75 Chapter 75 - Winter Party II: Deadly Dance

[Cynthia Goodsky POV]

I was in my office, signing some paperwork. Since the disciplinary committee was formed and the strictness of the guards they do increased, my secondary job as Xyrus Academy's protector seemed to have diminished. Before them, there was always a chance that some spy would come along, but now, it looks like they were being more careful in their actions, which is great, considering we still have some student spies that are being controlled by the Vrit-.. by the Leywin boy.

"I still think giving him so much freedom was one of the worst options." Avier, my wyvern, commented, standing on top of my desk and in his owl form.

"I don't think we need to worry so much. Do you remember how much we needed to do patrols before to keep the academy safe? Now they're taking care of it." I answered him, finishing signing the paperwork.

"Yeah, that's good. But there's still that little group of mindless servants of his. Last time you told me to watch them, I saw them obeying that boy to the letter. It gives me a shiver to think that with just one word from him, they can all kill themselves. Is there no chance he could do the same to ordinary, innocent students?" Avier made a great point, which made me scratch my chin a little, until I had a correct answer, or I could say, the answer that made me most comfortable.

"His body is from a direct son of Agrona, from what he explained to me, and as Agrona has mind manipulation skills, that was obvious... besides, he has that demon inside him, so I feel like, If he wanted to do something like what you're saying, he would have done it to me from the first day I saw him at the Helstea house." With that answer, my bond finally sighed in defeat, I don't blame him, a person as powerful as that boy really is someone that normally no one would trust as a good person.

A few minutes passed and Avier began to shake his head strangely as he looked out the window at the landscape. "Cynthia, I feel the presence of unwanted people around."

"What? How many?" I asked already taking my staff and opening the window.

"A total of 15 people, by their aura, have a chance that they are all alacryans or dicathens who have received spellrunes. They are all together near the outermost area of ​​our territory. And none of them look familiar."

"Okay, as the winter party is going on, I want you to stay flying over the ballroom. In the meantime I'll check the situation." I replied as I released a wind impulse spell, launching myself into the sky.

"Take care." My bond replied, while flying to the ballroom.

Landing on the lawn, a little away from my tower, I began to run in the direction that Avier indicated, using another spell, I began to try to locate the invaders in a more complex way.

"Sound Pulse." Pulses of sound mana began to surge around me and just as they returned to me, I had an improved view of what was in the distance. I noticed some people thrown to the ground while others seemed to be fighting with someone, but it was strange, instead of seeing the shape of this specific person, I saw a sphere, maybe this person had a sound mana protection... That is..

"It's him..." I said to myself as I managed to get closer to the scene.

The Vritra boy was alone fighting 10 other mages, the fact that they only used spellrunes meant they were alacryans or dicathens who didn't have common spells strong enough. There were 4 other mages lying on the ground, they all looked like they were dead, with big rose thorns sticking out of their sternum, their eyes were white and black goo was coming out of their mouths.

The vice captain of the disciplinary committee had colored hair, with one eye glowing yellow and the other having the same of his hair color. There were semi-transparent purple horns on the left side of his skull, and he carried two swords in both hands, one had a very long metallic blade and the other looked like a perfect mix between a regular sword and a rapier.

"Firewall!" "Water Wall!" "Barrier sphere!"

Three of the ten enemy mages seemed to use their spellrunes to limit the battle space, luckily, I ended up inside that pseudo arena.

"Ice Crystal!" "Bullet Hell!" "Earth Trip!"

Three other mages used their spells, hurling projectiles at the boy, who simply laughed and started to dodge them. It was impressive to say the least, his body was surrounded by black lightning and his movements made him look like a shadow, a smudged smoke.

"Quadra Tornado!" I decided to interfere in the fight, launching four mini hurricanes in the direction of the mages who created the projectiles, I ended up hitting two of them squarely, while the one that launched Ice Crystal ended up dodging.

"Hm. Hello Granny. Are you here to play with those filthy mice?" the boy said as I came into view of everyone there, in a fighting pose, ready to cast another spell with my staff.

"The other traitor! Let's finish them off!!"

"Still be careful against the brat! He managed to take down our Sentry and 3 of our Strikers!"

They started talking to each other, while the shield mages seemed to increase their defenses, now to defend themselves rather than limit the arena.

"So their Sentry was killed already? That's perfect." I thought, smirking as the boy next to me began to create bluish -almost white- flames.

