[Dragon peaks]
Still calmly sitting on the balcony with Jennia a few minutes later, Darganth was thinking about when to call Allaire, Yldra, and Serania over too when he was interrupted by a mana presence suddenly surging in intensity despite the suspended world. Scrambling to his feet immediately after Jennia shot up, his eyes returned to their draconic form as he stepped toward the railing, barely allowing him to catch it as Irsyr shot out of his liar and disappeared in a flash of spatial energy.
Glancing toward Jennia at the sight, he saw her expression mirroring his and murmured, "That might mean problems."
In response, Jennia nodded. Like many mana users, Irsyr had limited the situations in which he resisted a suspended world through a mix of mental conditioning and slight tweaks in the countermeasure enchantments he placed against it on his body.
This is achieved through the ripples every creature and object active inside a suspended world passively emits. And as their strength scales with the power of the person or the energy contained within an object and drops with distance, these limits can be as simple as ignoring any of them that fall below a self-imposed threshold.
Thanks to this, his life isn't interrupted every time someone casts this type of time-stop spell within range. After all, his senses were strong enough to even detect a second rank's presence in the suspended world as long as they were in the same universe, meaning he'd practically constantly be pulled into a suspended world.
Once the realization of the likely preceding string of events settled in for Darganth, he immediately canceled his spell and turned to rush back into his room. Throwing Allaire, who turned to him with a look of sleepy annoyance in response to the sudden wake-up, a look that directly conveyed the seriousness of the situation to her, he watched as she, as well as Serania and Yldra all practically jumped out of the bed.
Getting clothed through four rapid flashes of mana that teleported their respective clothes and gear onto the four of them, they got rid of the lingering sweat with a quick cleaning spell and emerged out of the room not half a minute later. Joining Jennia, who had also gotten clothed during this time, their group rose to the sky before finally breaking the hectic-induced silence.
"So, who's interrupting my sleep?" Yldra asked once they had moved away from the mountain and transitioned to a simple straight line of flying.
"No idea. But your father didn't even have the patience to wait for his teleportation to be completed and shot out of his lair before vanishing, so probably someone troublesome." Darganth said.
"That much is clear. But it can't be an outsider, so that leaves only a few people I'd even consider suspecting." Yldra clarified in anticipation, with her intrigue over the situation having won out over the annoyance over being woken up.
Hearing this, Darganth understood what she meant. As the ripples created inside the suspended world couldn't leave the boundaries of universes, it was impossible to resist the effect from outside the universe it was cast in, or inside any universe when cast inside the astral. Thus, whoever caused Irsyr to act would've had to be in Ikrus at the time he cast the spell. And though each of their growth over the years since his coronation meant that the ripples they created weren't weak by any means, considering that Irsyr teleported it was likely that his target wasn't all that close to the dragon peaks.
Under these circumstances, Darganth would go even further than Yldra and limit the individuals with this potential to only Neandra. And as he knew that the range limit she set for herself wasn't large enough for her to be affected by the spell he doubted it was her.
Due to this, he was quite surprised when only a few seconds before they themselves reached the open space in front of the main entrance to Irsyr's lair, the latter suddenly teleported into view. Already having sensed Darganth moving there, he stepped next to Edylia and waited by his wife's side for their arrival.
Catching a glimpse of Jennia's frown at the fact that everything seemed to be turning out to be a false alarm, Darganth could only feel similar over the interruption. Recognizing this as soon as he landed, Irsyr didn't waste any time before speaking.
"We've got guests from the astral."
Surprised, Darganth was paused briefly before the elation over the news settled in and he continued.
"So more allies, huh." He muttered, assured of the fact due to Irsyr's presence before him.
Due to this, it came as a surprise when the other dragon answered, "No, at least not that I can tell. The logo on their Starweaver isn't one I know and I recognize none of the presences inside. But none of them are powerful, nor are they influential if the state their ship is in is an indication. Even the seeming ability to resist your spell was only dumb luck, with the damaged mana storage unit on their ship having created a brief surge of a high density of mana that brought it into the suspended world and them along with it."
Raising an eyebrow in response to Irsyr's words, Darganth ignored the question of how they got into the universe and instead focused on the ramifications. Starweavers are powerful vehicles of varying designs that are characterized by the presence of powerful enchantments and magic formations that allow them to sail through the vacuum of space.
And while they aren't especially rare in more powerful universes, and Darganth wouldn't be surprised to learn that at least a few were flying around in Ikrus, this wasn't the case for Veilpiercers.
