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Difference: Minimal

Irwyn had to admit to being quite fond of their assigned “squad” being much more focused on efficiency than small talk. Immediately after Flea delivered their duo to the open practice field, their new comrades primarily wanted the two of them to repeat what they had just relayed about their magic and perform a few demonstrations. That attitude was an immediate good sign in Irwyn’s book. Sure, the callsigns needing to be remembered was a requirement, but Irwyn thought he could manage that much with just three.

The woman in charge of them went by Fig, which Irwyn could not glean the source of. She was completely covered in a dark, padded jumpsuit which covered her from forehead to toes. Even her eyes were hidden behind thick googles and hands in gloves. No skin, not so much as a bit of hair was visible.

She was also a Realm mage and their main means of transportation. Which Irwyn learned with a great degree of fascination. On the lower levels, long distance travel had always been relegated to Time mages who had an obvious advantage in the discipline. With Domains though, that would somewhat change. While not as aligned with that purpose as Time, some Elements could traverse great distances.

Voidwalking was one example, that could technically cross immense distances with relative ease, if one could somehow locate their destination. Irwyn also understood that it would eventually be possible for him to travel as a literal ray of sunlight—could even briefly manage a facsimile of that—but that was not possible to perform reliably with just Domains. All the elements would eventually have such means, though with various degrees of difficulty and efficiency.

Realm happened to be one of the better ones. While it could not quite compete with Time and the benefits brought by the Beacons, it could cheat distance in a way distinctly different from compressing it. Rather, Fig explained it to be like forcefully teaching their Realm itself to allow a group to travel much faster than should be physically possible. In her case, this was amplified by doing so inside a moving bubble well beneath the earth. 

While not as quick as instantaneous teleportation, it would be a multiplier on their travelling speed. And Domain mages could already fly rather quickly. As another benefit, it would be much harder to detect compared to more common means. There was, however, no such convenient effect as dilation that would let them react to outside threats more easily; they would be just moving unnaturally fast through convoluted reality gaslighting, not actually having their time accelerated.

Their next squadmate was Boat, a moderately sized man in robes Irwyn thought were from the Duchy of Green. He possessed a prismatic element he referred to as “longevity”, merged from Life and Fate. It functioned to provide both emergency and pre-emptive healing, leaving constructs of mana inside the body which anticipated any injury just before they occurred and thus could begin to administer healing instantly. There would be limits to that, but not the kinds that were easy to explain.

The last was an Inquisitor, a man scarred down to the marrow. Irwyn was briefly surprised to see one present, but it did ultimately make sense. Defenses against Soul magic and undead detection were important for any supposedly elite squad, and the Inquisition existed mainly to supply those. His callsign was Blow, and the tendency to silently brood was obvious from the scarce few words spoken. 

The next step was a very rushed exercise on team coordination. Their squadmates were not exactly used to having a stationary fortress like Irwyn to orient around—and indeed, also doubted his capacity to maintain those defenses—and were instead used to mainly interception. It was at least not the hardest thing to sell, as their new team were not actually very suited for that kind of defense, they just didn’t have anything much more efficient.

At least offensive flowed smoothly for them. After all, the rest of their group were not really specialized in attacking, which left Irwyn and Elizabeth to control the flow of battle entirely. With their level of mutual understanding, it was trivially easy for them to lead. The rest of their group still had roles to play on the offensive, just not the primary ones.

For example, Fig as a Realm mage could still summon something akin to a sandstorm by taking whatever soil or rocks were locally available, which could shred lesser undead and obscure line of sight. Which would be a problem in most cases, but Irwyn had a visual spell that let him easily see through the flurry by filtering it out. Elizabeth in the meanwhile had her own way of not being disabled through disruptive area magic. 

Boat had almost no offensive magic, though his spells could apparently kill parasites or any similar entities trying to infiltrate the body. Blow had a rather standard Inquisitor skillset of both offense, defense, and utility. They agreed he would focus on disrupting and disorienting Raveners while making sure Elizabeth was shielded from Soul magic and that nothing of that sort managed to sneak past the boundary of Irwyn’s barrier.

