As Midnight approached, things started to stir beneath the stillness of the night.

A group of shadows moved with uncanny silence, they didn’t breathe nor did they have any mana signatures. They finally stopped as they arrived in front of the dungeon that Arthur was imprisoned in.

They were the guard-bots Arthur had deployed before leaving the orphanage the previous night.

Their job was to create a distraction when a few of them infiltrated the dungeon and broke Arthur out of the prison. It was not like Arthur couldn’t break out of the prison by himself, but it would cause too much commotion which would lead to some powerful people coming after him, which is not in his interest.

One unit consisting of twenty bots separated from the main group and circled toward the front entrance of the dungeon while activating their stealth module as they approached the guards.

The guards were not expecting an attack from an invisible enemy at this hour. One was leaning lazily against a pillar, while some others yawned. When the bots started attacking, all they felt was a small prick on the back of their necks, and before anyone could even shout to alert the others they became unconscious.

They dropped within seconds, as their bodies slumped to the ground with soft thuds. They have been injected with a strong neurotoxin that will incapacitate them for at least an hour

A moment later the entrance to the dungeon creaked open, and the bots slipped inside.

…

Perched a short distance away on the rooftop of a building opposite the dungeon, cloaked in his custom stealth suit that Arthur gave him for the mission, Kai observed with a critical eye. His masked gaze followed the bots with interest as he saw the guards fall down one by one and the bots enter the dungeon. 

He thought, ‘This kid is quite resourceful, where did he get so many high level golems, and I don’t sense any mana from them. They are perfect for infiltration.’

Even with all his experience, he was impressed by these little guys.

He was also surprised at how they moved with coordination, which is not possible in case of golems, normally golems just follow a set order and are quite dumb, but the golems that Arthur had, appeared to be extremely smart.

“…These aren’t golems,” he muttered under his breath. “They’re something else.”

Last night he and Arthur were discussing how to break Arthur out of the prison.

At first Arthur thought of using his armor’s stealth capabilities to slip out of the prison. But after Arthur had laid out his proposed solo escape plan with the capabilities of his armor, Kai had shut it down without hesitation.

“Stealth or not,” he’d said, “you’re walking into a hornet’s nest.” Kai warned him, even though his mana can be cloaked and he can become invisible, there are traps and spells that could be set in the prison that can still discover him, so Arthur dropped that idea.

So together, they came up with this. Instead of Arthur trying to break out of the prison by himself, the bots would infiltrate and find a safe path for him to escape from.

Arthur could have left Brightwater City before even the knights came to arrest him, but he didn’t want to do that. Since he was going to leave the city anyway, he wanted this to serve as a message to the nobles and the church, and show that he was not some helpless kid they thought he was and he can leave the prison anytime he wanted.

And now it was time for Kai to do his part.

He stood up on the rooftop, cracked his knuckles once, and grinned faintly beneath the mask.

“Alright…Let’s get this show started with.”

He leapt down from the roof and landed with a soft crunch just outside the guardhouse. And three units of bots arrived behind him.

He removed his invisibility, and before the guards could react to his sudden appearance, he drew back his fist, and slammed it into the ground.

BOOM!

The ground cracked, dust exploded upward in a plume as the shockwave rattled through the foundations of the guardhouse and its gates were thrown away. Stones cracked and alarms were triggered, as more and more torches inside the guardhouse lit up in their sconces.

The guards started shouting and stormed out of the building, disoriented. One of them barely had time to draw a weapon before Kai appeared behind him and jabbed a pressure point near his neck.

The man crumpled instantly without being able to retaliate.

Another tried to activate a spell, only to receive a palm strike to the solar plexus. Air forced out of his lungs before he could scream.

More and more guards arrived outside of the guard house from its broken gates.

The bots finally moved to intercept the guards, and together with Kai they took down the guards before they could even attack.

They weren’t here to kill the guards but to buy time for Arthur to escape, so they incapacitated the guards without killing them.

Kai flipped back into a shadowy corner and watched the next wave of reinforcements spill out. “Come on,” he shouted. “Bring the whole damn army!”

…

Elsewhere – South Tunnel Access of the dungeon

Beneath the quiet of the dungeon’s southern wall, another force waited.

Alistair and his team crouched behind an old stone wall that bordered a line of decrepit homes. The southern tunnel, an abandoned sewage outlet that led beneath one of the dungeon’s sublevel, lay only a few meters ahead of them.

But before they could move, a deafening boom echoed through the air.

The blast rolled out from the east side, near the guardhouse. Birds scattered from rooftops, and the ground beneath them quaked.

“What the hell was that?” muttered one of Alistair’s men, clutching the hilt of his blade.

“Sounded like it came from the guardhouse,” another said.

Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “It appears that someone is causing trouble near the dungeon.”

Tristan leaned close. “Could someone else be after Arthur?”

Alistair didn’t answer at first, his jaws tightened.

“…Possibly.”

