"Save me, teacher! Save me!" Florie screamed as she frantically shouted for help. She had lost her manners once she saw the unspeakable horror. She pulled out a scroll and opened it without any hesitation. One could see many inscribed runes on the inscription, brightly shining as if they were threatening to devour the stars.
The runes disintegrated and turned into a single ray of greenish light, condensing itself into a giant pale ross. Her mentor had given her this scroll as the last life-saving protection. Once she used this scroll, she could bring forth a single powerful strike of her mentor who was a second-ranked sorcerer.
The giant white ross started to rotate slowly, causing its petals to fall, drifting across the sky by the soothing wind. The pale perianths would disintegrate everything that came into contact, turning it grey and crumble into ashes.
The dark tentacles that extended themselves from the grey soul crumbled one by one. However, there were countless amounts of tendrils originated from Forus' body. No matter how the perianths destroyed them, they would always come back.
Silently yet frighteningly, an enormous eye manifested above Forus. The large grey eye slowly opened itself, causing the world to slow down and turn colourless. It gazed toward little Florie, causing her to become pale and coughed out her life force. Her smooth skin dried out a little after her life force came out, causing her to look older than her previous self.
In despair, Florie cried out loudly, shouting for her teacher to come and rescue her from this nightmare.
Her breakdown caused the mindless Forus to tense up, gradually awakening from his confused state. He felt as if she was someone he knew. Someone he loved.
...
In the flying garden, a beautiful female sat on a floating platform, gazing toward the sky, watching the movement of the stars. There were many scrolls beside her, but one of them suddenly destroyed itself. The sudden change caused her to open her eyes, stopping her sorcery practice.
She could feel a strange sensation of familiar in her soul, a sense of loss and pain. This feeling had manifested itself inside her soul as if she was about to lose something precious to herself.
"Little Florie, I'm not gonna let you die!" She said softly before waving her hand, causing the plants around her to move orderly and brought a mirror for her.
The mirror flashed as it revealed a scenery where her disciple was. In the vision, she could see a corrupted man, who had lost his mind, was trying to harm her precious disciple. His black tendrils slowly crept toward the helpless girl. Even her one strike couldn't beat it thoroughly.
"I couldn't let her die. She is my only colour in this lonely life." She had watched the girl grew up. After a long period of living together, a hint of colour started to appear in her vision. Little Florie was the only colourful thing left for her to see.
After a moment, the mirror trembled and shattered into pieces, the man inside the vision had used some unknown spells to seal and cut off space around him, disrupting the magical mirror's ability to spy on others.
The maiden knew that her disciple was in grave threat. She had to help her at once.
...
The black tentacles stopped their movement the moment Forus regained his consciousness. His mind suddenly spun rapidly, trying his best to suppress the rampaging grey light within his soul.
He cast various spells to conceal the disturbance and stopped the interference from the outside. He could instinctively feel that someone was spying on him, or rather, someone was observing his unique body.
He also realised that the mysterious power within his soul had already mended the wounds on both his soul and body. Although with his normal recovery speed, the injuries on the body would eventually cure themselves, the scars on his soul were ever-lasting.
After an instant of silence, Forus turned his attention to the panting female. Her condition was getting worse as time flew by. If she didn't get any help in time, she would undoubtedly die due to massive loss of blood.
He thought for a moment before walking toward her, causing Florie's face to turn pale. She struggled to crawl backwards, only to cough out blood and collapsed onto the ground again. In her despair, she watched as the manifestation of nightmare walked towards her.
The black and rotting hand of Forus penetrated through her chest, leaving behind a gruesome mess that exposed her bare body and skeleton structure. A piece of her heart, as well as a fragment of her soul, flew out into his grip. He gazed at the part of her heart deeply before putting back the remnant of her heart into her body.
He then used his icy cold elemental spell to seal the fatal injuries on her body, keeping her alive for an extended duration of time.
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Due to the pain of forcefully ripped apart one's soul, little Florie screamed until her lungs busted out and lost her consciousness while blood seeped out of her pale lip. From now on, her life was under the control of Forus. He only needed one thought to crush her fragmented soul to cripple her body and mind.
By the time he finished bringing out a part of her soul, the black tentacles and unholy grey eye had faded out of existence and went back into slumber in his soul. He needed to keep this matter as the deepest secret of his life.
He would kill this strange girl if not for that unknown observer. To interfere with his battle after the call for help of that girl, no matter how he looked at it, that sorcerer must have some connection with the girl. He needed to consider the outcomes of his action.
In the end, he decided to spare her life. If that person was the enemy of the girl, they would kill her by themselves, but, if they were the ally of the girl, Forus would suffer endless pursue from that person. He had already kept a part of her soul with him. If anyone wanted to avenge her, he would use it as the hostage to keep himself safe.
