a bit of mana, to find the Core pedestal. It was ugly, at least compared to what he was used to. Though this whole trip had convinced him that Laurel's set up was less "the way it has to be done" and more "the only way Laurel knew how". Instead of an ornate, delicate pedestal, filled with golden mana and topped with a perfect map of the surroundings, it was a squat, column of solid stone, ending just below his waist. There was no topographical map, but instead what looked like a book, filled with row after row of tiny script he couldn't read from his angle.

They were stuck. If he split his attention to focus on the Core, this cultivator would attack. If he shot the man, the guards would notice. George could tell he was doing something with his mana, but not enough to guess exactly what. A few seconds, that was what they had before something happened, and everyone in the town heard the result.

Reynard decided for him. With a few quick steps, he was swinging the butt of his rifle. A crack that echoed in the silence as he made contact. The man slumping forward, dazed and definitely losing all control over his mana.

"Go," his partner hissed.

George listened. He stepped up to the pedestal. A quick skim told him half of the writing was information about the Core and its area of control. The other side were orders. How to cultivate the Core in order to make things easier for the closest City. He memorized as much as he could, uncomfortably thankful for some aspects of the magehunter training.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm his heart rate a bit. Everything up to this point had been the easy part.

Hands placed on either side of the pedestal, he dove in, just as he had practiced with Laurel. The mana flows were choppier than he was used to. But they had planned for that. They had banked on that. Laskar had more masters than anywhere else, but they also had more people. There were simply too many major Cores for every one of them to get that kind of attention. Which meant most places would be lucky to reach a status of 'controlled enough'.

Forcing his spirit forward, he hunted for the Core. It was like trying to run through water. The Core, and the mana itself, resisted him. He was not of this place, he did not belong to the Core, and he had no business here.

Laurel's cautions had been well-founded. He could never do this in a City. That level of power would be beyond him to overcome, his soul would be shredded in the process.

Nodston was not a City. It was barely ,a Town built around the lumber industry and acting as a local trade hub. His power was enough. With that belief bolstering him, he pushed onward.

His momentum built until he felt the mana change. All resistance disappeared as he tumbled towards the Core, moving too fast to stop. A wild animal, readying to fight when keeping predators away didn't work. George hadn't thought the Cores were aware enough for that.

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In his mind's eye, he saw the Core as he arrived. Smaller than Verilia, he yet felt a sense of pride emanating from the not-entirely-real structure. George scanned the Core, as gently as he was able.

The thought that this might be an elaborate trap was still blaring in his mind, especially after finding instructions conveniently written out for him. But what he found was exactly what he expected, after reviewing. They had forfeited stability and development of the Town in exchange for territory spread.

Tendrils of mana snaked out of the Core, just waiting to be connected to others nearby, once enough progress had been made. Attacking the Core directly was possible, but might kill him and Reynard, even if they succeeded, which was by no means a guarantee.

Those tendrils weren't yet tied to anything. It was a promise for the future. The fronds floated in the mana currents, anchored at only one end.

The next part was up to him. Laurel had never seen anyone do this, and there were no techniques in the Archive to draw from. Sabotaging a Core was the height of cultivator taboo back in the day, before mortals developed ways of defending themselves that didn't rely on thick walls and a defended Core.

It was up to him. He mentally grabbed onto one of the pieces and tugged. Nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing, the Core tugged it back, as if affronted George would attempt anything so offensive. That wouldn't work. He was strong enough to affect the Core, not strong enough to tear it apart.

He looked at the tendrils again, then decided to take a leaf from his Sectmaster's book. George formed his will into a blade, and sliced at the base. Promising, but the Core went wild, buffeting him with mana he could feel corroding his own spirit. But it did work. He could feel the first of the tentacles was weakened, he could eventually rip it off that way.

The problem with the strategy being 'eventually'. How much time had passed was hard to gauge, but he couldn't leave Reynard to handle everything on his own.

There were no bodies in this place, but that didn't stop him from dropping his hands to his guns. The comforting action had been ingrained over the years. From there he could take on everything.

His attention turned back to the Core. The mana was starting to hurt now, and that couldn't possibly mean anything good for him, not when the only thing present was his spirit.

One more idea to try. Drawing on his deep connection and all of his willpower, he manifested two pistols. To his spiritual sense, they blazed with metal aspected mana in a way they didn't in real life.

His finger brushed the trigger, and then kept going. Shot after shot after shot. More than the guns could hold. More than they could fire without careful mana application.

He savaged the Core and was savaged in turn. The attack worked. First one tentacle dissolved, then another. At the same time, George was now the entire focus of the Core. Distantly, he was pretty sure he was screaming. It flayed his spirit while he ripped everything to pieces.

This needed to happen. He held onto that idea with both hands as he felt, rather than heard, the keening wail of pain he had caused. The tendrils were gone. The Core was weakened.

