"Quiet." Vanessa warned Matthew.During the night, they both sneaked out of camp to get in the castle. Matthew had the Shadow Form ability and Vanessa had the Hide Mana ability. They both, in their own way, could sneak inside the fortress undetected.
Faralynn and the others stayed on camp to deceive Catherine’s and Karou’s parties pretending that the other two were just sleeping on camp.
Mia created solid light simulacrums of them, perfect in almost every way, but their shadows were hard for the Luxomancer to replicate. Mia had an incredible talent with drawing and painting. This allowed her to use her Create Light skill to make realistic images. But, as she was creating an image made of light, getting the right amount of brightness from it adjusting the light intensity to simulate shadows was a huge effort.
With her Solidify Mana skill, she could give the light simulacrums a physical form. With her Familiar skill, she could give the simulacrums intelligence so that they’d behave rationally.
They put the simulacrums inside their respective tents and made them pretend to be asleep.
Deceiving people in the middle of combat with simulacrums was easy. But creating realistic forms to deceive people in such conditions was harder. Mia understood that her skills had applications outside of battle and she needed to improve her spell. She needed to be able to make precise shadows to contrast the light. Especially if she wanted to use this skill under another source of light.
The Carrancas were asleep on the floor or leaning on the fortress walls.
Matthew used his shadow Form to move without making a sound while Vanessa just used her natural talent to walk without making a noise.
She hid her mana at the chance the monsters could detect her, but it seemed they couldn’t, since they didn’t react to Matthew.
Through a small gap in the wall where the stones crumbled, they got in easily.
"Alright. Keep quiet and follow me." Vanessa said to Matthew once they realized they were safe.
They were inside the walls now walking through narrow corridors. Small slits, which allowed soldiers to shoot their muskets outside, here in there allowed some moon light inside, but, otherwise, the corridor was covered in darkness.
Walking through the dark, Vanessa eventually found a door that led to the courtyard.
She opened it slowly so as to not make too much noise.
The space between the walls and the buildings inside was empty, they couldn’t see any living or unliving things in there.
"Alright, let’s move quickly." Vanessa ran like a ninja while Matthew followed her in shadow form.
There were 5 buildings in a circle in the middle of the fort. One was big, clearly a barracks for soldiers to sleep in. Another was beautiful, probably the office of high command. A kitchen and refectory. A shed for weapons and tools made of wood, now rotten and falling to pieces. And the last one was a tall church.
Vanessa guided Matthew to the church with no hesitation.
"Wait." Matthew said when she started to open the door.
"What?" She whispered.
"The sword was first photographed in the middle of the wilderness embedded in a stone. If it is inside this church, it means something moved it." He warned.
"So?"
"Whatever moved the sword, might still be in there. Those giants outside couldn’t have gone inside this place." Matthew was careful.
"You’re right." Vanessa sighed. She was rushing. Never rush, she reminded herself.
She then gestured to move to the side of the building. There they sneaked around looking through the windows.
There it was, Orpheu’s sword inside a stone on top of the altar.
"Fuck." Vanessa exclaimed.
"What?" Matthew asked.
"Look inside." She whispered in a wavering voice.
There in front of the altar, stood a tall woman. She was lean and muscular. She wore a fur cloak, a small breastplate that covered only her bust, pauldrons, and bracers, pants, a metal tasset and metal greaves. She leaned on a halberd and had axes hanging from her waist.
Her hair was long and wavy, but Matthew couldn’t tell his color. She was clearly made out of mana as she shone blue.
"Who is that?" Matthew whispered. "Or what is it?"
"It looks like Valerie Vigridsdottir. The Northern Star." Vanessa explained. "Have you really never seen her?"
"I did. But I don’t remember what she looked like." Matthew defended himself. "But she’s a mana construct, isn’t she?"
"Yeah. But if she’s anything as strong as the original... We can’t defeat her." Vanessa said.
"What do we do?" Matthew asked.
But he didn’t have time for an answer. Suddenly a giant bird landed in front of the church. They haven’t seen any wildlife so far, so they got weary. They sneaked back to the front to see what was happening.