Alacryans normally receive one to two spellrunes in the smallest of cases, and because they specified themselves in these specific spells, they were categorized in different ways. Strikers are the ones who specialize in direct and very aggressive attacks, Shields have the main function of protecting Strikers, but in this case, they were now trying to protect the whole team. Sentry is a type of mage that specializes in detection spellrunes, the fact that they already lost the only one they had, made them go into a last minute defensive state.

There are also Casters, who specialize in spellrunes that resemble Conjurer spells, while lastly, there are Instillers, who specialize in spells to enchant equipment. From the amount of their shiny gear, it was assumed that they either had an Installer with them, or their Installer didn't come for this invasion.

"I won't let you try anything, worms." Luz said, taking me out of my train of thought a bit, as he pointed at one of them using his long-bladed sword.

"Aelio Fire." The blade began to glow bright gold with a spiral of wind surging around it. This made several of the enemies panic, as they had never heard of such a magic, even I was confused, there was fire in the name of that spell, but what would it really do...?

"BULLET HELL!"

"Hey! Stop, your spell will weaken the shield!"

One of the Casters panicked at the sight of that unknown spell, so he decided to use a spellrune to attack while the young boy's spell was not complete, but apparently it was too late.

The numerous fire projectiles tried to hit the sword, but strangely, all the flames were sucked into that sword, as I noticed magic circles appearing around us.

"W-what is this?!?!"

"Barrier Sphere!" They seemed to panic again, intensifying a shield that was around them, but then I noticed a strange thing...

"Why are they panicking? Normally they would attack with all their might not caring if they were alive or not.... What's changed?" It was my thought, until that spell was finally done.

From those magic circles, a large sphere of blue fire emerged that began to shoot non-stop in the direction of our enemies. I stood there in shock, seeing the three protection spellrunes being broken easily and several of them being hit in vital points.

However, two of them seemed to have survived, having used their companions as human shields. One of them started to run away while the other held tight a broadsword. I ran towards the one who ran away, but the big guy tried to stop me.

"Slash Dominum!" His broadsword flashed and tried to pierce me, but soon the boy seemed to step between me and the large enemy, gripping his sword blade with both hands imbued with soulfire.

"W-what?!?"

"Go on, Granny. I'll finish this bug here." He smirked as I continued to run towards the fleeing enemy.

"Skylight Tornado." I used a wind spell that created whirlpools at my feet and began my pursuit. Strangely, my prey didn't seem to have that many skills, maybe he really was the Installer of the enemy group.

"None Weight." He activated a well-known spellrune, allowing him to become lighter, and by consequence, faster. Unfortunately for him, I managed to reach him, aiming my staff at him.

"Sound H-Pitch!" From my staff, I fired a sound spell that caused a strong pain in the enemy's ears, causing him to lose his balance and crash against a tree during his escape.

"Arg! Please! By the Great Lord! Don't come near me!!!" He screamed in fear, but I soon cast a wind spell against him that trapped him in the tree, in addition to covering his own mouth.

I was approaching him, my expression was purely annoyed by these situations in my territory. His eyes started to fill with tears, already very close to him, that's when I noticed a small detail in his clothes.

"Wait.. That's it... That's a-"

"A visual transmission artifact." the basilisk boy replied, causing me to be surprised and then I looked at him.

His face and arms were smeared with blood... But wait, he wasn't that dirty before.. Could this be because he fought that Striker while I was chasing the Installer...?

"How did you... Did you know that?" I asked the most obvious question, rather than asking how the little battle I left him to have alone went.

"Yes... The main reason I left the party was because I noticed this presence... That of someone watching me... My father is... watching me." He said this with his eyes completely yellow, I wasn't talking to Luz, I was talking to Sirius now.

"Wait... Father?... Is Agrona watching us right now?!" I exclaimed, because since my time in Alacrya, I had never heard of real-time visualization artifacts, usually the information was stored and then sent physically, especially considering the small size of that artifact.

"Yeah... This bastard is right now listening to us and seeing us... I bet that shit snake is just looking like a fool to see me alive..." The voice that was normally cheerful or playful, as if the situation had always been no big deal, now it was completely serious and dead. "Is not it?" He continued, now looking directly at the artifact

"You thought I was a failure... An experiment that could be thrown away..." He said, gripping the Installer tightly and then killed him by placing his hand on his forehead and conjuring a blade that came through his skull.

