Duo

=Eastern Region, Border City of Tawk, 538km North from the Machine Base=

In the outskirts near the Northern Tribal lands, the roaring sound of a speeding Hovercraft Drone shrieked through the air. Its sound was loud enough for anyone hearing it to cover their ears in fear. As the Hovercraft flew over a city near the borders of Atira, the Airforce were mobilized.

"GO GO GO!"

Airships and Griffin riders flew as the sound grew louder, not even the Griffins or the wyverns themselves could stand the noise. As the people beneath panicked and mages used their magic to sense the unwanted flying beast, Liz and Valentine have been dropped from the hovercraft and were already in the city.

It was past midnight and the commotion proved to be an effective cover. As they frantically searched the skies, the two dropped under their noses. The city was called a city but seemed far off from one, it was more of an expanded military fortress than a city. Towering stone walls, high towers and tens of thousands of soldiers and mages were the citizens of this place.

The two landed unnoticed at the rooftop of the central castle. By using the hover technology on the soles of their boots, they managed to slow down enough so that their landing produced little to no sound.

The castle roof was made of hard stone. Using the MTF(Mobile Task Force) cloaking devices, they were successfully hidden inside a transparent dome that served as their cloaked space.

"Alright, use your magic to see if anyone is down there," Valentine whispered to Liz.

"Roger," Liz whispered back.

"Enhance..." Liz chanted.

Liz began to scan the room beneath them. They had to hurry, at any moment they could be spotted by a mage using his or her own enhancement magic.

"There's someone in the room beneath us, but he's the only one. There is nobody else in this floor,"

"Then let's bust ourselves in,"

"Why didn't our leaders give us any.. uhm.. extra of these "Instruments" for the mission?"

"I don't know either, they only gave us instruments for stealth, I remember Madame Caitlyn telling me that they're the easiest to use, maybe that's the case"

"But still..."

"Let's stop questioning them and proceed with our mission, go!"

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"T-There we go! At last! Foe! You have been vanquished from my sword!" A middle-aged jittery nobleman was pleased to finally have removed the smudge that tainted his glistering rapier.

"Now, to shine you to glo-"

A piece of stone fell on his head, knocking him unconscious. Liz and Valentine both entered through the hole they made in the roof and landed on their feet.

"I did not expect him to be directly beneath, why didn't you tell me?" Valentine turned towards Liz and asked.

"Eh, so we could, you know, take him out easier," Liz answered as she scratched the back of her head.

"Fair enough,"

The two scanned the room they were in, it was a spacious room full of pristine wooden furniture, velvet couches, a fireplace and a golden bed. It only took them a few seconds to realize that the man they knocked unconscious was the Lord of the city.

"We took out the lord with just that? How weak is he?" Liz complained.

"Let's not wait for him to wake up, we came here to retrieve maps that would direct us to the Ravagers territory," Valentine replied.

"Yeah yeah, let's start with these drawers,"

It only took them a few minutes to empty every single cabinet and drawers in the room, papers flew as the wind blew through the opened windows. They finally found one map, it was a vague map but it had a hint of where those monsters lived.

"Right, now let's-"

"Hold it there, thieves!"

"Crap!" Valentine and Liz turned towards the location of the voice, the lord was now awake.

He shakily stood from the floor while holding the upper part of his head. He grabbed his rapier and stared at it. After realizing that his hard work was yet again tainted, he exploded into a flurry of curses.

"You both will pay for your lives!" He shouted. His voice was loud enough for the people downstairs to hear them. Valentine and Liz heard the sounds of heavy armour running downstairs and up the floor.

"Shit, we gotta get out of here!" Liz drew her bow and channelled her magic for a swift magical arrow snipe.

She released her hold on the strings of her bow and the arrow was launched. Valentine ducked as the arrow emitted a high amount of magic.

"Pah!" With a quick poke from his rapier, the arrow was sliced into two.

Dumbfounded, Liz charged her bow and arrow again. Valentine then ran from side to side, hoping to catch the lord off-guard.

"Too slow! You think you could easily defeat me? Who is at the peak of A-rank!" The lord mocked.

Seeing that her attack has been foiled, Valentine charged her body and continued her attack. She summoned her Katana-like sword from her dimensional storage and slew several slashes at the lord at great speed when he was just within arm's length. The lord was swift and precise with his blocks with his Rapier enchanted with high immunity towards high-level magical close-quarter type weapons, if it wasn't enchanted, then it'll easily cut in half, while he managed to block Valentine's attacks, he even managed to sneak a poke through Valentine's defense and slightly stabbed her right elbow.

"Argh!" Valentine felt the pain and backed off, she shouldn't hold back because this tough opponent was at peak A-rank same as her, while she is a bit stronger than him, the lord seems more faster. Liz then fired her second arrow, this time it was enhanced with explosion magic. The arrow was glowing red as it sped towards the smirking lord.

With ease, the lord merely took a step to the right and the arrow wheezed through and hit the wall behind him. But the arrow, as expected, exploded upon contact due to being enhanced with explosion magic. The dust and rubble landed on everyone, including the blade of the lord's rapier, which only immunes to high-level magical weapons, except it wasn't enchanted to defend against magical blast or projectile weapons.

In a bout of shock, the lord scanned his precious weapon. Upon realizing its fate, he exploded in anger.

"Rah!" He screamed louder.

Valentine and Liz were cut-off guard as the doors behind them burst open and knights stormed the room.

"Halt!" The knights surrounded them and drew their swords, all of them are either late stages D-ranks, C-ranks, or early stages B-ranks. Liz and Valentine both leaned on each other as the knights formed a circle around. The lord's aura finally became visible, his aura was a douse of flames surging from his body. His eyes glowed red with pure hate and he stared at the intruders.

"Leave them! I will behead them myself!" He ordered.

"This is quite a mess," Valentine remarked.

"You think!?" Liz retorted. She once again drew her arrows but what can her flurry of arrows do in such a tightly packed space? They were sandwiched. The situation looked dire, while Liz was oblivious, Valentine knew one important thing.

Artemis is observing.