“We were down two members,” Fig explained at one point. “Not on mission. Assassinated during a brief vacation in Yellow, just as it was broken. A Time mage who could accelerate all of us and a Light mage focused on devastating attacks.”

Irwyn was curious what flavor of “devastating” she had meant, but didn’t find the opportunity to ask. Their new squad leader truly did everything in her power to not waste a second of their time on anything beyond drilling their burgeoning teamwork or relaying doctrine. That mostly consisted of how to communicate and coordinated between squads and their dispatching rather than approaching any specific situation. It was considered a lesser risk to make completely personal judgments rather than be predictable. 

This obsessive drive to make the most of every second turned out to be the prudent choice, as not even two hours after their introductions, they were ordered to mobilize. This was before they were so much as told if and where they could find a bed or food. Fig opened a tunnel into the earth and they quickly dove down. Soon enough, the way behind them closed, forming a “bubble” of rock around the squad. 

Then everyone had to try and match their flying speed. After less than a minute, Irwyn ended up carrying Boat as well as himself, as “longevity” did not seem to be an element with proclivity towards flying. 

“We will be a lot slower to deploy until a new accelerator can somehow be assigned,” the squad leader. “Ten minutes to destination at current pace.”

“Where are we headed?” Elizabeth asked.

“Someone discreetly spotted undead massing for an attack near a large Town in Cyan. At this rate, we should make it just about on time, if they hadn’t realized the Federation knows. Unknown forces, but since there is a Domain mage on standby there expect at least two Raveners or a particularly powerful one.” 

For the rest of their journey, the squad leader insisted on more repetition of various succinct keywords and some common dangers so reliable the undead deployed even against people who would be ready. Such us a classical “focus everything on one person” style ambush or detonating their own Souls if victory no longer seems possible.” 

Eventually, Fig yelled “Up,” at the top of her lungs, which was the signal for them to rise up through the ground

They were, clearly, a few minutes late. Irwyn could tell that the town’s defenses were actively being overrun by a small horde rushing them from one side. Thousands upon thousands lesser undead that could not even use magic were charging into static defenses where mundane soldiers and weak mages blasted them apart by the droves. The real problem was that dozens of Draugr were hiding inside that crowd, offering counterfire and breaking various barricades blocking the main horde. 

There were also three Raveners. The real battle above the clashing thousands was unmistakable. A single mage was desperately struggling to survive an assault of three undead mages, repeatedly dodging their attacks by margins small enough they almost bled. At first Irwyn was surprised there even was leeway for avoidance in the dense barrage, but then identified the local protector to be a Fate user. They had to be either predicting the attacks or nudging them slightly into missing. 

“Mockingbird and me, mass. Shrike, Blow: Raveners. Boat on standby, be ready to rescue the Magelord if he collapses.”

Which meant Irwyn’s immediate goal was to relieve the soldiers struggling below them. There was no time for hesitation with dozens dying every moment wasted. For the first time in perhaps ever, he let the floodgates on his mana be wide open. Then stars were raining. Hundreds, overcharged as far as Irwyn could push them without investing disproportionate attention to each, falling into the dense crowd and exploding.

Finity played hell with that. Without the Law, every single one of those attack would probably wipe half the town off the maps. With, those detonations were barely a few meters in size before quickly turning useless. Still, that was fine, Irwyn kept pushing the boundary of as much mana as he could channel, which was a ridiculous amount either way. Sure, the constructs were unstable and brutally mana inefficient, but with the Raveners engaged further away, there no one that could actually exploit that structural weakness. As for reserves, Irwyn did not think that even warranted a comment.

