I was already flying over the city and approaching my residence, to which my fighters continued to flock. A thousand Squires, about fifteen Knight Apprentices, and Sellinger who was the only True Knight besides me. All are armed with modified Rison liquid crossbows. There were various formations and magic traps on the territory of the city.

The bells were still deafeningly ringing, which would make it difficult for the opponent to react to attacks from non-magical weapons.

Even if a True Mage came to me, I wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Still flying in the air I felt a powerful mental wave with the blood smell. The Fundamental Rune in my mind instantly spun, my eyes turned blue. The opponent's mental wave has been neutralized.

After detaching the wings, I plummeted from a height of ten meters in my own garden, next to pre-set hidden formations. My sword shimmered white to the point of pain in the eyes of sound waves from the Sonic Sword spell.

I lifted the visor of my helmet and examined my opponent carefully. Now I was pretty sure it was Kyle. It seemed that not much time had passed for him, his appearance had not changed much, only became even more expressive.

Kyle's eyes were still emitting a mental wave. The mental wave in my mind turned into an image and it seemed like two big bloody eyes were staring at me. But I shrugged off that feeling. I myself could not scan him with my mental energy.

- Welcome home. So you are True Mage now? - I clarified.

Kyle nodded.

- Great, you don’t mind playing a little punching bag, do you? I will need the experience of fighting against the True Mage. If you are sure that you will not die of course, otherwise it will be awkward. - I asked with a joyful smile.

Kyle's eyebrows twitched, but he still agreed and I gave the order to the fighters surrounding us.

- Shoot at will!

Although I shouted, the fighters reacted rather not to my voice, but to my signal. I had to come up with sound protection for them, otherwise my first massive sound spell would have put most of my fighters out of action.

The bolt-on fire mixture has been slightly improved, as well as the crossbows themselves, however, I could not think of a more effective way to massively improve the weapons of mortals.

On the other hand, I worked on a dozen crossbows using my rune writing skills, turning them into something like simple artifacts. These crossbows and their bolts were coated with a thin layer of dark gold to withstand the effects of the runes and elements when they were activated.

Mortals can't use stuff like this by default, but I did figure out a way. Basically, I modified one of the runes to trigger at the slightest trace of my mental energy. Bertram helped me create a small confidant that could store my mental energy for a while.

Mental energy was unique to each Mage, so if I don't occasionally charge my confidants with my mental wave, these crossbows will eventually become completely useless.

As soon as the confidant touched the rune, it activated and a chain reaction began. The bolt of the crossbow flashed a vague white light from the simplified Sonic Sword spell. Each crossbow was equipped with a magic stone to activate. Although the surface of these hefty crossbows was much larger than that of the small stone in the magic trap used in the war the previous day, nevertheless the creation of such crossbows still took a lot of time. My patience only lasted until I made ten of them.

In the future, I was going to modify them once again so that the entire rune chain could be destroyed as a last resort for the owner and as a protection for the secrets of the artifact itself.

The first row of fighters with crossbows took aim and opened fire, there were about two hundred of them, after the shot they gave way to the next row.

Kyle stood still and seemed to be watching the performance with interest. Two hundred bolts slammed into his body almost simultaneously and ignited. Kyle turned into a human-shaped fireball. Several sonic bolts flew in a moment later, hammering nails into the coffin lid.

However, it was clear that Kyle was completely unharmed and his face behind the fire curtain remained impassive. His very body seemed to have turned into a man from blood, this bloody barrier did not let through either the fire or the kinetic energy of the bolts. However, he did not wait for the next attack and finally made his move. Before him appeared a bloody ball a couple of tens of centimeters in radius.

I realized that now it is my turn, hitting the ground in the right place, the large platform with the spell formation turned 90 degrees and so did I along with it in the direction of Kyle. The next moment there was a massive explosion and in the blink of an eye I was right in front of Kyle, one hand holding huge Sonic sword was about to cut Kyle in half, in the other hand I prepared my favorite sonic explosion spell.

The sword collided with Kyle, but the bloody shield did not flinch. However, the sound waves on the sword continued to collide with the surface of the shield, gradually depleting it. At the same time, a sonic explosion sounded right above Kyle's ear.

The elemental wave only harmed my own people, creating a little chaos in their ranks, fortunately they were well prepared for this and were at a sufficient distance. I managed to cling to Kyle's silhouette so as not to fly away from my own spell.

