Mayreena burst into laughter, the vines pushing out from beneath her skin undulating with her amusement. “You can’t be serious. That might be the cockiest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you really think that cutting up two of my puppets is anywhere near enough to justify such arrogance?”

The ground shuddered, and Noah’s neck prickled. Two looming forms stepped out of the darkness, vines writhing along their bodies. Wizen had brought out more puppets, and there was no way of knowing how many more he had in the area.

“I told you,” Ulya said, her face so pale that it was a miracle she hadn’t fainted yet. “If you fight a puppet user on territory they’re ready for you on, everything is skewed in their favor. We have no idea how many puppets he’s set up and had inactive, just waiting to swap in. We can’t win this fight.”

Noah was starting to wonder if she was right. He didn’t know how powerful Wizen, was, but he knew he was strong. If he had dozens of puppets just sitting around, they weren’t going to be able to win.

Even if I can die and come back, Ulya and Silvertide can’t. Retreating and finding someone that actually has a way to properly deal with Wizen’s puppets seems like it might be the smartest option here.

Silvertide didn’t seem like he agreed. He’d stopped in the center of the square, leaning on his cane with a slight expression of amusement on his face. The new puppets lumbered to stand beside Mayreena, casting long shadows in the moonlight.

“Well?” Mayreena asked. “You were talking big game, Silvertide. I believe you said that I’d only have one more move. I’d love to see how a mere Rank 5 is going to take out every single one of my puppets in a single blow.”

“If we’re going to get stuck on technicalities, then I don’t believe that’s what I said at all,” Silvertide said. He drummed his fingers on the top of his cane. “I said you’d only have time for one more move, not that I’d kill all your puppets in one blow.”

“Are those going to be your last words?” Mayrenna brought her hand down and the puppets lurched into motion, advancing toward Silvertide. “Snarky – and utterly pointless. Disappointing.”

“I do hate to hear that I’ve failed to live up to expectations,” Silvertide said, taking his hands off his cane and brushing them off on his coat. The cane remained in place where he’d left it as he stepped to the side, rolling his neck.

His leg shimmered. Ghostly threads rose from it, swirling in the air around him like the rings of Saturn, and a faint hum started up, quickly turning into a high-pitched keening. Noah’s ears stung and he raised a hand to his head, grimacing.

What the hell is the magic Silvertide uses? He doesn’t seem concerned, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s because he’s just putting on a front. I should get ready to grab Ulya and make a run for it. He’s just so confident that I can’t help but feel like he’s going to win… even if I have absolutely no idea how he’s going to handle all these puppets before we run out of energy. Maybe he thinks Wizen is bluffing?

Pieces of Silvertide’s leg pulled away, and the humming grew even louder. Both puppets bore down on him, roaring as the vines covering them shot out, drilling toward the old soldier. Noah went to run forward and help, but something stopped him.

There wasn’t even the slightest amount of concern in Silvertide’s stance. He was just standing there – and a moment later, Noah found out why.

The ribbons of grey that had been swirling around him erupted forth, carving out through the air in a myriad of slashes so fast that Noah was pretty sure he only picked up a tenth of them. The puppets were ripped to shreds in a split instant. They collapsed to the ground, diced into miniscule chunks.

Mayreena’s eyes narrowed. “Cute, Silvertide. But I believe I’m still standing.”

She shifted, then froze. Something about her movements felt off – and Noah spotted what it was a moment later. Threads of silver had covered the entirety of the square, so thin that they were almost invisible.

Hundreds of them had wound around Mayreena. She pulled at them with a bemused frown. The threads hardly seemed like they were properly restricting her, and it only took her a second to pull her hand free.

“What is this?” Mayreena asked, pinching a thread between her fingers. “This doesn’t even have any Runic Energy in it. Even I was expecting more than that.”

Silvertide smiled in response. He reached over to his cane and plucked it from the ground, spinning it upside down and bringing its head down.

And, in that moment, Noah finally learned where Silvertide had gotten his name. A wave of grey erupted from the soldier’s body, racing down every single strand filling the town square and bringing it to life.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

A churning mass of silver flashed out, carving through the ground and ripping apart the square – but Silvertide’s attack didn’t stop there. Strands flashed through the air and cut clean through buildings.

Loud rumbles shook their surroundings as stones rained down, crashing to the ground and sending up huge plumes of dust. Thin flashes of silver danced through the wreckage, twisting inward toward Silvertide’s position – but they didn’t come alone.

Strung up on the silver threads like clothes were bodies. There must have been fifteen or twenty of them – all run through in so many different spots that they looked like they’d picked a fight with a dozen hedgehogs and lost miserably.

The threads pulled the limp corpses to hang before Silvertide, and the rest of the silver thread swirled up behind him, forming into the shimmering body of a massive snake nearly three times his height. Thin strands of energy ran from Silvertide’s hand to the creature behind him, and every other strand of thread originated from it.

