The Sight Beyond The Haze

Chapter 58: The Attacker in the Amitiel's Forest

Since the whether was practically still the same as last month, I wore bundles of clothes and that only made it hard for me to go about on the cold and the slippery iced floor.

As soon as I landed on the ground, I gathered the golden butterflies around me and snuffed out their light. I knew that if Deo was ever by my side right now, he would look at me icily. He was also experimental with his light butterflies, even trying one as my accessory but to devoid the light butterflies with any light was a shame for them. But it was not like I was actually taking off their powers by commanding them to stay as black as possible, they just dimmed themselves and would naturally go back to their own shine and glimmer once I told them so. It does not even take them a while to return to their original form.

Multiple of the butterflies, mostly the small ones, perched on my head like the usual accessory with their glimmer so dimmed they were almost black. The other fluttered around my air while some were on my back, acting as my eyes. The butterflies could send me messages through writing on my skin or if they wanted to show me something directly, they could just perch on my hand and show me the exact moment. They worked really well as a form of surveillance.

I lurked behind the bare trees, hiding myself within the shadows. I looked around, upon finding that there was not any presence around, I ran towards the wall that separated the Academy Amitiel to the outside world. This was where the Blessing began and create a dome that protected the Academia Amitiel from any mercenaries and bounty hunters.

The Blessing worked this way: any Mage, Warrior, or even the occasional and rare Weavers were all required to ask permission to the keepers, in this case the keepers were the members of the Amitiel family, but the Blessing would only be tested if a person was rejected a place within the Middle Ground. The ancient magic placed upon this place was what enabled for this kind of spell to work effectively.

And because the spell has been placed a long time ago and the academy was not an official Middle Ground any longer, the Blessing was fading continuously.

Every night, Cocytus, Leigh, and I would scale the areas around the Amitiel. I know that to think that Amitiel could stretch as far and wide as a temporal illusory fragment was absurd, but the vastness of it made it impossible for me fathom its real size. The illusion of that was broken to me when we first started to patrol around the area.

At first, Leigh would let me tag along both Cocytus and him. For an hour or two, we would scout the Academia Amitiel, looking at the moves of the mercenaries. At times, I would see that Leigh would put up barriers but even I could see the damage that the time inflicted to the Blessing have made.

It was irreparable and Leigh was only kind enough to make its effectivity last.

As my powers progressed, Leigh would push me to go on a longer patrols. Three hours then four hours and he would let me take some days off. Eris would also tag along but it was only when the mercenaries and bounty hunters would do something like climb up the walls. They would always be often be thrown about, away from the inside of the academy.

The moon has not made any appearance and I felt that with the absence of any light, the light butterflies' powers were diminished. Although that was just an irrational fear of mine, I still felt chills running through my body and it was not the winter cold that passed ne.

My breaths came in a white puffs and the swings of the butterflies's wings were blowing on my face, making me even colder. The night was deep, not even a speck of the stars could be seen as I looked up.

On my usual routine, I would circle around the forest, miles and miles with its breadth, and then I would proceed to dare to get myself close to the walls that separated the outside of the academy and the inside. Unlike before, I do not get easily tired. Even after a while of running, my lungs does not burn despite the sharp blow of the wind blasting to my face.

As I was approaching the center of the forest, I felt that the air stiffened with traces of magic. A moment later, I was already crouching down to my knees, narrowly being missed by a throwing spear. It pierced through the tree beside me, almost breaking it in half.

I chuckled lowly, my breathing could be seen so I abruptly ceased my irregular breaths, regulating and forcing it to be normal and as quietly as possible. Looking at the still smoking spear before grabbing it by the hilt and positioning it to be thrown down. Magical energy flowed through my fingers, making the spear incredibly hot on my hand though my skin remained intact and untouched by the warmth of it.

"Get around the attacker," I told the light butterflies.

They quickly dispersed upon receiving their commands while the light butterflies clinging to my hair remained though their wings were fluttering, obviously ruffled by the sudden attack. Eris must not have seen this coming and this could only be a spontaneous decision made when the attacker saw me, alone and without the company of the Middle Ground's keeper's son.

"You are bold," I said, my voice was reinforced with magic that madeit booming and loud throughout the forest of the academy.

Being a Mage and a Warrior was actually the most advantageous thing for me to be. While my moves with a weapon was quite clumsy, my power as Mage made up for my setback as a Warrior. I was not as elegant as Cocytus while doing any moves nor do I have any fancy techniques, the only thing I have was my altercation between my magic and my knowledge for martial arts.

I reached out my hand, closing my eyes as I felt for any traces of magic. Before I could think about anything, before my mind even register where was the location of the concentration of magic from, my feet were already moving towards the center of the forest.