But the sound itself managed to affect even Kyle. He shuddered and frowned, even the physique of a True Magician was not enough to completely ignore such an effect. The blood ball in front of him had already partially disintegrated into needles that flew towards my fighters, but suddenly the spell lost all power and disintegrated in the air. Kyle turned pale.

What happened seemed to piss him off, his face was instantly filled with rage and his eyes flashed. A powerful mental wave spread from him in all directions, instantly incapacitating all my fighters.  I could hardly stay on my feet from such mental pressure and had to step back.

A wave of blood washed over me, crushing me to the ground. In addition to containment, the blood formed blades that tried to pierce my armor, yet they couldn't pierce the dark gold. Frowning, Kyle materialized a bloody spear that finally pierced through my stomach and finally pinned me to the ground, suppressing my attempts to resist.

Kyle originally planned to use his first point strike spell to disarm my fighters carefully, so this spell was accompanied by a light mental wave to mark all the crossbows around. Noticing this, I tried to stop him and I succeeded.

The rest didn't go according to plan, but I wasn't too disappointed. I can always try again. In future I will have to pay attention to the mental protection of my fighters, otherwise they will not be of any use.

On the other hand, I did not use all the traps, after all, their creation required effort, it was a pity to waste them on a little sparring. Bertram generally immediately ran away and hid behind the formations in the residence. Although it was planned that way, I did not want him to be substituted. If I hadn't been able to activate the traps, he would have done it.

- Okay son, let dad go. - I said while spitting blood.

Kyle snorted, but still canceled the spell. I took off my armor and bandaged the small hole in my stomach.

- You're old. - Kyle commented as he looked at me.

I didn't answer that. Although I looked good, the gray hair and wrinkles on my face hinted that I was gradually approaching my advanced age. I used up a certain amount of my longevity on my way to True Knight. I may have 15 years or so left to live.

A bunch of my unconscious soldiers were laying around.

- They'll be fine right? - I asked looking at my fighters.

- Yes, but some may have consequences. - Kyle replied.

- Well done son, you have not dishonored the Tarrister family. But how powerful is that bloody shield of yours? How much damage can it absorb? - I asked as I got to my feet.

- Don't call me son. Use the titles senior or lord. In extreme cases, I allow you to refer to myself by name. In the Southern Continent strength is the most important thing. If acolyte does not bow his head before the True Mage, he can immediately say goodbye to his life. I'm afraid you won't last long. - Kyle chimed in annoyance.

- Do not think that I have never had to bow my head in front of others. It's not that big of a deal. - I waved it off.

- Really? How many people you bowed your head before? Recount for me will you?

After some thought, I answered.

- Well, for example Duke Murphy.

- Is that all? As expected. You should practice on me, come on bow your head and call me lord.

I laughed and patted Kyle on the shoulder.

- Not bad son. You really have grown. But do not worry about me. If necessary I will bow my head, my pride dissipates like smoke over the years.

Kyle pushed my hand away and continued to answer the question about the barrier as if nothing had happened.

- This is a 1st rank defensive spell Blood Barrier. I used it as a basis for breaking through to the True Mage stage, so its strength and durability increased exponentially. This is what all True Mages do.

You were only able to damage my barrier by 10%. In order to cause actual damage to my body, you must use a spell or power greater than the barrier's. The strength of my barrier is now 27 damage of all types. So for example if you use a spell with a power of 30 units against me, I will receive only 3 units of damage, and my barrier will lose 10% of its power.

The Mage's defensive barrier is the main reason why a True Mage is by far above both acolytes and Knights. Even killing each other is usually not that easy for True Mages, at least if their elemental progression isn't too different.

Naturally, I had many questions. Soon we were sitting quietly in the yard drinking tea. The fighters dispersed and the alarm was cancelled. Rock was finally able to crawl out and looked at Kyle with interest. But when he climbed onto Kyle's hand and it turned out that he was not tasty, Rock's interest quickly faded.

- What is this lizard? - asked son.

- Do not pay attention. I've lost my son. Out of grief and loneliness I decided to get a pet. Think of it as your little brother. - I stroked the lizard on the head.

There was no point in telling my son about those little secrets. He is a True Mage so he can take care of himself. Dark gold is also unnecessary for him, innate armor is stronger than any materials.

Kyle rolled his eyes but patiently answered my many questions about the Magus World.