Another Facet Of Magic

Led by Ray, Lyd and Gros, a group of 25 Xenos snuck into Knossos from the dungeon's 18th floor. They had been as careful as possible to avoid all prying eyes in the Under Resort and successfully made it to the secret entrance without much of a hitch. Considering that they had a certain someone - Isaac - keeping watch over them all along, their caution had quite honestly been excessive, as there had never been any real danger of them getting discovered. Still, better safe than sorry.

Channeling some of her mana into the eyeball-shaped key that had been fastened to a plain necklace, Ray opened the orichalcum gate that had locked them out of the manmade labyrinth's depths. Due to how awkward it would have been for her to clasp a small sphere in between her wings, her lord had taken out a few different kinds of strings and various leather strips to transform the easily losable key into a pendant. The Siren had been over the moon with happiness when she received this gift, affectionately hugging the sighing Isaac and almost breaking out into tears.

"Quieten down, everyone. We're almost there! Split up according to Lord Isaac's instructions."

About five minutes after they had stepped past the nigh indestructible gate, Lyd raised his right arm to silence the last bits of soft chatter that had kept the group's spirit relaxed. The look in his eyes gradually transformed into a focused and bloodthirsty one, vastly different from the one that he usually sported. His muscles tensed up as he stealthily crossed the last corner that had separated him from those that had imprisoned some of his kin. The red-scaled Lizardman's grip on his scimitar and his longsword tightened until the scales right over his knuckles appeared a fraction of a shade paler than normal.

"Yo, boss! When will we be going out to hunt again? It's already been two days and I'm getting restless."

A bald, muscular mountain of a man with a black tattoo accentuating the area around his left eye sat on top of a seven meter tall cage and stared excitedly at a man of about the same height who was currently standing next to the blood-drenched body of a Ligerfang. It was one of the about a dozen or so monsters which were imprisoned in the tens of metal cages that were lined up on the walls of a massive underground chamber.

"Now that you mention it, I have to admit that we still haven't caught enough of them yet for a proper sale. Fine, we'll head out again in an hour. Let the rest of the familia know, will you?"

Pushing up his bloodstained goggles to reveal the calculating, red eyes underneath, the 'boss' - the Captain of the Ikelos Familia, Dix Perdix - turned to face his enthusiastic henchman. Although he had been immersed in stabbing and cutting the helpless Xenos in front of him until mere moments ago, there now was no hint of the desperate lunacy from back then casting shadows upon his facial expression any longer. Instead, a calculative, self-assured smile played across his lips. As he was wiping off the blood from the knife that had just been used to torture his victim, he exuded a calm that made it seem as if nothing would be capable of affecting his own tempo, as if everything was always in the palm of his hand.

"Gotcha! The others will be more than happy to hear it, I'm sure."

Watching the tattooed man, Gran, as well as a few other Ikelos Familia members scampering off into the distance, towards the other chambers and halls that made up their cozy base down here, Dix smirked to himself and sheathed his knife, then he picked up his trusty two-pronged spear and twirled it around for a bit out of habit.

Suddenly, he noticed a rapidly-moving shadow approaching from the hallway that Gran was about to step into. In his surprise, he failed to pay proper attention to his weapon and dropped it, but before he even had a chance to reach out to catch it or to warn his underlings of the imminent danger, a hairless, decapitated head had already been separated from its body.

"Shit! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!!"

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that a day would come when his band of black market traders would be assaulted in their own home. After all, only their allies could gain access to this place due to his family being the one in control of the Daedalus Orbs, right? And even if someone stumbled across one of them by chance, how would they know where and how to use these keys? Even more than that: How could they possibly figure out that they were keys to begin with?!

Despite these questions - and far too many others - overloading his conscious mind, he couldn't afford to waste any time on clearing his head right now. All that mattered at the moment were the numerous powerful monsters that were pouring in from all the entrances to this chamber. Due to their behaviour which significantly differed from that of the dungeon's regular denizens, it took him only a second or two to realize that they were of the same kind as the ones that he and his people had imprisoned.

'So you're here on a rescue mission, eh?'

Taking a step to the side, Dix dodged a wave of Siren feathers that had shot towards him out of thin air, then he charged towards the Gargoyle who had just broken the ribs of one of his favourite henchmen, Mekell.

"Go to Tartarus, you abhorrent statue!"

To his astonishment, the Gargoyle didn't crumble instantly when his spear collided with its claw - instead, it was he who was being pushed backwards, overwhelmed in a contest of pure Strength and Endurance.

'It's Level 5 like me… fuck!'