The level of devastation frankly surprised even him. In just a few seconds the undead did not so much rout as turn to ash and mashed flesh. Zombies and monstrosities alike may as well have been made of leaves for the resistance they offered. The horde tried to scatter as soon as they realised what was happening. In between two moments, almost every single attacker turned around with uncanny coordination and fled.

“Aim for Draugr,” Fig instructed, meanwhile putting her own magic into place. 

Rather than the thick sandstorm Irwyn had anticipated, she raised several groups of dozen fist sized rocks, reinforced them with her Domain’s power, then began to tear through the nearest fleeing enemies. It wasn’t particularly effective against any barriers getting raised, but those shone like a beacon to Irwyn’s senses. 

If a Concept wielding undead was silently hiding in between the crowds, they might well get out unharmed, given the sheer scattering numbers. But any defense, even something as simple as bodily reinforcement, shone like a beacon, basically marking targets for Irwyn to focus on.

He still kept on overcharging his projectiles as there was no reason not to. Even as the undead got farther and farther away from one another. Not out of range though. Anything moving too fast would be quickly focused as obviously more powerful, so everything had to flee at almost mortal sprint. That pace would take minutes. Since it had only taken less than half of one to reduce most of the army to ash, that was almost too much time.

“Mana, Mockingbird?”

“Small expenditure,” Irwyn spoke the white lie. It was more believable than claiming to have lost literally no mana compared to his capacity and recovery.

“Intercept then.”

That made Irwyn’s head snap to the other fight. Three Raveners had been besieging the local Magelord. Irwyn turned to watch the exact moment Elizabeth tore one of them into thirds as they began to flee. The living Domain mage had been visibly injured prior to their arrival, so he was in no position to pursue, but Elizabeth had taken not even a graze in the prior scuffle. Blow also looked perfectly fine, floating some distance away. 

The two Raveners split and tried to fly in different directions, most likely deciding they no longer had any chance of killing their wounded mark. If they had known what Elizabeth could do, they probably would have attempted to flee before the casualty. After observing them for a second, Irwyn had no need to coordinate who took on which prey. One had clearly been a Void mage in life, and Elizabeth quickly dove after him into the Void when tried to flee.

That left Irwyn with the second enemy who was rapidly trying to make distance. Irwyn wouldn’t be able to easily catch up with just flight, but he could project his magic to stop them. The same old rules still applied, so casting magic with a starting point too far away was brutally difficult and extremely mana intensive, but Irwyn had a workaround. Make falling stars and make them fast.

STARFIRE could lean into that at least somewhat. The facet of Meteoric descent contained within it allowed for a very narrow source of extreme speed, which Irwyn promptly abused. Rather than aim directly for the escapee, he chose to raise a swarm of falling stars, then inject them directly into the Ravener’s path in a way that would make them almost impossible to dodge. Since his foe was no specialist in evasion or speed, the spell fast overtook them. The Ravener fluttered in place to perform a seemingly impossible dodge

Either the enemy would try jumping in—which would make everything quick and easy—or they be forced to slow down and change direction. The enemy chose the latter, which merely delayed the inevitably anyhow. Second wave followed after the first, with a third on its heels. Irwyn was likely not able to actually kill even a seemingly weak Ravener easily from such distance, but he stopped it from fleeing with a constant stream of attacks that mainly aimed to sever any way out whatsoever. When his opponent tried to block, their defenses also shattered far too quickly to be anything more than a brief respite. Not enough to secure even a step towards retreat.

Soon enough, Elizabeth manifested a subtle whiff of Void mana right next to Irwyn to let him know she was ready. Irwyn dragged on the attack for two more seconds before a perfect opportunity arose for him to create an opening for the Ravener to flee into. When it did, Elizabeth smoothly emerged to complete the ambush, first taking off its head, then reducing the rest of the body to bits. Hopefully, her magic would be enough to destroy even the Soul with that degree of damage.

“Move towards the Magelord, maintain formation and defenses!” 

