Matron Elen ran into Captain Lauren during her mad dash towards the eastern training yard.

  “Thank the goddess you’re here!” he said in relief. “Come quickly! The Lord is fighting in the east tower! We have to help him!”

  “I’m not really—” She barely got a word out before the Captain was already dashing off. The woman hesitated, then sighed and reluctantly followed.

  She hadn’t been rushing to aid Lord Draevan. She had been looking for Eri. To Elen, everyone’s safety was secondary to her ward, even a House Head like the Noble Lord.

  Still, the woman wasn’t heartless. Lord Draevan was a good man, reluctant as she was to admit, and she owed Captain Lauren one for helping her look for her boy during the ridiculous Port disaster.

  Whoever the assassins were, it was obvious that they had prioritised their greater Chosens after the Lord. If they made the mistake of underestimating Eri, which they probably would, then the boy should have no trouble mopping up his assailants on his own, probably after much explosive suffering on their end.

  Elen’s power was better used to help Lord Draevan fend off his attackers, rather than chasing after her pyromanic ward.

  Besides, Eri would be upset if Lord Draevan died. And after all the trouble they went through to claim Gunther’s bounty, Elen was going to make damn sure Eri was getting that gold from the Lord before they left Castle Elathion.

  Some part of her was still fuming that the boy gave away the Ruby Core, even if she was a little proud of him for doing it. For a former Demon King, he had remarkably little greed in him.

  Then she would remember the literal damned Demon Noble he stuffed away in his ‘Inventory’ like a pet, and would start seething again.

  “Well, at least I have an opportunity to vent now,” Elen murmured. “Let’s see what fools the Seneschal allowed into the castle.”

  ~~~

  She was going to thoroughly wring the old man’s neck after this.

  “Incoming!” She yelled, raising her greatshield and activating a protective Arte. Captain Lauren barely managed to get behind her in time before a barrage of magical missiles vaporised the area around them to slag.

  The moment the volley cleared, the Captain was moving again, using his Sword Artes to cleave apart stray spells and close in the distance to the foe.

  Elen already knew it was fruitless. The moment he got too close, his strength and speed sputtered out like a wind-blown candle. A barrage of magic spells slammed into him, throwing him back.

  “Stop charging in like an idiot!” she yelled at him. “She’s a Disruptor!”

  Their opponent — a veiled, red-haired woman in desert robes — strung her strange, giant harp-bow weapon, firing off another volley of spells. At the same time her fingers struck the strings, a melodic song cut through the battlefield clamour, sending the Mana in their Cores into disarray.

  Elen struggled to summon her Shield Artes in time. The disrupted mana barely heeded her call. The magic missiles nearly broke through her guard.

  I hate fighting Disrupters, she seethed. But this one is somehow worse than any other I've fought before.

  Disruptors nullified a Chosen’s ability to manipulate mana, but there was usually a limit to how many Chosens they could target. It often consumed their entire focus to shut down a single foe.

  Not so for this red-headed witch. The ‘Desert Minstrel’ was somehow disrupting mana through music, suppressing the entire battlefield with its nullifying magic. It wasn’t just affecting Elen and Lauren; Lord Draevan was stuck in a violent duel with another Sapphire Chosen, and Elen could tell the Lord was struggling to conjure his spells.

  The worst part was that the minstrel’s song was somehow selective in which of its listeners became mana-disrupted. Lord Draevan’s opponent was entirely unaffected by the confounding music, despite easily being in its range.

  Such magic was unheard of by even the most seasoned Chosen. However, Elen was a tad more seasoned than most, and so she recognised the Artes’ origin.

  “Which hole did you come from?” Elen murmured. “Here I was, thinking most of the old races dead or hidden in their secret paradises.”

  Somehow, the witch heard her. The minstrel looked to her, green eyes startling in hue.

  Elen recognised the colour.

  “A half-Elf of the Golden Glades,” Elen chuckled. “First Gunther, now you. Just what experiments are the Duskcrowns doing with Elder blood?”

  The woman cocked her head, wavy red hair shimmering like a desert mirage. She then raised her harp bow at Elen.

  The next attack was not a discordant volley of magic missiles, but a massive, screaming great arrow that punched hard against her greatshield.

  There was too much power behind the attack. Elen was blown off her feet and then carried all the way to the back wall of the hall.

  She slammed hard against the stone surface, but the assault did not end there. Another arrow, then two, then five more came, each stronger than the last.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Elen felt her bones breaking. Her organs failed her, ripped apart under the vibrating song shuddering through her body, unmaking her flesh.

  [Song Artes, Elven Lifeweaver’s Fourth Form: The Reverse Song of Creation.]

  Elen didn’t even have time to murmur a curse before she felt her heart implode, and all went black.

  ~~~

  Lauren felt despair grip his heart as he saw the matron’s body going limp.

  The results of her demise were hidden beneath the colossal greatshield covering her body, but Lauren saw liquidifying strips of flesh seeping from beneath the twitching corpse.

  The boy is going to be devastated…

  There was no time for his guilt, however. The harp minstrel looked momentarily winded from her exertion. Lauren rushed to end her life, making use of perhaps the only moment of vulnerability he had seen in his opponent throughout the entire fight thus far.

  Alas, fate was not on his side that day. From his left, a chorus of magical energy struck him, dragging his limbs down and afflicting him with the dregs of abyssal weight.