With one last effort of will, he wrenched himself back to his body, waking up slumped over on top of the pillar. George turned his head, something that took more effort than usual, to see Reynard over a now unconscious – or dead? – cultivator, staring at George with a slack jaw.

Pounding on the door brought the soldier back to attention.

"Sir, we heard screaming!" One of the guards shouted.

George opened his mouth, but all that came out was a wheeze. He tried again. "Magic problem. All fixed."

"Sir, please let us in to assist."

"No."

The guard kept arguing but George ignored them for bigger problems. Namely his limbs were not fully cooperating. He flopped over, then felt something uncomfortably sticky on his face. With some effort, he got his arms moving and was able to wipe a bit off. Blood. Not great. That would be later's problem.

Reynard had not been idle in the last few minutes, forcing open the window and setting up a rope for them to climb down.

"I'm fine. Go back to your posts." George tried to put some arrogance into the tone, but he knew he had missed the mark.

He let Reyanard go first, before half-climbing, half-falling down on his own. Slinging the rifle to the side, Reynard ducked under George's arm and started dragging him to their meeting point. It was over. All they had to do now was leave.

Further towards the edge of town, George was able to walk under his own power, leaving Reynard to keep an eye out. They kept to the shadows, avoiding the stragglers stumbling home from the pubs. It had been longer than he realized, stuck battling the Core.

The edge of the town came and went, any remaining light far behind them as they picked their way towards the woods.

Things changed when they neared the clearing for their rendezvous. There was light up ahead, where there shouldn't have been. Both George and Reynard slowed, keeping as quiet as possible.

Their pace slowed to a crawl when they heard voices. Ones that definitively did not belong to their team, and which carried a distinct imperial accent.

George signaled to Reynard and dropped to the ground, crawling closer until he could see most of the clearing through a break in the underbrush. His whole body ached and he wasn't fully confident he would be able to stand again. Better to make this count.

His first look was enough to see the rest of his team was alive and upright. Not unharmed, Reina was sporting a cut lip and the beginnings of a wicked bruise, but alive. The others had their backs to him but he had to assume similar states. None of them would go down without a fight, and whatever scuffling had occurred, none of them had been disarmed.

Between their legs, he saw a body on the ground. It twitched and convulsed. Not dead then, and not one of his.

Across from his team were at least twice as many Laskarians, armed to the teeth. It was a standoff, one where George had none of the relevant information.

"Drop your weapons," one of the Laskarians said.

"No." Atta girl Reina.

No point in waiting around, he edged back, moving smoothly to avoid anything snagging the eyes of the Laskarians, and promising his body that he would sleep for two days straight once they were safely away.

Their torches were on his side here. The light would ruin the night vision of anyone not actively cultivating.

With Reynard, he made his way around the edge of the clearing. Each step felt like a lifetime, the clean scents of the trees masking the stench of his own sweat and blood as he sought the best angle.

No time to plan. Not that all their planning had done much good in their infiltration attempt when they missed someone staying inside the office. George lined up on one side, Reynard a mirror across the way. They raised their weapons. A loud snap echoed across the forest, silencing everyone in the clearing. There was no need to question where it had come from. He could feel the edges of the stick beneath his boot.

George jumped the last foot into the clearing, weapon trained on the Laskarian.

Trying to talk would get them in the same place they started. He pulled the trigger. With an instinct grown of repetition, he pushed mana into the gun at the same time.

He had no idea whether or not the bullet hit.

George screamed and collapsed. His meridians were filled with needles, stabbing into every part of his body. This time he felt the blood dripping from his nose and ears. He could feel every drop of blood as it moved through his body, burning like it had been replaced with molten metal.

He couldn't tell how long he spent sobbing on the forest floor, but eventually it ended. First he wiggled his fingers, convincing himself his whole body hadn't burned to ash. Then his hands and arms. His muscles were shaking but he forced them to behave as he leveraged himself upright. Not for a moment did he consider cycling his mana to relieve the ache.

When his eyes focused he saw that it was done. Reina, now bleeding from a grazing bullet wound on her arm, had wasted no time. Following her terse orders, the rest of them had the Laskarians unarmed and trussed up. Most were still alive, if the groaning was anything to go by. But not all. He saw the first man, who had been leading the group, splayed out on the ground with his neck ripped apart. George hadn't missed then. That was something.

He wished he could say it was the first Laskarian he'd killed, but that wasn't the case. Not even close. It still wasn't easy. It was however, infinitely better to think about that than what had just happened to him. Magic might not have been his choice when he started, but now it was all that he knew. If using it would be that much agony, he wasn't quite sure what use he was going to be.

After a battle with his unresponsive limbs, George made it to his feet, only to sway alarmingly and grope for a nearby tree to keep him up. The others had finished, with Sascha joining him where he stood, saying nothing. The man had a limp that hadn't been there before, and a leg of his pants was ripped off, revealing a bandage already too dirty for comfort.

There was no more discussion when they left. The sand was falling through the hourglass now, and it was a race to beat it.

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