"So, how did you do it, Adam?" Eric asked again. The temperature around us seemed to drop after those words were uttered. His face still had a smile but his eyes didn't. As I let the silence stretch his mouth twitched.
"I don't know, maybe my circuits aren't clogged. Arcana comes easily to me and I don't need to struggle. It has been like this ever since I was young" I lied through my teeth.
After those words the tension seemed to ease a little bit. The hairs on my hair relaxed, and the static that was building up around me disappeared.
The sixth circle guy was about to make a move. Had my words been later than just now, a battle would have broken out it seems
"Hmmm. Just talent then" said Eric with a his eyes closed. When he opened his eyes, his smile disappeared, his eyes grew colder and his voice dropped by an octave.
"I hope you are not lying to me Adam Michaelson" he said. "Now then, I guess you should get back to whatever you were doing am I right..... hahaha" he added his stupid smile now plastered on his face. His eyes still didn't smile they were still cold, lifeless as if he had no regard for whatever was happening. With those words he walked away from where we were and turned to another alley not far from me. The other presences also disappeared except for the sixth circle's presence.
I didn't look bad towards him and simply walked towards the academy. When I stood infront of the academy side gate the presence had disappeared as well. I pushed open the Academy gates, the usual glamour of the place almost invisible beneath the thick plumes of divine essence swirling through the air. It clung to everything, thick as fog, oppressive. My lips twisted, this much divine essence… What were they trying to do, summon a god or something?
I sighed and walked toward the dorms with Celestia's luggage in mind, but something tugged at my instincts. My steps shifted almost on their own, guiding me toward the occult club's building, its presence was pulsing with divine essence. That was my cue. I walked quietly through the courtyard, the lamps barely visible through the mist of divine energy. The building loomed like a patient beast, and as I stepped inside, the divine essence swelled around me.
"Life Detect," I whispered as arcana rumbled inside me
Nothing. Not a single soul inside, odd. Very odd
No one is conducting the ritual?
I moved deeper into the structure, through creaking corridors and air thick with incense and something more sinister. Four doors lay at the end of a hallway. One of them, the second door bled divine essence like a wounded god.
That one.
I touched the knob, it clicked open with an eerie smoothness. The room was dimly lit by amber lanterns, but my eyes went straight to the altar in the center. A basin, carved from iron, rested atop it. Inside, was blood.
Real blood, I have a stinking feeling that it belongs to a human.
The air buzzed with latent divinity, the smell coppery and old. The blood was depleting slowly, unnaturally, and more divine essence hissed upward as it did.
I clicked my tongue. "Just like that old bastard who killed me…" I muttered. "They want to be gods that bad? and who taught them such a ritual? "
I stepped closer, held my hand above the basin. Instantly, the divine essence surged toward me like moths to flame. It stuck to my palm and then poured into me, a wave of euphoria washed over me. The circles engraved around my heart convulsed. Then a sudden pain gripped me, it was agony. The divine essence erupted inside me, more violent than a supernova. My knees hit the floor as my body buckled.
My skin peeled as if burning by fire, my vision blurred. A circle, the seventh, began etching itself across my heart, as if a finger had been dipped in molten light and was drawing on it, I screamed and the room exploded in arcs of glowing blue and gold. Then silence permeated the room.
The bowl lay empty. Heat blossomed from my chest. I felt it expand outward, into muscle, bone, and sinew. My cells vibrated with power, my bones cracked and muscles expanded and contracted rapidly then stillness.
I'd done it. The Seventh Circle had formed. I gasped, the pain vanishing as quickly as it had come. My breath steamed in the cold air. Power… it felt warm, yet familiar. Like a long-lost part of myself had been returned but that feeling…
My eyes narrowed, someone… was watching me. I looked at the altar. Divine essence still lingered, but subtly different. It carried a scent, a spiritual fingerprint I have never seen or felt. It felt foreign.
I whispered "That signature…". "I have stayed in here far too long and, I must have alerted the master of this place"
I stood up and made my way out of the room. My heart still trembled as the circle still tried to settle.
he divine mist above the Academy swirled violently after I stood up and the alter seemed to tremble visibly. The room itself started trembling and some dust and debris started falling from the roof.
I dashed out of the room, out the hallway down the corridor and finally I jumped out of the club building. I rolled on the concret pavement and just lay there looking up at the sky, which was now clearing of the divine essence. I stood up after a few breaths of time looked at the Occult club's building which had stopped shaking.
Odd
When suddenly
"How dare you stand where you stand. You stand upon hollowed ground" Shouted a gruff voice behind me even stranger still it sounded very familiar.
"Definitely Stennwald"
Then with flair I clapped my hands together and a shockwave pushed and sent the three men away.
Then with a chuckle, I stepped towards the hooded men. "Hollowed ground you say? According to whom?"