Chapter #5
"Hollowed Abomination"
Kai knew he couldn’t stay in the dorms, He had seen the halls to the dorm rooms littered with bodies. Preferably, he would head towards the Guard rooms, but they would undoubtedly be attacked first.
‘Whoever attacked the academy must be extremely strong to pick a fight against a place where great and grand mages and meisters were present in droves,’
“Gram, we have to move. I think the academy is under attack.”
Gram looked at him shocked.
“Who would be foolish enough to attack the academy? This place is better protected than the imperial palace!”
"I don't know, but we should move. If they get into the dorms, we would be sitting ducks as mere unranked and Kindled."
Gram seemed to agree, and quickly got ready to move.
“Where do we go?”
"Let's go towards the Staff quarters and find Professor Aionos."
Quiet a few students had gotten out of their rooms and were rushing about in the halls. As they made way through they heard sounds of fighting. In front of them a group of students were engaged in an all-out fight against something.
‘What is that…’
The monster seemed dark, malevolent, and twisted. It had long, sharp claws and looked almost humanoid with slender legs and a head.
As they got closer, Kai had a better look at the monstrosity. It had no eyes, its hollow sockets eerily staring at them. The sharp claws he had seen were bones protruding from its arms. The figure, although humanoid, was on all fours, thrashing around.
A handful of freshmen and two seniors had created a wall in front of the creature, barring its way, and were pelting it with magic. The seniors were keeping the monster busy, creating gaps for the freshmen mages in the rear to cast spells. Many of the students were already injured, and some were being pulled to the back as they could not fight any longer.
As Kai observed the monster, he heard someone beside him.
"It's a Rank 2 Gold Core monster, a Hollowed Abomination."
Kai looked at the source of the voice. Syiu was standing there with a staff in her hand. She seemed worn out standing behind the mage line. Kai nodded at her.
“I woke up hearing the explosion and was going to find the professors along with this group. I was lucky not to meet such a monster alone.”
“Yeah… how do you know about the monster?”
Syiu shrugged
“They teach all about these in the monster introduction course.”
“I see. Do you think we’ll win?”
Grimacing, she looked at the students fighting.
“Not if we can’t defend against it’s pulse attack, that attack has already taken down quiet a few of the students and we cant keep it in place.”
As if the abomination heard her, it gathered the mana around it and blasted it outward, creating a pulse of mana that smashed anyone near it. One of the seniors, too close to it, couldn't move away quickly enough and got blasted, smashing against the walls. The monster rushed toward the mages. The students panicked and fled, rushing to move away from it.
Kai pulled Gram along and moved to the side of the hall. The abomination rushed past where he was, smashing a student who was too slow to move and viciously tore at him. The monster swiped at another student, disemboweling him completely, and rampaged in the narrow hall.
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The students were dying too fast to put up resistance after the front-line had broken. Only one of the seniors was attacking it, dodging its attacks and swiping at its legs. Kai had already moved into a room through the broken walls. He couldn't take any other route; they were too long-winded and would also have monsters in them, and he wasn't keen on taking one on by himself. Gram was already scared and clutching his fists tightly. Syiu had followed him into the room, avoiding the monster. She seemed calm in comparison.
“Does it have any weakness?”
She looked at him and then shook her head.
“No, none that we can take advantage of. We aren’t mages attuned to light attribute”
“It’s afraid of light?”
"Yes it's a creature of the night, and a sufficiently powerful light attack will burn it and weaken it a lot. But, as I said, light attribute is rare, and none of us is a mage either."
Kai racked his brain to find a way to get away from here. He didn’t know any light spells to damage the abomination and the situation was too bad to run as well. The abomination would surely catch them. As if a light bulb went off in his head he asked Syiu.
“Whats the symbol for light?”
“I don’t know, we haven’t learned a lot of symbols. We’ve been studying only for a week you know.”
As they were planning, the wall blasted apart as the senior who had been keeping the abomination busy flew into the room. His left arm was missing, and a large gash bled constantly along his chest. Despite that, he was holding a sword firmly in his hand. A strange glow emitted from his body as the blood loss stopped and he stood up, almost wobbly. Noticing them, he shouted,
“RUN, I’LL HOLD IT BACK!”
The monster had already walked into the room. Seeing so many prey still alive it rushed at them. Noticing Kai and the others not moving, the senior with a determined look rushed at the monster, his entire body and blade taking on a crimson hue.
