'It's just a toy and I'm not the father!' Leegaain said, but Milea knew the result of the Blood Resonance test and ignored him.
Jirni followed the arranged flight path, passing through the first roadblock without the guards even noticing their passage. At its max speed, the DoLorean moved so fast that it was a blur, escaping the air blocking arrays before they could make the flight experience of the car's passengers any less comfortable.
"I'll slow down to 4 and keep the tracker open. I can't do more than this for you." Jirni said to the guards of the remaining checkpoints as her amulet now gave them the position of the car in real-time.
Thanks to the mirrors and the fast response of the DoLorean's wheel, dodging tier four spell was easy. Only tier five spells with a huge area of effect managed to hit them from time to time.
Yet hitting the DoLorean and dealing it damage were two very different things. When a Raging Sun exploded in the car's vicinities, a sphere comprised of revolving panels of hard-light infused with the air and water elements surrounded it.
The sphere moved so fast that the air barrier dissipated the brunt of the shockwave, the water that of the heat, and the panels stopped whatever went past the first two layers of protection while also leaving the driver's line of sight clear often enough to allow Jirni to know where she was going.
Even crash landing barely slowed them down. When it happened, the panels would be replaced by a multi-layered barrier of hard-light while a porous foam-like construct would fill the inside of the car, surrounding its passengers from head to toe.
The former deformed to nullify the impact before it reached the DoLorean's silver chassis while the latter dispersed the ensuing shockwaves to the point that all Jirni experienced was just a series of weak jolts akin to moving over a bumpy road.
"Okay, that's enough playing around. Time for the second delivery." Jirni moved the speed lever back to five and kept the tracker on, yet no mage managed to hit them anymore.
When they reached Belius, one of the most fortified cities of the Kingdom that was surrounded by both air and dimensional sealing arrays, the fire core of the DoLorean activated, using controlled bursts of fire to keep the car in the air.
The ride became bumpier, but the smuggle went without a hitch anyway. The rooftops of Belius's tall buildings offered Jirni a perfect landing spot where no one looked.
"This thing is a nightmare." Orion said while they waited for the time of the simulated delivery to end.
"It can go anywhere and not even I can craft something like this because I'm not a Light Master. We could ask Manohar, but I'm afraid he would make a single DoLorean and use it to escape even more often than he already does."
"Indeed." Meron nodded. "We should also add guards on the rooftops or at least add a surveillance array to the city's network. I never thought about it, but a flying magical beast could easily get in unnoticed as well."
"It's never been an issue before because magical beasts don't allow people to ride them and they can't shapeshift. Emperor Beasts could, but their size is much bigger than the DoLorean and they are impossible to miss." Sylpha said.
"Time to see if we can cross the border." Jirni said after stopping the clock and sealing the doors.
Lith was lost in thought, wondering in what kind of trouble he had gotten himself into, yet those words snapped him out of his reverie.
"Are we going to violate the Gorgon Empire's security measures?" His voice was filled with disbelief.
"That's the second part. First, we need to get past our own." Jirni said, making Lith's heart skip a beat.
She left Belius's boundaries so that the DoLorean's power core went back to its full power before darting at full speed towards the border.
The moment the unknown flying objected got detected, the automatic defense system of the towers built along the tall mountain range that separated the two countries generated several magical tornadoes that started to chase the car.
They would hunt it down with inhuman speed and precision, guided by Belius's complex array system, shutting down on contact all elements but light and darkness.
Jirni needed to execute sharp cuts without ever slowing down, like a dragonfly, but she passed through the Griffon Kingdom's array maelstrom, flew over the mountain range, and dodged the onslaught that the magical cannons of the Empire unleashed against them.
Magical bullets were as fast as a missile, but their targeting system wasn't devised to follow something moving at the DoLorean's speed. The moment they took aim, the car was already out of their range.
"Not bad for a toy, huh? It just made a fool of all our defenses!" Milea glared at Leegaain, cursing at him like a truck driver.
"It is a toy and an ugly one at that." Leegaain replied.
"No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it doesn't make it any truer. What would stop them from building a dimensional device in an isolated area and get free access to the Empire?" Milea said, preparing the Warp Gate.
"Stop here, please. We shouldn't go any further." Tyris stopped Jirni above the Red Flag plains, the place that marked the border between her turf and Leegaain's.
The quiet landing only emphasized the silent wonder that had befallen the group.
"I can't believe we've just succeeded invading the Empire for the first time since the War of the Blades." Orion's knees trembled when his feet touched the foreign ground that had once belonged to the Kingdom.
"The what?" Lith asked, nonchalantly slamming his door and making everyone else wince. For someone as used to travel as him, only people made a place special. Being in the Desert or the Empire made no difference to him.
"The War of the Blades." Tyris echoed as the memories of the time when Valeron and she had been there veiled her eyes with tears.
"King Valeron with the Sword of Saefel fought against King Elm and his White Sword, each one leading their respective army to this very valley. Here Valeron stopped his advance and set the original borders of his Kigdom."
She glossed over the part where Valeron had decided to stop there not because doing that would stretch his forces too thin, but because by conquering exactly Tyris's turf, he felt like he could meet her as an equal.
They would both control and care for the same lands, each one of them taking care of their people in a different way. On top of that, it had been Valeron's way to say that he wouldn't work along with any Guardian but her.
It had been a silly and pretentious gesture, yet the most romantic gift that any man could offer Tyris.
"Thank you so much, Archmage Verhen. If not for your wonderful creation, I would've never found the courage to get back here and have my closure." Warm tears streamed down her eyes as she finally realized that the man she had loved so deeply was gone forever.
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