November 9th, 628

  Umara coughed and slowly opened her eyes, dizziness lingering for some time before her mind cleared.

  She looked around and struggled to her knees, seeing Zirion’s massive head still pointed at her.

  Her vision flashed with multi-dimensional gridspace, her eyelids shutting in an attempt to wash the sights away and concentrate.

  When she opened them again, she continued to see sprays of arrays and formations, like spots and stars that blinked in the windows of her distractions. It came as a reflex. The slightest hint of her desire to know anything about the space in front of her would spawn dense strings, lines, and runes detailing the dimensions and spatial properties of the slice of reality before her.

  It was like a portion of her mind had been carved out strictly for that purpose.

  She turned her head, seeing one of her devices sitting on a table some distance away.

  Then she reached out, her hand twisting space and creating a tunnel, allowing her to directly grab the device and pull it from the channel. It collapsed, her eyes glossing over it for a few seconds before her grasp failed.

  The device fell to the floor, her breathing becoming a bit more labored.

  “I’m fucking tired. What happened to me?”

  “It seems that your prior knowledge and enlightenments on the principles of space and time helped you absorb much more than I initially expected. Like Anarchy forced a rationalization within your soul, the Weaver has exposed to you the Conceptual of Dimensional Abstraction. You could say that without breaking the Great Barrier, this is the best level of comprehension you can achieve. Congratulations. You’ve brought your Barrier forward.”

  Umara turned her gaze, looking through the lens of her Aura.

  The Great Barrier, that perpetual wall of golden light in the distance, was now no longer on the horizon. It was close, uncomfortably close. Not quite within reach, but close enough for her to understand that if she wanted to acquire a higher level of power, that Barrier would stop her.

  It triggered Umara’s memories of Nonnen, her mind replaying the scenes of when he reached out to kill that King Blood. They had seen chains manifest around his arm, preventing him from using power he didn’t earn.

  Until he broke it, rose to another level, and used that power to kill a King Blood an entire Authority higher than him.

  If Umara wasn’t careful, this Barrier would do the same to her. Until she broke it, she would be limited.

  It was exactly how her mother was. Although a higher Authority afforded her another affinity and greater amounts of Mana, it didn’t necessarily afford her more comprehension. What she had likely came simply with time and accumulation rather than achieving a higher level.

  Now, Umara had seen what Zirion and the Weaver called the Conceptual. A level of power locked behind the Great Barrier, and far, far more powerful than anything Umara was capable of now.

  It was what set Sovereigns apart from others so heavily, why they seemed like gods while everyone else was mere Magi. Anarchy could split the skies in two with a single slash of the blade. An Authority 11 Marshal manning a Stronghold was still at the mercy of tactical combat, much stronger than Chiefs, but not capable of ruling an entire war by themselves and certainly on a lesser plane of existence compared to Anarchy.

  The Conceptual, that power, was the key. More than ever, Umara burned with the desire to shatter the Barrier and grasp that power.

  She had already achieved so much. She could do so much more.

  Her ambition flared, and then her exhaustion brought her back down. Her body was tired even though her soul brimmed with incredible potential. Her Mana reserves were topped off and she felt like she could topple a city, but her limbs didn’t want to move.

  Zirion spoke as Umara pulled herself to her feet unsteadily.

  “It’s been two days. You need to recover, my Pupil. Food and rest will serve you well.”

  “Agreed. My stomach is churning.”

  “Please, sit. I will call someone to bring you to your quarters where you can eat.”

  A wheelchair appeared next to Umara, her body collapsing into it with little grace. She brushed her white hair out of her face, looking down at the chair, crafted expertly.

  “You just have a wheelchair?”

  “I ordered one to be made when you collapsed. I had a feeling walking would be difficult after your ordeal.”

  “Thank you, my clairvoyant Master Zirion.”

  “You flatter me.”

  The two smiled at each other, a servant arriving to cart Umara away.