One of the scouts spoke up. “Sir, would it be wise to continue? The mission has clearly been compromised.”

Alistair sighed and said curtly. “We will retreat for now and decide what to do after regrouping.”

He turned toward the group and said. “If it’s another group targeting Arthur, it’s best we let them make the noise. If they fail, then it’s all well and good. But if they succeed…” he paused, “…we’ll intercept them and try to rescue Arthur.”

Alistair paused for a moment and looked at Tristan. “Go and check for the source of the disturbance. Avoid confrontation, just observe from a distance.”

Tristan saluted and vanished into the night. While Alistair and the others turned toward the nearest run-down building to wait for his return.

…

Deep within the belly of the Blackstone Dungeon, the infiltration was already well underway.

The dungeon had a total of six levels and Arthur was being held on the fourth level, a place typically reserved for war criminals, rogue mages, and traitors. His cell was surrounded by wards designed to nullify mana and any spatial interference, standard escape methods wouldn’t work here.

A group of twenty bots descended towards the first level while scanning the area for any visible traps. Their sensors swept every inch of the narrow corridors, scanning for mana fluctuations, and pressure traps embedded beneath the floor, they were able to circumvent those traps by scanning the area ahead of them.

Yet… the dungeon wasn’t just designed to have only traps that were visible. 

As they reached the halfway mark of the first level, one bot suddenly jerked mid-step.

An invisible force snapped around its legs and torso. In the blink of an eye, it was encased in ice, a hidden trap was triggered as a rune flashed on the stone beneath it. Another bot to the left was caught in what looked like metal chains that were trying to crush them and were made from the same material the suppression cuffs were made of.

The traps they fell for were too advanced for their sensors to detect, as they were set in such a way that the enemy would be unable to detect them. 

Then something strange happened. Each trapped bot initiated a protocol and then crumbled into dust.

But it wasn’t self destruction.

These bots were specifically made using nanobots to infiltrate this place. So when they fell into a trap, the nanobots making up their bodies broke apart into microscopic particles, slipped through the cracks of the traps, and reformed on the other side.

The magical chains fell down as they tried to crush nothing. And the ice melted as the bot no longer existed to be bound by it.

They advanced without pause, bypassing every lethal trap in their path. Trap after trap was mapped, logged, and avoided. The bots recalibrated in real time, shifting formations and spreading out with a hive-like awareness.

And within less than two minutes they were able to bypass the first level of the dungeon and map a safe route where traps were not present with mechanical efficiency.

Inside his cell, Arthur felt a brief vibration along the stone beneath him, and his eyes snapped open. His lips curled slightly at the corners.

“They’re here.”

…

As the bots were moving forward while disarming the traps, the commotion drew the attention of the prisoners.

“What the hell is that?” someone hissed seeing the traps being triggered by some shadowy figures.

“Guards? What the hell is happening out there?!”

The air filled with shouts and angry cries as bars rattled and fists slammed against cell doors. The prisoners, having seen nothing like this before in the dungeon, howled for attention, some hoping to join the escape, others just craving chaos.

But the bots ignored them all and moved towards Arthur’s location.

…

Outside – Near the Guardhouse

The fight outside was escalating.

Kai stood opposite to the guards, his hands still at his sides as unconscious bodies lay scattered around him.

The invisible bots were scattered throughout the area and were also taking out some unsuspecting guards.

Just then from within the ruined doorway of the guardhouse, a figure stepped out, crackling with power.

It was a knight from the Order of the Church. His armor bore the church’s insignia, but different from the knights who arrested Arthur, his armor was silver in color with two stars above the church’s insignia to signify his higher position. His cloak billowed behind him, and a faint golden aura flared around his body as he stepped out of the guardhouse.

From his aura Kai immediately sensed the person was a 9th Circle magic knight.

He surveyed the unconscious men on the ground, then his gaze landed on Kai. His eyes narrowed immediately.

“You’re the one responsible for this,” he said in an uninterested voice.

Kai tilted his head. “Good evening to you too.”

The knight stepped forward, drawing a longsword that gleamed in the dim light of the moon hanging above them. “Why are you doing this? Attacking a Church’s prison, disabling knights… Who are you working for?”

Kai shrugged. “I just felt like going for a midnight stroll. Took a wrong turn and…” he gestured to the crumbled wall behind him “…bam.”

The knight’s face tightened. “Enough with your games.”

Then, he paused suddenly, his head jerked towards the dungeon as if sensing something.

His eyes widened as he sensed the traps inside the dungeon being triggered. 

“You… what have you done!?”

His voice echoed across the courtyard as he turned, shouting toward the remaining guards near the gates. “Get inside the dungeon! Now! Someone has triggered the traps!”

Then, without another word, he turned back to Kai and lunged towards him.

Wind howled behind him as a burst of mana erupted beneath his boots, launching him like a bolt of lightning straight toward Kai.

Kai’s eyes narrowed. His hand slowly curled into a fist, ready to buy Arthur time to escape.

***

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