“Alright then.”
Kai had no time to look at the fight, He pulled on the mana and cast a barrier around the three of them in a hurry. Turning to gram, he saw the boy was frightened beyond belief. While Kai had learned to keep his cool at all times from childhood, Gram had not. Kai shook his friend and urged.
“Gram, whats the symbol for light? Come on, bud, I need you here!”
Gram shifted a little and replied,
“I think the symbol for light is Phanós, it looks like this”
Gram hastily drew the symbol on the floor with his finger. Kai looked at the boy. Gram really was born to be a researcher. He had learned quiet a few more symbols than the two of them.
The fight in front of them had reached it’s peak with the senior bleeding from multiple cuts. Still the glow around him was holding for now, whatever it was. Kai’s hastily deployed barrier was also holding against the pulses and flying debris. Taking their chances from inside the barrier Gram and Syiu were also casting the occasional fireball towards the monster.
Concentrating on the symbol, he pulled a stream of mana from the necklace and concentrated it slowly on his palm. The symbol was complex and multifaceted, unlike the symbol for fire. He did not add any other symbol to it; he was incapable of adding anything else.
Almost straining to hold the image of the symbol in his mind, he shaped it all at once. That way, all the mana would amplify the light. And the spell shape problem… well, when did light have a definite shape? As the symbol reached completion, Kai packed it with almost a fifth of the mana in the necklace and shouted in front.
“CLOSE YOUR EYES! I’M GOING TO CAST A LIGHT SPELL!”
As Kai released the mana, the symbol glowed ethereal for a moment and then burst into a bright, almost burning, blinding light. Kai could see the light even with his eyes closed. The senior, although taken by surprise, had heard him and had decisively closed his eyes and moved toward the abomination.
The monster's shrill scream was so loud that Kai felt not only blinded but also equally disoriented. When he finally opened his eyes, the broken room was silent. Charred and cracked, the abomination looked barely moving and on its last legs. The senior had moved closer and smashed its head apart in that instant. Still, the abomination thrashed headless and finally succumbed to its burns.
[You have killed a Rank-2 Gold- Hollow Abomination]
“You actually created a spell on the spot...And that barrier spell, where did you learn that?”
Kai didn’t answer, looking around he saw the senior who had held the abomination back laying at the side. He had taken quite a large hit to deliver that last strike to the head.
“Thank you, uhh... sir.”
“No need to thank me, cough….cough… I’m not dying don’t worry, I have an artifact to keep me alive long enough for help to come. I’m Aram, that was some spell there. I’d be dead if not for your help.”
“I’m Kaiser, please call me Kai, this is my friend Gram and This girl here is Syiu. We were thinking of moving from here as the sounds might have attracted other abominations”
Letting out a pained growl, Aram slowly stood up as his bleeding stopped, the glow surrounding him subsiding. Checking himself, he grimaced.
“Where will you guy’s be going? The halls aren’t safe as we can see.”
Kai shrugged
“We should still head to the Staff quarters And hopefully we won’t encounter another one of those. If we do, I’ll keep the light spell ready to be cast at a moment.”
Syiu chimed in at that moment.
“That should do, you don’t need to cast all of them at full strength. I have a lens artifact for telling the ranks of monsters. If we move carefully and spot the Abominations from far, I’ll tell you their ranks. Any thing below 2nd rank wouldn’t need even a quarter of the mana of your light spell.”
Finalizing their decision, they set out for the Staff quarters to find one of the professors. Walking through the corpses, Gram and Syiu looked almost pale. After a while, they had finally reached the Staff quarters. On their way there, Kai had to cast light three times. Luckily, they were all Rank-1 Abominations, unable to bear even a minimized light spell.
Entering the quarters, they found traces of magic and a grand fight. The walls were caved in, and the rooms seemed like a hurricane had impacted them. Making their way through the debris, they went deeper in.
At some point, Aram had stopped walking, and Kai and the others followed suit, looking around. Gram, mustering up courage, asked, "What happened?"
“I hear footsteps...”
Instantly, the others quieted down and concentrated on the surrounding sound. Sure enough, they heard footsteps, and the sound was getting louder. Someone was coming their way. As they waited, soon a figure appeared from around the corner. It was Professor Aionos!