Having confirmed Octavia's unchanged sagacity, Claire returned to wandering the streets. The soldiers stirred and clamoured as she released them from her control. There would no doubt be a report on her father's desk in the morning, but it wasn't like they were in hot pursuit. They were too busy with their construction work to chase her. Not even the most belligerent among them considered it, for they were well-trained enough to prioritize the mission at hand.

What they did do was summon the secret service to request an immediate investigation. Alas, the task was Sisyphean. Claire opened a portal in front of her pursuers and flung them across the nation. She didn't focus too hard on the exact coordinates, so it was impossible to say if they wound up above the sky or stuck underground, but in either case, she was confident that they could probably make their way back within a few hours if they really put their minds to the task. Probably.

Claire closed her eyes and focused on her ears after they vanished, just to double check that no one would notice. The moment of concentration immediately provided another point of interest. Seeking it, she walked down a series of side streets and alleyways, twisting and turning until she found herself in one of the city's many dead ends.

Though there was nothing in sight, her ears affirmed that there was a battle ongoing. Fights themselves were normal, pretty much as common as the magical lamps that illuminated the city's streets, but the particular conflict that Claire had discovered appeared to defy the norm. The most obvious differentiator was its location. Rather than taking place in a tavern or out on the streets, it was conducted in an underground arena. The ring was heavily concealed and soundproofed; she wouldn't have detected it if not for the use of her divinity.

At first, she suspected that it was some sort of secret gym, or perhaps an organisation that featured nightly battles akin those held in the colosseum during the day, but a closer inspection revealed neither case.

She found a duel before a council that clearly didn't belong. There were goblins, weird ferrets, and bipedal owls seated all around, frowns on their faces as they watched in near-perfect silence. They were nearly as suspicious as the guards that stood outside the building. Racially, they were clearly centaurian. They blended in with the rest of the crowd at a glance, but their equipment and behaviour were indicative of foreign origin.

For one, their choice of weaponry was highly peculiar. Cadrians preferred spears and shieldlances first and foremost. Bows served as a strong tertiary choice, while swords and daggers were often reserved as offhand backups for the rare case when one ran out of everything else. Mages used staves of course, and there was the occasional freak who preferred axes to halberds or polearms.

The foreigners, on the other hand, were equipped with whip swords. The weapons sat on their waists, still curled up but ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. They were paired with tiny spiked batons and strange, lanceless shields devoid of offensive potential. One could argue that an unsharpened protector was easier to wield, on account of its shape and size, but any Cadrian to hear such an argument would certainly turn up their nose. There was no such thing as a warrior that didn't invest in strength, and enough of it would make any shieldlance as light as a feather. The air resistance that came with the increased size was easily mitigated by turning the defensive weapon during its movement—a maneuver that was just as important for a bladeless bulwark. If anything, the extra metal lessened the need for precision and increased the range of one's potential parries. Only dedicated shielders who wielded massive towers would consider the possibility of discarding the blades, and even then, they often kept them attached.

Anyone with a brain could tell that the horse-men were non-native save for maybe the intruders themselves. The citizens' lack of concern didn't do them any favours. After all, it wasn't like the presence of non-Cadrians, armed or otherwise, was even remotely abnormal—merchant caravans and their private armies made up the bulk of the visitors—and even if something was wrong, the government would certainly step in before the circumstances turned sour.

Still, the horse-men stood, almost stock still in front of the building's door, guarding it with solemn looks upon their faces.

"Sorry kid, this place is off limits." The bulkier, black-furred guard pointed a thumb at the sign on the door. "It's invite only."

Claire flexed her fingers, but stopped short of summoning her lizard. She worked her runecloak instead, transforming a small piece of it into a metal badge as she pretended to reach inside of her robes.

The crest she flashed was identical to the one hung on the walls underground, a pair of clasped hands wrapped up in chains with an eye hovering above and a ray casted from it.

The horses exchanged glances, wide-eyed, before looking back at the symbol. They didn't even dare to ask to touch it. That would have been too rude. For it was one wielded only by those who held great influence among the alliance's members.

