Reincarnated in a novel: I am the villain!-Chapter 268: Magnus!

Leaving the bar, now that he had gotten a sense of direction, the flat monotony of the ash dunes finally ended, but what replaced it was a landscape of pure violence.

The earth had been torn open. Stretching across the horizon was a massive fissure, a jagged wound in the planet’s crust that plunged so deep the bottom was lost in shadow. Thick, swirling fog poured out of the crack like breath from a dying giant.

The Canyon of Lost Gods.

Alfred stood at the edge of the precipice, the wind whipping his coat tails.

The drop was sheer at least a thousand feet straight down into jagged obsidian rocks.

"Charming," Alfred muttered, adjusting his glasses which were speckled with grey grit.

"No guard rails. No stairs. Just a vertical drop into oblivion."

He scanned the rim. To a normal person, it was barren rock.

To Alfred, who had served as the Captain of the Voss Mage Corps before taking up the mantle of Steward, the terrain told a story.

A loose stone here. A faint scratch there.

He knelt beside a large boulder near the edge.

There, etched deeply into the rock face, was a symbol.

It looked like random weathering, three parallel lines intersected by a jagged curve.

Alfred smiled, a rare expression of genuine nostalgia crossing his face.

The Voss Cipher.

He ran his gloved finger over the scratch.

Line 1: Territory of the Hawk.

Line 2: Restricted. Line 3:

Lethal Force Authorized. Curve: Scorched Earth.

"Turn back or be incinerated," Alfred translated softly.

"Subtle as a brick through a window. That is undoubtedly Elder Magnus."

Alfred stood up, looking into the fog.

He remembered Magnus well.

While Elder Crowe led the Dove Faction, preaching pacifism and negotiation, Magnus was the leader of the Hawk Faction.

He was a man defined by fierce pride and a volatile temper. He believed that the only language the Empire understood was violence.

"The Empire’s shadow is capable of devouring the light."

That was Magnus’s motto.

Alfred recalled the day Patriarch Theron was ambushed sixteen years ago.

While others panicked, Magnus had stood in the war room, his eyes sparking with Black Flame, his magical Shadow Arm twitching with the urge to strangle the conspirators.

He had demanded a strike squad to burn the Capital to the ground.

"You are a stubborn old warhorse," Alfred whispered to the canyon.

"They call you the Prince of Black Flame, the man who burned down a small empire single-handedly. And yet, here you are, hiding in a hole."

Alfred knew why. Magnus wasn’t hiding out of fear. He was hiding because he was protecting something.

And Magnus protected things the only way he knew how: by slaughtering anything that came close.

"Well," Alfred addressed the empty air.

"I am afraid I have never been good at following instructions."

"Apart from the Masters that is"

He stepped past the marker.

CLICK.

The sound was microscopic. A pebble shifting under his heel. A tension wire snapping.

In the Mana Vacuum of the Wastelands, runes were useless. This was mechanical. Brutal. Efficient.

SWISH.

From the fog above, a net dropped.

It was woven from razor-wire, weighted with lead balls. It fell silently, designed to envelop an intruder and slice them into cubes as they struggled.

Alfred’s eyes widened.

His Mana Sense, which usually warned him of danger milliseconds before it happened screamed silence.

His body, usually faster than thought, lagged by a fraction of a second due to the crushing gravity of the Wastelands.

He threw himself backward.

He rolled, his shoulder hitting the hard rock, his body twisting in an undignified heap.

SLASH.

The net slammed into the ground where he had been standing a millisecond ago.

The razor wire bit into the stone, sparking.

Alfred scrambled up, checking himself.

He was alive. But he felt a draft.

He looked behind him. The tails of his pristine black tailcoat had been sliced cleanly off. They lay under the net, shredded.

Alfred stared at his ruined coat. His eye twitched behind his glasses.

"Sloppy," Alfred hissed at himself.

He touched the frayed edge of the fabric.

"And this was Arachnean silk. Magnus, you owe me a tailor."

Saying this, he didn’t move forward again, instead he froze, blending into the shadow of the boulder using physical stealth techniques holding his breath, slowing his heart rate to a crawl.

If there was a trap, there was a watcher.

He waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. The cold fog clung to his skin.

Then, movement.

Below the rim, on a narrow ledge hidden by the mist, shapes materialized.

There were three of them.

They wore armor that had once been the sleek, black plate of the Voss House Guards.

Now, it was scuffed to a dull grey to match the canyon walls, patched with leather and beast hide.

They carried heavy crossbows and jagged short swords. They moved with the silent, predatory grace of panthers.

The Remnants.

Alfred recognized the leader’s stance. It was a stance drilled into them by Magnus himself, aggressive, low to the ground, ready to explode into violence.

The leader hand-signed to the others.

Trap triggered. Visual on target? Negative.

They scanned the rim. Alfred pressed himself flat against the rock. Without mana to cloak his presence, he had to rely on the darkness and the fog.

The patrol watched for another minute. Seeing nothing but the shredded coat tails under the net, the leader signaled again.

Wind trigger. Or beast. Reset trap. Resume patrol.

They vanished back into the fog, rappelling down the cliff face with silent ropes.

Alfred exhaled slowly.

"They have devolved," Alfred noted, peering over the edge. "Or perhaps evolved."

Under Magnus’s command, these weren’t just mages anymore.

They were more like guerilla fighters. Assassins who had learned to kill without magic.

Alfred stripped off the ruined remnants of his coat tails, turning his formal jacket into a short-cut blazer. He adjusted his cuffs.

"Getting past the gate is going to be difficult," Alfred murmured, checking his throwing knives. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"Magnus has practically turned this canyon into a fortress of paranoia."

He said still with a calm smile on his face.

"I suppose I shall have to knock."