Chapter Ten: Arrival

Meria POV

“Faster Fifi, today is the day that I foresaw in the prediction. We need to hurry, or else we might be too late!” I hurried my mount, a monster from the Kirin race.

The Kirins are an almost extinct race of monsters. There are almost none of them left. The only other Kirin I saw except for Fifi was owned by, Guren, the Queen of the Oni race. They look like horses with an appearance resembling Dragons. They have different elements and are very powerful. A baby Kirin can already destroy a whole city quite easily. Fifi was caught and tamed by my mother after she was beaten in a fight. The reason that my mother gave it to me was because of their differing elemental affinity. My mother was an Ice element mage while Fifi was a Fire element monster. While I was thinking that, I saw crimson flames rising from the horizon, it was a very captivating sight. But the only thing that I could say in that scenario was...

“I was too late.” I muttered softly while looking at the place where the burning crimson flame was at.

I willed the mana essences inside my body to be released. The surrounding mana was getting scarce as it was being eaten by my mana essence. I utilized the spell called 【Burst】 on Fifi to speed up her racial ability 【Burning Gallop】. Fifi's speed rise up to by threefold when I used it on her. The disadvantage of using this is, it uses too much stamina and Fifi can only keep it up for about 30 minutes. The crimson fire has already died down when I drew near, the area was full of black ashes, it was an eerie sight in this snow-filled land.

Suddenly, when I was approaching the scene, a shadow came in front of Fifi who was heading at full speed. I won't be able to stop in time, we’re gonna crash, such are my thoughts, but to my surprise, Fifi had actually stopped moving forward. When I looked back, there was a big black orb-like thing that was emitting a dark aura. I assume this was the Dark element magic 【Black Hole】 but there is something different. It was not sucking anything into it at all, it was just a passive black orb, but it was stopping Fifi from advancing, which is quite strange. Come to think of it, I can’t move an inch too. Though I was surprised, I was not scared at all. Because the only one who could do this kind of strange and powerful Dark magic is...

“Yuki...”

Yuki POV

“ I feel a person with a huge mana pool coming here. I think he/she is from the Devil family, as I can sense mana essence forming.” I said while looking into the distance.

“What!? Who is it?” Mother angrily said and she was already entering combat mode.

“Calm down mother, if I am not mistaken, this aura should belong to someone we know.”

“She is here? This is too much of a coincidence, she is suspicious. We need to be careful.” Father who had already activated his 【Dark Ascension: Human Form】 warned.

“Don’t attack her! She is not the one who attacked us. Stop releasing a dangerous magic, right now!”My mother shouted at my father.

“But...”

“It’s alright father. I will go there to ask what is she doing here.” I said. I had already started to【Shadow Walk】 towards Meria before my mother could say anything in protest.

I can already see Meria riding her mount, Fifi. However, it was galloping too fast. I will not be able to talk to her if I don’t stop her first. I willed the mana around me and combined it with my own and used 【Black Star】.

【Black Star】 is an improved version of 【Black Hole】. 【Black Hole】 sucks everything in the surrounding with gravitational force without an exception towards it. 【Black Star】 only sucks in things that are willed by me and can control the gravity of surroundings. The weakness of 【Black Star】 is, it has a physical form, which means you can destroy it by smashing it, unlike 【Black Hole】 which is intangible.

I used 【Shadow Walk】 under a tree, near her. I then released a 【Black Star】 behind her and controlled the gravity towards the 【Black Star】 to stop her from advancing. It was a success, I stopped her advance safely, and it looks like she isn’t scared, only surprised a bit. Such is my train of thoughts, when she suddenly called my name.

“Yuki...”

...

There was a long awkward pause between us while we continued to gaze at each other's eyes. I was wondering why her voice was a bit melancholic but it had contained a hint of happiness as well. The scene is getting a bit awkward, so I decided to break the silence by talking.

“Meria-san, what are you doing here today, aren’t you supposed to be visiting tomorrow?” I questioned her with a blank expression.

“Yuki... I-I...” Meria said, stuttering.

“Calm down, and breathe properly. Could you come down from your mount, so that we can talk properly?” I told her, to calm her down.

She nodded and got off her mount. She had already contained her released mana essence when she knew I was the one who stopped her, so there’s a low possibility of her being an enemy. Also, I can’t sense any malicious intent from her. She might be faking it today, but I knew her since I was only 1 years old and had met her many times. There is no possibility of her escaping my senses for that long. As I was thinking that, I already took her off her feet and carried her, princess style.

“W-what are y-you doing Y-Yuki” She stutteringly asked with a beet red face.

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She must be angry at me for carrying her all of a sudden. But it’s necessary so that my father would be less cautious of her and mother to be less mad at me.

