Chapter 68: Ambush

Kire crept through the underbrush, enchanted lenses on while the cloak was wrapped around his shoulders, the mist once again proceeding the group.

They swiftly came upon the fort, with walls of thin logs sharpened on the top lashed together and stuck in the ground, with small ditches outside and tents within.

Sal sighed. "Apparently this used to be a farm, as you can see by that one building there. The Sattix seem to have taken it over, probably for food supply seeing as the position isn't that great."

Kire nodded. "There's a gap in the fence over there. We can probably slip in, hide in the tall grass-oh that's wheat."

Sal struggled to not laugh at that surprisingly childlike thing to say from Kire, a man he's seen rip another in half with a whirlwind of tiny ice shards.

'Hold it in... don't laugh... oh boy.'

"Ahem... yes. They built the wall partway through the wheat field which has not been harvested, as you can see the broken stalks outside where they cut it all to make space for the ditch and wall, but there's still enough inside to hide behind."

Kire nodded. "Our lenses will let us see their positions through the wheat without revealing ourselves."

"Exactly." A woman with dark red hair finally cut in, and Sal and Kire fell in line behind her as she began to move out, the runes on the lenses lighting up briefly in activation alongside the cloaks before they came over the dirt rise they were hiding behind.

They crept closer, finally arriving at the gap in the logs making up the wall where one was just a bit too skinny at the top compared to the bottom, making it possible to slip in edgewise.

'This seems... too quiet.'

Kire looked around.

'The heat signatures are all there... luckily the lenses check both heat and life energy, otherwise this wheat's lifeforce would impede our vision completely as well.'

A strange feeling of anxiety lurked inside him, and Kire struggled to figure out what it was.

Was it because it was quiet? What was wrong here?

The Sattix wouldn't see them, the wheat hid them-

Wait.

'Why would they leave the wheat standing inside their camp?'

Heat can be created by magic, but life can't.

The wheat blocked out the life vision, so they were using heat to see the sentries...

What about the tents?

Kire focused on the cloth huts.

Before they had been further away, and one could think the thick cloth prevented heat from being seen.

But this close?

Empty.

Tents were empty, sentries could only be seen by heat which could be faked, and this wheat-

The wheat wasn't just a hiding spot.

It was a blindfold.

"AMBUSH!" He screamed and threw himself at the others, talking them down while immediately sending a pulse of ice out to cover the stalks with frost, right as a startled Sattix released the flame-bolt he had been preparing into the wheat.

The flames didn't spread due to the frost, but that was the least of anyone's concerns.

Unarmored, outnumbered, with all stealth stripped away.

And on the ground in a bundle within a patch of tall plants blocking their sight while surrounded by Sattix somehow hidden from heat vision.

'Fuck!' Kire swore as he gathered his energy, using breathing to simulate the gathering and holding of power as he prepared to do all he could to blow a way of escape.

'Damn it, if Bast were the one here she could just literally blow a way out!'

It takes a lot more wind energy to rip through wood and stone than it would for fire after all. Lightning could do it too, but that won't make a big enough hole!

'Damn it, how can I see where the enemy is?!'

'Actually why can't I see them? Blocking heat, water runes to make cold, but they still need to be warm to survive, so it's a veil...'

Kire gathered all his will and reached into the mist and fog.

'Gather, come together.'

Water droplets and vapor poured into the camp through every nook and cranny in the walls, flooding over it like a river of fog, and blinding all conventional sight in the now pitch-black night.

'Cold. Frost. Cold. Ice. Snow. Cold. Cold.'

The temperature shot down as fast as an arrow's flight, and the others on the ground with Kire began to shiver, while one groaned in pain as a crossbow bolt got lucky and hit his calf.

Kire couldn't pay attention, he couldn't afford to let go.

It was so much water, spread into the fog.

Too much to command or hold in any way.

It felt like a crushing weight in his brain just to gather it, without the Nameless One's support he'd never be able to create something like that.

Gather and make it cold.

Colder, colder, icy and freezing.

The air became freezing, dragon breath[1] lingering in the air mixing with the mist.

And as the world became ever so gray and cold in heat vision...

The veil that once covered their temperature was now no longer colder than the surroundings.

* * *

"How do these runes work?"

Sal shot Kire a look. "How the fuck should I know? Aren't you the one who can actually use magic?"

"Yeah, that's exactly why I'm confused."

Sal gave a look to Levi, who laughed as he brushed his grey-white hair out of his violet eyes.

"Okay...?"

Kire sighed. "Magic is... reactive. The world constantly changes, so if I want to keep a freezing spell, I have to adjust the mana for that spell when it gets hotter."

Fiera overheard and shook her head. "From what I understand, the runes are like instructions. Like, 'stay at this specific amount of cold' to freeze something. That way you don't have to adjust it I guess?"

Kire frowned. "Like a... 'program' huh?" He muttered under his breath.

* * *

'I got you now.'

The world had become colder than what their magic equipment was "programmed" to be!

And now-

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He roared as he let go of the mist and cold, knowing it would take time to disappear again, and created spears of ice he shot at the many green splotches of heat against the grey background, ignoring any that were yellow or red in heat.

Kire turned to the wall of logs, lightning gathering and blasting splinters out of the wood as it tore many holes!

The ragged wall got no respite as a massive blast of wind and air slammed into its weakened structure!

Air magic filled him as he picked up the injured man and started running along with the others.

It all happened so fast that it was only now that the Sattix had reloaded their crossbows and the few hit by Kire's ice spears were pulled back.

Kire turned as the first "Shu~ Shu~ Shu~" of bolts releasing rang out, and swung his arm, wildly releasing air magic into a gale pushing bolts off their path and flattening the wheat, throwing a cloud of stalks into the faces of the ambushing Sattix!

A hand grabbed Kire's collar and wrenched him back around. "Keep running you fool!"

[1] Dragon Breath is the proper name for the mist you exhale when it is cold.