The ball of flame lights up the entire city, and the shock­wave from the explo­sion almost knocks Gil off of his perch.

The huge crowned head of the Emperor Zargon statue goes fly­ing through the air, spin­ning end over end, and smashes into a neigh­bor­ing build­ing. The build­ing col­lapses in a plume of dust.

In the chaos, Gil spots the attacker on the dis­tant rooftop. Now he glows vio­let, and—just like the first figure—seems to van­ish into a thin arc of light. For a hor­ri­fy­ing moment, Gil is sure the arc is shoot­ing right towards them.

But the vio­let streak sails just over their heads and strikes a stor­age building’s wide rooftop, not a block away from the Cir­cus.

As the light hits the roof, the attacker warps, som­er­sault­ing, out of thin air. He quickly stands up, illu­mi­nated by the still-pulsing fireball—a man in a black robe and flow­ing tur­ban, hold­ing a long bow.

Bal­anced expertly on the sloped roof tiles, the mys­tic draws an arrow from a quiver on his back, nocks it, points it at one of the watch­tow­ers on the Divid­ing Wall.

He begins to glow orange.

They duck low on the top of the Cir­cus wall, just as the mys­tic releases the glow­ing arrow. It spears towards the watch­tower with another whoooosh! and explodes into roar­ing flames. The heat punches Gil in the face.

The mys­tic quickly draws another arrow and shoots it over the Wall, warp­ing away in the same instant. The arrow’s vio­let con­trail hangs bright in the air, like a vast, spindly bridge of light

After only a moment of calm, another explo­sion shakes the air, this time from the native dis­trict. A plume of fire and smoke belches up from behind the big wall.

It slowly dawns on Gil that the city is under attack.

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