My back arched violently, forced by the strong bonds in my body, so vulnerable, the pain passed through the palm of his hands directly over my body, it ran down my spine like an electric current, and my muscles contracted in uncontrollable spasms, stiffening like ropes about to snap. Every part of wanted to scream but couldn’t, sinister guffaws escaped from his mouth before he pressed down on with devastating force, leaving empty, like an abandoned husk.
Once.
Twice.
Like an echo reverberating throughout my body, vibrating beyond the physical, as if my very soul were cracking. My sword, which I barely managed to hold with numb fingers, slipped from my grip, clinking faintly against the floor stained with the blood that had escaped my mouth. I didn’t feel the cold of the tal moving away from , nor could I feel my legs.
Not long after, one by one, my senses began to fade. The tallic taste of blood as it bit my tongue filled my mouth as I tried to resist the urge to lose consciousness. The world around dissolved into blurs of shadow and noise, each beat of my heart echoing like a war drum in my ears, but quickly that sound faded.
Barely aware of reality and the ti that had passed in the struggle not to fall, my eyes half-opened for the last ti.
And then I saw her.
I held his face so close to that I could feel his hot breath against my icy skin. Then his lips ford an insane twisted smile that was sowhere between disgusting and frightening, from his unfocused eyes a glint of lust and perversity that was impossible to forget. With his gaze he watched my suffering with joy as one who contemplates a work of art. With gentle movents, which were repulsive to , he stuck out his tongue, similar to that of a creature, and licked his lips, behind that human face, his perverse thoughts were visible.
I tried to move, to try to shatter the shadows that bound , but my body didn’t respond. I couldn’t move it anymore.
The darkness closed in relentlessly with the weight of my eyelids, driving into unconsciousness. The last thing I felt was his laughter: low, guttural, vibrating in the air like poison.
From a distance, Cyan’s body could be seen lying inert on the ground.
***
『Alia’s Perspective』
Erwing and Cyan had been acting strangely for a while now. It wasn’t just a feeling I felt; even Aziel seed to notice, but we decided to ignore it for the mont. Although that was before they were told they had to go to the bathroom. We exchanged a brief, silent glance as we watched them walk away through the festival crowd. Even so, I didn’t forget to tell them not to take too long, that we would be waiting for them.
Minutes passed.
"Hey, Aziel..." Alia’s voice broke the silence, thick with annoyance, "don’t you think they’ve taken too long?"
Aziel simply nodded, his expression as always showing no visible change, although his eyes betrayed a hint of concern.
"Let’s go find them," Alia suggested impatiently.
"Okay," Aziel agreed, his tone low and determined.
We entered the Nova’s side paths a little further away from the festival, where the light from the lanterns was beginning to fade, and the sounds of laughter and music faded away. Here, the atmosphere was different: calr and quieter. The bustle dissipated between the shadows of the closed stalls and gardens.
The ground was covered with old materials and bags, food scraps, and fallen decorations. The sll of damp wood, rotting trash, and wet earth perated the air. This part wasn’t as pleasant, perhaps because the students had been throwing trash and useless materials there. Today, things were a bit untidy due to the festival; tomorrow, everything would surely be very clean.
Suddenly, amidst the pile of rubbish, sothing moved.
Aziel reacted imdiately, reaching for the hilt of his sword, which, even on a day like today, he hadn’t forgotten. I, for my part, felt my heart stop for a mont. I approached cautiously, trying to better distinguish the figure among the trash.
When I was close enough, my eyes recognized the tangled hair and the untidy jacket.
"Erwing!" I shouted, forgetting the manners I had cultivated so long.
Without hesitation, I launched myself at him, ignoring the filth and foul odor now perating my uniform. I grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him out of the pile, shaking him vigorously. When he didn’t react, concern got the better of : I slapped him soundly.
"Ow!" Erwing groaned, jerking awake and placing a hand on his cheek. Since Erwing was strong, I had no choice but to cover my hand with my hand, even though my nature mixed with it, leaving a painted palm all over his cheek.
His eyes, glassy and lost, blinked several tis before focusing on . He had the lost expression of soone who didn’t know whether to feel relieved or still be scared.
"Why did you hit so hard?" he protested, rubbing his face.
"Finally awake. I thought you were going to sleep there all night," I snapped, half relieved, half irritated.
"’There’?" he repeated, dazed, before looking around. His confusion beca more evident as he sat up awkwardly, shuffling through the trash. "What... what am I doing here?"
"That’s exactly what we wanted to ask you," Alia said, crossing her arms.
"Don’t you rember anything?" Aziel asked, approaching with a frown.
Erwing closed his eyes for a mont, trying to rember.
"The last thing I rember was being with Cyan..." His voice suddenly broke. Where’s Cyan?!
Before we could react, Erwing leaped to his feet, stumbling, and started running. Without thinking, we followed, his back moving quickly through the corners of the place.
We entered a less lit path, leaving behind the last faintly flickering magic lantern. The grounds sloped down to a small, beautifully landscaped garden area with a beautiful fountain, far from the main festival areas. There, under the moonlight, the lawn stretched silently, untouched, as if ti itself had welcod it.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
The garden was completely empty... but with my keen senses, I could glimpse residues of mana and an unknown energy floating in the air: currents of it dispersed, vibrating like taut threads in the atmosphere. The air was thick and unsettling, as if a battle had recently erupted.
Aziel had apparently noticed as well, and took a few steps forward, his hand still on the hilt of his sword, his senses clearly on alert.
"Here..." he murmured, narrowing his eyes. "A Domain has opened here."
My throat imdiately went dry.
A Domain... only warriors of A rank or higher were capable of summoning one. And it wasn’t a harmless act: opening a Domain ant fighting, capturing, or destroying, and only a warrior with a Domain could defeat another. And if what I’m thinking is true... I shook my head, not even he would be foolish enough to confront soone in his Domain.
...where was he?
Erwing looked around desperately, his eyes reflecting a growing anxiety. He seed about to shout her na into the wind, if only to calm himself.
I felt that anguish too, as if sothing invisible was watching us from the darkest corners of that garden.
Sothing had happened here.
Sothing we still didn’t understand.
We walked around, exploring every corner of the garden and hallways, looking for any useful clue, but we didn’t find a single trace of Cyan. The atmosphere still held that swirling magic, like invisible smoke perating the air, but there were no physical clues, no obvious signs of where he might have gone.
We knew one thing for sure: if he had fought in this place, he couldn’t be far away. The academy campus practically blocked off most of the facilities during festivals to prevent students or outsiders from getting lost in dangerous areas. He had to still be here, sowhere.
But where the hell had he moved?
"Oh, wait..." Erwing slapped his forehead with a look of sudden enlightennt. We could track his cell phone! He still uses that old model, right? It shouldn’t be that hard to find.
"Yes..." Aziel murmured, though he sounded skeptical, as if he didn’t believe it would be that simple.
Alia, who until that mont had remained silently analyzing the environnt, sighed. She who, unlike us, had great experience in that part.
Alia, although she has noble blood on her mother’s side, is also the well-known "Little Princess" of Dawn, one of the strongest and most prestigious guilds of the continent, in her life she had lived with all kinds of talents: trackers, blacksmiths, hunters, and even assassins. At her father’s request and by their will, who pampered her since she was a child, had taught her a thing or two, that’s why Alia had grown up with an excecibated confidence in her abilities.
Without saying anything else, Alia reached into one of her uniform pockets and pulled out a curious object: a pair of thin-frad, matte black glasses with runic engravings that were barely visible if you looked closely.
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