“Where’s he headed?” The man questioned. He gazed down the street where the two magi ran with indifferent eyes.
His sister stood beside him with a grin, her eyes closed, currently inside a different body.
“The bridge it seems.”
“Just grab the brat already.” He huffed with a frown. The child was beginning to seem like more trouble than he was worth. They didn’t even know for certain if the Philosophy Key was that valuable-chasing it only based on hearsay. This boy hadn’t even been a mage for three months, and he’s already giving them issues.
His sister’s grin widened into a toothy smile. He understood this change well. He always told her to cut out that habit, of smiling whenever she had cornered her target. He began to crouch down to the ground, knees creaking as they bent to such an extreme degree, but a hand stopped him. It gripped his shoulder with ferocity. Threatening to peel it from his body.
The womans’ eyes were shot open, her smile wiped clean from her mouth. She spoke quietly,
“You’re going to want to get up.”
- -
The two magi slowly stepped backwards against a brick wall. Three of the dark figures were currently approaching them, while one stood behind on the other side of the street.
‘For an expert magus, she certainly gives herself away quickly.’ Liam thought to himself. Then again, Auntie was almost certainly underestimating him.
After his first encounter with the corpse puppet all those months ago, Lord El-Melloi II made quick work of deciphering how it functioned.
Due to the nature of transferring ones’ consciousness into a puppet, 99% of mages can only really control one at a time. If they wish to utilize multiple at once, they’ll have to have something else control them. For example, imbuing an apparition into the puppet, or even a dead animal, creating a Familiar. They’re connected to the magus upon creation-gaining magic circuits and even the ability to use magecraft. However, in the end, they’re still made up of an aspect of a soul, meant to be in either two places: up in the Heavens,
or beneath the Earth in the Underworld.
“On second thought, you can handle the one in the back. That’s her.” Liam whispered to Rin who simply nodded. She had regained her composure now, transitioned from a furious human to a magus prepared for battle. It begun in an instant.
Rin dashed to the side past the zombies with her arm outstretched. They paid no mind at all, their only true target being the boy. Gandr fired from her fingers, tearing through the air with such speed, seconds away from collision. The puppet simply tossed two of their blades, piercing through and destroying the curses.
Meanwhile, the zombie familiars lunged.
“The hand from below beckons.”
Liam stretched out his hand, his shadow splitting in three and colliding with the attacking zombies. Normally this would be a spell used after he summoned a spirit of his own, forming a contract with a monster from the depths, a tortured soul from the same origin. These zombies were both.
His magical energy surged forward into the three, blending into the corpses and whatever leftover souls were within them. It flooded through whatever connection his aunt had created inside them, utterly assimilating with them. The action was more seamless than anything his aunt could have managed. Conjunction. Connection. Two raindrops combining together.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The zombies stopped in their tracks, their arms outstretched with blades in their hands. The boy tried to issue a command yet no movement came.
“Guess brute-forcing it just breaks them.” He gave a sigh before ripping the cloth covering their heads. All of them disintegrated once the sunlight reached them, with the rest of their clothes simply slumping to the ground, filled with ashes.
The puppet paused in its battle with Rin, turning it’s head towards it’s now destroyed familiars. The magus sprung on the opening-leaping forward and taking hold of one of it’s arms. She pulled it towards her as she jabbed a reinforced elbow into the puppet’s torso, causing it to keel over.
Liam dashed over as well, picking up one of the familiars’ blades as he moved. He pumped the metal with magical energy as he reached the puppet and stabbed it through the head. He could hear the yellow talisman which hung in front of its face tear, cutting off his Auntie’s connection.
He let go of the blade immediately, panting. His Od was running dangerously low, to the point that he didn’t even bother to enhance his body before. Or, more precisely, he couldn’t.
“So, what’s the plan? At Fuyuki bridge?” Rin asked as she adjusted her purse. Liam almost laughed when he realized she fought with it the whole time, but if he had, all the air would have surely escaped his lungs.
“New plan. We need some place to hide.”
The woman glared at him with suspicious eyes. She nodded nonetheless before walking away. Liam followed slowly, assuming she had a place in mind, but he could tell she was still awaiting an explanation.
“I didn’t predict that… I would be this weak. My Od’s practically gone.” Liam spoke slowly in an attempt to conserve energy. “And my circuits are only average.”
The quality and quantity of a magus’ magic circuits were the lifeblood of a mage, next to their magic crest. It determined the amount of magical energy one could generate and utilize at one time. If he was to compare himself to Rin, he would be able to output 150 units of magical energy, while Rin could output 500 or even more. His Od capacity was even more pitiful.
“You don’t think there’s something else you want to tell me about?”
Liam winced at the attack. He had been hoping to put it off, wishing for another attack to fall upon them, but he knew it was fruitless.
“They’ve been hunting me for a few months now. They told we would meet here in three days, but apparently they felt the need to push up the appointment. They think my Mom left a certain magecraft with me.”
The magus listened silently, her anger settling down with the words. He could still see her blue eyes staring daggers at him as they jogged side by side, but they slowed upon coming up to a familiar church. Rin practically kicked in the metal gate which barred their entrance before speaking for the first time in almost ten minutes,
“I’ll set up a Bounded Field. It’ll buy some time.” She spoke plainly as she started to approach the front door to the holy temple. Liam placed his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to stop her.
“So… about my new plan.”
- -
After three hours, they finally found them.
The siblings stood outside a warded church, a metal gate blocking their path. The sun had transitioned from a white and yellow radiance to a deep orange tone. It made the whole city give off a warmth feeling, yet the church in front of them seemed to twist such a feeling into malice.
The stone path that led through the courtyard created random and chaotic patterns, arranged in an almost meaningless way. The church in front of them would have shown clean, white walls with faintly blue glass windows-but the darkening sunlight tainted the holy place. The windows seemed to become scarlet. The walls a vicious orange. The shadows created within the entryway seemed darker than they should be, as if the church gave home to monsters.
“Hmph. It’s almost certainly a trap.” The Aunt said as her eyes stared at the not-so-distant church. They had already analyzed the boundaries, which were… odd, to say the least. There were two around the church: one to keep that which laid inside hidden from the outside, and one to keep that which was outside hidden from the inside. It wasn’t hard to see the uselessness of the second boundary.
“He has to be spent by now. Once the girls’s gone, it’ll be over.” The Uncle assured the woman beside him. Slowly they crossed the bounded fields. Their hard shoes clicked against the stone ground. The siblings were Death, chasing down their chosen victim.
The inside of the church was cast in shadows, with orange light only serving to strengthen the darkness. The rows of wooden seats were blackened by the shadows. Liam stood at the very end, in front of the podium.
“Whatever trick you have planned, might as well use it now.” His uncle called out. His voice echoed through the dark building, giving him a strong, authoritative tone.
“Yeah. I suppose you’re right.” Liam replied, though he wasn’t sure his uncle heard him. Probably not. Lazily, he clapped his hand against the podium behind him, sending a faint resonance through the church.
Then the world was plunged into darkness.