As he stabilized himself by allowing his body to take a few steps away from this monstrosity, his usually tranquil expression morphed into a warped mask of annoyance as well as anger. He hastily threw himself to the side to avoid yet another volley of feathers that had come out of nowhere, then, with a quick glance across the room, he noticed a group of five of his stronger underlings that were still holding on successfully against the unexpected onslaught. Having formulated a plan, he ran towards them.

"Cover me for four seconds!"

They all sent Dix knowing glances when they heard his words and redoubled their efforts once more. While they didn't manage to do more than scratch their opponents, they were sufficiently strong enough to hold them up for a period of time and serve as a wall between their familia's Captain and the Xenos.

If the situation had been a little less hectic, then Dix would have undoubtedly taken note of the fact that no new feathers had been shot his way for a while, but at the moment, he couldn't afford to waste any of his brainpower on distracting thoughts like these. Instead, he began to chant rapidly. Usually, he would have put on some theatrics whilst doing so, but he chose to forgo the superfluous bullcrap this time.

"Become lost in an endless nightmare. Phobetor Daedalus!"

Almost instantly, an oppressive red wave of light washed across everyone in the room, causing them to slow in their movement and actions immediately after. The eyes of all of the Xenos, both those outside and those inside of the cages, had turned the colour of fresh blood. As if a switch had been flipped, they raised their claws or weapons and looked around frantically. They searched for their allies, but all that they could gaze upon were some of their most feared enemies, which were surrounding them from all sides. Those with weaker wills amongst them either broke down or charged at the horrors, while those with higher mental fortitude frowned and simply kept to themselves, not intending to fight anyone. However, they soon found themselves forced to defend against attacks from all sides.

"Heh, these mere beasts are like lambs to the slaughter now. It's very impressive every time I see it, boss!"

Now that the danger had passed, one of the surviving henchmen took the chance to perform some well-practiced, shameless bootlicking. Even though it was far too blatant, a small smirk still stole itself on DIx' face. Finally, he could relax a little…

With the Xenos trapped within his illusion, the initiative had returned to his hands again and he didn't need to fear a confrontation with them any longer. They wouldn't have the opportunity to pay him any heed in this state, after all. As he looked at the cursed spear within his hands, a weapon which would leave behind wounds that were extraordinarily difficult to heal in the short term even if one employed Orario's best and brightest healers, his smile widened until it became almost unnatural.

"Now then, scream for me!"

With anticipation and excitement bubbling in his voice, Dix once more charged towards the Xenos that had just killed a fair number of his familia's members. Partially in an effort to vent but more so to drown out the overwhelming cravings of his cursed blood, he wished for nothing more than to see these monsters keel over in pain.

Before he could reach them, however, four expertly aimed feathers hit both of his arms and legs, knocking him to the ground and his trusted spear out of his hands. Astonishingly, the projectiles had penetrated to a depth of about two centimeters but had somehow managed to avoid any major arteries.

"... the fuck!?"

Right as he was looking in the direction from which the feathers had originated, a few more of them flew past him, but this time, they hit his remaining underlings' heads and ended their lives in one fell swoop. The drop-dead gorgeous Siren who had just sent them off on their journey to reincarnation looked back at him with fury slightly distorting her alluring face. However, to Dix' surprise, she chose to ignore him soon after and paid more attention to her bewitched comrades… and the empty air right next to her?

"Milord, can you save them?"

'Who in tarnation is she speaking to?'

Dix, who was currently in the process of pulling the feathers out of his wounds and standing up again, got quite confused by her words. Was there anyone else present here that he couldn't see, like this Siren that had attacked him? Because he hadn't managed to find her previously, he had failed to target her, unlike the others. But now that she was otherwise occupied, he should just chant once agai—

"That won't be a problem. Don't worry, I protected their vitals while they were fighting… but I also took that chance to observe them for some time. So, let me apologize for being a little late as a result."

Snap.

Before he could even come to terms with what was happening, a somewhat familiar, male voice echoed from literally nowhere, accompanied by the bizarrely threatening sound of someone snapping their fingers. Instantly, Dix felt the connection to all those that he had bewitched getting severed at the same time, waking them from their nightmares and giving him one heck of a headache.

The Xenos stared at the 'horrors' that they had been battling until this moment blankly, not sure whether or not what they were seeing right now was actually real. Only those who had stayed on guard up to this point - like Lyd, Gros, Gryuu, Four, Ranye and Let - heaved sighs of relief and quickly adjusted to the abrupt change.

"Who are you? What did you do just now?! Show yourself, you coward!"