Mayreena’s body hung at the front of the row of bodies, as limp as a tablecloth. There was no life left in her – or any of the other puppets that Silvertide had just killed in the span of a second.

Holy shit.

“Well then,” Silvertide said, sounding considerably wearier than he had a few moments ago. He righted his staff and leaned heavily on it, letting the corpses drop to the ground as he turned back toward Noah and Ulya. “Good riddance.”

“What in the Damned Plains?” Ulya whispered. “I – what? How? You’re–”

“A puppet user,” Silvertide finished with a wry smile. The snake coiled at his feet, then collapsed into a pile of thread that wound back into his leg. “Yes. Few people expect it. Most puppet users hide behind their puppets instead of use them as another tool. It is a misuse of a powerful tool.”

Ulya’s cheeks reddened and she looked to the side in shame.

“How did you know who all the puppets were?” Noah asked, swallowing back his disbelief. Silvertide – a supposed Rank 5 – had just done the most devastating attack Noah had ever seen and barely even looked more than winded for his troubles. “Did you have some way to sense them at that range?”

“In a way, yes. I can only sense puppets that are within my domain,” Silvertide said.

“You can’t be claiming that your domain reached that far,” Ulya said in disbelief. “If it did, you’d have to be one of the most powerful Rank 5 mages in history.”

Silvertide laughed at Ulya’s expression and tapped a finger against his leg. “That’s because I cheat. My puppet is more than just a puppet. It’s part of myself – and anything it takes control of joins that connection.”

“Take control of?” Ulya’s brow furrowed in confusion. Then she blinked. “Wait. What happened to my puppets? They’re all–”

“Destroyed.” It was Silvertide’s turn to look sheepish. “My apologies. I needed more base points, and I needed them quickly. Taking over other puppets is fairly simple, but if I did it to our opponent, he would have figured out I was trying to check who was in the area. I stole your puppets to make sure there weren’t any innocents in the area and used them to locate where all of the other puppets were by expanding the locations my domain could sense.”

“But how?” Ulya demanded. “You never even saw most of my puppets! You just asked if I had them!”

“You called them to you when I asked about it. Any smart puppet user would only use a small amount of energy for a summoning like that, so it was easy enough to follow that energy back and overrule your commands in a subtle manner. Unfortunately, when I released my own puppet, the magic ripped all of yours to shreds. It was a necessary sacrifice to make sure I killed every one of our opponent’s tools at the same time.”

“Why’d you even bother inviting me?” Noah asked. “You didn’t need any help.”

“No, but I certainly seemed less intimidating when I needed to drag along backup, didn’t I?” Silvertide cackled at the expression on Ulya’s face, then slapped Noah on the shoulder. “Come on. Ulya, I’ll make sure you get reimbursed for the damage I did to your puppets.”

How many steps ahead was Silvertide this whole time? I can’t tell if I should be offended I was literally brought in as the peanut gallery or impressed that he took out Wizen’s entire battalion of puppets with one attack. Moxie is going to be so jealous she wasn’t here.

“What happens next, then?” Ulya asked as they fell in behind Silvertide. “That mage could come back, couldn’t he?”

“The hard part is getting the puppets here in the first place. Now that our plant mage friend has lost his army, he’s going to have to go through a lot more work and recovery if he wants to try that plan again. I suspect he’s smart enough to know that won’t work considering how easily we crushed it this time. And, beyond that, I left him a little gift.”

“You did?” Noah asked, blinking. “How?”

“Sympathetic magic,” Ulya murmured, realization setting in on her expression. “You used his puppets to attack him? I thought you didn’t know sympathetic magic!”

“Did I say that?” Silvertide said, tilting his head to the side. “I must have lied.”

***

Wizen ground his teeth together, staring at the cracked bulb of dirt at his feet. Evergreen’s Essence leaked out of it, infused with rancid silver magic. The soldier had sent his power back down the line connecting Evergreen to the clones, and the results weren’t pretty.

Several of her Runes had been shattered. If it hadn’t been for Wizen’s own powers, her body and magic would have been destroyed completely. Wizen shook his head, then let out a laugh.

“Well played, Silvertide. I got cocky, and you made me pay for it. That’s one nasty Master Rune – and using the corpse of the monster you’re so famous for defeating as a mere puppet… I can’t even complain.”

Wizen set his hand on Evergreen’s bulb, sealing it over. There wasn’t much left of her, but there was no reason to waste even a little power. If he could wring anything else from the old woman, he would.

“You can take this round,” Wizen said, turning to the other bulbs in his room as a smile pulled across his lips. “It was only the first game, after all. Puppets might not be right angle, but I’m fortunate enough to have options. Perhaps it’s time I get more… intimately involved. I can hardly stand back after such a firm blow to my face.”