The Old Scholar

The next day, as the Imperia Academy students and their chaperones spent the day walking around the town of Malcolmsville. Leilani, after a lovely night with her beloved, decided it was time to visit the capital of the kingdom, Cobalt City. The city was filled with people of all shapes and sizes, with the familiar mechanical whirring of mechanical golems helping to load magi-crystal powered carriages or horsedrawn carriages, in the skies above, birds made of mechanical parts and powered by magi-crystals moved alongside their organic counterparts and even massive magi-crystal airships were flying around. The city was something that the Mage Kingdom was proud of and one they kept flaunting about to the annoyance of other nations that had better or even on par cities that also used MagTech just like them, with some using them even better but didn't flaunt it like the Kingdom of Partoba back on the continent of Kalani. 

She walked towards the gate that led into the city and was halted by a pair of guards who looked her up and down, both of them had perverted smiles on their faces as they kept looking at her but she didn't really care about it at this point because she was here to kill and she was not going to be stopped even by a pair of perverted guards. 

"Who are you and what do you wish to do here Miss?" A third man's voice came from behind the guardhouse, carrying a clipboard with some papers on it 

"I am here to buy something, I am a traveller from Malcolmsville" Leilani answered him 

The guard's eyes went wide before he coughed to cover his surprise and then handed over the clipboard with a paper to her with his quill. 

"Sign here please and follow me" 

"Why?" 

"New policies Miss, please understand" The man said as he glanced over to the other two who nodded at him. 

"So be it" Leilani shrugged as she followed the man towards the barrack on the side. 

Following them into the barracks building, Leilani stood in the center of the room before the third man who had given her the clipboard, she didn't even glance to her back as she heard the door make a clicking sound and lock tight. A hidden smile made its way to the corner of her lips before she covered it up with annoyance at the situation that was now happening before her.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Leilani asked as she crossed her arms and shifted her stance 

"I am sorry miss, new protocols...all members of Malcolmsville who come to visit the capital are to be...punished...before they are allowed into the city problem, regardless if they are guilty or not" the man said she looked past her and too his two cohorts behind him 

Leilani looked annoyed as she could tell what they were about to do, it didn't even need her to read their perverted minds to figure it out. The thought disgusted her and when they were about to make their move on her, she shifted her body to the left and landed an elbow strike to the man on her right that shattered his chest before she quickly followed up with a trio of kicks that smashed the skull, ribs and legs of the guard on the left. The guard in front of her was too stunned and too slow to react before Leilani grabbed him by the collar and then repeatedly kneed him in the chest, cracking it and shattering it before she landed a palm-heel strike that snapped his head back with a CRUNCH that killed him on the spot, dropping his body unceremoniously. Once the bodies were on the floor, Leilani looked around the barracks to try and find those orders the guard was talking about, and sure enough, written on a paper right behind the main officer's desk, she found those orders that read 

In accordance with the orders of His Majesty. 

All those who are from the towns of Malcomlsville, Perronith, and the city of Shion are to be treated as dangerous and must be taken aside to be "punished" for their people's acts of defiance against his majesty in the incident last time regarding the new 'Historical Facts' that have come to light. Additionally, all those associated with academic and scholarly orders are to be removed from the city with force. If they resist, they are to be either arrested or eliminated, up to the discretion of the on-duty guard. 

High Judge Marion

Leilani's eyes narrowed as she stored the orders away before she used the shadows to slip out of the barracks and back into the streets of the bustling capital city undetected. Materializing in an alleyway, she walked down a busy street that was bustling with nobles, commoners, and every other walk of life, trodding along the cobblestone roads as the sky above was getting ready to rain and the scent of magical potions filling the air a nearby magic and potion shops were busy creating their brews to be sold. There were even kids of different sizes and species that were running around the crowds of people walking, a few of them trying to pickpocket some unfortunate bastard who wasn't paying attention. 

One of these kids caught Leilani in the corner of his eye as he tried to slip through some rich couple who walked past him. He tried to slowly move his way towards her, his eyes looking at the coat hanging on Leilani's shoulders, seeing that it was just holding onto basically nothing, to him it seemed that there was no way she would notice him stealing the coat altogether. 

{!}

But as he tried to grab it, Leilani's shadow shot up and wrapped its tendrils around his arms much to his shock, letting him yell out a scream of terror as he leaped back in fear, landing hard on his butt with so much force that some of the stuff he stole, like diamonds and watches clatter to the ground, he looked around and no longer saw the woman he was trying to steal from but instead saw several people who saw their belongings laying on the ground and as they moved to get it, the young boy ran into a nearby alley to escape their rage. 

The Dean chuckled from the shadows as she saw the young boy leave, a good little way to scare off pickpockets at least in her eyes. She continued towards a certain building she wanted to see if it was still standing, the building was near the city center and as she neared it, her heart sank as she arrived at the said building. All that was left of what was once one of the grandest libraries in the Mage Kingdom of Gharintia was now just piles upon piles of burnt-out chunks of wood and stone. As she arrived at the burning remnants of the building, it started to pour down hard, and while everyone else was busy bringing out umbrellas to stop themselves from getting soaked, Leilani just stood there and allowed the water to drench her, sure she could just use her magic to clean and dry herself later, but that was not the point. 