“I’m gonna put Fifi in my domain. Is that alright?” I inquired from her with a straight face.

“Okay...” She sheepishly answered.

I put Fifi inside my domain. As I finished placing Fifi, I willed my mana onto my feet and activated the support spell 【Speed Boost】. I wanted to use 【Shadow Walk】, but 【Shadow Walk】 only works for the caster. 【Speed Boost】 is exactly as the name implies, it boost both attacking speed and movement speed, although it does not double the speed, it is a long lasting spell. I also used one of the family technique【Black Lions Pounce】. It gathers potent dark energy through the feet and burst it in one go, reaching up to 700 meters in one go if mastered, when in mid-pounce, the dark energy spreads throughout the body and you will look just like a black shadow, which means it is perfect for ambushes.

The Blacklion family has a unique bloodline that is passed onto every generation's dominant male. When inherited, the dark energy inside the body of the person is more potent than any other human who practice Dark magic, which means that the dark mages with the Blacklions bloodline will be able to control the dark energy. Dark energy, which normally should be unstable, will have more stability and the user will have more control over it. Though that rule was a problem for the marriage between mother and father.

A female of the Devil family can only have one offspring. The mana essence of a Devil is inherited by the very first offspring, so if they try to have more, then the next offspring would not be able to produce mana essence and even worse, because of the racial characteristic of a Devil, which is to have a body that can absorb mana to make mana essence and is attached to their life force - which is the secret of the Devils long lifespan - if they can’t produce mana essence to connect to their life force, they would die shortly after being born. Which means, if I was born as a girl, they would have had a big problem. I wonder if my father would have gotten a concubine if that happened. Though with my mother's personality, which is hot-headed, my father will probably get turned into ashes with the said concubine if that ever happened. I contemplated on such things before I realized I was getting into my own bad habit of making up stories in my head and getting sidetracked.

“Ahh... Y-Yuki, you’re going too fast! We’re gonna crash!” Meria warned, closing her eyes while putting her head close to my face and holding my neck tightly.

It looks weird, considering the fact the difference in our body structures, which is my body that is barely a teen and hers that looks like a 20-year-old.

“No, we’re not. Open your eyes to see. I’m using magic to pierce through the air resistance, so you should be able to open your eyes.” I told her while using 【Mana Manipulation】to split open the air in front of us.

“N-no... I’m fine as it is. J-just get us there safely...” She screamed. She may have thought that the air resistance is blocking off the sound.

“But we’re already here.” I answered while looking at the audience, which is my mother, father, Raul and Martha, with a calm look.

They were looking towards us with different kinds of faces. My father had a weird look on his face and is frozen up, while my mother was looking at us with sparkling eyes, smiling and giving me a thumbs up. Raul is looking at us with his usual, straight face and Martha is putting her right hand on her cheek, with a smile.

“Eeehhh?” She let out a shriek while she struggled out of my embrace, panicked.

“Having fun Meria? It’s a wonderful day to embrace the ones you love, isn’t it?” My mother commented while a smirk can be seen on her face.

I wonder what mother is saying. Using mana essence and a high leveled magic for the first time in years must have fried her brain. I don’t recall this day being wonderful at all. I thought while tilting my head in confusion at her words.

“Awawa... It’s not what you think Rena-san. I-I was just scared because of the speed that Yuki was moving at.” She argued back to my mother while looking down with a beet red face.

I wonder what happened to her refined and dignified posture. Her current manners are a mess too.Such thoughts raced through my confused mind.

“Ehem... Might we get back on the topic now?” My father announced looking at Meria with a serious look on his face.

“You... Haaa... You just can’t read the mood, can you? We should go back inside to talk, it’s cold out here.” My mother asserted while looking at my father with a deadpan face and sighed.

“I shall fix the living room, for all of you to converse. Please wait in the dining room for the meantime, until the room is fixed.” Raul interjected.

“I shall prepare food, for all of you to eat while you wait for the living room to be fixed. Shall I prepare the ‘Horned Rabbit King’ or the ‘Snow Frost Leopard’?" Marta suggested.

“Prepare them both. I was already planning to prepare them today, and would have if it wasn’t for the disturbance.” Sounding a bit annoyed my father told Martha.

End of Chapter 10

Upcoming chapters should be side stories about his childhood and how he practiced 'Library Magic'

Authors Note: Sorry about the late releases. Been busy at school stuff. This chapter should be longer than the others. It should be 1,500+ , I'll try to make it longer as the story progresses but don't expect too much. Veteran authors advised to make it 'Quality against quantity' so I'll make it like that and improve along the way. It's my first novel, so please don't be too hard on me.