Chapter 17: Revenge (part 2)

Argus von Hohenturm was worried. That old cat they exterminated the other day was stronger than anticipated. Very much so. If he wasn’t there, he was sure that the group would have been wiped out. Common sense told him that there could not possibly be another beastkin with similar strength near the border. But something was bothering him. Those four mages never came back and if someone knew of their strength than it was him who taught them.

He was seriously considering going out there again to investigate. But he knew that he can’t always run away from his responsibilities. This and more was going through his head while he headed to the top of the north tower. The royal academy had one main building and four towers facing the North, south, west and east respectively. When he arrived on the top floor of the tower this feeling of something being wrong… i got even stronger.

He opened the door to his study went in and closed the door. That moment he was hit by an oppressive atmosphere he had never felt before. Killing intent was assaulting him unlike anything he could even imagine. As he started to sweat he could hear a voice coming from a dark corner of the room: “Are you Argus von Hohenturm?” He put his willpower together faced that corner and answered: “Yes.” “Then die. SHADOW SPIKE” 

Shadow? That was bad, really bad. Argus immediately invoked all of his prepared shields. Five shields: lighting, fire, water, wind and earth respectively went up in an instant but Argus was still fired out of the tower through the window across the room. He was hit from behind which shocked him even more. What an outrageous attack such power and from such an unexpected angle. Anyone but him would be dead by now he was sure because not even a single one of his shields survived that attack.

“Spirit of wind lend me your strength. Be my wings that let me soar through the sky. SOARING WIND.” A spell that used air resistance to make you float. But again Argus was shocked because his unknown assailant was already upon him clad in pure darkness. What was this power? “Kam’ya erase him!” Spirit? A named spirit even? No wrong! The power that was now breaking free was far above that. Darkness and Shadow this must be a demon assassin!

Both of the forbidden arts used at once. But that amount of power was not normal. It could not be. But normal thoughts were useless now, he had to act under the assumption he was right and he was facing a spirit emperor. He thanked the goddess that they were fighting on the academy grounds.

“Oh goddess of light, enemies have invaded your sacred grounds. Banish all those that are not from this world and let only shine your light upon this place. Magic circle invocation: GODDESS BLESSING.” Suddenly 4 lights lit up in the four directions and one above the ground. Within seconds the entire academy was surrounded by a diamond shaped field made of light. One could imagine that the other half of the diamond shape was under ground level.

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The darkness that had been gathering around his opponent suddenly vanished leaving only behind a figure clad in a black cloak. Finally Argus let out his breath that he didn’t even notice holding. “Young assassin, it was your mistake to engage me here. Within this barrier no spirit but the spirits of light can exist. Even one of the emperors would have to bow as this barrier was created using six elements. Therefore i advise you: give up. If you do i will guarantee you a swift and painless death.”

His opponent didn’t react except with two swift hand motions suddenly wind blades were flying towards Argus. He was shocked, preincarnated? He had still preincarnated wind spells. What kind of monster was he facing? Argus understood that he could not be lenient. Incarnations were out against an enemy with unknown amount of preincarnated spells. Hence he could only rely on his own preincarnated spells.

A mage could depending on power prepare a fixed number of spells. Argus was without a doubt the strongest human mage there is and he had more than a hundred spells preinvoced. But his opponents abilities were unknown, therefore he was actually worried. If his opponent could overwhelm him with sheer numbers… that would be bad. But no time to think. The blades came at him with incredible speed. He used a wind lighting combination to speed up his flying and dodged while firing two fireballs of medium size.

But again did the assassin surprise him: Before the fireballs could hit they just vanished! To cancel a spell you have to counterinvoce it. You can’t preinvoce counterspells. But he had ample battle experience. He wouldn’t stop just because of something he can’t explain. Argus knew if he let his enemy attack again he would be in trouble so he used all of his skills that he amassed in thousands of battles against the strongest demons you can think of.

Using water he froze the humidity in the air around the cloaked figure while simultaneously removing all oxygen from that area with wind. No air, no resistance, as expected his opponent fell while struggling to breathe and one thousand small ice spears that had formed followed. But again as the ice spears were about to hit they vanished. No not all of them! Argus saw that from the enemy’s back actually struck true. So his counter magic wasn’t omnipotent. Could it be?

Argus needed to confirm his suspicion. It would cost him a lot of magic and he would be out of it for days but it was all or nothing. He used most of his mana pool to raise several massive earth spikes that hovered all around his opponent and as he launched them he threw a massive fireball as well directly at the center. The assassin fell back with amazing speed but he predicted that. His spells were following and their aim was true. And his prediction was right: Most of the earth spike vanished but the fireball and one remaining strike hit and a massive explosion signaled the end of his struggle.

Slowly Argus floated back to the ground and once he landed, he fell back breathing very heavily. There was nothing left on the spot that the fireball hit and only when he spread out all of his senses and couldn’t feel any oppressive presence anymore could he finally feel relieved.