"But look... Your fragile son is here..." He said now removing the artifact from the corpse's clothes, staring at it, even though that look wasn't for me, I felt a tremendous shiver.

"I'm here... Waiting for the next step you'll take in this deadly dance... Or did you think you'd only dance with that stupid retarded old dragon?... Who are you prioritizing...? Your son... Or your old colleague...?" A sadistic smile appeared on his face, as if he already knew the answer and then he threw the artifact to the ground and crushed it with one foot in order to create a small crater.

We stood there silent for a few seconds until Sirius launched soulfire at the tree along with the alacryan mage, burning him to the bone, destroying the ashes and ending up with nothing left. My eyes glazed over the flame, it was too frightening for me, seeing that was like my instincts as a lesser, urged me to kneel in that scene, but I managed to stay on my feet.

Yes, it would be hard for someone like me, a HighSilverMage to say that, but it was the truth, unfortunately, I was a lesser compared to the kid in front of me. He could kill me any time he wanted, I even think it wouldn't make any difference my presence in this defense we made today. And on top of that, he spoke like that against one of the beings that make me shiver with fear just thinking about it, he literally showed that he saw powerful asuras as being garbage. But I don't know if he says that because he sees their actions as horrendous, or if he says that because he thinks they're weak.. Possibly the former.

"-thia... Cynthia!" I ended up snapping out of my thoughts when he spoke to me again.

"Is everything okay? You've been staring at the floor for a while." He spoke very worried about me... But why?

"Oh.. Was I staring?.. I'm sorry.. I've been thinking about something." I tried to answer.

"Well, you thought too much. I just went back to where the other bodies were and destroyed their traces using soulfire." He said, holding my right hand as if to check my pulse.

"Wait, how long have I been floating in thought?" I was just thinking, but I ended up expressing my doubt.

"About 10 minutes... Do you have a problem with soulfire? Any post-traumatic hallucinations or something?" He still showed great concern.

Why is he so worried about me?... That's when I remembered, he might be a half asura, but he's still half a lesser, and not only that, he sees me as an equal, because we're both traitors to Alacrya, abandoned by our original families, to live here in Dicathen.

"It was nothing... It's just that you shocked me by the way you spoke at that time... And your expression... It really chilled me even though I didn't see it completely" I finally answered him for real.

"I see.. I'm sorry, I was having an internal tantrum when I realized that that sick snake was watching me... I should never show that face of mine to someone like you... You, as an ally, should never deserve seeing me like that... Btw... I think I'll return to the party, people might be worried about me..."

"Okay... I asked Avier to fly around and circle the place in case the students needed extra help... But it seems that all the spies that were nearby came to us instead of the party..." I replied as I started walking. "I'll go back to my office."

"Until tomorrow then... Only in the afternoon I will leave the school to go to the Helstea house.. And after that.. I'll have that school trip." He said waving as I started walking towards the office. I even turned around to ask something, but he was no longer behind me.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

[Arthur Leywin POV]

After my brother's sudden disappearance, I ended up feeling Tess hugging me from behind and leading me back to the table our groups were at. As usual, I ended up sitting next to her. Theo, Elijah, Emily and Feyfey were with us, while I saw some dancing and others just standing talking to other students.

"Yoooo! This party is really lively. That song Luz sang is making a lot of people want to dance." Elijah said excited and a little sweaty for having been on the dance floor with Emily, who without a doubt was the one that surprised me the most with her clumsy dance steps.

"I agree... Hm... Feyfey, why didn't you go dancing?" I asked the only one at the table who hadn't danced.

Before he could respond, Tess gave me a light tug on the shoulder, and when I turned around to see what it was, she ended up putting a spoonful of pudding in my mouth. My whole face reddened and she just giggled which, honestly, I was starting to find cute.

"Oh, it's just that I'm not good at dances that aren't traditional elven. I'm even surprised how the band has more elves than other races and so far they've played nothing from our realm." Fey said, not annoyed but impressed that so far there hadn't been an elven song. But it was only when he spoke, that the band began to play a simple and caricatured elf song.

"You have a holy mouth sometimes, Fey." Theo said with a laugh while drinking a fruit juice.

"It's my time! I'll see if any of the elven girls want to dance with me, Feyrith Ivsaar III!" he said in that excited way that only I know him doing and then got up and walked away from our table.

