It took well over a day for Serenity to find a weakness in the wind barrier, and it was one that had formed since the barrier was created. Unlike the wards the Viper had, the wind barrier was clearly created by someone who knew what he was doing.

Blaze was happy about how long it took. He actually wanted Serenity to rest before working on the ward but gave up and simply required Serenity to stay inside the ley line. Blaze would do everything that required going outside.

The wind barrier was also either an ancient version of a ward or something truly idiosyncratic, because Serenity had never seen anything quite like it. None of the individual features were unique, but the way they were implemented was strange. It definitely didn’t line up with Serenity’s ideas on how to build a good ward; of course, it didn’t have to. The best wards were often odd, partly because they took more time to figure out but mostly because that meant they aligned the best with the creator’s idea of how they should work.

Of course, some of the worst wards were also odd. Odd didn’t mean good; it just meant different. Serenity had seen wards with glaring weaknesses because their creators didn’t try to understand why a ward was made the way it was before they built their own. This one definitely didn’t have those issues.

One of Serenity’s biggest issues in breaking through the ward was how it knew who to admit and who to stop. There was no authorized list of people or items; that was usually the easiest way to attack a ward, but it simply didn’t exist. Instead, it was more like a lock; you had to have a matching key. The thing was that the key wasn’t as simple as a physical key or even a code; instead, it was closer to an authentication code, where it changed with time and position.

Fortunately, the actual shape of the land had changed since the wind barrier was created. This could happen quickly if there was an earthquake or landslide, but that would generally be handled by whoever maintained the ward. It was easy to find and know about and therefore easy to repair. Small gaps created by wind or water erosion in hidden places were what Serenity was used to looking for; they were easy to overlook and often hard to fix.

This ward was a little odd but not unique. It wasn’t one of the spherical ones, but it also wasn’t a dome that ignored the ground and considered that “safe”. Serenity would have preferred either approach to the one he actually faced. Spheres were strong against impacts but didn’t take the actual shape of the land into account; they were great against overt attacks but relatively easy for a small group to slip past. They were commonly used for cities. Domes had many of the characteristics of spheres and were far cheaper but paid the price of being vulnerable from below; when they were used, there was often some sort of secondary protection against underground assaults.

Instead, this wall looked like a flattened sphere, short but wide, with its upper surface a sort of flattened dome and its upper surface shaped like the ground it followed but extending well below ground. It had a distinct thickness as well; that was necessary for the sort of “soft” barriers it used. The best gap would be one that was wide enough to be a true break, where the ground was missing for more than the width of the barrier in depth. If Serenity found that much of a gap, they could simply walk through. Even something as simple as a dead tree could do that once it rotted if its root structure were extensive enough.

He didn’t find one that good, at least not within the range he could search from the ley line.

The fact that he needed a weakness near the ley line he was in if he wanted to not only find it but properly exploit it didn’t help, but it did focus the search immensely. There were no large gaps, but all he needed was a place where the ward was thin and straining. There were several options from there, depending on how the ward reacted.

In the end, what Serenity found wasn’t a gap at all. Instead, the ground in the barrier had risen along with most of the ground nearby, probably from dirt blowing in then being prevented from blowing away later by the greenery. It wasn’t much, just a few inches, but that was enough. The surface was no longer in the condition the ward was made for.

It wasn’t much of a weakness. A few inches wasn’t enough for a person to fit in, even if they could somehow move through dirt without removing it. That wasn’t why Serenity was happy to find it; instead, he was happy because when the ward was compressed by the additional dirt, it did something that created an opening: it wrinkled.

There were ward types that didn’t have that weakness, but this clearly wasn’t one of them. Serenity just had to stretch the wrinkle until it became an opening large enough for them to walk through. It was a slow process but not one he was worried about once he started. Like breaking the access restrictions, stretching the ward boundary was a safe way to get past almost any ward that it worked on because the ward wouldn’t even “know” it had been tampered with.

Once he finished, they just had to walk through it. This was easier said than done, because “walking through it” meant “climbing the cliff the ley line ran over”, but it was entirely possible for Blaze and Serenity, especially with the climbing gear Serenity had in his Rift.

Travel didn’t get any easier once they got past the ward. There was a fairly easy path back where Serenity’s parents had gone through the barrier … but only if they left the ley line and Blaze refused. Serenity didn’t argue too hard; it was definitely unpleasant to leave the higher-magic area. Even inside the ley line, his mana didn’t reach its cap; it was enough to be comfortable but not enough to be truly at his best.

