Three hours earlier.
“You want to what?!” The expert magus shouted out of sheer confusion, or perhaps disbelief was a better descriptor. “Did you not pay attention to any of your classes?”
Liam sat in the front-most pew of the church, while Rin stood above him, towering over and frustrated at him like a parent lecturing their child. He let out a sigh as he felt his energy slowly regenerate.
“If you’d let me explain myself before screaming.”
“…I wasn’t screaming.” She said in a much more reduced volume, her face turning a small shade of red.
He began to explain, drawing invisible models in the air between them.
“We’ll make three boundaries in total… sort of. There will be one on the very edge of the church, to keep the ‘inside’ hidden from the ‘outside-‘“ Liam drew a circle in the air before continuing, “-and another inside of that to hide the ‘outside’ from the ‘inside.’” He looked up at Rin for a moment, expecting another scolding, but she had decided to wait completely before doing so. So he continued.
“And in between these will be my boundary. I won’t finish it’s creation until they arrive here, since one boundary inside another is already stretching it. The purpose of your’s will be to hide mine. Once they get here, we’ll destroy the inner boundary and activate mine.”
The woman in front of him nodded and took a seat next to him, leaning back and crossing her legs.
“That’s all fine and good, but you haven’t explained the why.”
Liam looked down to his left arm. It was burned badly and still paralyzed from his Uncle’s lightning. He couldn’t even feel it, let alone move it. His Od was spent, and even if they didn’t attack till tomorrow, it probably wouldn’t recover enough in time. In other words, he was practically useless. But he couldn’t let Rin fight them one against two. Not only would she probably die, but he couldn’t accept the idea that he wouldn’t deal with his family himself. They were his responsibility. His purpose for the last three months.
“It’ll make the conditions ideal for a summoning.”
While his talent in Reinforcement was abnormally high, it was more of a side effect from his Origin’s nature. Against a proper magus like Rin in a life or death battle, who could utilize Reinforcement excellently alongside other magecraft, he wouldn’t stand a chance with that alone. If one were to see what his true specialty was, it would have to be Spiritual Evocation.
“You’re going to want to prepare your eyes for darkness.” He looked to Rin with a weak, pale grin.
- -
The sudden darkness wouldn’t normally be a problem for the sibling duo, or most magi for that matter. Reinforcing the eyes to see better in the dark wasn’t terribly complex. Not to mention they would still be able to sense magical energy, and therefore the mages.
But this was no normal darkness.
They felt the bounded field as soon as it came to life, engulfing the church in something more than merely shadow. The depth of the building seemed to have been enlarged beyond recognition. Reaching out with their senses felt almost useless, like straining your eyes to see a figure at the end of a long plain. The distance was merely too large for their sensory organs.
Of course, the space inside the church hadn’t actually expanded. True manipulation of space at all would require True Magic, but creating the illusion of increased space was much easier. If parlor magicians could do it, magecraft could too.
His Uncle raised his hand immediately to where he last saw Liam, running his other hand across the philosophy key. His energy flowed quickly to the glyph and ignited it. The trigram for Heaven appeared before his fingers, three unbroken lines atop each other. He felt the Earth trigram manifest somewhere, but it wasn’t exact.
The lightning sprang from his fingers, hitting the wall behind Liam by a good couple meters. The brief generation of light revealed the boy again. His lips were moving. Hand raised in the air. The light vanished as fast as it appeared, bringing forth the nauseous effect from his boundary.
Stolen novel; please report.
The boy didn’t even flinch. His fear had vanished. The history behind his terror, of this very situation, of being hunted for months. It all simply melted away into the darkness. He himself thought he was being consumed, but he knew how wrong that was. The darkness was the one being assimilated.
The ritual began.
“The hand reaches below, engulfed in shadow.”
Rin rose from her hiding place among the pews, tossing two gemstones to her enemies. Her senses worked just fine as she was included within the boundaries residents. The stones cracked and spewed forth magical energy, sending the Uncle flying back to the wall behind him. Light flashed again. It revealed and faded.
“The light which reveals is consumed.
Grasping, lost, yet at home.”
His ineptitude as a mage was immense. While his circuits were good enough to perform standard level magecraft, his experience was lacking. Without a long history or a magic crest to support him, he was forced to use a ten-count incantation. Rin would have to fight them for almost a minute.