"Want to go dancing again, Tess?" I asked her, but my elf just continued to give me pudding like I was a child.

"No. I'd rather stay with you... In fact... I'd like to continue the party in my room." she answered me whispering next to my ear, making me extremely blushing.

"Oooh! Are you planning something by any chance?" Emily noticed how red my face was, it made Tess's face redden up to the tips of her ears.

"For the way things are going, yes. Our favorite couple is planning something." Elijah complemented her comment, making my cheeks grow hotter.

"Um..." I tried to say something against it, but instead I was forced to stand up, with Tess pulling me by the shoulder. "Eh...?!"

"Art and I are going to go see some things, maybe you won't see us anymore today. So good night." She said it simply but still red in the face and started pulling me by the arm.

I could feel the envy of several of the boys who saw the scene, their gaze penetrated me as if they were all going to throw knives at me at a speed that simulates machine guns from my old world. Before I was pulled out of the ballroom, I ended up seeing my brother arriving, he was a little bloodied on his forehead and his hair was messy.

"Luz? What happened to you?" I asked, that made Tessia realize that too and stop pulling me... There are times I'm grateful that my brother is the type that looks hurt, but actually he is super fine.

"No big deal, a troublemaker tried to cause some shit near and then I took him to Cynthia's office." He replied, strangely his eyes were yellow. "Anyway, what are you going to do now? Are you going to be making out and rolling around in the grass by any chance?" he said that last bit very low, just for Tessia and I to hear.

"A-a-ah... We're going somewhere, see you tomorrow big brother!" And with that, Tessia started pulling me full speed ahead.

"Yo!!! Watch out there! We don't want a cactus Incident!!!" It was the last thing I could hear my brother say, reminding me of the times Virion threatened me with a cactus... Who threatens others with cactus?!? Just that old bat!!!

Being pushed more and more by Tess, I tried to use a sound spell to simulate an illusion spell, since normally, elves are the most proficient in this. It wasn't one of the best, but at least it served against those who weren't trying to look for something.

She didn't stop pulling me until we got to the front of the student council door, looking silly. "Wait.... Clive is probably there... This is going to be a problem... Is there anyone from the disciplinary committee who didn't make it to the party?" she asked me.

"Um.... Just Kai, but he's training in a room-"

"Perfect." She said and started pulling me up to the second floor and then into the disciplinary committee room. "What's your room?"

"Obviously the one with my name on.. But you're really thinking about it, Tess! Calm down, please!!!" I tried to get her to calm down a little at least.

It had been 2 months since we last had a "together moment", but it boiled down to just cuddling and kissing her cheek. So I couldn't understand why the fuck was she acting like that.

"I want to enjoy and take away any stress I have before our school trip... And tonight is possibly the last night we can be together before that." She said seriously, looking deep into my eyes and already started to invade my room while pulling me.

I could only watch Sylvie sleeping there and I was even more desperate. "Hey! Wait.. L-let me get Sylvie out of here!"

"You said before that she keeps calling me 'mama' in her mind, no?... It won't make a difference."

Fuuuuuuuuuuu-

I looked back at Sylvie and... She was smirking?!?! Wait! She is seeing all this!?! OH MY FUCKING GOD!

"Go mama! Get him!"

"Sylvie, get out of here now! AAAAAH!" I thought in absolute desperation, I didnt know wtf Tess would do to me this time, but I dont want to my daughter see this!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

[Kathyln Glayder POV]

I was drinking some juice, standing against the ballroom's front door, just waiting for Luz to show up. Soon I noticed some boys from noble families approaching me.

"Hello Princess Kathyln. How have you been?" said one of the boys.

"I am fine." I spoke directly, not looking at them.

"Really? I hear you work too hard on that rough crew." Another of the boys spoke up.

"Well, that's really what our group is all about... being rough... And no, I haven't worked too hard yet, in fact I feel like I'm working too little." I said that, thinking they were going to leave, but it didn't happen as expected.

"Oh? Really? I thought you were too busy talking to those commoners." The boy who started talking earlier said it again, giving me a slight twitch of anger.

"Commoners....?" I asked, to make sure I heard correctly.

"Yeah, I mean, this group you're in is led by two random country guys, and a bossy girl. I've heard that the boys are only there because they're in advanced mana-core stages, and in the girl's case it's because she is from the family of the leader of the adventurers' guild of Xyrus."