Whereas Starweavers refers to all such magic-powered crafts, the additional designation of Veilpiercer is limited to those among them that can explore past the boundaries of universes and move through the astral realm unharmed by its destructive environment. This expanded capability also vastly increases the cost of building and maintaining the vessel. Thus, while they weren't rare, the smaller factions that tended to inhabit the more remote regions of the astral realm like the one they were currently in wouldn't stomach the loss of one without some form of investigation.
"Have you already made contact?" Darganth asked a few moments later, his expression betraying clear worry about what such an investigation would mean for them.
"No, I only ensured that their communication attempts won't leave this universe." Irsyr said.
Nodding along in thought, Darganth soon finished the outlines of a plan, "Then here's my idea."
Vanishing as soon as Darganth finished explaining his idea, the group then appeared in the skies above the crashed Starweaver. Hiding in the clouds and suppressing their presence, they looked down on the damaged ship and the dozen people that stood around it.
Build of a material that looked like a mix of stone and wood, the vessel's hull stood completely intact beyond the debris covering it amid the multiple-meter-deep trench its landing had cut into the ground behind it.
However the same couldn't be said about the sail. During this mishap of a landing, the two wedge-shaped surfaces of energy that crackled between a frame of thin rods on the sides of its hull had become tangled in bushes and stones in its path. Now, only bent pieces remained connected to the ship, with strands of energy still flickering between the broken parts of the metallic wings and the vertical fins that curved backward at the rear of the ship.
On top of the otherwise not from a seafaring ship's differentiable deck, the same rods the wings were made out of a curved structure akin to a rib cage that connected with the towering, enclosed structure on the back. In between the material, the same energy found in the wings was in the process of receding, with an ever-growing hole opening in its surface until only the fixed structure that had emitted this protective field remained.
Through these gaps, another dozen or so people were revealed on the deck. Frantically running around, they moved from enchanted inscriptions to spell formations and back, desperately trying to fix the damage their vessel had sustained.
Those who stood outside were meanwhile busy erecting a defensive parameter around the crash site, with mages doing their best to mask their ship while aura users culled everything from normal animals to the few beasts that came within half a dozen kilometers of the vessel.
Amid this, Irsyr's overwhelming presence suddenly fell onto them. Descending from the cloud along with it, he let his gaze scan over the various humanoids that stood frozen in place down below. Only paying brief attention to the fourth ranks that made up over half of the group, his focus quickly settled on three mythic ranks whose better gear suggested a high position among them.
Amid the resulting tension, he then spoke with a booming voice that was audible across the great distance they were scattered across, "Were none of you taught to not make a mess when on another person's property?"
With these words, he spread his mana and forcefully teleported the dispersed aura users back to the ship. Landing with light thumps as he dragged them before him without care, these men and women were rattled enough by the sudden shift that one among them quickly scrambled to answer him.
"We were just clearing out any pests that were too close, it's not like they were relevant. But I do apologize for our trespassing, we didn't know this world was claimed and thought we could repair our ship here." The man said.
"But it is. In fact, this entire universe is part of my king's realm. And that makes these beasts his subjects, irrespective of their weakness. So unless you give me a satisfactory explanation for what caused all this, we're gonna have a problem."
Quickly, a different man interjected, "And we have that. But as a token of goodwill, I'll give you some information beforehand, namely that we were chased by an armada of a few dozen Starweavers. I assume your king wouldn't wish for even more outsiders to arrive here, especially not when they might bring the conflicts from beyond his territory along with them."
Studying the man, Irsyr wasn't entirely sure what to think of his sly wording. Though politely and convincingly spoken, he didn't miss the hidden agenda in those words. Hoping to deflect his ire away from their group, the mage in question was elegantly shifting the blame for their arrival on this enemy they had been facing while also making them appear as a greater threat to the peace of Ikrus.
Shifting his gaze toward where the others were still waiting after a moment of deliberation, he met Edylia's gaze. Wordlessly, he shared his request with her before turning back toward the group below no second later after she vanished with a nod.
"Your claims will be investigated." He said. To his amusement, he watched a slight twitch creep onto the mage's face at the realization that his words didn't draw him away for even a moment that this caused.
"I'm glad for your understanding."
As soon as the mage said those words, Irsyr's gaze snapped back to him. Narrowing his eyes at the sight of the man turning toward the largest crowd of his colleagues, he raised a hand and stopped him with a telekinetic grip.
"I said that they will be investigated, not that you're off the hook. Now then, tell me your version of events." Irsyr demanded with an icy glare.