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At least, I was hoping that was how the ability worked. I needed to test it more before we actually put our plan into action, and I wasn’t sure exactly how much time we had until the demons realized the Relic was gone and went to their plan B.

I wasn’t even sure what their plan B was. For all I knew, they would do something like they had done in Karfana and the circumstances would be immediately dangerous for everyone in the city.

What’s more, if they had succeeded with what they were trying in Karfana—making an expanding dungeon—there was no way to tell when the expanding dungeon would have actually stopped expanding.

“Like I said before, you’re not going to be able to take it head-on. If you’re thinking that the earth armor you can summon will protect you in any way, your brain will probably boil in your skull before you even realize you’re dead.”

Koise seemed to think that I was referring to my earth armor. It was a good guess, at least, but seriously—it felt a bit insulting that he thought I would do something so reckless.

“No, it’s something I still have to confirm, anyway. I’ll let you know if we need to find another method.”

“Alright…” I could tell by the hesitation and the way he squinted his eyes at me that he felt dubious at best that he had to place his trust in me.

“So when are we going to actually do this?” Lein asked, gazing over at the dragon’s castle.

We had all of the materials we needed already, so the next step was to figure out when we were going to actually enact the plan.

We could talk about it all day, but that wouldn’t bring results.

I would come to learn that plans went best when you executed them as soon as possible after making them rather than waiting for doubts to settle in or for you to have the time to convince yourself that it was too dangerous.

“Well, right now is obviously out. Aizen still needs to confirm whatever he came up with for the dragon fire, and it would be far too visible to the guards to do it in broad daylight, so that leaves going during night hours. It’s cliche, but there’s a reason it’s cliche, after all.”

Every good ambush seemed to happen at night.

“But the dragon isn’t even there yet?” Lein asked.

I could see what Koise was thinking. Unfortunately, all of the tall tales I had heard from the Awakeners hanging around the Association had been right about one thing: dragons had supernaturally good senses.

If we couldn’t enact our infiltration plan when the dragon was out of the castle, it would likely be able to hear or otherwise sense our efforts. On the other hand, if we could get in place and find where it would sleep beforehand, all we would have to worry about was concealing our presence while staying still.

It was much easier to be stealthy while staying still than it was to be stealthy while moving around a castle that you didn’t know the layout of.

“It’s better for us to get in place beforehand and wait for the dragon to come to us than it is to try to sneak up on a dragon,” I said, voicing my thoughts.

“Exactly. I say we should go tonight—it could be back at any moment and we won’t know when it will be gone again. How long will it take you to test your ability?” Koise asked me, giving me an intense look.

Seeing as our survival would depend on me being able to deal with the dragon’s fire, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that all of our lives were in my hands.

“I should be—”

Roaaar!

An echoing screech echoed out through the city, and all of us snapped our heads toward the source of the sound in the distance.

The dragon was returning.

Rather than fly straight to the castle, it shrieked again before circling over the city once.

The dragon was dark green in color, but I could see black veins spreading over its leathery wings. It was covered in scales that, from the distance I was at, looked like they might have been the size of dinner plates, and the heavy aura from the dungeon seemed to spread out over the city in a huge radius around the dragon, smothering everything in an invisible, weighty blanket.

Wrapped in its aura again, I sensed the demonic energy as well.

Koise looked at me and nodded. He seemed to sense it, too.

The dragon then flew towards the city square near the gates.

“Shit, it’s going to the Association building. It’ll finish whatever business it has there, make an announcement to the Awakeners, and go back to its castle.”

“How do you know it’s going to make an announcement?” Koise asked, trying to gather as much information as possible.

“It wouldn’t have bothered catching everyone’s attention with shrieks and circling the city like that if it didn’t have something it needed to make known. It wants as many people as possible to gather in the square and hear what it’s going to say.”

If that was the case, our window for getting into the castle before the dragon had narrowed drastically.

“Let’s do it,” I said, deciding to act while we could. If we delayed, we didn’t know if the opportunity would present itself again.

“What?! But what about testing—”

“There’s no time, he’s right. We move now or we might lose our best chance,” Koise interrupted Lein, who was voicing his objections about hurrying the plan along so suddenly.

When I thought about it, he didn’t have any place in the plan, anyway. He would at least be able to distract the dragon if things went wrong, right?

Koise quickly drew a large arrow with a strange metal end that resembled a bodkin head but was more cylindrical, with a rounded head that looked unsuitable for actually piercing anything.

Noticing my quizzical look as he tied a rope around the end of it, he explained.

“Latching head. It’ll naturally enclose itself around the first thing it comes into contact with and secure itself. As long as whatever it’s holding can support our weight, it won’t come loose.”

With that, he drew the arrow all the way back with his bow, which was actively falling apart and cracking along the length.

Thwoom.

The bowstring let out a low hum when he released it, launching the arrow all the way across to the castle, where it struck the bottom of a wall that connected to the edge of the ground where the castle was situated.

Next, he cut the rope with a bladed arrow before taking another latching arrow, tying the end of the rope he held around it, and planting it firmly into the ground.

Shhhk!

The cylindrical arrowhead did exactly as its namesake described—it unfolded itself violently and shot into the stone ground effortlessly, the metal curving around to hold it in place.

I could only hope that the stones of the street would hold our weight.

Then, before I could ask anything else, Koise started climbing along the rope as it swayed in the light breeze, small flakes of ice battering him lightly while he climbed along, hand over hand.

It was quite some distance that we would have to climb, and we had to hurry before the dragon finished its speech and returned to the castle.

At least the dragon had drawn other Awakeners and guards to the center of the city. We weren’t at much risk of being spotted with the angle we were at and the light drifts of ice.

Next was Lein, who hugged the rope firmly and wrapped his legs around it, shimmying across it while Koise was still only about halfway along.

We couldn’t wait for each person to go all the way, and Koise seemed confident enough in his own judgement of his abilities that we had no room to doubt.

I took a breath and braced myself, briefly cracking the knuckles in my hands, the pops in each finger sounding through the snow and leaving my hands with that sort of cathartic feeling.

Then I gripped the swaying rope and began following Lein’s technique—there was no way I was going to swing myself along like Koise, fast as it was.

After Koise had made it and I was about at the halfway point with Lein only a bit ahead of me, I made the mistake of turning my head, following a strange urge to look down.

It was an endless drop as far as I could see. The cliff face was sheer and icy, going down at an angle that would make it nearly impossible to climb—if there was even a bottom to climb from.

All the way down to the roiling clouds below, where I could see brief flashes of light as a storm raged through them onto whatever was hidden beneath their cover.

If Lein’s terror at what he had seen was anything to go by, whatever it was had to be something that I was grateful we couldn’t actually see.

I looked away almost as quickly as I had looked in the first place, a strange thought flitting through my brain that I should just let go. I wondered how long and blissful the fall would be.

Then I reached solid ground again, and Koise helped hoist me up.