Jade Leywin POV
Art, Seris and I stepped out of the portal in Rosaere and immediately headed towards the center of the town where the shield came to an end effectively splitting the town in two halves
We opted to leave Chul in the dark about this since I doubt he would be willing to talk to a sovereign, not that I blame him for that, so Art sent a telepathic communication to Sylvie tasking her to keep him busy, Regis and Yozora on the other hand were hiding respectively in Arthur's core and my shadow ready to come out and fight at any moment
We reached the central square and there right behind the shimmering wall of energy stood a man, he was alone, dressed with finely decorated garbs, long, midnight blue hair cascaded on his back and framed his sharp, pale face, while a pair of horns spiraled out of the top of his head, his ruby red eyes were bloodshot as he appeared to be in quite the frenzy, he was desperately slamming his fists on the barrier while shouting Seris's name
I conjured a one way soundproofing barrier around us to make sure he wouldn't be able to hear us while ensuring we could still hear him and an illusion to make us invisible, I gave Seris a nod signaling her that talking was safe
"Do you think it's a trap?" Seris immediately asked us
"Well I can't sense anyone aside from him but then again I didn't sense him approach either" I told her
"You could have sensed him even from Sandaerene?" Seris questioned incredulous
"Normally yes, well if he just stands still and doesn't use magic I wouldn't be able to unless I specifically searched for him but I imagine he flew all the way here from his fortress in Truacia, I should have been able to sense him, asuran mana signatures are quite conspicuous" I explained
"That might be due to that cape" Arthur stated pointing at a white cape lying on the ground close to Oludari
"I can feel some aether coming from it and I'm willing to bet it's a concealment spell" Art explained
"Oh, Viessa used something like that in Vildorial some time ago" I remembered
"You think that might be someone hiding using another cape like that one?" Seris asked
"I think it's unlikely, if that was the case he would have stored that cape in a dimensional artifact before we arrived here" Art observed
"Let's check just to be sure" I proposed as I imbued mana into my eyes
Art did the same using aether to enhance his sight and we both carefully examined Oludari's surroundings searching for even the faintest trace of aether
"I don't see anything" I said after several minutes
"Yeah, me neither"
"Then I guess it's relatively safe to at least talk to him" Seris declared
"If you want I can seal his core" I offered
"You can?"
"Yeah, I did that to Viessa the principle is the same I just have to tune it up for an asura"
"Alright let's go with that"
"Wait, couldn't you just enter in his mind and examine his memories?" Art asked me
"Two problems, first this is an asura so he would have thousands of years worth of memories, sifting through that is going to be complicated, second well honestly forcibly intruding into someone's mind is wrong, even if that someone is a sovereign" I told him
"He might have useful information" Art argued
"I know, let's talk to him first, if he lies or refuse to reply I'll forcibly extract the intel we need from his mind"
"Fine"
I reached for the barrier and made its surface swell, the translucent wall engulfed Oludari before returning to its previous state pushing him forward, now he was inside the barrier and in front of us, he frantically looked around trying to understand what had happened demanding an explanation from the few soldiers that were in the square with us
I removed the spells around us
"Sovereign Oludari Vritra, what brings you here?" Seris asked him
"SERIS! YOU! YOU HAVE TO PROTECT ME! THEY THEY WILL COME FOR ME!!" Oludari shouted grabbing her shoulders
"Calm down, who is going to come for you?" I asked as I stepped in removing his hands from Seris's shoulders
"HYYYAAAAA!!!!"
As soon as he saw me he stumbled backwards falling on his butt as he yelled terrified, Oludari quickly turned around and scrambled on all four towards Seris grabbing her waist and clinging to her
"SERIS! YOU! YOU HAVE TO PROTECT ME! I'M A SOVEREIGN! I ORDER YOU TO PROTECT ME!!!" Oludari screeched in an hysterical voice
I don't think I have ever seen anyone so conceited and arrogant while begging for help
"Stop whining" I said as I grabbed him
I placed a hand on his sternum and focused on injecting my mana into his body forming a hard shell around his core sealing it off
Immediately Oludari stumbled falling on one knee, his skin turning a sickly gray as he visibly shrinked
Oops, I forgot asuras are mana reliant, focusing once again I manipulated the shell around his core to leave a little, infinitesimal hole, so small that not even a needle would have been able to go through it, from there a faint trickle of mana started to flow out enough to just barely sustain his body, forget about using magic this left him with slightly lower physical capabilities than those of a normal magic-less human
"What did you do to me?" he asked confused
"I sealed your magic" I said
"What?"
"Sovereign Oludari Vritra, explain why you're here, who is going to find you?" Art asked
"The Wraiths who else? Agrona wants me!" Oludari shouted
"Why?" I asked
"For the same reason you lessers consumed the horns of our retainers and scythes!"
"So he wants to consume your mana?"
