Magic Breaker [Enby MC Anti-Mage LitRPG]

“Yeah, of course I’ll help,” Sylves says without hesitation. “Just tell me what you need, Snow.”

I smile at the ease with which my friend agrees, and nod. Slowly, word by word, I tell her the plan… and her role. 

“Oooh, that’s devilish,” she says with a grin. “I love it.”

- - -

“I need a favour,” I tell Anna. 

Finding her wasn’t too hard. When I walked across our territory, the girl spotted me not too long after, coming out from an alleyway and dropping her stealth. “You levelled,” I told her, and she smiled and nodded, before dragging me to their new place.

Trey is playing in the corner as I sit across from her. Well, playing might be the wrong word. He’s practicing inscribing runes with a perfectly metal stylus, scraping the stones - apparently inspired by what my little enchanted orb does for him.

Anna stares at me seriously, hearing my tone. Her silver hair glitters in the moonlight. “Alright,” she says quietly. “What do you need?”

“There’s a kid I wanna help,” I say. “A healer.”

The words hit her like a bomb, and her eyes widen. “A healer,” she whispers. “Recently caught? Being brought up?” 

I nod.

Anna’s face tightens with pain. The lines of it harden, and if she wasn’t able to help me before, she certainly seemed willing to do so now. “What do you need me to do?” she asks.

“You need to keep him safe when he gets ambushed in the city,” I say simply. “Stay away from the fighting. Just take his hand and bring him onto this island. Our headquarters, your house, somewhere I can find him. Tell him Snow sent you.”

She nods grimly. “Alright,” Anna says. “Where?”

“Follow the explosions,” I say with a small smile. 

Nodding slowly, she agrees, and we part again. Even as Trey tries to ask me to stay, I shake my head. “Sorry, Trey. I need to work.”

The kid stares at me, wide-eyed. “Will you visit?” he asks.

“We’ll see,” I say noncommittally. Then, I head out.

- - -

The next day comes, and then evening falls. Raven and I wait outside with a few choice members of Aviary. Dove, a small, lanky scithian, nursing two holes that Sylves’ arrows put through the lithe man, who has a few knives of mine hovering around him, and Owl, the tallest zoof I’ve ever seen with white wings from behind her back, cloaking us in stealth.

For a long while, the four of us wait - until, eventually, the ascendancy gate flashes. A handful of guards walk out, with Jean and his grandmother, Isabelle, and someone pushes the bristly old lady along.

Indignation burns in my stomach, and I suddenly understand why I was offered defiance as an authority. It’s disgusting to see someone made to serve. Jean looks to the ground, unhappy. At the very least, he’s not in chains. They are meant to treat their healers well, after all.

Respitia has a monopoly on healing. Now I see why, if this is how she gets healers up. Judging by the faint mana he emits, Jean isn’t even a suitable level for this yet. Hecc, I don’t even know if he has a mantle. He might be below 50.

“That him?” Raven asks in a whisper, and I nod in reply.

Instantly, the sumeen tenses. They lean forward, watching more closely, and I see Owl flare her wings around us, the cloaking growing stronger. We hide out of sight, just watching. The guards are arrogant, almost casual, as they drag Jean along. There’s just two of them. A woman and a man, both above 100.

I draw in a long, deep breath. “You’re calm,” Dove whispers, his eyes boring into me.

“Scared to death,” I deadpan in reply. “So much I’m too afraid to shake.”

That earns me a hum from Raven. I can see the feathers on the back of their cloak lift up and bristle. They hold the spear I gave them, and stare ahead. We wait for a moment, then two, seeing if anyone else comes up. We wait, until the guards move past a pile of rubble from outside the walls, until they’re caught in the labyrinth of poorly maintained roads that lead from the ascension gate to the city proper.

And then we strike. Saying “we” is generous, I suppose. Raven darts out, and a flock of birds instantly lifts from the roofs of surrounding rubble. Owl beats her wings and disappears from my senses, and Dove takes aim down his arms. 

In one breath, daggers and dark feathers are flying at the guards. They turn instantly, grimacing as their authorities rise up, linking with the city, and turning crushing. But they aren’t crushing enough. 

Owl’s wings deflect a part of that pressure, and Raven’s authority presses against them like barbed wire. There’s a dome wrapped around us as Dove fires off more of the enchanted knives. One of the guards swings a sword and his arm turns liquid, slashing at Raven, while the woman sinks into the shadow, avoiding a brief moment where I see Owl, wielding an enormous axe. 

Dove gestures me forward, and with swift steps, I run out. “Jean!” I call, and the boy’s eyes snap to me, then go wide. I see his lips move, silently. Isabelle stares in a mixture of surprise, anger and relief as I run in.

The shadows underneath me shift. The guard comes up to try and stop me, but a flock of birds descends to stop her. Owl silently appears from the sky a moment later. Raven lands a gash on the male guard, and then, I reach Jean.

Instantly, I grab his hand. “Let’s go,” I hiss urgently. 

Isabelle frowns. “Talk first!” she demands.

Then Raven smacks her in the head with the butt of the spear, lugging her on their shoulder. “Move, Yuki!” they hum, their voice full of thrill as they sprint off in a blur of feathers.

Jean looks at me, scared, for just a moment… then he smiles. “We talked,” he says. “I trust you.”

So we run.

Then, Respitia’s own authority descends, and the protective dome around us shatters.