A/N: It's chapter 15, fork over some reviews if you want mo' chapters boyos. It's time to channel my WN author now that I've returned to my usual pace. Get this to 250 Powerstones and I'll drop the next chapter early.
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"What was that spell you used back there?"
We walked down a rotting corridor, eyes moving from door to fallen door just in case those things decided to come back out of nowhere. I'd have discarded my Mystic Eye Killers entirely if not for their strain in such a mana-rich environment. It was unfortunate, but I couldn't really complain.
Yvette feigned a dramatic gasp, "You don't ask a lady her secrets so bluntly, you know? But, since it's you, I'll tell~." She put a finger against her ruby eye. "This is what is known as an artificial Mystic Eye. I told you before my family specialises in making them. Like other Mystic Eyes, these are single-action spells too. Why? Are you enthralled~?"
She reached into the pocket of her lolita frock and pulled half a dozen more gemstones of all colors. Then, calm and playful as ever, she suggested something completely outrageous, "I have a lot of them. You want one? But you'll have to give me an eye too~."
"I'd... rather not."
"Shucks~." She deflated, arms hanging limp. But, suddenly piped back up. "Now, that I've told you what mine do, you share too."
I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at that. Not even Luviagelita knew the precise details of that. Nobody did, except Professor Waver of course and I was inclined to heed his advice regarding this. So, as naturally as I breathed,
"They help me process information faster."
I lied.
She tilted her head at that. "Eh, so it's basically like that one spell alchemists use. I see how that could be useful." Then, she picked up a blue stone and twirled it in her fingers. "Coincidentally, this is Iolite... You wanna know what it does?"
Eyeing the wall like it's slowly rotting wood was the most interesting thing in the world, I sighed.
"Sure."
"It lets me detect and sense magical energy... to a degree, it lets me 'see' it." She dropped that bomb in the sweetest voice possible. "I was using this when you first came to class. I was sooo startled~. Well, I was also watering at the mouth but those are small details!"
...
...
...
Bitch.
I snorted dryly. She'd caught the lie long before my stupid ass even spouted it. But, I didn't feel too bad. There was no way for me to have seen this coming. Except, she was from a family obsessed with this type of stuff. The modus operandi of a typical magus didn't inspire much confidence.
For a moment, I considered blowing her head off right there.
"Uwa~, don't give me that scary look, I'll get we-..." She squirmed with her hands locked together. "But, I don't blame you. I am a spy sent by Lord Meluastea after all, for the El-Melloi classroom. My lord was quite interested, now he's even more interested because of how much interest those filthy Democrats are taking in you."
We came up against another set of double doors just as she finished her words. Two display cases stood on either side. In one, there was a life-sized depiction of an angel holding balanced scales in one hand and a flaming sword in the other. The grey stone was cracked and worn like much of the mansion and a glance revealed there was nothing special about the statue. The display case opposite it was simply missing, the dais was cracked and splotched with that disgusting goo from before all over.
"What the hell is this dark souls bullshit?" I couldn't help but speak my mind. For a moment, I even forgot about the stuff Yvette was spouting earlier. Cautiously, I reinforced my fists... and my chest, just in case.
"...Be not afraid."
I jumped... then realised it was Yvette and almost clocked her. The one eyed witch giggled into her palm, eye closed.
"We'll talk about the foreboding stuff you were saying when we're out of here. For now, I'll have your back, you have mine."
"Sir yes, sir!" She saluted excitedly. "Might I interest you in the word of our lord?"
"Shut."
Yvette giggled more. Evidently, she didn't think much of the situation despite the fact those shades alone would have overwhelmed us. If we followed a typical plot, then what awaited behind these doors would be far worse.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and put my hands against the wood. It was itchy, chafed and crumbled slightly when touched. With a push, the doors creaked open, one even fell. What I saw inside was both ideal and ominous.
It was an empty hall. There was a raised circular platform right in the centre under a skylight designed to cast the shadow of six unfurled wings on a tiled floor that shared the pattern in black stone. There were eleven pillars surrounding us, two on one side, seven on another, then the last two at the front and the back, one each. They held up a second floor lined with rows and rows of dusty shelves stuffed with thick tomes.
Each of the eleven pillars bore an odd symbol in a language I couldn't place. I raised my aviators and only saw lingering mana on the verge of fading completely, nothing that spelt active. Cautiously, I stepped to the central platform and saw a pressure plate.
"This IS a fucking boss room!" I shouted indignantly.
Yvette strolled into the hall, humming. "Stop saying silly things~."
"This is why Luviagelita is better than you." I shot back.
She definitely would have gotten that reference. I was willing to bet good money on that fact.
Yvette grumbled harmlessly, eying the rest of the hall with a strange glint in her eye. "There was a ritual here."
"Quite the astute observation my dear Watson."
"Hehe... I try." She shamelessly scratched the back of her head. "Anyway, you remember the Professor's lesson on how being widely believed stabilises mysteries right?"
I nodded my head.
Grinning, she spun around. "Well, what's one of the greatest mysteries alive in the 21st century?"
Ah...
"Yes, my dear Sherlock! It is Christianity. The Holy Word. We magi have little use for such things as religion but the power of belief is undeniable. So, expectedly, stuff like this is pretty trendy among magi now. It does carry a lot of power."
I glanced back at the hall, the wings, the eleven pillars, and then back at the pressure plate in front of me.
"So, he tried to make a miracle." I realised.
"The greatest of blasphemies. But, nothing for a magus." She echoed.
