Legacy of the Dark Sage

The scene unfold before Kyran and Stella as butterfly-shaped cracks dissipated in the air. It revealed a porcelain stairway with a trailing fire on its side, leading to a medium-sized fortress suspended in midair.

Surrounding the fortress were several three-meter wide marbled cauldrons lit by deep-red flames, bringing light to its vicinity.

Three massive golden rings of Array calculation, circled the fortress in a rhythmic fashion.

Judging from the formulas included in the calculation, Kyran deduced it was a Legendary-tier Array. It was also this Array which hid the fortress from other people's sight.

"This..." Stella muttered breathlessly.

For as long as she could remember, the Tower of Conclave and its surrounding forest was the only place she knew.

She did see places through unclear communication projections, recordings, and books. But this would be the first time she had seen another place, or rather, another stronghold which housed another faction.

Going to the Courtenay's land was different. Because she had only been in the dome. She had yet to explore the whole place. Besides, it was not one of the Courtenay's stronghold.

In any case, seeing the secret residence of the Montgomeray Family brought Stella an unprecedented thrill. It was only at this moment that made her truly feel she had left the vicinity of the Tower of Conclave.

"… how are they keeping such a huge fortress afloat?"

Kyran cocked a brow as he looked at her. Seeing her child-like facination at the sight of the Montgomeray's fortress made him wonder what kind of expression she would have if she saw the Chaos Palace.

Compared to the Chaos Palace, the Montgomeray's fortress was small. The palace was also floating above an endless abyss and no visible path led to its gates, making it almost impossible to enter.

Now that Kyran thought of it, maybe the reason why there was no path there was because Caelan did not need one. He could simply warp in and out of the palace and even take anyone and anything from the outside whenever he wanted.

"It's not floating. Its sitting atop that sleeping huge stone guy over there," Kyran said pointing at the space between the fortress and the land below.

He said this with the thought that she could not see Spirits.

Stella's expression darkened as she looked at him.

"Do you really have to burst my bubble?" She complained.

Kyran raised his brows. "What? You can see that guy and pretend not to?"

The way he said it made her redden. He did not have to make her seem like a delusional child.

True, she saw the silhouette of something underneath the fortress. But she was somewhat hopeful that something was made out of magic which made the fortress stay afloat.

'Wait,' Stella stopped her train of thoughts recalling what Kyran had said. "You can clearly see what is underneath the fortress?"

"Yeah, can't you?"

"Just its silhouette. Actually, if you did not say it is a golem, I would have thought it was something else and not a Spirit," she replied with a slight shake of her head.

Kyran frowned slightly, "You're also calling them, it."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Without bothering to argue, Kyran looked away and approached the stairway. He could not blame Stella for referring the golem as it. She did initially thought it was something else and not a Spirit, so he dropped the topic.

"What do you mean, 'nothing'? It doesn't seem like it is nothing," Stella pointed as she followed behind him.

Kyran did not respond.

He might not have plenty of interactions with Spirits but it rubbed him the wrong way when other people refer to them as it. As if they were genderless non-living things. They were alive and were also part of families. They worried about their kin and also had the ability of reproduction.

If they were a genderless non-living thing, could they be capable of these?

But this was Kyran's point of view, he dislike forcing his ideals on other people. That was why he refrain from arguing.

In any case, he was not acting as Tyr right now, so there was no reason for him to be 'talkative.' To be honest, his throat was already complaining from all the talking he had to do whenever he was 'Tyr.'

It was one of the many reasons why he wanted to stop pretending to be Tyr.

"Kyran—."

Before Stella could form the words she wanted to say, Kyran abruptly stopped. Just like a chain reaction, she stopped in her tracks and looked at him.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Stand back," he told her without looking back.

Stella did not ask questions and moved back at once. She was like a helpless little chick out in the open for the first time and was unfamiliar with a lot of things. It was best to follow someone she trust than act all knowing.

As soon as Kyran sensed Stella moved back, he lifted his hand and using his pointing finger, touched a spot in front of him. The spot was adjacent to the stairway's entrance.

Suddenly, the spot where his finger touched distorted, revealing a series of runes that formed a barrier that prevented intruders from crossing the stairway.

The barrier did not cover the whole surrounding. Just the area around the stairway's entrance.

"What are those runes?" Stella asked while looking at the rune writings before them.

They glistened in multicolor and generated a faint humming sounds.

She had been living in the tower all her life and had no choice but to enrich her knowledge through reading countless of books. This gave birth to the vast collections of books she now possessed in her study. Because of this, she memorized several magic rune writings, even if she could not use any of them given the nature of her magic. Yet, she did not recognize the magic runes she was seeing right now. It could be rune writings she had not yet seen.

Stella's question was met with silence.

With a slight frown Stella looked at Kyran, who seemed to have forgotten her presence and was looking at the runes with utmost concentration.

Seeing Kyran like this, her frown turned into a gentle smile. She knew about this side of him. Whenever he found something interesting, or when he was in the middle of studying something, he tend to forget everything else.

She witnessed it back in her study, when she left him for a while only to find him in almost the exact same position and doing the same thing. It was fine if she had only left for a couple or three hours, but in reality, because of the Time magic placed on her study room, she had left him there for days!

After a few seconds, Kyran summoned a purple disc on his right hand. Then using his left hand, he used his pointing and middle fingers which were now glowing with a purplish glow to touch a magic rune at the center of the barrier. As soon as his fingers touched the rune, it shook restlessly.

To Stella's amazement, an exact replica of this rune slowly formed above the purple disc in Kyran's right hand. The only difference was, the rune on the barrier were multicolored while the replica was purple.

Just as Stella was thinking this, the multicolored rune turned purple, and the four runes surrounding it from left, right, top and bottom, trembled.

These runes soon appeared on the purple discs and similar to what happened to the first one, the runes on the barrier changed into purple soon after. Like a chain reaction, this process happened.

Stella watched in awe at how the runes on the barrier before them slowly turned to purple. It did not take long for her to understand that Kyran was changing the attributes of the magic runes, converting them into his own, in order to break it.

However, if he did this won't the Montgomeray Family be offended?

"K-Kyran, are you sure this is fine?" Stella tried to ask again.

This time, Kyran answered her, "Yes. This is the Montgomeray's way of affirming my identity."

Revealing the Montgomeray's fortress was also a test for him. He realized that it would only allow his presence to enter. That was why he had to hold Stella's hand while letting his magic sense cover her body. If not, she would not be allowed to enter.

Stella heard a hint of annoyance in his voice. But recalling his answer, made her frown, "What? So they still doubted your identity even when the Queen of the Faes already confirmed who you were?"

"I don't really blame them. Spirits are prone to play tricks on humans, and well... I'm not exactly using my real identity when they found me. There are too many inconsistencies in the information they have about me so far."

"Inconsistencies?"

"There is someone else who made contact with them. A messenger from a different Spirit. I don't know the complete details, but he probably gave information different from the Queen of the Faes."

"Who is this someone else?"

"You'll know soon enough."