The door to Donovan’s extensive mansion gave way at Eugene’s strike. Well, it was more the door, the frame, and part of the wall that blew inward from the force of his blow.

There were extensive enchantments built into the door to prevent this very scenario. The problem was that those enchantments didn’t extend past the frame of the door. All that transferred force had to go somewhere. Norman had learned this weakness quite a while ago, but it seemed like Donovan, or more likely his people hadn’t quite realized the issue yet. He was sure they wouldn’t forget the lesson after today.

The three walked into the building, the dirt and dust from their entrance swirling around them. It was that dust that alerted Norman of the impending attack. He quickly cast a compressed disk of air in front of them with his staff and used it to shove them all out of the house moments before a grid of magical lines snapped into place where they had been standing.

The trap quickly faded, its mana spent, but as Norman picked himself up off the ground outside, he got to see the results. Perfectly square chunks fell from the ceiling and walls of the room. Had they been caught inside that guillotine of magical threads, nothing good would have come of it.

“That was close,” Eugene grunted as he stood and brushed himself off. “You think the armor could have held up against the spell?”

“Maybe, but I wasn’t willing to risk it.”

Eugene nodded while he looked into the room as more blocks continued to fall from the sliced-apart ceiling. “Room by room it is.”

The group made slow progress through the mansion. The deadly magical net was not the only trap that had been left for them. But as they slowly cleared the place, Norman knew they weren’t going to find Donovan there. There wasn’t anyone there, not even the servants that he knew the Council Leader employed. No, if he was there, he would have attacked them by now.

“It’s time to go, he isn’t here.”

“You sure, Boss? What if he’s hiding?”

“Then he’s going to remain hiding for some time.” Norman began casting a spell. It took over a minute to cast it large enough to cover the entire building, but once he was done, they left. As soon as everyone was clear of the house, he triggered the Mana Binding spell. The ethereal wisps from the spell spread through the entire house. If the Council Leader did return or was hiding somewhere inside, he was going to be stuck that way for quite some time.

“Let's head to our secondary objective,” he turned away from the mansion. He hoped the other teams were having better luck.

***

A large chunk of the wall was carved away by the water mage that accompanied Gabriel’s strike team. Once the breach was made, he took point and stormed into the room of a very surprised-looking woman.

Her surprise didn’t last long though. She thrust her arm forward and a solid blast of air impacted his chest. The spell failed to move him though as all of the force was redirected into the floor, cracking the boards underneath him.

Seeing this, the Council mage made a hasty exit through the door. He heard the mage screaming to someone and before any of his team could get through the door to follow after her, two hulking undead pressed themselves through the small opening.

Gabriel only snorted and dodged past the oblivious creatures. With the spells Lord Norman had given them, the undead were unaware of their presence. The Controller waiting in the hallway, however, was not.

Three beams of fire emanated from the wizard, but only one managed to hit Gabriel. Not that it did anything other than leave a slight black mark on his armor.

Before the mage could fire another volley, Gabriel hurled his short spear at the man. The mage’s eyes went comically wide as he tried to shield himself from the attack, only for the enchantment on the spear to pierce through whatever magical shielding he had hastily thrown up.

The mage staggered back as the spear punched straight through his body. Gabriel ignored the dying man as he sprinted off down the hallway after the council member. He only slowed to rip his spear free from the deep groove it left on the marble floor.

More undead started pouring into the hallway, but it seemed like someone had figured out their trick. Instead of attacking the undead were packing themselves in so tightly that there was no way around them.

Gabriel cursed and slowed his forward rush, allowing the rest of his strike team to catch up.

“We need a way around!”

“On it,” the water mage responded as she began weaving a ball of water that soon formed into a cyclone. Once the water was spinning fast enough, she formed it from the ball into a thin wall of cutting water. It was the same spell she had used to cut through the exterior of the house. The wooden walls of the hallway stood no chance as the water tore a gaping hole into an adjacent room. The barrier mage holding back the undead from crushing them was the last through the hole.

The room they found themselves in was some sort of laundry room. One of the knights checked the door. “Clear, Sir.”

Gabriel nodded. “Let’s move, we have a mage to capture.”