"That still doesn't explain what went wrong here though."
With a smirk, Yvette put a hand on her hips and pointed the other at the words engraved all over the balcony railings.
"That's Hebrew. It says Gavri'el."
"Gabriel." I murmured.
"Six Wings. Archangel. Two pillars to denote his rank. Eleven to denote his number... in a roundabout way. I don't get the Seven though." She hummed, head tilted.
Honestly, having to think this hard was NOT why I signed up for this. But, there was no active spell here so my eyes were effectively useless for deciphering this. With no other option left, I racked my brain for the countless hours spent trolling people on the internet, searching up the most useless of bits and pieces about literally everything. Thousands of reddit threads flashed in my mind. A thousand pictures of gore. A million ragebaits.
"Don't think too hard, you'll hurt your head~."
"Fuck you."
Finally, after a good few minutes of thought, I came up on it. From an argument I read between two extremist religious nutjobs on Reddit.
"Gabriel can denote passage. The unfolding of God's plans. The end of an era and the beginning of another."
That would... explain the time-dilation in place. It was still well within the realm of magecraft because it was realistically possible to make something 'age' faster within an engineered environment.
Yvette clapped her hands, cheering.
I narrowed my eyes and continued, "So, he tried to invoke the miracle of an Archangel for... passage? Passage to..."
Suddenly, it clicked. Yvette realised it too by the way her eye lit up.
"The Root."
The end goal of all magi research, a passage to the Root, the literal root of all creation. It seemed like a stupid goal if you thought about how it ripped everyone to shit if interacted with but eh... I wasn't going to kink shame.
"What went wrong then?" I murmured.
"Well, I doubt doing something like that was easy... and it wasn't guaranteed to work either."
I eyed the writing on the rails again, raising my aviators, and immediately noticed that half the circle was written literally in reverse. So, it was really blasphemy. The very essence of Black Magic. Distorting the power of the Holy Word.
What was the opposite of an angel?
"A demon."
"A daemon?" Yvette followed.
Resolving myself, I stepped on the pressure-plate. Flames swirled around my arms, ready to shoot out at a moment's notice and lightning danced on my fingertips. That proved to be unnecessary. All the pressure plate did was make some gears move under the floor.
Then, rusted cages with thick bars rose from the tiled floor, each one directly in front of a pillar. Inside them, decaying corpses that didn't distinctly lacked the pungent stench that should have been there. Bony fingers gripped at the rusted iron, as if trying to break free.
Honestly, this was way more ominous than whatever the fuck Gurdoa was up to.
"Those are adults." Yvette noted, stumbling back just a bit. She quickly reoriented herself and put up a strong front... or well tried to, I could tell she was somewhat startled.
"A sacrifice ritual then."
Both of us knew full well that it being a sacrifice-based ritual did not explain in any way how it went wrong. Or, if it even worked to begin with. This place was clearly mingling with greater forces no lone magus should've been capable of interacting with to begin with.
"Maybe we'll find the explanation in one of the books up there?" Yvette pointed a thumb at the second floor. Honestly... I was inclined to agree even if it would be the most boring thing ever.
With a groan, I started making my way over to the stairs leading up.
"'kay, found it~. Here's his research journal."
What the fuck?
"What the fuck?"
"It was just lying on the floor near the stairs. I mean, it's pretty obvious he wasn't planning for this considering he... uh, died. Most magi keep one."
Quietly, I accepted the circumstances and took it from her hands, careful so as not to damage it. The pale cover had withered away and almost broke when I turned the first page. With even more care, I scanned the pages, turning them over as Yvette wandered down the stairs, back to my side.
Our suspicions were mostly confirmed, he spoke about the zodiac Cancer in a side-not but I didn't have the information to decipher the correlation. The answer towards the ritual going haywire came next and... I did not like it one bit.
"He got his hands on some Church research... somehow." I shared. Yvette perked up immediately but came no closer, waiting for me to speed along. "Those people... He tampered with them mentally and tortured them to make them experience intense desires that he engineered."
In this mana-rich environment, propped up by half a dozen mana batteries underground... that gave birth to something. Something that apparently typically came into being based on the desires of humans.
"He engineered a daemon, then tried to assign it the nature of Gabriel's miracle of passage by nature of birth."
I inhaled deeply.
So, the daemon was supposed to carry him to the root, or open a path?
Suddenly, all the pieces clicked.
Holy shit could humans be stupid. It was stupid to think that something like that could be controlled, to invoke Gabriel with it was just straight asking to get fucked raw by horse dic-
The daemon born from his captives, instead of passage, latched onto the end of eras... or rather, the passage of time. With nothing else to know, It sped up everything in its area of influen-... oh well, shit. We were in a fucking domain expansion.
I turned to Yvette, "We need to lea-..."
My words caught in my throat.
Why would that happen you wonder?
Well... I knew now why that second statue was missing.
Behind Yvette, stood a sullen statue, made out of white stone and with not a singular stain on it, nor crack. A young man in a flowing robe. Except, its eyes were pitch black. The massive wings behind it shimmered... but, its body stood still... well, that was until its head tilted abnormally to the side, and black goo spilled from its open mouth.
"Bruh-... Yvette... uhh, darling, don't move."
Yvette looked at me with a teary eye.
"Why do you think I've been quiet all this time?!"
She cried in a whisper.
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Hope you enjoyed.
The research for this was downright exhausting. My head is spinning. The least you can do is gib some feedback. Pretty please?
You can find a couple chapters ahead at patre0n.com/Bleap
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