Explosions reverberated outside the Lumley Family residence in Starhorn as mages wearing red and black robes summoned different types of offensive magic spells and attacked the residence's walls. A faint golden veil enveloped the Lumley Family's residence, protecting it from the bombardment.
However, cracks could already be seen on the surface of the golden veil, proof that the attacks of these mages were effective.
It was not that strange, to be honest. Judging by the type and destructiveness of the magic spells attacking the residence, the red and black-robed mages possessed Fire innate magic and were at least at the level of Masters or High Masters.
Frankly, a line-up like this could only be seen within the Royal Army. None of the other leading factions in the empire had so many mages at that level. The only advantage the latter three had was that their mages' magic varied, and they had powerful Grand Masters. With the exception of the Conclave, the Aureole and Templar Codes also had a few Exalteds in their ranks.
But such an advantage was no longer limited to the three factions after the Royal Army revealed that they now possessed several Grand Masters during the joint military exercise.
Possessing several Grand Masters was not really that surprising. Since the Royal Army was known to have a number of Master and High Masters among their ranks. It was not strange if a few of them succeeded in advancing.
But the fact that these mages were not part of the Royal Army and belonged to a few noble families that the Three Noble Families were unaware of, was the surprising bit.
How did they not notice that several noble families actually succeeded in nurturing several mages and advanced to the level of a Master or High Master in a short span of time? Not to mention, these mages did not come from a single noble family, yet they were able to sync their attacks with one another to achieve a stronger spell.
Did this mean that the Crown Princess did not only hide the fact that there were noble families working under her but also nurtured them to such levels, but also had them 'practice together' without the Emperor knowing?
Then again, if they consider the fact that the Winfrey and Boyd Families had been working behind the Arthall Family's backs all these years, it was not really impossible.
Thinking back on it, the previous emperor's paranoia was actually reasonable.
Twenty meters inside the border of the residence's defensive wall, several Lumley family members with mage levels between Adepts to Grand Adepts, were lined up and reinforced the residence's defensive array.
Though Adepts, High Adepts, and Grand Adepts were lower compared to Masters and High Masters, since they only needed to supply their magic energy into the defensive array, there was nothing to worry about getting overwhelmed.
Further back from these mages, members from the Courtenay Family present in the residence, with mage levels of Masters and High Masters, retaliated with combined Fire magic attacks on their own against the mages outside.
Apart from them, the remaining members of the Lumley Family operated the residence's magic weapons to bombard the back formation of the mages outside.
The magic weapons installed on the walls and a few towers of the Lumley's residence were similar to huge mounted cannons. These cannons were actually made from the Boyd Family's magic weapon that the Lumley Family bought in an auction. The latter succeeded in reverse engineering the magic weapon and creating their own version that could be used by their Fire mages.
Still, with the other side possessing high magic-resistant robes, not to mention, each and everyone seemed to possess magic items focusing on personal defensive walls, they were able to withstand most of the joint attacks from the Courtenay and the Lumley Families' mages and magic weapons.
Inside the conference room at the Lumley residence's main house, Eoin, a few of his family leaders, the Lumley Patriarch, and elders were gathered and observing the scene outside.
The reason their connection to the meeting with the rest of Kyran's allies got disconnected was that the other side used communication jamming spells to prevent them from seeking outside help. They did this without knowing that the Courtenay was there and that their leaders, together with the Lumley family leaders were in a middle of a meeting.
In any case, though the attack against them happened way ahead of time, the Courtenay and the Lumley Families were not that worried. As a matter of fact, they had no plans of seeking assistance. In a situation where they were defending against an enemy, they were actually in a much more favorable position. After all, the attacking side tended to exhaust more resources than the side defending against their attacks.
The only thing that they had to worry about is that they could not replenish their resources with their enemies surrounding them from all sides.
Or at least, this was something that the enemies were expecting to be the Lumley Family's concern.
Because they did not know that there were Courtenay Family members with them— who already confirmed that their mages were quite knowledgeable in Array— they only prepared jamming spells to stop the Lumley Family from sending out a distress call to the rest of their allies and did not prepare any jamming spells to stop their transportation arrays.
Eoin frowned as he observed the number of mages outside the Lumley residence.
"At least two hundred Masters and High Masters," he roughly estimated. "There is also a possibility that there are more hidden from the back. Or the rest has yet to come."
A Lumley elder nodded in agreement, "Before the call got cut, Emperor Euan was saying something about reactivating the old transmission arrays. If this is the case, then we can expect them to send more mages at any time, anywhere."
"It is also possible that they started their attack simultaneously," another elder agreed.
Eoin nodded, "The Conclave is probably under attack as well."
He then paused and sighed, "Unfortunately, attacking them is a bad choice."
A few of the people inside could not help but smile bitterly. They did not need Eoin to elaborate on his words because they already knew what he meant.
With the emperor's soldiers camping outside, it was impossible for anyone wanting to attack them to escape unscathed. To be precise, they would not let anyone escape. They had to prevent them from informing the Crown Princess or anyone with a higher position among them from reporting that the emperor already knew what she was up to and had already defected.
"Let us continue discussing the strategy," the Lumley Patriarch diverted their subject back to the situation.
"Yes."
"Alright."
The rest replied in unison.
Meanwhile, three hundred meters away from the Lumley Family residence, a large number of mages and combat mages were on standby.
Floating twenty meters above this group were three mages. The two mages on each side, wore gray with res accents hooded robes while the one in the middle wore a white robe with silver and red accents.
The two mages' faces were hidden under the robe's huge hood but the one in the middle was visible.
It was a man with short wavy reddish brown hair that seemed to dance with the wind like wildfire.
The glow in his amber eyes also made it look as if they had caught on fire. His looks were pretty average, instead, the aura exuding from him could make any mages with levels below a Grand Master go weak on the knees.
Such an aura was truly frightening.
But the most frightening part of all was the mages below managed to stay upright even from the aura the man emitted.
With this in mind, then one could already guess that the reason they were able to endure the man's aura was that all of them were Grand Masters.
"Archmagus Soll, the first group seems to be struggling in destroying the Lumley's defensive array," one of the hooded robe mages with Soll, said while observing the scene hundreds of meters away.
"We should make our move."
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"There is no rush," the other mage said.
This time, the voice belonged to an older man.
"Currently, the Lumley family only uses their low-leveled mages to sustain the defensive array. They haven't even made their Grand Masters move."
"Humph," the older woman snorted and crossed her arms. With a voice full of disdain, she said, "So what? Just a few Grand Masters cannot stand a chance against a thousand of ours."
She gestured toward the mages and combat mages on stand-by below.
"Besides, Legendary Osric already took care of their Sovereigns, how can they even win against us?"
The older man did not refute and only looked at Soll.
Instead of following through with their discussion, he said something entirely different, "I don't sense Deputy Marshal Ingrid's aura inside."
"Then...?"
"Could they have already...?"
Soll shook his head before any of them could voice their doubts.
"She's still alive. If not, Senior Osric will definitely sense it. But she is not here."
"That's a little troubling," the older woman remarked. "We are told to find her."
"She is not here, but that doesn't mean the Lumley Family doesn't know anything," Soll said. He straightened his back before adding, "I am going alone—."
"But—."
"—if all of you go with me, the battle will escalate. As much as possible, I want to avoid spilling too much blood."
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