Abyssal Awakening

There are 4 main hiding spots between her and the wall. Trees, natural grooves in the ground, the river and some rocks as this small river seemed to be used as a small fishing spot.

Hiding behind the tree, Alice narrowed her gaze at the guards stationed above the wall.

Since this was a little further from the main gate, they were mostly focused on seeing if anything was approaching.

Licking her fingertip, she felt the current of the air before plucking a leaf from the tree. Attaching a small fragment of her shard onto the base of the lead, she controlled it to flow with the wind and raised it into the sky, towards the guards.

Once they were distracted by how the wind managed to blow a leaf this high up, Alice took this chance to dash towards the rock.

She couldn't go any further as they looked towards the tree after seeing it was a leaf.

Closing her eyes, Alice could hear that they were talking with one another, laughing and joking about how the leaf got up there.

Recalling her shard and allowing the leaf to fall naturally this time, Alice glanced at the distance between her and the wall.

One more dash would be enough.

Thinking about it for a moment, Alice decided to do something a little risky. Controlling the shards to shake up the tree, the guards above the wall figured that it was something unnatural and called over some guards to go down and have a look.

While their attention was focused on the tree that shook a little too much during the wind, Alice managed to reach the wall and wrapped the wire around her hands. Connecting it to her shard, she made footholds on the wall and began to climb up.

She had a short moment to make her way from the side of the wall to the section above the main gate. As long as she reached the gates, she would be able to hide herself in the groove while the guards returned.

'The other captains should be approaching the sea by now right?' Alice thought to herself.

Swinging her body back and forth, she launched herself past a gap and grabbed onto a shard she had placed in position and hauled herself up. With no time to waste, she continued on the path she had mapped out in her mind while making her way to the wall.

There were gaps in the brick that she could use as a ledge to grab or hell she could even use the runic carvings.

The key was to reach the main gate.

Glancing back, she noticed the guards were about to finish and decided to hurry up.

Creating a pole with her shards, she lunged off the wall and grabbed the pole before swinging herself at full force around the corner.

Grabbing onto the ledge by the main gate, she jammed herself in between the groove and prevented herself from sliding by anchoring her foot against the walls that flanked her side.

The groove wasn't very shallow so she could still be spotted if they looked up.

However, since they were looking for something on the tree or intruders trying to sneak in, they never expected that someone would be halfway through climbing up the wall. Especially when they didn't even know they reached the wall in the first place so why would they look up?

The wall they've come to rely on has been clear for so long now. If they were newbies, they would check out the wall but the notion was so incomprehensible that the two didn't even both and Alice let out a silent sigh of relief.

In case they were planning to look up, Alice had already placed some shards by the side to make some noise and buy some time for her to climb up.

But seeing as how this wasn't necessary, she began to shuffle herself up the wall.

Sweat dripped down her face but there was a smile beneath her mask.

This sense of exhilaration while sneaking past everyone and laughing inwardly at the fact that they didn't look up.

It was the first time Alice felt this way.

Seeing how her twin was enjoying herself to this extent, Alyss couldn't help but laugh as this would've been impossible to experience if she still had her abilities.

One disguise, one teleport. That would be all they needed but instead, they're climbing up a wall and making use of their knowledge of human behaviour as well as prior experience in trying to escape the Zenias.

Reaching the top without being spotted, Alice didn't rush to climb over since there were two guards at each section of the wall.

Narrowing her gaze, she stabilised herself between the grooves and gathered her shards.

Ripping off a small piece of wire with some dark fabric from her cloak, she made a tail shape while the shards shifted to look like a rat.

'There are two guards above, two to the right and two to the left. If I distract the other two, the third will be looking towards their direction.' Alice thought inwardly.

Adjusting herself, she began to climb towards the right while having her 'shard rat' wait for instructions on the left.

Determining the position of the guards through the sound, Alice made sure she'd be a little bit behind them and had the rat make a move.

The moment it began to scurry across, the centre and left guards turned towards the rat and raised an eyebrow.

"What's going on?" The Guard on the right asked as Alice took this time to flip herself over the edge, landing on the wall. While all three guards were looking away, she scanned her surroundings and narrowed her gaze.

There were mini spires on each section and above the doors were ledges that she could hide on. But the cover provided was far too little. Instead, she had a better idea and made a short dash to one of the windows of the spire and swung herself around the corner.

She was exposed to the other guards right now but they didn't have any reason to glance over unless the other guards called them over.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Alice climbed to the top of the spire and swung herself onto the roof, giving her an excellent view of the entire city.

Standing up, she jumped from the roof and did a free dive towards the ground. Recalling her shards that she hid in the crevices, she slowed down her fall with it and landed on the rooftop.

Now that she was in the city, it was time to proceed towards the western tower as promised.

Closing her eyes, Alice sensed the fluctuation of energy around her and verified the location of the western tower.

It was quite far away but since the hardest part was done, all Alice had to do was make her way over.

The safest route would actually be on the inside of the wall, where she was now. Most of the patrols were focused around the city, above the wall and outside the city.

By sticking against the wall like this, she should be able to avoid most of the detection.

Running along the inner wall, Alice forgot to take into account one variable.

Civilians.

Glancing to her right, she noticed a brat looking out of his window and spotting her.

Widening her eyes, she froze up and entered a staring contest with the kid.

Panic filled her heart momentarily but she had a plan to get out.

"Look what's that?!" She looked up and pointed. The moment the kid also looked up, Alice dashed towards the house and hid in the alleyway so that the brat couldn't see her anymore.

Once the brat noticed that Alice was gone, she could hear his rapid tiny footsteps running through his room.

"Mom!!! I found a weird person by the wall!"

'Pft! To think you can avoid guards but not a snot nosed brat.' Alyss mocked as Alice rolled her eyes and ignored her twin.

Continuing her path towards the western tower, she made sure to keep an eye out for the random civilians she would come across. People who were out drinking too late or even those without a home.

Reaching the western tower wasn't difficult but right before she was came into range, her eyes scanned across a woman who was skipping down the street and the same uncanny feeling assaulted her mind.

She was a short woman with elongated ears, black hair and a black and red dress.

The moment Alice's eyes lingered on Keira's body, Alice noticed her mistake and hid herself while Keria stopped skipping and glanced over.

Seeing that no one was by the house, she furrowed her brows and figured it was probably a random civilian in the house that looked away.

Their gaze had lingered momentarily on her ears.

Rubbing her elongated ear, Keira shrugged her shoulders. This kind of physical trait was uncommon in the north but she found it rather cute and had even requested it from the scholars.

It was based on the traits of certain knights in Extalia, one of which is Lord Renna of Extalia.

Ignoring the strange gazes, Keria continued on her way while cold sweat filled Alice's back.

'F*ck me our theory was right. The Zenias have f*cking fused humans and beasts together.' Alice muttered.

That uncanny feeling was unmistakable. Same with the strange energy that coiled around her body, it was a direct match to the slime serpentine beast that ambushed them on the second night.

After all of their experiments, the Zenias have finally began to mass produce these hybrids!