"Thinking about it, I think they didn't just put nobles like us to give the common people a chance." another one of them decided to continue the comment, they can't understand what they're talking about???

"Exactly, if it weren't for that, I feel like Curtis and You would be the leaders of this group."

"Excuse me...? What are you talking about?" I heard another voice that made me blush instantly.

"Only about those assholes who think they're better off being leaders and like royalty that should be in their shoes." That boy from the beginning spoke again as he turned around and noticed who he was talking to.

"Oh... Amazing... Now, could you get away from my dear friend, scums?" It was Luz, he was smeared with blood on his forehead, and his hair was messy, which made me worried.

"W-what did you say?" one of the other boys asked in shock at the way my love was at the moment.

"You heard right... Now, stop bothering her, or I'll beat you until your parents start laughing trying to decipher your faces..." He said still calmly.

"Y-you can't do that!" One of them exclaimed.

"Actually I can, simply because the way you speak can easily be interpreted as if you were from the human noble supremacist group... Which my group is absolutely allowed to beat up and take to the Director." He said still calmly while giving a sympathetic smile that even made me shiver.

"You have no power for such a thing!" One of them exclaimed loudly, drawing the attention of many people to that situation, including Claire's attention.

"Actually I do." Luz replied still calmly.

"Hey! Any problem there?" Claire said approaching us.

"Don't get into this trouble, little redhead. You just think you have some power because you're from the Bladeheart family and because Director Goodsky chose y-" Before the boy who started the whole situation could continue to speak, Luz ended up taking him firmly, hand open in his face.

"You... don't you dare talk to her like that..." my love said, in a serious voice, strangely calm and cold. "Don't you dare talk to any girl like that, worm..." He pressed the boy's face tighter, while the others went into a silent panic.

He continued, now his voice seemed to send shivers through my whole body. "Mostly... Never Dare... To Touch... One... Of my girlfriends...Do you understand?... They're precious... And amazing... There's no reason... For an insolent worm like you... Talk to them like that... Excuse yourself and go back to your dorm... You're grounded..."

The way he said that made me incredibly blushing but also a little jealous, I love being seen as his girlfriend, but that he is a man who has several girls? It still doesn't enter my mind... But there must be a reason for it, he always has a real reason for everything.

Anyway, the end of his comment made him look like a father fighting with his youngest son, which would make a lot of people laugh if it wasn't for the aura he gave off. And soon, he let go of the boy's face who looked like he was urinating on his own pants as he ran crying out of there. His colleagues decided to go after him.

"*cough cough* I'm sorry guys, go back to the party." Luz said being completely changed, returning to his usual goofy and fun way. It took a while, but people did as requested and tried to ignore what happened there.

"Wow.... Uh.. Thank you, I think.." Claire was blushing, possibly from having seen Luz losing his cool since he was protecting our image. "I don't think we'll have that much trouble... That boy's family is just one of several families of equipment dealers."

"Oh.. Great. And what's the name of this family, so I can send a formal letter to his father?" Luz asked while headpatting me.

"He is from the family... Ravenpoor.. I think" Claire answered

"Oh.. Okay.. Poor Ravenpoor..." Luz made a joke that we two laughed.

"I think you deserve a moment to calm down..." Lilia said approaching us after all that trouble. "Seriously, you work too hard."

"I've always worked... Anyway. What do you have on mind?" He asked.

"As the party is almost over, and there are still a lot of SC and DC members here. We could.. stay in the DC office and eat some cupcakes while we wait to get sleepy." Lilia received a headpat from him.

"Great idea. What do you think of that?" He asked me and Claire and we accepted too.

"Perfect... Hm... Guys, I think I'll go with the girls somewhere, you guys are responsible for the rest of the party." he said when he saw Theodore, Curtis and that short-haired girl, approaching.

"Fine. See you tomorrow." Theo replied.

Soon, me, Lilia and Claire, accompanied Luz to the main room of the disciplinary committee, arriving there, we started to hear a strange noise from one of the rooms. The Helstea girl approached to find out what it was, but soon Luz created a sound barrier at that door.

"Tess and Arthur said they'd come here sooner... But I thought they'd be in her room... Not his room..." When he made that comment, I blushed incredibly and shook my head, trying not to imagine what what was happening there.

To distract us, Luz quickly brought out cupcakes, mugs of hot chocolate, and cookies. "Okay, now this is a party for me." he said before sitting down and we started our quiet time.