Before he could leave the crime scene, the earth around him trembled violently. The common plants started to twistedly wiggle as if they were greeting the appearance of their deity.
The short grasses grew swiftly as they slowly transformed into the bizarre plants that leaked off relaxing fragrance, contrasted to their scent, many pointy thorns concealed themselves beneath the multicoloured leaves of the flower.
A ripple in space-time spread across the forest, covering a big part of it. In an instant, the dimensional barrier between the real world and the void collapsed and opened a gate between the long distance.
Inside the bottomless portal, a vast and ever-evolving Clematis slowly making its way out of the crack on the distorted space. Behind the magnificent flower were countless large and translucent vines, crawling toward both Forus and the motionless girl.
Observing the process of the breakdown of the space around him, Forus could understand that the one behind this event was at least a first ranked sorcerer. His power, even with the grey soul fully activated, would never be able to withstand even a second in their presence.
Swiftly, he threw many potions that deal the most damage to plant element before rushing off toward the distant. The potions dissolved themselves into the atmosphere, but they could only delay the maddening leaves for several seconds before they regained their movement control and chased after him again.
Although the trail of blood would expose his whereabouts, the person would need to take care of that girl first.
Even when he was rushing from the portal, the vines seemed to ignore the distance between space as they warped the space around themselves to instantly shorten the gap between Forus and the flowers. They immediately rushed towards him, catching him completely off guard.
The thorny leaves pierced through his body, cracking his bones into fragments and injecting an unknown substance into his bloodstream. The pain rushed into his head, but Forus didn't feel any of it. He only forcefully twisted his broken arm to let it take most of the damage before cutting it off with his dagger.
Once the broken arm fell onto the ground, the majority of the mindless thorns swiftly coiled themselves around the arm, crushing it under their enormous force before absorbing the life force within it, leaving only grey ash in their finish.
Left with no choice, Forus pulled out his life-saving method.
...
Looking at the portal, the female sorcerer concentrated most of her attention into nursing her disciple's injury. Her physical body suffered severe harm that if little Florie didn't have a strong mentor like her, she would at least lose all of her sorcery energy or she might hurt the shifted flow of the magical energy inside her body and die.
Suddenly, senses of loneliness and longing manifested itself within her soul, causing her cold facial expression to change into a heart-breaking one. The sudden appearance of profound emotion left her in the daze. She carefully checked the condition of her disciple to find any abnormality.
She took notice of familiar particles, they were the icy cold elemental energy that covered her disciple's body. In an instant, countless thoughts and memories rushed inside her mind and soul, forcefully made her recalled her tragic past.
"After countless days and nights, after countless sorrow and grief, I finally found someone related to you." Her face twisted unnaturally as the unending hatred that she had suppressed within her soul released itself for the whole world to observe it.
The killer of her family, the man who killed her father. The person who heavily injured her disciple had the same aura with that sorcerer whose crime couldn't be forgiven. They were related in some ways.
Before she could order her plants to completely rip that man apart before torturing his soul, the man drew a small glowing orb with the size of a fingernail. The orb softly flickered as it touched the man's hand, trembling as if it was about to break.
Once she laid her eyes on the orb, she forcefully stopped all the vines from moving before retracting them back to protect her disciple. That orb was a fragment of her disciple's soul. If she wanted to kill that man, she would indirectly cause the death of her precious student as well.
"You forced my hand." She muttered as she extended her hand into the portal, causing it to tremble violently. The portal couldn't withstand the pressure of a second-ranked sorcerer.
The presence of the second-ranked sorcerer's power caused the forest to shake fiercely, causing the disturbance that spread throughout the forest, arriving at the city.
Just her presence alone made Forus strumbled and fell onto the ground. His body stiffened and the flow of sorcery energy inside his body suddenly went out of control and ran chaotically, causing his internal injuries to fare up.
"Mistress, please stay your hand." A male voice echoed within the forest as a figure slowly materialized itself from nothingness. Together with his arrival, the temperature of the land rose up as the sky gradually turned red.
Not just that man, but a few more consciousness of the second-ranked sorcerers also focused their wills onto the portal, waiting for the response of the foreign force.
The arrival of an unknown second-ranked sorcerer was not something the powerhouses of the area could tolerate. The number of the second-ranked sorcerers had always been low. They also formed a peaceful situation where everyone collectively restained themselves, allowing the war to not come true.
"I won't bother myself with your political scene, just hand me that thing, and I would gladly leave." The female concealed her resentful emotion and let them all out. This was the only clue towards that monster who killed her father. She couldn't let it slip by.
She was willing to do anything to avenge her father.