  His limbs felt like lead. His movements were sluggish, as if he were trapped under water.

  With great difficulty, he turned his head to the side and saw the second Minstrel — a twin to the first, her appearance almost a mirror copy, save for a difference in the style of hair. Rather than a giant harp-bow, this woman was carrying a lute, and unlike her more silent sister, the lute-carrier was singing.

  A haunting, beautiful melody paralysed his limbs with strange magic. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the first minstrel already recovered, her harp-bow pointed straight for him.

  I’m dead, he thought. Lord Draevan, forgive me…

  The screaming great arrow was released.

  Someone grabbed him. Captain Lauren was then violently pulled to the side. The arrow missed his face by scant centimetres, but Lauren could swear that it felt like the skin on his face was melting as it flew past.

  He was hurled to safety, an aura of protective energy shielding him from the discordant music rampaging through the air.

  Lauren looked up at his saviour and was taken aback.

  “How— What?! How are you alive?!” Lauren exclaimed in disbelief. “I saw you reduced to primordial ooze!”

  “You saw wrong, then,” Elen countered, very much alive and well. She then hastily added, “But whatever you do, do not get hit by those great arrows. It’s Elven magic from the Age of Creation. The music will strip the flesh from your bones and unmake you from within. Not even a Ruby-Core constitution will save you.”

  She looked… fine. There was blood on her head, leaking from a scrap wound, and her armour was severely damaged, but somehow, the woman was whole and well despite being liquified earlier.

  Lauren turned to look at where she had fallen from the arrow barrage earlier, and found nothing there except for an enormous dent in the stone wall.

  “Close your eyes and cover your ears,” Elen instructed as she hammered her shield into the ground, anchoring it in place and leaving her sole remaining hand free to rummage inside her pockets. She pulled out a pair of odd-shaped dice — handiworks from her ward, probably — and threw them over her shield.

  A bright flash of light followed, accompanied by a deafening bang. Lauren opened his eyes and saw the twin minstrels dazed.

  “Kill the Disruptor first!” Elen ordered. Lauren was already on the move, sword flashing for the harp-bow user. Elen followed close behind, shield raised to bludgeon the red-headed witch.

  The minstrel was stunned, but she still retained enough sense to defend herself. She swung her harp-bow with surprising strength, parrying Lauren’s longsword before kicking him right in the chest. The impact caved in his breastplate, but the Captain gritted his teeth and grappled her, holding her leg in place.

  Elen’s greatshield came down, hammering on the outstretched leg. The razor-edge shield somehow failed to cleave off the leg, but the force was enough to break the kneecap, crippling the limb for good.

  The minstrel didn’t even flinch. Her face was expressionless, her eyes dead green orbs. The witch merely struck at Elen with almost nonchalant ease, her speeding backfist hammering into the side of Elen’s head, fatally cracking her skull and sending the woman spinning to the floor.

  Lauren raised his sword and managed to stab the minstrel through the torso, but the woman turned at the last moment, turning the blow from a fatal one aimed at her heart to one that merely grazed her ribcage. At the same time, with a completely emotionless expression, her right arm wrapped around Lauren’s, snapping his arm in the process when her entire body twisted to avoid his attack.

  Lauren cried out in rage and pain. He released his grip on the longsword and tried to punch the woman, but a chorus of head-splitting magic staggered him, leaving him vulnerable.

  The other twin had recovered, resuming her song. The first wounded minstrel kicked him away before bringing her harp-bow to bear.

  Before she could fire, a greatshield slammed into her head, causing her arrow to miss Lauren’s skull by mere centimetres. Elen then grabbed Lauren bodily off the ground and threw him far to safety before a second arrow ripped the matron's torso in two, undoubtedly killing Elen for a third time.

  But the time Lauren got to his senses and pushed himself off the ground, Elen was somehow already at his side, pulling him upright.

  “Goddamn witch! Do you have any idea how much the bribes cost to reset myself three times in a single day?!” Elen yelled in frustration. “What are you even made of?! I hit you in the head! How are you not dead?”

  This time, the emotionless minstrel did respond. It was only the slight raising of an eyebrow in their direction — barely a response at all — but somehow it was enough to convey her amused indignation.

  You have no right to talk, as if it was trying to say.

  Privately, Lauren agreed. But only a little.

  “Dammit. If only I had my left hand,” Elen cursed. “I swear, if I find that winged devil bitch who cut it off one day…”

  “I don’t suppose you could grow it back?” Lauren asked. At her glare, he clarified: “That wasn’t me being sarcastic. I was genuinely asking. If you have any other bullshit abilities that you can use, now’s the time.”

  “No idea what you are talking about,” Elen grunted. “However, in a hypothetical scenario that I did have any, none of them are particularly useful in our current circumstances.”

  Lauren would argue that being able to regenerate from liquefaction was a pretty useful ability, but he knew better than to argue. Whatever ghastly recovery Elen used, it might come with a price he was not aware of.

  “Any chance the rest of your knights are coming?” Elen asked.

  Lauren shook his head. “They are scattered. Whoever did this knew we had sent out our patrols to the port today and left the castle undefended. Only squires are left — Bronze and Silver Cores. I… I told them to stay away.”

  “So it’s just us,” Elen sighed. “Great.”

  The twin minstrels raised their weapons, and the gruelling battle resumed.