With all the delays, it was roughly four days after Oliver dropped them off on the island that Blaze and Serenity reached the pyramid with the flattened top. Serenity wasn’t thrilled to see it; it looked far too much like the evil Well of Souls filled with possessing spirits he’d found a legend of in the Great Library of Takinat. On the other hand, the fact that his parents weren’t here was a large factor in its favor; had they been possessed, he’d have expected to find them somewhere on the island.

The pyramid was wholly inside the ley line nexus. It felt wonderful to Serenity, a level of mana in the air that was similar to the level in Aki’s dungeon. It was actually high enough for him to truly relax.

Blaze and Serenity took more time outside the pyramid than Serenity’s parents had; they examined it from all sides. They found Lex and Bethany’s footprints and followed them around the pyramid; eventually, they climbed the pyramid at the same corner used by Serenity’s parents. It probably didn’t matter but there was no reason to take the risk that which corner was used mattered in some way.

When they reached the top of the pyramid, they examined the oddly melted open-sided room carefully. It contained even more magic than the pyramid, but was just as stable and unmoving as the pyramid. There was no obvious trigger; Serenity hoped that it would be as simple as stepping into the structure, because if it required the same sort of complex key that the outer barrier did it might take him weeks to decipher it. Serenity had no doubt he’d eventually manage it but he had absolutely no desire to spend that much time on it.

Without any further clues available, they stepped into the structure from the same side as Lex and Bethany had. As Serenity had hoped, it immediately activated and pulled them into the space it operated in.

Their experiences were nothing like the experience of Lex and Bethany.

Blaze stepped over the imaginary threshold and joined Serenity inside the structure. It was a bit more solid than an awning but didn’t really rate being called anything else in his opinion; the openings were simply too large. Perhaps a tent with the sides pulled mostly out of the way?

A moment later, Serenity vanished, followed almost immediately by all of Blaze’s surroundings. He was floating in a space he recognized all too well; this was the space between minds, the space where bodies didn’t exist as anything other than prizes to be won.

Blaze hated this place. It was easy enough to navigate and fight in; he was a diehar. This was a place he knew well, because this was where diehar fought if they both wished to control a single body.

Which meant that his own body was likely being assaulted. He wouldn’t have been pulled here otherwise.

Blaze looked for his attacker and did not find the single bright soul he expected; instead, he found a mass of shadows. Individually small and weak, the only real threat they offered was tiring him out. They might have been a threat to someone else, but Blaze had all the tools of a diehar and the training to use them. If he chose to, he could even use their strength to enhance his own; it would simply take time to steal their power.

Blaze had rarely chosen to do that and had steadfastly avoided any Path that offered better Skills for it, but he couldn’t deny his original Species Path. However much he hated it, it existed.

Blaze reached out for his body but found the shadows in the way. They were little more than shreds at this point, pieces of personalities or souls, possibly even just imprints of emotions left behind from some long-ago event. They were long since past any chance of becoming anything other than the dangerous nuisances they’d become, so Blaze didn’t have his usual moral objections to completely destroying them. They were dangerous cancers, not people. Not anymore, at least.

Blaze called the nearest one to him. As he touched it with the light shed by his own soul, it evaporated into a small amount of power that revitalized Blaze. The gains were mostly long term but the costs were short term; he’d have to be careful not to tire himself out too much.

He’d also have to be careful not to get too distracted by the swarm of shadows. There could still be something real out there that was an actual danger.

Blaze hoped Serenity was fine. Fighting a possessed Serenity would be awful; Blaze would almost certainly choose to use the battleground of the mind instead of the physical world. He knew enough about Serenity to know that the mind would be easier but still not easy, not even for someone with Blaze’s advantages.

Surely he would be fine. Blaze wasn’t certain he could win against Serenity even on this battleground; surely nothing else would. Serenity probably wouldn’t even notice the shades’ attacks, even though they’d pulled Blaze to their home turf.

Blaze took the shadow on one at a time. It helped that there simply wasn’t enough there to do more than instinctually swarm his body; none of them even seemed to realize that they were attacking the wrong thing or that the diehar was slowly eating them.

Lillene

Lex (and thereby Bethany) had protection from the brooch. Blaze is essentially a predator to the shadows that threatened them.

Serenity ... well, that's next chapter.