Perhaps if they had expected such a guest, they might have happily opened the doors and allowed for her immediate passage, but there was no one quite that important scheduled to attend the meeting at hand and her description didn't match any of the scattered kings'. The men didn't know what to do. It was always possible that she was simply an envoy, and they were delaying an important message, but they'd also just been told to stay on their toes.

Shadow, the alliance's greatest spymaster, had recently disappeared and his motherland's capital had followed in the act. The whole thing had vanished overnight, leaving nothing but an empty patch of scorched earth. The terrorist responsible was still at large. And though they doubted that it was the rogue in front of them, they couldn't help but err on the side of caution.

"Please wait just a second," said one of the centaurs. "I'll check with the higher ups."

Claire sighed. Grabbing the two men with a pair of vectors, she slammed their faces together and knocked them unconscious before proceeding towards the entrance. Though not an artifact, the door was enchanted, rigged to inform the caster in the case that the barrier was breached. It likely wouldn't trigger even if she brute forced it—her ultimate would completely break the spell and disable its follow-up effects—but she drained it of its mana regardless.

It was more for entertainment's sake. She was curious to know if the caster would realise, or perhaps how they would react if they did. Alas, straining her ears again revealed that the goblin was comically incompetent. He was too busy fiddling with his bridged fingers and watching the battle taking place within the building's confines.

Claire reached for the door, but stopped before she touched it. Spinning around instead, she waited for her silent watchers to step out into the open.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The only one to comply was the group's leader. The intelligence officer appeared from within the shadow of a nearby lamp post, a troubled look on his face all the while. The combination of his nervous demeanour and the way he kept glancing at her ears suggested that he had at least some semblance of her identity, an impression only cemented by the knee he took after approaching.

"What?" she asked. The man in question was rather bulky for someone in the secret service. Though he looked mostly thoraen, there were a few scattered hints that seemed to suggest his mother might've been a lamia, such as the crimson gleam of his body and the extra layer of scale that covered his massive frame.

"We would very much prefer if you left this particular location intact," he said. "We are using it as a means of tracking their operations."

Claire paused for a moment. "Don't worry. I'm just sneaking in for fun."

It was a clear explanation, but the man only deepened his frown. "Would you mind if I accompanied you?"

"What for?"

"It will be much easier to write up a report with first-hand experience of the events."

Claire paused for a second before spinning around and pushing open the door. "Fine."

She saw no reason to shoot down his request. He didn't seem to be particularly skilled, but neither was he weak enough to slow her down. As far as government agents went, he was on the better side of average, likely one of the many stuck sitting at or around the level 850 wall. It wasn't like Claire had anything to hide, given his knowledge of her identity. She briefly entertained the idea of eliminating the alliance's stronghold, but soon dismissed the thought. She had no intention of carrying out her father's responsibilities.

It wasn't like the alliance was a threat. They'd never been a threat. Sure, they tried their best to rise to the occasion and threaten the Cadrians as best they could. But at most, they could briefly draw their forces. The longest they'd held a town was about half a week; they found themselves at their wits' end the moment the flying fortresses came into play. The one counter that had ever borne fruit involved deploying the strongest among them, but even then, they were limited to hit and run tactics and proved incapable of taking out any more than a few forts a night. And that too would often be stonewalled by a Cadrian elite.

Claire's father was most often responsible. He was known for showing up on the western front and stopping the alliance in its tracks whenever they made any progress. And in fact, it was precisely one such run that had resulted in her mother's feigned death. Of course, the nation's strongest fighter wasn't deployed to every encounter. Sometimes, the alliance would luck out and find itself facing a different fighter, perhaps one that they had a chance of toppling. Even then, it rarely went well. Cadrian warriors, with their focus on regeneration, had no trouble living long enough for backup to arrive in droves.

As far as Claire was concerned, the alliance's members weren't worth the hassle of slaying. Sure, munching on their souls would boost her overall power level, but it was an insignificant change at best. There was more value in the entertainment derived from their struggles.

