Having an escort and a group of academy students tagging along hadn't been that much of an inconvenience at first but that was solely down to the fact that it had only been a few days. Being accompanied at all times meant that Lexi couldn’t practice forming her Domain, and neither could Ajax practice to unlock his Vibration mana. It was a blessing for Ajax that he could keep practicing his Alchemy or he would have gone a little stir crazy.

The second ambush the small convoy met had gone down far differently than the first. Unlike the first Baron they happened upon this one had at least scouted the people he was looking to ambush and had wisely chosen to forgo hostilities.

“Baron, what a surprise to see you here.” Lioriel greeted him and his three hundred fighters.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, Lady Shadowstrider.'' While the Baron’s words were polite his delivery was wooden. “May I ask why you are traveling through my lands?”

“The Queen has tasked me with escorting our guests to ensure no international incidents occur.” Lioriel answered. “Is there something going on in your lands that you have such a force with you?”

“We are merely ensuring that there are no thieves lying in wait.” Even Ajax could spot the lie a mile out but nobody called the Baron out on it. “I do wish you safe travels.”

“Looks like the plan failed.” Ajax mentioned once they were out of the Baron’s earshot.

“Not entirely.” Harold said. “It’s the beauty of a plan like this, even though the Baron still lives, that was a very harsh warning he just got. Either he cleans up his act or, considering he could very well have died today already, there most likely won’t be a third chance.”

Their convoy was halfway to the capital by the time the students had managed through sheer persistence to convince Arianwyn to give them a small personal demonstration. Elara was also roped into helping by having a little spar.

Ajax was watching the two of them face each other with deep seated interest. Despite this being a short spar where neither would even be seriously fighting it would still be the first time Ajax would see two Domains overlap in direct confrontation.

The moment both Domains were deployed Ajax felt how the Storm and Winter fought for supremacy. The blizzard surrounding Arianwyn could be seen taking the lead, no doubt helped by the fact that she had a higher level in her Domain skill.

More interesting however was what Ajax noticed was happening as spells started flying. The whole point of a domain was to have weaker spells travel through it to absorb mana and gain power. With two domains overlapped however when a spell drew power from the Domain by draining the mana along its path it would allow the opposite domain to take dominance.

The clearest example of this happening was when Elara opened with a lightning bolt that cut across the battlefield and cracked the ice wall Ariawyn had opened with. Not one to let go of an opening however the elven princess was quick to send a powerful gust of wind down the same path the lightning bolt took and air blast perfectly connected to send Alara flying backwards into a tree.

As the fight dragged on it became clear that Elara not only didn’t have the same experience with using her domain as Arianwyn but the princess had experience fighting against other Domain users as well.

After a few exchanges the spar ended but the power both of the elves had wielded left a deep impression on the students that were watching them. Almost all of them promised themselves to talk to their family about finding a way to incorporate a Domain into their fighting style. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“We’ve entered the final Viscountcy before we reach the capital.” Lioriel warned them as they were only a little over a day away from the capital.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she meant by that so everyone traveled more compactly into the main carriage for protection. The third ambush seemed to follow the theme of the first where the ambushers didn’t bother to talk and just attacked.

This group was a bit stronger than the first but what they had in quality they lacked in numbers. The attack was only fifty people, this wasn’t enough to succeed and it was something the Viscount leading them also figured out quickly as he tried his best to retreat.

Lioriel and the rest of her escort wasn’t about to let the Viscount live as they moved to chase down the retreating stragglers. She hadn’t made it more than one hundred paces from the carriage when her attention was drawn back to it by the door being ripped open.

Ajax could barely track what was happening as [Danger Sense] started yelling at him. A foot in front of him Ajax could clearly see the hand of an elf dressed in full black leather holding a longer dagger that was pointed towards him. Holding the elf by the wrist was the prince whose runes were flooded with mana.

The assassin tried tossing the knife at Ajax as soon as his wrist was caught but the prince blasted the dagger off course with a quick spell that left a sizable dent in the walls of the carriage. The assassin’s next move however caught Ajax by surprise.

The assassin didn’t even try to free his hand from the prince’s iron grip, he instead drew another knife and cut himself free by sacrificing everything from the elbow down. The assassin made a concentrated effort to have some of the blood spill towards Ajax as yelled out a command.

“MARKED!” the assassin yelled before he exploded into shadows.

Ajax recognised the technique used as it was the same one Shadow had used for moving through the shadows. He also wasn’t the only one to do so as Aranor blasted the area with a powerful light spell as the assassin retreated out the already ripped open door.

As the assassin exited the shadows and ran for his life Ajax could see the trail of blood that he left in his wake.

Everything happened in but a few moments. Ajax had been left feeling a little defenseless as he was barely able to do anything to defend himself. Still as he looked towards his right hand that still held another needle ready to throw Ajax couldn’t help but smile a little at having fought back against someone so much stronger than him.

“What did you hit him with?” Aranor asked as he had noticed Ajax throwing the needle without any hesitation.

“Poison I came up with.” Ajax said proudly.

“Oh!” The prince looked like he forgot all about the attack as he quickly put up a privacy barrier around him and Ajax. “What’s it do?”

“The opposite of a hemorrhagic poison.” Ajax tried to explain his creation.

“So his wounds would stop bleeding quickly?” the prince frowned as he didn’t seem to understand.

“If he doesn’t get it treated quickly enough there is a good chance that a clot will form in his heart or brain.” Ajax's smile looked a little evil as he explained his poison. “It might look like it's actually helping him right up to the point he has a heart attack or a stroke.”

“Can you do something about the mark?” The prince said after a short moment to process.

“The mark?” Ajax asked unsure what the prince was talking about. He had heard the assassin yell ‘MARKED!’ but he didn’t know what he could do about the skill.

“It’s a Rare skill that works off of Shadow mana.” the prince explained. “Focus on where the blood landed on you and see if you can remove it with [Mana Syphon].”

Despite his best effort Ajax didn’t manage to sense any mana, surprisingly however his [Mana Syphon] did find something to drain so Ajax kept at it until there was nothing else there.

“Did you catch him?” the prince asked as he lowered the privacy barrier and looked towards Lioriel who was standing in the doorway of the carriage.

“No, he got away.” Lioriel said as she lowered her head slightly in shame.

“He got away from you after the beating he took despite leaving a long and deep trail of blood?” even Aranor raised a brow at the ranger.

“I prioritized killing the Viscount before he could escape.” Lioriel didn’t feel guilty about that, her orders were clear and she knew that with both the prince and Aranor here, there was nothing she could personally do to stop an assassin from succeeding that they couldn’t.

“I see.” The prince said with a frown. “In that case you best send one of your men ahead to make sure we can enter the dungeon when we arrive tomorrow.”

“The delve wasn’t sch-” She started to answer but didn’t get to finish.

“He was marked.” the prince said as he pointed to the blood spots on Ajax, while Ajax might have gotten rid of the mark nobody else knew that. “The quicker we finish the trip the better.

Lioriel had nothing to rebut there and she silently cursed the assassin as she sent one of her people to make sure there were no issues when they arrived at the dungeon.