Chapter 138: Calculated Gambit (I) The aftermath of Finn’s massacre was handled in silence. Lyssa broke out of her dazed state and slowly organized her team, composing herself after realizing she was now the only other highest authority in this town. Her duty was no longer to the town’s name, but to its survivors. She could not leave them like this. Not with bodies littering the streets and the town hall reduced to an abattoir. Finn watched from a distance as they worked. Elara had helped him to a bench outside the town hall and cleaned his wounds as best she could with torn cloth and water. His broken ribs still made every breath he took painful. His shoulder wound had reopened. But he sat there, mellow and silent, while the others moved around him like he was a dangerous animal they didn’t want to provoke. Hours passed in a blur. The sun climbed higher. Corpses were moved. Reports were written. The surviving town guards tried to maintain order among the terrified civilians. Elara kept taking care of Finn’s wounds in silence. They stung as she wiped and cleaned them, but the pain did nothing to him. It was as if his physical body was present, but his mind wasn’t. For the whole hour, he sat there in a dazed state of acceptance and finality, realizing he felt... lighter, somehow. The hollow desperation that had driven him for two years was gone. The frantic need to find a way home, to trigger the tether, to escape this prison... all of it had dissolved when his hand fell away from Elara’s throat. He was trapped. Truly and permanently trapped. There would be no going home. No return to his real body. His real time. He was now Arros, for however many decades remained until his body died. And strangely, accepting that brought a kind of peace. Like a cessation of a desperate struggle, a drowning man finally stopping his thrashing and letting the water take him... "Arros." Finn looked up to find Lyssa standing in front of him, blocking the receding late afternoon sun. Her jaw was clenched, her muscles were taut in tension, and her hands were balled into fists at her sides. Behind her, Torin and Maris watched warily, ready to intervene if Finn made any sudden moves. Finn could see her terror. The way her weight was balanced for flight despite her formal stance. She was forcing herself to stand here, to do what was right, even though her instinct screamed to run. "By the authority granted to me by House Merrick and the Continental Arcanist Council," Lyssa said with a tremble in her voice, "you are hereby detained for the unlawful killing of forty-seven individuals. You will be escorted back to the capital and tried for these crimes under martial law." Finn looked up at her. Really looked at her and assessed her as a human for the first time since they’d met. And he couldn’t help but feel a sense of respect for her bravery and commitment to duty. Something in his expression must have changed, because Lyssa’s fear flickered into confusion. "I understand," Finn said quietly. His first words in hours. "I’ll come willingly." "You’ll... what?" "I’ll turn myself in." He tried to stand, but immediately gasped as pain lanced through his ribs. Elara quickly moved to support him, taking most of his weight. "I won’t resist. You have my word." Lyssa stared at him trying to understand his sudden change after going on such a massacre. She looked for any trace of deceit in his face, but all she saw was absolute sincerity. "...Why would you suddenly cooperate?" Finn didn’t answer, only sighing deeply. Lyssa exchanged glances with her team. And after a long moment, she nodded slowly. "Then there’s no need to cuff you with a suppression artifact. No need for force..." she said that part with evident relief. "You’re too injured, binding your mana could interfere with healing. But any hostile move, any sign of—" "I understand," Finn interrupted gently. "I assure you I won’t do anything..." . . . They left Greystone the next morning. The journey was tense. Lyssa’s team maintained a loose perimeter around Finn, never letting him out of sight. But they didn’t crowd him either — partly out of practicality, but mostly out of fear. Elara rode beside Finn, helping him stay upright when the pain got too bad. She looked worried, but her worry was also tinged with conflict. She knew the charges Finn would face and exactly how any trial for his crimes would end. She also knew what they both knew: that there was a conspiracy behind the beast horde. That powerful people had orchestrated civilian deaths for their own gain. But that knowledge seemed more like a death sentence rather than a lifeline. Elara glanced at Finn, who simply rode in silence as if he had no worries. But she knew that was only a front. If she was aware of the stakes, Finn most certainly was too. And she was right. Despite his outward calm, Finn understood the danger they were heading toward better than she did. In fact, his mind was already working analytically, looking for a solution as they drew nearer to their destination. Their destination was a major military outpost, the last stop before the capital. Situated exactly two days from the city and two days from Greystone, its strategic importance guaranteed there were going to be Master-rank officers on site. Finn’s worry was that if the conspiracy was as large as he suspected... There would be people there who knew. Who were complicit. Who would see arriving prisoners from Greystone and immediately understand the threat they represented. They would very likely try to kill him. Not openly — that would raise too many questions. But quietly. Perhaps as an accident during transfer. A sudden illness. A tragic escape attempt that ended in justified use of lethal force... And not only him. Elara too. Anyone who knew what had really happened in Greystone was a liability. The calm acceptance from Finn’s recent experience changed slightly in his chest, reshaping into something else. Something colder and more familiar. At