A frown crossed her lips when she pushed open the door. She'd seen most of the details already; her ears had long reproduced the room's appearance, but they were unable to inform her of its unpleasant smell. It was damp and musty, almost like it was filled with rotting wood in spite of its stone construction. The source came from deep underground, the very same place where the foreigners were engaged in battle.

Claire raised a hand to her face and took a few seconds to adjust her runecloak while her newfound companion dragged the unconscious guards inside and closed the door behind them. Adding a filter proved surprisingly difficult; it took her a few seconds to get the right balance between keeping the nasty particulates away and letting in everything else.

Of course, she could have simply stopped breathing. It wasn't like her lungs did much in the way of filtering and processing the air within them—they were simply large stretchy sacks where she could concentrate and condense her breath attacks—but she couldn't quite shake the habit.

Claire continued to contemplate the many disadvantages of regularly inhaling as she proceeded through the building. It was built loosely in the style of a real estate agency. There were giant glass walls everywhere, showcasing offices with some of the newest and most popular styles of furniture laid out within. There was a guest seating area in front of the front desk, which featured a slack-jawed receptionist. The individual in question—a humanoid man with a bird-like head—immediately tried to grab a magical device with a big red button, but it slipped out of his grasp. Repeating the motion didn't bring him much more success, for the artifact stood up on one of its corners and spun out of the way. Still, he desperately gave chase, all the way until he found his hand on the intruders' boots. He gulped as he slowly raised his eyes and met their gazes.

The female was looking down at him, arms crossed and eyes as cold as a winter storm, while the male shook his head and sighed.

He eventually opened his mouth and tried to scream, but he was too panicked for his tongue to be anything but stuck in the back of his throat. Only after he was kicked in the side of the head and knocked unconscious did it finally dislodge.

The secret service agent seemed like he had something to say, but kept his words to himself as Claire magically slipped the receptionist back into his chair and continued onwards. The door to the stairwell was locked, but she quickly undid the bolt and stepped right through. None of the guards standing on the other side so much as had a chance to be startled, for Claire had immediately dislocated their spines and sent them crumpling to the floor.

Of course, their memory of the events was likely to prove problematic, so she applied a few vectors to their hippocampi and fiddled with the synapses within. Though she could see the individual pulses when she focused, and though she could easily trace their movement through the unnecessarily complex material, Claire soon found that she couldn't be bothered to track down the particular neurons responsible for remembering the most recent event. She jostled that area of their brains instead, applying just enough force to completely obliterate their memory centers without killing them outright.

Stepping over them, she quickly did the same for the receptionist and the two guards out front. It was impossible to say without waking and questioning them if the mental assault would really have the effect she wanted, but she didn't really care either way. The very act of engaging had already assured that the alliance would be put on guard. A couple witnesses having a few extra details wasn't going to make much of a difference.

Leaving her silent observer to stare wide-eyed at her victims, Claire started down the steps and into the basement. There was another group of guards at the bottom of the stairwell, but she put them to sleep before they spotted her and continued on her way.

The underground facility was surprisingly poorly lit. One could barely make out the masonwork walls from the standard concrete foundations atop which they sat. It was hardly rational for the basement to be so dim; there were over a dozen ateliers in town. The foreigners could have easily visited any one of them and purchased a set of enchanted lights that would have kept the underground perfectly illuminated forever. The many crisscrossed ley lines that ran beneath Valencia ensured that all of the tools within the city's boundaries would forever remain topped up with magic.

One might look up at the hundreds of flying castles dotting the sky and think for a moment that perhaps they would put too much of a burden on the planet's circuits, but they were unlikely to overload them even if every single flying castle was subjected to a simultaneous attack that pushed their onboard shields to their upper limits.

Sure, a particularly magically attuned individual might've been able to sense that there were devices underground, but they were present in every basement in the city. Remaining inconspicuous would have been no harder than hiding a tree in a forest. It wasn't even like the darkness served as much of a deterrent. Claire was able to see perfectly and most who worked in the secret service had the night vision skill at a high enough level to do the same. If anything, they were only making life harder for their guards.

Whatever their logic, it was all the same to Claire. She walked over to a far corner, opened up the hidden compartment, and infiltrated the alliance's secret base.

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