In an attempt to overcome the panic that was viciously assaulting his mind, Dix grasped his spear more tightly and rapidly retreated from the mob of Xenos who were slowly encircling him. He had never come across a situation like this, one during which his bewitchment had been nullified by someone else. Worst of all was that he couldn't even see the person who had done it! Were they perhaps the mage responsible for veiling the Siren from his senses previously? If only he could bait them into revealing themselves and put a swift end to them… then maybe, he could pull off a chant once more to save his skin?

Unfortunately, Dix' hopes were fated to be crushed into fine dust today.

"You aren't qualified to meet me. While I have to admit that your little trick was an intriguing discovery, now that I've seen through it, there is no reason to keep you around any longer. Say hi to your local netherworld deity from me! Ray, please do the honours."

Neither hurried nor slow, the voice responded to his request and sentenced him to death. After a short but respectful bow, the Siren waved her wing and sent another feather in Dix' direction - however, it was multiple times faster than before. By now, he had subconsciously grown accustomed to the projectiles' previous momentum, so he slightly misjudged how quickly he had to respond to the attack… and found a feather stuck in his chest a fraction of a second later. Due to seeing how deeply it had penetrated inside, he already knew that it had stabbed straight through his ribs as well as his heart before his nerves even informed him of the excruciating pain.

When he felt his strength quickly waning, he couldn't help but kneel down. All of a sudden, he recalled where he had heard the voice of the invisible man before. A disbelieving, self-reproaching grin spread across his lips and he coughed up a few mouthfuls of blood while he muttered to himself.

"Isaac… Black… shaw. You son of a… bitch."

—--

At the same time as his loved one, friends, students, subordinates and acquaintances started their Knossos raid, Isaac was still located back on the Twilight Manor's grounds. He could currently distance his mana up to around 284 kilometers from himself without feeling any increase in mental burden, so he could comfortably employ his Eyes of Hermes throughout the entirety of Knossos as well as its surroundings from the comfort of home, without needing to make use of any of the tricks up his sleeve. Even though he was pulling off something that even the most famous mages in the Lower World's history could never have accomplished, he still had more than 80 percent of his mana and 95 percent of his focus left to spare.

Admittedly, magically talking to upwards of fifty people at the same time while observing the entirety of Knossos and continually manipulating his mana into shielding endangered individuals, opening doors or performing some other acts did drain a sizable chunk of that surplus focus, but there were still some mental resources that he hadn't allocated to any tasks yet. Therefore, he kept himself busy by using one of the Loki Familia's currently empty training courtyards to stealthily work on new Magics and mana-related techniques.

Minutes before all nine parties entered Knossos, he performed a small experiment. While Ais, Finn and Tione were about to simultaneously kill three deities, he wrapped their attacks into a thin layer of his mana and assisted them ever so slightly, thereby contributing to the gods' and goddess' demise a little. The system notifications that popped up in his body's field of view right after the pillars of light shot up towards Heaven caused a bright smile to surface.

[ Quest 'Destroy two mortal vessels of a divine lifeform.' completed. 200 AP rewarded. ]

[ … ]

[ Quest 'Destroy four mortal vessels of a divine lifeform.' completed. 400 AP rewarded. ]

Obviously, despite rejoicing at his suspicions having been confirmed as usual, he didn't forget to inquire with Ais about whether or not she had gotten her 100 AP reward for slaying one deity's mortal vessel - thankfully, she had.

Both of them had played a part in Kakia's death, therefore the system recognized both of them as having gotten the kill. This information would most definitely prove useful in the future, especially for AP gain min-maxing purposes. Sometimes, achievements couldn't just be progressed haphazardly - for example, there were only that many mortal vessels of hostile deities here in the Lower World - so now that they knew that it was possible for both of them to eat their proverbial cake after acquiring it, Isaac could account for this in his plans.

Right after entering Knossos, Tione's party got rid of the Dipsios Familia on the first floor, Bete's party destroyed the Sabnac Familia hideout on the second floor, Ais' party captured Lytta on the third floor and exterminated her familia to the last, Finn's party took care of the Kakia Familia remnants on the fourth floor, Tiona's party killed off the last of the Sabaktes Familia members on the fifth floor, the students' and subordinates' party stormed into the Zagan Familia sweatshop on the sixth floor, Riveria's party negotiated with the Red Blade's members on the tenth floor, Gareth's party performed exemplary pest extermination duties on the 14th floor and the Xenos' party set their sights on the Ikelos Familia on the 18th floor.

What captured the majority of Isaac's attention was the last one of these encounters because he bore witness to a hitherto unfamiliar kind of Magic there - a Curse. Due to partaking in some of Riveria's literature collection over time, mostly some books about magic, he had already been aware of the existence of this kind of mana application before he stumbled across it today.