They managed to circle around behind the second Controller, but they were not able to catch up with the Council mage before she stepped through a personal portal.

The mages in his group examined the portal, but nobody stepped through the glowing disk of energy. They knew where it led, just not what awaited them on the other side.

“Secure this room and the house.” It seemed like they were stuck here until they received further orders.

***

Similar strikes occurred throughout the Council’s territory, with most councilors managing to flee before capture. Only one councilor was caught with his pants down, literally. Poor guy was just doing his business when Death Knights burst into his bathroom.

There were only two other members unaccounted for besides Donovan. Vincent, and the unknown councilor that his spies hadn’t been able to uncover. The portal mage was also nowhere in sight.

Norman read this report as his people gathered at their second target. The Council’s headquarters was a high-rise building, making it extremely annoying to target. But not impossible.

In fact, he had kind of expected things would end up here. Being the seat of the Council’s power, he expected Donovan to be waiting here with the rest of them.

With Lohr’s help, they began to carve an array around the tall building.

His time spent in Southern California hadn’t all been to help save the world. He had learned a thing or two during his time there. And those were ideas he was currently putting into practice.

Soon the pair finished the eight small array circles.

“Alright, as soon as I activate this, the subjugation of the Council is going to be up to you five. There isn’t going to be a lick of mana left for anyone inside this building to so much as blow a light gust of air.”

“Good,” Eugene hefted his hammer.

Norman smiled and sent up his signal. It was invisible to anyone other than the undead, but for them, it would be like a massive firework going off. He could feel the moment the storage spikes were thrust into the ground as they resonated with the spell array. Then he activated the spell.

Unlike his Mana Vacuum, this array wouldn’t pull so hard that it sucked the air from the building. It was more of a slow sucking meant to go unnoticed by anyone not paying close attention.

“Eugene, if you would do us a favor by knocking?”

The big man chuckled as he slowly exited the alley they had been observing from. The building was surrounded by hundreds, maybe even thousands of undead, but they paid the colossal man no mind as he started to pick up speed.

The controller mages eventually noticed and tried to order the undead to attack, but they just moved about in confusion. When their thralls failed, the mages tried attacking, but their spells were quickly snuffed out as the magic was sucked into the invisible barrier he had erected around the building.

If they were smart enough, they would go look for the array points and disrupt them. A few seconds later he heard the sounds of battle near where the array pylons should be. Norman had faith that the Wraiths could counter anything thrown at them.

The mages started to panic when their undead would not engage the large armored form of his Commander as he slowly built up more and more momentum. A few came up with a plan. What was that plan you might ask? They pulled out guns. As if any gun could penetrate the armor Eugene was wearing.

The Commander waded through their withering fire like it was a gentle spring rain as he stomped toward the door, his speed slowly increasing with each pavement-cracking step. Soon his slow approach turned into an all-out sprint. Eugene wasn’t fast unless given time. He used his brute strength to slowly increase his speed until he was traveling as fast as a speeding car.

Norman and Eugene’s guards dealt with the controllers just as Eugene reached the building’s entrance. He hauled back his hammer and put all of his substantial momentum into a blow aimed at the pulsing enchantments on the door.

The unstoppable force met an immovable object as the sharp point of his hammer impacted the enchanted glass. The entryway and wall surrounding it exploded like someone had detonated a bomb.

Norman had to give the Council credit, the enchantments on this building were much broader than the ones at Donovan’s home, but still, the force of Eugene’s attack needed to go somewhere.

When the dust finally cleared, a full third of the wall at the front of the building going up to the second floor had been reduced to broken bits of metal, glass, and concrete. Even the mostly intact door had shot through the entryway like a shaped charge, tearing huge ugly rents along the walls. At least a few unfortunate individuals on the opposite side had not gotten the memo to get out of the way in time.

If it wasn’t for the fact that buildings in California were rated to withstand earthquakes, he was pretty sure Eugene’s attack would have collapsed the building. Speaking of his Commander, Eugene exited the building covered in dust with a huge smile on his face, his now bent hammer resting on his shoulder. “Ground floor is clear, Boss.”

“Alright, let's go say hi.”