  For the next day she spent her time both recovering and mentally preparing spells. Zirion had used the Weaver to infuse his personal spells into her, since technically they weren’t his, but his Master’s, who made the grimoire. She knew them like they had always been in her mind, but that didn’t mean she could cast them.

  Still, their applications were extraordinary. She received a full set of comprehensive teleportation spells that didn’t require an entire building’s worth of enchantments. All it required was Waypoints, established coordinates that were inlaid into space permanently. With them, Umara could teleport to any of her Waypoints, even going so far as to bring people with her, with just the cast of a spell.

  It was semi-stationary teleportation. She could shift positions, but it still relied on a permanent Waypoint. The Waypoints could also only be established personally, meaning she had to go to the place to create a Waypoint. She couldn’t just teleport anywhere she wanted.

  Not yet, anyway. Another series of spells did just that, but she wouldn’t be capable of using them until she breached the Great Barrier.

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  Other than the teleportation spells, Zirion had infused combat spells of the spatial and dimensional nature. They were far more developed than Umara’s crude usage of spatial fractures to hurt her enemies, and while some were exceedingly difficult, and dangerous, to use, others were within her capabilities, able to be used immediately.

  She smiled. Both short and long term gains had been made in spades. That wasn’t mentioning the spells she had developed for Iron Legion logistics, her own unique spells that she could improve a magnitude over with her newfound knowledge and awareness given by the Weaver.

  She wasted no time. After mentally preparing her spells for a day, she recovered enough to put them down on paper and test them. She spent a mere day testing her spells, improving them, and making them fieldable. It was painfully easy when she used both her Aura and dimensional awareness, which she was calling Gridspace.

  A second day was used to put on the final touches. It was only at the end of that day that Umara finally called John, giving him the good news.

  It wasn’t much longer afterward that the time came to leave. Outside the teleportation nexus, Umara looked up at Zirion, eager to leave but not so eager that she couldn’t give her goodbyes.

  “Master Zirion, you’ve helped me immensely. I hope I’ll be able to repay this debt someday.”

  “Hardly, my pupil. What you’re attempting to accomplish is worth more than what I’ve given you. Which is why you must promise to come back when you’ve breached the Great Barrier. I will have more for you then.”

  “I may just take you up on that.”

  Umara smiled and bowed.

  “Thank you again, Master.”

  “Anytime. Now go and reap what you have sown. I expect great news, in time.”

  Umara nodded and parted ways, heading through the teleporter and leaving the Gateway.

  Her eyes glistened as she shuttled through space, all the secrets of her transportation laid bare. Although difficult to keep up with, she was still able to comprehend what was happening around her.

  When she was finally spit out, she stood there blankly for a few seconds before smiling.

  Her eyes lifted, seeing John standing there. She took a step, crossing the distance between them instantly and jumping into his arms.

  He almost recoiled.

  “Whoa there. Feiden might feel threatened if you take his party trick.”

  “Good thing I have no interest in the mundane.”

  John chuckled as they hugged, exchanging a kiss before Umara suddenly pulled away and whipped out a book.

  John’s brows raised as he took it.

  “What’s this?”

  “A small grimoire that I made for you. Go ahead, read it.”

  He smiled before opening it, starting from the first page and flipping through every one after a second or two.

  It didn’t take more than a minute to get to the end. After the last page, he snapped the book shut, staring at the back cover for a short time.

  Then Umara felt his arm snake around her waist. He pulled her against his body, looking down into her eyes with a wide grin.

  “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

  “Every day, actually.”

  “Go ahead and stab me if I ever happen to forget. Because you are the smartest, most gorgeous, most lovely and radiant and hard working and creative and stunning and powerful and skillful and beautiful and sexy and cute and-”

  “Alright, alright!”

  She laughed as he started planting kisses all over her neck and face. Once he had spun her around enough, he put her down and grabbed her hand, pulling her along.