I heard the footsteps in the silence of the night. It was relatively calm, not what I was expecting after I found them out. Then again, they do not even know they were being surrounded by the light butterflies.

My hand rotated the spear on my arm, it was fast and so deathly that when I accidentally brushed on one of the trees, it created a huge c***k on it. It almost toppled down the ice encrusted earth. But I did not stop as I move towards the attacker.

My hand gathered magical energy. I bent down to pick up a dried leaf while the spear was behind me, looking as though it will explode from the magical energy I was feeding it with.

"Who are you?" I asked coldly, my hand lighting up the dried leaf. The light from leaf turned into a small fire until there was a ball of fire hovering atop my hand.

With the spear on the other hand safely tucked away as to not create any trouble again, I threw up the fire ball and took out the spear pressed in between my armpit just to hit it off. The ball of fire made a ringing sound on the forest, creating a huge boom as magical energy greeted magical energy. It exploded then took off towards my desired trajectory.

It flashed through, enabling for me to see the silhouette of that person who just acttacked me with the spear I was holding. It was just a cloaked figure, I cannot even see the height of that person since they were so far away from me.

But I saw the light butterflies closing in on that person. I looked down to see the ancient characters of a seal written by something dark on the melting ice. I was not able to really stare at it though since the attacker seemed to have absorbed the fire I just its way.

Darkness engulfed us both.

My heart started pounding upon belatedly realizing that I was now actually fighting. I have never had a real fight before other than that mudtrap I used a sealing spell on. I would always be involved with an accident, falling pots and pans and getting ran over by a car, but I have never actually had a chance to fight for myself.

This was the very first time.

I was cautious not to get to the boundary of the seal so what I did was to lit up another dried leaf again. The leaf that I picked up was wetter than the other and I had a hard time getting it to a flame. When I succeeded on getting it aflame, I let one of the butterflies set it down on the boundary of the seal and what happened next made me retreat a few steps back.

As soon as the light butterfly set it down, the seal made an attempt to take it down on its center. Rope materialized from the lines of it and grapped with the lone buttefly. What was more horrifying was that the butterfly already set the seal on a blaze and instead of destroying it, it was only lit up.

Like a ritual calling for the demon personification, the seal was a bloody mess of characters and lines crisscrossing within the circle of its boundary. It was horrifying to look at, very unlike of that seal I created when we were out to get the griffin.

My eyes were wide, stinging both from the wind and from the crackles of the flames that suddenly raged and lashed out towards me. I retreated a few more steps and that was when I heard their voice, presumably my attacker's voice.

Like what I did earlier, they used magic to amplify their voice and maybe to even distort it.

"So I see that this is the power of the heir of the Elisnore and Alrerk Noble families," the attacker sneered to me.

We were both at the other end of the great seal they created. And I recognized the markings on their arms for I have the same just a month ago. It snaked on the attacker's arms down to their hands and I could only see it since the attacker was wearing a sleeveless robe seemingly flaunting their marks on their body.

The markings of a blood magic.

My own markings when I first did the blood magic faded for about two weeks. It was painful, like my skin was being scorched. And it was even more confusing when Leigh refused to talk about blood magic as though it was forbidden.

And it was actually forbidden.

I was warned against using it and it was lame to come up with so many excuses.

"Who are you?" I asked the other person but they remained standing, unmoving from my interrogation.

"You do not deserve to use magic," the person told me and I wonder why I wanted to agree so easily, just like that even though they only told me that sentence, those few words. "If it is not prudent that I bring you alive, you will drop dead this instant."

My head immediately knotted, my grip on the body of the spear was tight and my body unconsciously moved on defense. I was on offense earlier and I could feel the overwhelming sort of feeling of being the one who was on the power, but when I saw that person on the other side of the seal, it was like my body knew how to bow down to that person.

"How did you get in here?" I asked that person, my lips pursing as I tried to keep my eyes alert and open wide. "The Blessing is protecting this land, there is no way that you actually forced your way here."

"Because a Deity is here?" that person asked me, there was malice on their voice that made my knees tremble and made my breathing faltered.

How did they know?

"Still not going to admit, I see. Always been good with acting or just you don't have any emotion, yes? Your face is something I have been loathing for the past ten years, you do not have any idea how I want your lifeless body. The Seer is here, is she not?" they asked again.

This time, I cannot just ignore tha fact that this person knew that kind of information.

"Do you know who else could be exempted with the thread of Fate?" They started pacing, just around the corner of seal, teasing it and making it think that some thing has inexplicably fallen in its trap.

"So you are the one that has been evading Eris," I muttered.

My fists clenched. To avoid the very thread of fate and to avoid to be seen by the absolute clairvoyance of the one and onky Seer.

Just who exactly was this person I was facing? But I had no time to ponder about my question as he repeated his already.

"Do you know who else could be exempted with the thread of Fate?"