Which mostly meant Irwyn was to keep his barrier up with no one still inside permitted to leave it. A reasonable precaution, even if there had not been so much as poorly aimed projectile trying to break through so far. The Rot had simply assessed that piercing the barrier would not be worth the effort, so they had not bothered to even try. 

As they flew forward, Irwyn noted the soldiers below them being healed en mass. People on the very edge of death, instantly healed to perfect health. There was still some triage involved—only those with genuinely deadly wounds were being treated—but it was obvious that hundreds of more would survive the attack because of the intervention. 

Even if “longevity” lagged behind on rapid healing, it was still magic used by a Domain mage on people with a few Concepts at most. Inefficient mattered a lot less when accounting for the relative simplicity. Anyone with a Domain had a body so attuned to it that it would resist other, even positive, change. 

Therefore, any kind of healing that even could help a fellow Domain mage would be downright excessive for someone weaker. There were still issues of scale or splitting one person’s focus, but that was why some degree of triage was being put into place. Boat was not healing everyone, just those that seemed likely to die too soon for regular help.

The injured Magelord was not particularly far, so the soldiers did not get to enjoy those generous ministrations for more than a few seconds. The diviner seemed rather worse for were with several actively weeping wounds and their magic actively leaking from their Vessel. Blow was already present to try and stem the Soul based part of those injuries.

Boat quickly got to work. The healing was slow, but it would be long lasting, as was the nature of his element. Since the Magelord had lived and was not actively collapsing, that meant he was mostly in the clear. Their Inquisitor confirmed that the Soul wounds were not too bad either.

There would still be an evacuation, as the wounds were too serious to resume combat, but all of them could and would be healed in the matter of weeks, at most months. That made the day three kills in exchange for zero. That was already an optimistic outlook.

“We have orders to remain until a replacement, expect up to an hour,” Fig announced not long later.

“Afteraction report?” Boat suggested

“An abridged one. We are required to file out our individual recounting of events after each combat encounter. Finishing them in downtime is convenient.

“Is that truly necessary?” Irwyn questioned. The Raveners were dead, and unlike the Titled, there were clearly too many of them active to reliably track their individual capabilities even if some had survived.

More importantly, “filling” anything away was not particularly plausible to Irwyn, as he had still not shaken of the laws of reality preventing him from writing. He would need to figure out an alternative, which would beget a whole lot of questions.

“It is primarily a doctrine against Soul manipulation,” Boat explained. “Memory discrepancies are an early sign of subtle or partial mind control. We are always exposed to various degrees of that danger.”

“So, only the important notes. Diving into the Void alone in pursuit was reckless, Shrike,” Fig warned, turning to stare at Elizabeth. 

“I am confident in my Voidwalking,” Elizabeth explained with no hint of chagrin.

“A fact the Rot is going to note and is going to exploit one day. And when that comes, you will have all of a split second to think about the trap you just confidently strode into before it snaps shut.”

“They will try,” Elizabeth agreed. “But I expect both you and them will greatly underestimate just how much of an advantage I gain there. Which I have played into today by taking longer than I had

“Good. That is at  least some insight,” the squad leader nodded. “But also keep in mind that I have never met anyone in this line of work who had your overconfidence and survived more than two Wars. Recklessness usually has a life expectancy of months. So while I cannot enforce caution, I will advise it every step of the way. Understood?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth slowly nodded.

“Next, Mockingbird, your attack pattern was suboptimal for maximising casualties. You started bombardment from the center, rather than the sides, allowing more of the enemy to flee. With your capacity for saturation, it is best to lock the enemy in with not way out.”

“I have not been trained in this,” Irwyn nodded, somewhat embarrassed. “I will keep that in mind next time. Or any more advice you have.”

“That is all from me then,” Fig concluded. “Everything else was competently done. Unless you have anything else to point out, go file your report. Always stay inside Mockingbird’s barrier while distracted, there could be more ambushes.”

“Actually, there is a problem with writing itself…”

Which Irwyn was already figuring out how to even succinctly and believably explain.