  “Come, my dear. We have no time to waste. Iron Legion calls for slaughter, and you have the key to their final shackle.”

  “To Wonderland?”

  “To Wonderland.”

  They walked out of the building, boarding a helicopter that was still spun up, Erhan waiting outside of it.

  They boarded, taking off and flying a short distance to the airport where a plane was waiting. Soon they were in the air, and that’s when Umara noticed something different.

  She looked outside, sensing their speed, her brows raising.

  “They finally made a stable supersonic engine?”

  “They made one a while ago. We’re still manufacturing them for the new airframes. They aren’t as easy or cheap to produce, and most of our facilities are at full production capacity anyway. Plus, I intend to keep these things a bit more secret, which means fewer numbers. Still, their dominance will make up for it.”

  “Has the Scourge started fielding more fliers?”

  “They have. They’ve become a major factor in the war and have already started taking out planes. Dogfighting is more common, but soon enough our pilots won’t have to deal with them. We’ll reestablish air superiority within the month. These new planes are capable of Mach two, not as fast as other prototypes, but far more fuel efficient and maneuverable. They have no equal, not to mention the expanded logistical capabilities afforded by jet cargo planes. I’ve already got an aerial supercarrier being developed.”

  John showed her a blueprint, the plane on it boasting specs far greater than their current largest cargo plane, the C-400. She looked at the numbers, then gawked.

  “What the fuck? Wingspan of six hundred meters? Is that even possible?”

  “Yup! Thanks to magic, this fantasy can be reality.”

  “What would you even use this for? I would think the law of diminishing returns makes this rather inefficient.”

  “Such laws are superseded by the rule of cool.”

  Umara’s face went flat, John looking oh-so proud of himself.

  “And it would be used as an aerial fortress. Can you imagine how many supplies could be moved with that thing? All it would take is a teleportation platform built inside of it and you could send and receive supplies without even landing.”

  “Right, because you’d need a runway how long to accommodate this thing?”

  “I’m thinking 10 miles long would be sufficient.”

  “Lord almighty…”

  Umara sighed, looking through the rest of the specifications before handing it back to John.

  “I mean, it looks powerful enough…”

  “Good, because it’s already in production.”

  “Huh? Why? We’ve got enough on our plate as it is, and you want to build the equivalent of a flying town? It would take a crew of hundreds just to man it! Where are you gonna pull the personnel from?”

  “I don’t know. That’s an issue for future me to figure out. For now, I want it built, which by itself shouldn’t be that difficult. We have the materials. The designs just need to be worked on. I want to make it capable of flying in the air indefinitely.”

  John gazed off into space, Umara looking up at him and seeing that sparkle in his eye.

  She just smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.

  “You know what, it’s a marvelous idea, dear. I’ll work on some enchantments for it.”

  “Just don’t stress yourself. You’ve done more than enough by handing me this grimoire. I’ve already designed the storage components to accommodate the enchantments. They would just have to be installed on our vehicles. The days of loading tank breaches are over. I’m excited to see them turn into autocannons.”

  “That’s a scary thought…”

  Umara muttered, going quiet as John started pondering.

  The plane they were in, as a result of being equipped with the latest jet engines and being capable of going Mach 2, helped them arrive at their destination sooner rather than later.

  After touching down in Wonderland, the two of them rushed to the workshops to encrypt the enchantments. The process was quick, and soon they were handing them off to the warlocks so they could start enchanting the prototypes that had been prepared long in advance. Since Umara had mentioned her successes to John, he had assembled what he needed to make sure that the fruits of her labor could be tested and fielded as soon as possible.

  By the end of the day, they had already made great progress. John’s mood couldn’t have been any better, so to top it all off, they left Wonderland for the night to go dine in one of the nicest restaurants in the Capital.

  At the same time, John quietly sent out messages to Sector 4.

  And the pieces started moving, promising quiet retribution for the sins of the past.