The Captial Library as it was once called, was the first ever building that Malcolm had shown her when she visited him after a few decades of letting him do his job. She looked at the ruins and felt a special kind of rage bubbling up inside her as she walked towards the burnt-out wreckage, the faded scent of ash coating the air alongside the rain pouring down on her. She recalled the hundreds of thousands of books that were inside the library, penned by Malcolm in his free time alongside his assistants who were all grateful to be under the tutelage of such a wise man, sure she had copies of the originals inside the massive vault under Imperia that was expanding every now and then to preserve new volumes, but the thought of all of the original ones that were stored here, books that she herself had read before they were published, the memories she had with her beloved son. It was all too much for her to bear with a straight face. 

Her lips trembled and her face was twitching with rage as tears that flowed down her face mingled with the rain, her fists shaking while they were being clenched tightly and the anger building up inside her growing more and more volatile as she continued to stare at the blackened rubble before her. She let out a long sigh as she tried to dissipate her emotions but as she did so, she heard voices and sensed movement from inside the rubble, her eyes narrowing as she disappeared from sight and traveled silently and invisible from view and magic sense as she moved through the rubble to where she could sense them. She saw a trio of figures in the middle of the rubble, right below the grand staircase she was hiding on, crouched behind a burned-out bookshelf with charred and destroyed books at her side, staying silent as her heightened hearing tuned into their conversation. 

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"Do you really think this was the best idea sir?" A young man's voice asked, his head covered by the hood of his dark blue coat 

"Are you questioning my judgment Aspirant?" An older, more slimy voice asked him, coming from one of the taller figures 

"No sir Scribe! I just, thought that burning down the library was a bit much, burning the books and literature inside would have sufficed, we could had stored our own books inside the massive library instead" The young aspirant answered 

"True, but we had to remove all traces of the First Scholar Malcolm if our campaign to rewrite the nation's history is to succeed" The older voice replied 

"But why are we going through so much effort for this kingdom instead of one of the larger empires of the continent?" The other aspirant asked, this one having a young feminine voice 

"As I explained earlier to King Holland, once we are able to control all of the information and rewrite everything to fit our narrative while sowing disinformation, it will be easier for us to control everything and once we do, then there will be nothing standing in our way. The Order of Sigismund has suffered setback after setback this year and the higher-ups want a win now, hence why our little project has been gathering a good amount of support...and I, Scribe Salos intend to give it to them, my work here will promote me to the rank of Acolyte and you both will also receive promotions as well, once we finish our job" 

{!} 

Suddenly, the one known as Scribe Salos suddenly had his head sent flying into the nearby rubble much to the shock of the two Aspirants who didn't even see it happen, before they could scream or even shout, their shadows attacked them, tendrils wrapping around their throats and stopping the sounds leaving their mouths. Their eyes went wide as they saw a figure standing behind the corpse of Salos, a beautiful woman clad in a black coat with a black vest underneath that covered a white blouse, with an accompanying pair of black slacks and black dress shoes, her gaze that was partially covered by her raven-colored hair was filled with rage as she looked at them and in her left hand which was covered with a black glove was a bloodied sword they had never seen before. 

"Sigismund" The woman growled as she walked towards the young male Aspirant, shoving her sword through his chest without a second thought, turning the blade slightly, before pulling it out, his blood spurting out and flowing down to the ground in a continuous waterfall

"Wai-....plea-!" The female Aspirant begged through ragged gasps as she raised her hands to try and stop the woman who was approaching her, her magic not even listening to her 

{!} 

The shadows then vanished but were replaced with the feeling of a leather glove that wrapped around her throat and held it tight, making her gasp for more as she looked down in fear at the woman who had nothing but rage and anger towards her, although the young girl could not tell why. 

"Pleaase....spare mee." The young Aspirant's lips trembled as she looked down at the woman holding her up, the rain now pouring down her face as her hood fell back, 

The woman's eyes and expression showed a hint of hesitation for a moment before she let out an angered cry and the choke slammed the young Aspirant into the ground, knocking her out as she hit the burned-out stone which served as the ground. 

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Leilani clenched her jaw as she looked down at the young girl she left alive, she was barely 18 years old by the looks of it and Leilani tapped into her mind and saw a poor farm girl who used her brain to get into the best organization she thought was around, the Order of Sigismund, she was from the Kingdom of Caliban like the other two, but unlike the other two, she had something that surprised her, she had doubt in them. 

She put her sword Augusta away and then used her magic to devour the bodies of the other two before she dragged the young girl by the leg underneath the ruins of the grand staircase. She looked down at the young girl and then let out a very angry sigh as she debated to herself whether or not to just kill the young girl before her, her face twitching with rage as she used her magic to dry herself off and clean herself as well. She set up a barrier to hide herself and the unconscious Aspirant and then took a deep breath as she used her magic to open up a portal to the one place she always restricted herself from going to due to the pain in her heart. Heaven. 

"Right Sigismund, here I come"

A/N: New Chapter. Enjoy! Hehehehe.