“The abyss greets me, and I return the favor.
The residents stir. I beckon one forth.
The monster who will crush my enemies.”
The Auntie evaded the initial attack, dashing to the side and shooting forth three of her blades with a single throw. They all missed Rin initially, but continued to change trajectories, vaguely chasing after the girl.
Rin leaped forward instead, clearing four rows of seats.
Her leg descended upon the Aunt, who was currently looking in a completely wrong direction.
“Arise, and do not fear.
We are of the same Mother.”
Her shoulder cracked as it dislodged from its socket. The woman cried out in pain before swiping in the general direction of the magus with her other arm. Rage fueled the action, the blade cleanly slicing through Rin’s thigh. She stumbled backwards. Her leg weakened from the sudden wound.
Liam’s circuits burned as it processed the Mana around them, pushed to their maximum speed and efficiency. His words echoed with power-but he wasn’t conscious enough to be aware of their effect. His mind was gone. All that remained was a means to perform magic.
The Uncle groaned as he shifted on the ground, finally regaining enough oxygen to function after the assault. His eyes darted around hopelessly amongst the darkness.
“The Boundary!” The man cried out. That would surely put a wrench into whatever spell Liam was working. If it was created by the boy, destroying it would be akin to firing a bullet through a piece of paper.
He raised his arm again, this time to the door they entered. He knew he was at least very close to it, since he had been pushed to the back wall. As he cried, a familiar lightning shot from his fingers, and the final words were spoken.
“To the surface you come,
And take your home in my shadow.”
The raw energy pierced through the boundary, tearing it into mystical pieces. The perceived space of the church retracted to its normal limits. Orange sunlight sent the darkness away.
With a disgusting smile, the Uncle turned back around to his prey, prepared to set his heart on fire. His eyes met another pair larger than his body.
The shadows in the church all twisted, collecting together in Liam’s own. A large, bulbous and dripping substance sprung from the enlarged shadow, forming the vague outline of a head. The darkness was pure black, devoid of any and all color. Even the rays of sunlight that met it’s body faded into nothingness.
Around the brow line of the head were two horribly big eyes, staring at the three magi towards the back of the church. They were perfectly spherical, the lack of eyelids showing the true shape of a living beings eyes.
Rin sprinted around the manifested being, reinforcing her legs as much as was physically possible for her. Her work was done now.
Liam’s legs shook as they struggled to support them. His imaginary nerves burned. They sapped any physical energy that kept him standing, taking sheer force of will to keep him standing.
He had to stay conscious. If he passed out, he didn’t know what the Monster would do.
The siblings remained in their positions. The sudden onset of fear had frozen their minds, as they struggled to process the possibility of their deaths.
An arm materialized from beside the Monster, just as black and unstable as its head, as if it was raising their arm above deep water. With speed that should have been impossible for such a large object, it launched towards the entrance of the church and crushed the man.
His sister cried out, yet her voice was drowned out by the sound of destruction.
“Don’t let me pass out…” Liam pleaded in a whisper as Rin approached him. She quickly grabbed a hold of his body, keeping him propped up.
Grief turned into fury. Mana transformed into energy. The Aunt screamed, now in rage, raising her blade to the giant creature of shadow. Her philosophy key on her forearm radiated brilliant light as water manifested upon the metal of her weapon. She sliced the air, sending a crescent of magical liquid soaring to the creature. It cleaved through its arm which retreated to the shadows.
Cut. Cut. Another cut. Water spewed forth from her single-edged blade, dissecting the shadow Monster into mere pieces. Another arm attempted to manifest, but she denied it passage with more cuts.
No matter how much effort he put forth, the sheer history and strength behind her magecraft would win out.
A Gandr shot twisted around the gigantic Monster and met the Aunt, stopping her heart.
Her body still stood, although this surprised neither Liam nor Rin, who had lobbed the curse. His Aunt was a puppet user. It was only natural for her to have defenses against certain death-perhaps a backup, artificial heart. It didn’t matter. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and extended his will towards his Monster. The remaining pieces of the head melted and assumed a different form. Another hand. With a scream he pushed it down onto the woman, crushing her.
His mind retreated into itself as he lost consciousness.