12th of Season of Water, 220th year of the 32nd cycle

  It sounded complex. It was complex. Planning a mass exodus of the rich and powerful from a hostile empire holding them on a tight leash was more complicated than having an armed rebellion.

  When people rose in arms, it was easy to see where their true loyalties were, or at least see who volunteered to join you, regardless of their potential plan to betray you later. When sneaking out of the empire, they would leave good people behind, people who wanted to leave had they known the chance existed.

  Explorer’s Gate suffered from the same problem. The obvious choices to bring included everyone above the fourth realm, which meant around five hundred people who could easily fit into a single airship because most possessed the ability to float. Or better yet, cling to it, and give those who couldn’t fly more space inside.

  Then, the rest of the space was reserved for the students, overseers, and family members. On one hand, that wouldn’t have been enough back when Explorer’s Gate had thousands of workers, but after the Blood Cult’s culling, and the losses following the outer god’s manifestation, Newt was certain they could cram them all in.

  Due to how sensitive the topic was and the heresy hunters’ suspicion, the only ones in on the plan were Newt and his master. As for how to rationally use the space they had available - a lot of hammocks were involved.

  The conditions would be truly inhuman, but that was fine; it was only for three to four days.

  It was the dead of night, the island-wide defenses activated, matte wards snapping into place, swallowing the night sky.

  Nobody cried in alarm, nobody noticed anything amiss, as Newt entered the Chamber of Runes.

  “Good evening, Lord Salamandra.” The student on desk clerk duty bowed.

  “Hello.” He never understood why the others so rarely bothered with greeting the students. It was one word that cost next to no time and just as much effort. “Please rouse everyone using meditation chambers.”

  Just as he said that, Gatemaster Greenthorn’s voice echoed throughout the order.

  “Attention, everyone. We have lost our northernmost scouting post. Assume a full-strength cultist attack and prepare for evacuation. You have ninety minutes to pack up and get on an airship. Anyone not present, we will leave behind. This is not a test.”

  Newt’s mana sense was spread out for over a mile, and as expected, the orderly grounds turned into pandemonium. Courtesy stopped him from seeing the faces of those beyond the fifth realm, but their frenzy of movement told him more than enough.

  As for the students and overseers, they were running everywhere. Some searched for family, others packed their valuables, and some, quite embarrassingly, just panicked.

  “Order! Order!” The representatives of the Chamber of Punishment were out in the streets in moments. They tried and mostly succeeded in regaining control of the situation.

  The order’s champions, living in a much faster flow of time, processed the announcement in seconds, and with most of their valuables already in spatial pouches, started moving towards the gatemaster’s abode.

  After confirming the student on desk clerk duty was doing her job, Newt joined them.

  “Gatemaster,” Chaplain Monsoon said, “who will stay behind and fight? Do we know the size of the cultists’ attack force?”

  Newt and the Gatemaster scanned the crowd; two were missing. One rushed over and joined them a moment later, but Chaplain Longfang was nowhere in sight.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Newstar,” the gatemaster said. “Fetch the Chaplain of Runes. I will wait for your return.”

  Newt nodded and went to the Longfang residence, where an extremely old man was shaking while directing his descendants and pointing at things they needed to pack up.

  “Chaplain,” Newt interrupted their packing, “the gatemaster wishes to see you.”

  It hurt Newt’s heart to watch the once bright and vital man pause, taking seconds to parse the simple information. Longfang’s back was crooked, his hands shook, and his eyes had lost the sharp glow of intelligence to dementia.

  With the way his body had withered, he looked like he only had days to live.

  “Ah, yes, yes. Let’s go.”

  Newt didn’t know how to manipulate pure mana yet, at least not how to make it solid enough to carry the old chaplain. So, once they left the home, he controlled the earth beneath the old man’s feet, sculpted it into a chair, then zipped with it gliding across the ground behind him. Newt completely ignored the damage he was making to the road, since that road would become useless in mere hours.

  “Now that we are all gathered here,” Gatemaster Greenthorn said as Newt entered the range of his voice. “We have a few things to discuss. First, while the cultists are targeting us, they aren’t doing so this very instant, or at least not in such a direct and overt manner.”

  Even without scanning them with mana, Newt could sense everyone standing straight, their skin crawling at the words.

  “We probably have spies, even in this elite gathering, but those are about to become meaningless. The imperial family plans to destroy humanity and the world to gather power. With their task complete, they will flee to a different world and start this process all over again. I, for one, don’t want to die, and their plan would cut my life short. As such, we are rebelling.”

  Gasps escaped at least half of the gathered champions.

  “You’re going to kill us!” Lord Floodwater said, a newly ascended valiant failing to control his mouth.

  “Quite the opposite. We’re not going to fight anyone. We’re escaping the empire and its poison to found a country of our own. And we’re far from the only ones.”

  Newt looked around. Everyone was terrified. Rexheart and Emeraldstreak stood side by side, rigid and jaws clenched, afraid but determined. He hadn’t noticed before how similar the two were.

  Roselilly stood next to her master, pale with fright.

  Everyone, every face in the crowd was at least an acquaintance, and a lot of them had become much more over the decades since Newt had joined the ranks of the order’s leadership.

  At least one of them is an informant for our enemies.

  “Do we have a choice?” Chaplain Monsoon asked.

  “Naturally.” The gatemaster nodded. “We are fleeing the order and taking the airships with us. Those who don’t wish to join us, we will leave in a suitably remote area, so you can’t alert the imperials and ruin our escape.”

  The man paused before speaking in a colder tone. “Anyone who tries to escape before that point, I will personally incinerate. I will be honest; I don’t care who the spies are. I don’t have anything against you. I want to live. I want the order entrusted to me to survive and stand the test of time. If you are delusional enough to think blowing up the world you live on will serve your purpose or that the imperials would bring you to the new world because you’re irreplaceable, that’s your problem.”

  His voice returned to his normal, calm self. “You will notice I’m not trying to interrogate anyone, nor trying to invade your personal space with my mana sense, even if I can. I really just want to live and let live, but I will fight back against those who want my demise. In part, this is the reason behind our order’s passive foreign policy and the reason why we allowed others to nibble away at our territories. Since we are leaving, why fight over things we planned to abandon? All of this we plan to tell everyone later, along with other news, so there’s no need to go around informing your friends and family. We are taking everyone with us, abandoning no one, unless they ask us to.”

  He clapped his hands, the sound cutting through the crowd like a stage magician’s trick.

  “That is all. Go, assist everyone you can, maintain order, and try to collect as many resources as you can. We’re better off taking them than letting the imperial administration seize them once they come here to see what has happened.”

  The crowd moved back towards the more populated part of the compound. Newt heard the whispers. Some doubted the gatemaster’s words, others worried about what would happen.

  The spies didn’t reveal themselves, assuming they existed in the first place. It was just as possible that the imperials had gotten the information on the gatemaster’s wards a thousand years ago, the original spy long gone.

  “Newstar,” Longfang said in a shaky voice. “Do you mind doing me a favor?”

  “Sure, Lord Longfang, what is it?”

  “Could you kill me, please, and bury me with my wife and children? I’ve got a week or two more left in me, but I’d much prefer to stay here. I can do it myself, but knowing the pain would hit and planning how to do it the least painfully… I think someone at your realm can do it much more perfectly and without me feeling a thing.”