this point he’d already stopped caring about going home or trying to escape this life as Arros. But that didn’t mean he was willing to die quietly to cover up someone else’s crimes. He had one card left to play. One piece of information that could change everything. His Error magic. His true nature. He’d spent two years hiding it, disguising his spells as elemental manipulation. Pretending to be a multi-talented prodigy rather than something unprecedented. But if he revealed it publicly, in front of dozens of witnesses, soldiers of all ranks, people who couldn’t all be silenced, it would create questions that couldn’t be easily buried. Questions about what he was. About where such power came from. Questions that would reach the highest levels of government and force an investigation, preventing any plans the conspirators in the camp could brew. His gaze flickered with life for a short moment, but he quickly masked it and maintained his stoic calm, brooding over the steps he would take immediately after they arrived at the outpost. . . . They reached the military outpost late in the afternoon of the second day. The place was a fortress in every sense of the word. Properly fortified with guard towers and scores of soldiers patrolling every corner, it loomed prominently in the wilderness it stood. At its center, Finn could see a three-storey administrative building that likely housed the camp heads — or in other words, the people Finn was wary about. Lyssa broke from their party and rode ahead to announce their arrival. As Finn watched her go, he immediately spread his senses despite his outward calm, analyzing what exactly he was up against. The mana density here was different. More controlled. Multiple Master-rank signatures, at least five, maybe six. And one particularly strong presence on the top floor of the administration building. At least a Grade 2 Master-rank. The General, probably. Finn cataloged everything calmly. Over his two years of being Arros, he had developed a keen sense for deciphering mana fluctuations unlike any other. Perhaps it was because of how deeply his own magic tied to reality itself that gave himself such insight, perhaps it was just raw talent. The fact, though, remained that he now had a broad idea of what he was up against. Finn, Elara and the others were motioned forward after Lyssa explained their situation to the guards at the front. They were escorted through the gates as soldiers stared at the young man who’d allegedly killed forty-seven people. Some wore skeptical, disbelieving looks, a few assessed Finn’s worth, while others seemed almost eager, immediately hostile, even, as if hoping he’d try something. Those ones, Finn noted. Those are the ones who know... Who’ve been given orders... They were brought to a processing area, and Lyssa began explaining the situation to a senior officer. Finn caught fragments of the conversation: "—mass murder of civilians and government officials—" "—needs immediate transfer to capital for trial—" "—extremely dangerous despite his age and injuries—" The officer’s expression remained professionally neutral. But Finn saw the slight tension in his shoulders. The way his eyes flicked to someone standing in the shadows of a nearby doorway. For a moment, he looked to his side and caught Elara staring at him with a look that said she knew exactly what he was about to do. Her eyes seemed to plead for him not to be rash... But— "We’ll take custody from here," the officer said to Lyssa. "Your team will be given quarters to rest before—" Finn moved. He channeled his Error magic without any elemental disguise, and inverted reality around Lyssa. The inversion yanked her backward with violent force, sending her crashing into Torin and Maris. All three of them immediately went down in a tangle of limbs. Before anyone could react, Finn was running. But contrary to the expectations of everyone watching in shock, he didn’t run toward the exit, but rather, toward the center of the outpost. Toward where the most soldiers would see what happened next. Shouts erupted behind him. Guards rushed to intercept. An Adept-rank soldier launched a fire spell. Finn inverted the temperature, flash-freezing the man’s lungs mid-breath for a second, before normalizing the spell before it was lethal. He wasn’t planning on killing anyone here, just like they weren’t attacking him with the intent to kill. More soldiers poured in from all directions. And among them, Finn saw the ones he’d marked earlier. The eager ones. Unlike the other soldiers, these ones were moving with lethal intent, not attempting to subdue but to kill. Finn sneered coldly as they charged from behind him. "STOP HIM!" someone screamed. But Finn was already in the center of the outpost’s main courtyard, with dozens of soldiers surrounding him, and more rushing in from barracks and guard posts. All ranks of soldiers, from Novices fresh from training, Adepts with years of experience, and even Masters who’d seen real combat. All of them were watching him now... charging at him... Perfect. A Master-rank beast tamer released his bonded creature — something like a massive tiger with golden fur and glowing eyes. It lunged at Finn with supernatural speed, swiping down in one fluid motion. In that moment, Finn opened his mouth and chanted a familiar spell for the first time in this world: [Frame Skip] Reality glitched. For an instant, Finn’s body became insubstantial. Incorporeal and phantom-like, as if reality itself had hiccuped. The wolf’s claws passed through the empty space where he had been standing. And when reality seemed to right itself, Finn was ten feet forward, leaving a visible trail of afterimages behind him. The entire courtyard froze. Every single soldier, from the rawest Novice to the most experienced Master, stood paralyzed with their minds short-circuiting trying to process what they’d just witnessed. . . . . A/N: Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating! 🎄