Mia suddenly woke up. Not because she recovered, not because she slept enough, not because of the danger that was about to befall her or the noise happening around her. She just woke up, completely, like she was awake for a while.
She took a look around and saw a strange scene. She was dressed in strange clothes, in a bed way bigger than it needed to be with a strange woman ready to stab her with a sword while Onyx was holding her arm. Her friends were a few meters away, most of them paralyzed, with fear in their eyes or rage in the case of Klaws. Their attention was equally divided between her and the strange woman trying to stab her. She didn’t know what was happening but that woman was the cause so she would get rid of her.
Focusing wind on her hand, she put it forward towards the strange woman and set it ablaze. A wave of fire disintegrated everything in that general direction. Onyx was smart enough to know what was going to happen so he stopped holding the woman.
Mia briefly saw the outside. She was in some sort of castle but then everything went black and she woke up near a tree with Onyx on her side. It took a moment for Mia to process that she might have been in some kind of illusion or something similar and that filled her with some anger as well as worry. People who could mess with her mind were on the top of the list of people wanted to deal with. Mia got up and started to move towards her classmates who seemed to be angrily discussing something.
“How could you do that!?” Klaws angrily shouted/asked Narissa.
“I...I…”
“You what!?”
“I...We...Oh! Mia…” Narissa said as she finally saw that Mia arrived near them.
“What happened?” Mia asked as she looked at the group. Everyone besides Klaws turned their heads a little, not wanting to look Mia in the face. She began to wonder if something happened to her while she was knocked out.
“They...They...No. You tell her. Look her in the eyes and tell her what you did!” Klaws said to Narissa.
“Mia, I...We...Us…” Narissa tried to say something but she was beginning to cry and words weren’t coming out.
“Mia...We...By the heavens, what have we done!?” Shishen said with regret in her voice as it finally dawned on her what she chose.
“What happened?” Mia asked, now clearly worried about what happened while she was down.
“We made our choice.” Moon said as calmly as he could, even if he had some regrets about what happened himself.
“We didn’t have a choice…” Mathias said, taking the lead for the rest of the class that couldn’t utter a word.
“We had a choice!” Klaws protested.
“Nobody is a suicidal as you!” Moon shouted back.
“What the fuck happened!?” Mia suddenly shouted, wanting answers.
“What happened was that they finally showed who they really are deep down.” Zignus said as he suddenly appeared on Puddle’s side.
“What!? How!?” Mia suddenly shouted as she began to get ready for a fight.
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“Puddle, Puddle, Puddle. Of all things I take you as, unlucky isn’t one of them. She had to wake up just at the right moment, didn’t she?” He said as he looked at Mia.
“Leave her alone!” Klaws shouted as he got in front of Mia. Onyx followed him, sensing ill intent from Zignus.
“A dog and a wolf protecting a little girl. That is very funny.” He said as he chuckled a little. Clearly with some story or joke in mind.
“What’s so funny?” Mia asked, ready to unleash everything she had.
“Nothing that you would understand. Well, this was fun and productive but I have places to be. I will be getting what I came for if you don’t mind.” Zignus said as he suddenly appeared behind Mia, grabbing her by the neck.
“Shit!” Mia said as she suddenly felt mana enter her body.
“I should have done this from the start and just looked where you had hidden the legacy inside your body.”
“I don’t have it!” Mia said as she tried to free herself. Her mana was being disrupted so she couldn’t use spells.
“Shut it. Once this finishes I will be able to...No! No! NO! NO!” He suddenly began to shout, first in denial and then in rage, as he threw Mia away.
“Mia, you alright?” Klaws said as he tried to help Mia up from the ground.
“Shit! This is all your fault, I lost so much of my time on this, And for what? Nothing! You are going to pay for this!” Zignus began to shout, abnormally angry.
“Leave us alone!” Narissa suddenly shouted.
“How are you… Ah, yes. I forgot about that for a moment. I am not as subtle as Puddle but all of you deserve to suffer for making me waste my time and good bodies.” He said as he snapped his finger and suddenly panic befallen everyone around him.
First, everyone remembered that there were supposed to be teachers watching them. And the fact that none of them came to help put a really grim image of their current situation in their minds. The second thing that everyone remembered was how far away they really were from the city. They didn’t just run a few kilometers. They were pretty much in the middle of nowhere at the moment.
Mia was having a heavier experience. Her emotional state was a mess and her little nap made her forget about all of that but the moment Zignus snapped his finger, everything that she knew about the last few hours suddenly rushed to her mind, be it good or bad. The fact that she now knew that she got knocked out for a few hours and something really bad happened to her friends made things worse. She felt extremely guilty about that but that wasn’t the worst thing. No. The worst part was the last thing everyone got to notice. That Zignus wasn’t using a fake body like the others. This was his real body and now he wasn’t holding back.
Everyone was feeling a primal fear as they felt Zignus’s mana reach them. He was worlds above anything they ever felt. Yes, they meet a lot of powerful people but not one of them had this malice, the blood lust, the willingness to hurt and kill them that Zignus had. It also made all of them understand how much power someone in the later stages of cultivation could be. The only thing stopping most of them from throwing up is the overwhelming paralyzing fear they felt.
Zignus approached and grabbed Mia again. She tried to use a spell, any spell, but the simple pressure of his mana was just destroying anything Mia tried to create. She was powerless in the face of such power but did her best to look defiant. As long as you live you have a chance so she needs to stay alive.
“I am going to take my time with you and then I am going to get rid of your ‘friends’” Zignus said to Mia.
“Leave them alone! I will protect them!” Mia shouted as she struggled to free herself.
“HAHAHAHA! Well, would you still say that when I tell you that they were going to let you die so they could go free? That they were more than ready to just leave you to die so they could live?” He said as maliciously as he could.
“What!?” Mia asked in confusion. Unable to process what was just said. She took a look around and the only person showing any signs of refuting what Zignus just said was Klaws who was stuck on the ground and angry.
Her rational side understood why they had chosen to leave her to die and what exactly was happening when she woke up with a sword above her throat and why Klaws was so confrontational with everyone else. Her emotional side wasn’t all that put together so she felt betrayed in a level she didn’t she could feel again. It was like learning that her parents in her old life didn’t really care for her that much. To a kid, that was a punch in the face.
Mia just stopped for a moment. Tears began to flow from her eyes as she looked at her classmates with pity, understanding and sadness at the same time.