"Yes, precisely, oh I'm glad there seems to be one lesser with a brain"
"Alright so Agrona is going to hunt you down so he can absorb your mana to get stronger, why would we go to the hassle of protecting you with the risk of you stabbing us in the back and of Agrona managing to capture you when we could just kill you here?" Arthur asked him
"WHAT?! SERIS! I'M A SOVEREIGN! YOU HAVE TO PROTECT ME! IT'S YOUR DUTY!" Oludari yelled
"I'm not a scythe anymore, I don't have a duty in protecting you in fact we were planning on how to kill you until 10 minutes ago" Seris stated matter-of-factly
"In other words, give us a reason to protect you or we'll just kill you right now" I told him
"I'll help you! I can build artifacts, I can find ways to increase your strength, I can fight with you, I'm sure you will find the help of a full blooded asura very useful" he practically begged
"Yeah, no way in hell I'll let you or any other member of the Vritra clan put your hands on my artifacts and I don't even want to know how you would make us stronger also if your strength is close to that of Exeges well you're far too weak to be of any help" I told him
"In other words you are useless to us, nothing more than a nuisance" Arthur told him with a smile that reminded me of mom and NOT in a good way
"Just tell me what you want! I'll give you anything just protect me"
"Information, that's the only thing we need" I told him while conjuring a round table and four seats for us
"What kind of information?" Oludari asked as he sat down
"About Agrona's forces, his plans, everything" I replied
"Yes, yes of course, I'm sure you know about the Wraiths already, well Agrona has several hundreds of thousands of teams below Taegrin Caelum, he built a massive subterranean structure beneath his fortress, they're all there in case of an attack from Kezess, I asked him to send some teams to protect me in case you were to launch an attack like you did for Exeges but he turned me down" Oludari explained
"And then you discovered he was planning on killing you right?"
"Yes, exactly, honestly I should have realised this ages ago given how all the other members of our clan died mysteriously but when you have your gaze fixed on the future you lose focus on the present" Oludari stated
"Wait there were other Vritra outside of the sovereigns?" I asked surprised
"Yes, we were several hundreds when we left Epheotus but somewhen along the line all of my kin died and now Agrona and I are the last Vritras"
"If he managed to consume the mana of all your clan members, how strong is Agrona right now?" I asked
"Very strong, he always concealed his strength and the numbers of his forces to make sure Kezess would underestimate him but truthfully he might very well be the second strongest asura currently alive"
"If he is already that strong why did he need Dicathen?" Arthur asked
"It was a diversion, he already has enough forces to put up a decent fight against Epheotus, of course he would still be at a disadvantage but victory is not impossible, what he needs is a way to access Epheotus, I don't know if you were aware of it but our homeland is not on the planet's surface anymore, eons ago our ancestors moved the whole continent in a separate dimension, it is still somewhat linked to this planet but it is impossible to physically reach it" Oludari revealed
"So it was a giant bluff, Agrona made Kezess think that he would need Dicathen to amass enough war power to fight Epheotus knowing that once he was on the verge of winning there Kezess would have sent his own armies and in order to do Kezess would have been forced to open a passage for Epheotus" I said
"Passage that would work both ways so Agrona would have led his forces into the portal and invaded Epheotus" Art added
"A brilliant plan" I commented
"Plan that had been completely foiled by you two, now Agrona is looking for a way to force the passage open and you might be the key for that" Oludari stated pointing at Art
"He's after my aether abilities"
"Yes and until he finds a way to either enslave you or replicate your powers you can be damn sure that he'll stay holed up in Taegrin Caelum where he knows no one can touch him" Oludari said
"That might work in our favor, Oludari you said that all of the Wraiths are currently beneath that fortress right? How many accesses are there?" I asked
"Only one, a single vertical tunnel with no deviations, the only way in and out is by flying"
"So there's no one going around the palace itself?"
"Just servants, well some lesser guards as well but they wouldn't be able to even touch you two"
"You want to speed things up?" Art asked me
"Yeah, we killed Exeges hoping it would undermine the trust and loyalty the Wraiths have towards Agrona but if he was killing off his own clan all this time a dead sovereign or two won't shake them so we might as well fall back on plan B besides we know where Agrona is and how many forces he has and we have a way to work around that, with our abilities infiltrating Taegrin Caelum will be easy, we won't have another chance like that"
"Seris any input?" Art asked her
"Not really but with you two busy fighting Agrona I guess it'll be up to me to defend that right?"
"Actually no, you should guide Chul throughout the dungeon in the fortress, just in case I would like to get his mother out of there since well we might end up destroying the whole place" I told her
"So who's going to guard it?"
"Well I was thinking about Caera, Cylrit and..." I stared at Oludari
"You trust him?" Art questioned
"Nope, not even in a billion of years which is why..." I reached out to his core once again and changed the shell around his core, I turned it into a curse engraved directly on the surface of the core itself, something I learned after removing the curse they placed on Cynthia
"Oludari, you will help us in our attack against Agrona and no you don't have a right to refuse, if you do so or if you even think about betraying us the curse I placed on you will eat your core killing you, oh and don't entertain the idea of breaking the curse even for a second, my hold over mana is absolute and no one in the world can overwrite it" I told him with a smile