The Lower World's inhabitants generally differentiated between Curses and Magics, treating them as two wholly disparate categories of Mind utilization which had a couple of similarities at most. On the other hand, most serious magic researchers and all deities were aware that Curses were simply an offshoot of magic - in other words, a subcategory.

If parallels to Isaac's past world's knowledge had to be drawn, then Curses could be equated to debuff spells. They were Magics that burdened beings other than the caster with negative effects. Well, technically, a mage could also target themselves with their own Curse, but there were barely any circumstances in which such an action would make any logical sense.

From what he could tell, there were three ways to combat Curses, one of which was practically exclusive to him at this point in time.

Firstly, one could kill the caster. This was by far the most straightforward and simple method that any layman could make use of.

Secondly, one could have a high enough grade of the Abnormal Resistance Development Ability so it could resist the Curse that the enemy mage attempted to afflict oneself with. The exact required grade of Abnormal Resistance depended on the opponent's Magic stat and on how much mana they used while casting. This was the option that a decent number of strong adventurers had access to.

Thirdly as well as lastly, one could utilize one's own mana to dispel the foreign mana that was flowing through the victim's body. Usually, whenever Isaac dispelled a Magic, he would have to target the caster's mana flow, but when it came to Curses, he had to target the mana flow of the one or the ones afflicted with them instead.

In all honesty, if this was everything that was noteworthy about Curses, then he would not have wasted more than a second or two on observing Dix' actions on the 18th floor. Presently, determining all that was mentioned above took Isaac little more than a single in-depth glimpse.

However, before he could resolve himself to intervene, he realized that something about the Ikelos Familia's Captain changed when he finished his Curse's chant. All of the goggle-wearing man's stats dropped by a significant margin, by almost an entire Level! While Isaac could determine the exact numbers in play, he couldn't make sure exactly how or why they were changed. As always, if he wanted to find out more, then he would have to personally perform some thorough research.

What he could ascertain, though, was that the laws of the world that governed magic seemed to expressively distinguish between regular Magics and Curses. Even though the latter was derived from the former, the treatment of their casters was vastly dissimilar. It felt a bit like whichever entity or being was in charge of the magic-related laws frowned upon Curses due to personal bias and had therefore implemented a cost requirement into their phenomena's realization. There was also the possibility that this was done to balance the scales due to the extreme devastation that Curses could bring about… but this was unlikely, considering how staggeringly powerful and versatile regular Magics could already be.

'I'll have to test exactly where the limits lie and which kinds of magic get classified as Curses later. Mina's Phagein Aeon also plagues her enemies with plenty of negative effects, but it doesn't get treated as one - I would have noticed it if she had to pay a price of some sort, after all. And even if I had failed to do so, she certainly would have told me about it. My best guess so far is that it is not treated like a Curse simply because it also has positive effects on her. But if that theory turns out to be accurate, then couldn't I circumvent the demerits of any kind of Curse that I might create by adding a self buff into it?'

At the thought of exploiting this admittedly prejudiced magic system and giving a certain insolent being some troubles, Isaac couldn't help but chuckle. He wouldn't make excessive use of what he had discovered, that was for sure, but because he had already planned to create a Magic that would most definitely be classified as a Curse upon completion under regular circumstances, depending on how severe the demerits of a Curse were, he might just allow himself to squeeze through this loophole.

Once all of the members of the Ikelos Familia that had been in Knossos had so graciously been gifted with a chance to lead a new life, the Xenos fed their previously imprisoned, mostly heavily wounded kin some of the High Potions and Elixirs that Isaac had handed to them before they had entered the manmade labyrinth. Most of the captured Xenos had no clue that others like them existed out there until they had been dragged into this chamber and seen the prisoners in the other cages. When they learned that a Xenos community which numbered in the triple digits had formed tens of years ago, every single one of them wanted to venture there as quickly as possible. All 20 members of the Xenos party that were below Level 5 got dispatched to help the wounded and to lead their new comrades back towards their hidden village, where they would undoubtedly be welcomed with much rambunctious jubilation.

Ray and the other four that remained in Knossos then followed Isaac's instructions and ascended to the 17th floor, where overwhelming numbers of monsters awaited them. The weakest of them were Level 4's, while the strongest of them were Level 5's - all of them were members of the six monster species that Revis had had control over back when Ais and Isaac had encountered her on the dungeon's 59th floor.

As he was glancing at a blonde-haired man who was busy with scuffling about on the 21st floor of Knossos, doing everything in his power to salvage what he had left, Isaac's face lit up with a saintly smile that caused any observers to fall into a slight trance due to its sheer purity and gentleness.

'You're the one who would have ended up bothering Ais quite a bit if I wasn't here, so prepare yourself. I won't go overboard, but I certainly won't show you any mercy.'