There they saw Kaoru unmounting from the bird.
And then the bird’s flesh shifted and changed and it morphed into the fat man Charles.
"You’re sure it is here?" Kaoru asked him.
"Yes. My sprites followed them here. The two of them are around here somewhere." He said, looking around.
"Doesn’t matter where they are. Let’s get the sword." She was succinct.
Kaoru opened the door without care with force and froze in place.
"Fuck." She exclaimed with color leaving her face.
"Duck!" Charles screamed and lifted a mana wall in front of the samurai.
All the mana wall did was to delay the attack by an instant. The Northern Star’s halberd sliced it with ease.
That instant, however, gave the chance for Kaoru to duck and roll on the floor away from the mana simulacrum and dodge the attack.
Charles tried to keep it away from him with a lightning bolt coming out of his staff, but it only pushed the simulacrum a bit backwards.
"Grab the sword and run." Matthew told Vanessa and charged with his body clad in miasma.
He defended Charles from an axe that was thrown at him using Aym’s sword to slash it away midair. He then drew his gun and shot Valerie’s simulacrum repeatedly.
"Ffyr! Are you awake?" He called her telepathically, but got no answer. Being inside a gate, or being too far away might interfere with their connection? He needed to increase his Pact skill.
The Northern Star was too fast, faster even than Vanessa. In an instant it was already on top of Matthew who had a hard time dodging it. He was only able to do it because of his Sixth Sense skill.
Kaoru drew her katanas and joined Matthew, slashing at the simulacrum who easily defended itself and started to trade blows with the two of them.
Charles tried to freeze the legs of their opponent to the ground, but she easily broke free.
"God damn it!" Matthew exclaimed, jumping backwards leaving Kaoru to face one of the Great Three alone. "Ffyr!"
Matthew used his Summon Pact skill to summon the fairy to him.
Ffyr saw herself in the middle of nowhere. It took her a couple of seconds to look around and understand that Matthew summoned her.
"What the fuck Matt?!" She exclaimed. "Warn me before you call me!"
Matthew took out a mana potion form his Inventory and drank it while Charles and Kaoru battled the simulacrum themselves.
"It didn’t reach you." He breathed deeply. "We need your help." He pointed at the woman they were fighting.
"What kind of monster have you stumbled on now?" Ffyr said.
"I’ll explain later." Matthew exclaimed and covered his bullets in unholy fire. "Help us." He asked her.
His mouth dropped when the simulacrum dodged bullets as if it were mere slow punches going her way.
Kaoru tried to seize the moment and take off one of their opponent’s legs, but was easily thwarted.
"What the hell is it doing here?" Charles screamed.
"I don’t know!" Matthew shouted back, resolving to use his blades.
Ffyr flew high and threw some fireballs to keep the simulacrum away from Kaoru who was having trouble dodging its attacks.
She was really as strong as a demon king, Matthew thought. He felt as powerless there as he was while fighting Vine.
It didn’t matter what he did, what trick he tried. The simulacrum dodged his attacks easily. All he wanted was a scratch to burn her with unholy fire, but none of his attacks connected.
At some point, his opponent kicked him in the belly, sending him flying and crushing the crumbling shed to the ground when he hit it.
Charles covered him with a fan of flames preventing the simulacrum from giving chase.
Ffyr hit some fireballs on Valerie, but they did no damage to it.
Kaoru, using both her blades tried again to strike while it was distracted, but again the simulacrum was too fast for them.
"We can’t win!" Charles screamed.
At that point Matthew saw Vanessa giving him an ok sign. She had the sword with her.
"Then fee!" He shouted, communicating to Ffyr to fly him away.
When the fairy picked him up by the straps of his armor, Charles morphed into a giant bird again and grabbed Kaoru in its talons following the fairy.
Vanessa enhanced her Agility the most she could and with no care to stealth, rushed away.
Valerie’s simulacrum gave chase. Even boosting her Agility with all the MP she could, she wasn’t much faster than the sword’s guardian. By the time she was at the wall and jumped outside, Valerie grabbed her feet, bringing her to the ground.
The simulacrum took a dagger from her belt and stabbed at Vanessa.