64 Strange Magic

Another night of spellcasting passed as Grizz tossed and turned, most likely plagued by another one of his nightmares. Orou was getting better and better at controlling the two wills to the point where he was starting to feel like controlling them was natural. Throughout the night, Orou decided to experiment with one of his spells, that is, the spell which granted him this unusual vision of the world around him. Using his head to rummage through Grizz's backpack, he dragged the black cube out of it and placed it on the table. Skillfully creating a spirit thread, he wove it through the cube and without a noise, the greater spirit inside of it was revealed.

After that came the long part of waiting out the greater spirit's influence. The worst thing about it was that this made the spirit very hard to manipulate, but still, Orou using this to temper his ability to control the spirits. After an hour or two, he felt that his time was close and using one of the wills to send out a wave, he captured one of the spirits and quickly turned it into a star. Then, he repeated the process of creating the five complicated circles and setting the formation into effect. There was nothing different this time, the circles spun until they became the size of a small crystal and once more, Orou's body completely froze up and the circle entered his forehead. This time, instead of blacking up and swimming in the abyss, he felt his entire body shudder and he felt slight pain on his forehead. All of the sudden, he felt something in his mind clear up and his vision become sharper.

Looking around, he couldn't notice a difference until he looked in the mirror. Very faintly, he could see something shimmering around both himself and the black strands. The shimmering force didn't seem to do anything to Orou and the strands, but upon closer inspection of it, he saw that the black mist rising from his body was unaffected by this shimmering force and instead, it seemed to be devouring it. Now that he saw the shimmering force, he saw that the black mist wasn't corrupting the strands themselves, but the shimmering that was surrounding them. In fact, when he looked over to a nearby chair, he saw that the mist had completely enveloped one of the strands, but it was holding on due to this strange force.

The mist was aggressively devouring the force and once it was completely gone, the black strand dissipated into the mist, never to be seen again. When he looked over to the chair using his normal vision, he could see that the chair had noticeably blackened. while one wouldn't notice this simply walking by, the wood had started rotting. In fact, comparing the earlier state of the shop, it was much better than the current state, the surroundings looked darker and gloomier, one could mistake it for an abandoned ghost shop.

Orou regretted that he had thought about casting the spell only now and with a simple command of his will, he closed the box. The sun had started setting and any moment, Grizz was about to wake up. Orou slithered to the kitchen and grabbed a quick snack and once he was back to the bedroom, Grizz was already up and about. He had dark rings under his eyes but he seemed to be quite excited. Finally noticing Orou, he ran up to him and running his hand through his scales, he said: "I forgot to tell you this yesterday but I found a potential buyer for the information."

Orou perked up his ears as Grizz took a breath and continued: "I figured that dealing with the shaman would be too risky and I don't really care for either side, so I found us a buyer from one of the gangs. I negotiated a meeting with them today and besides the huge amount of crystals they're offering, I also thought about you! There are rumors that the gang has a group dedicated to the ancient history and ancient spells for some reason, so if we're lucky, I'll be able to negotiate something for you as well."

Orou, of course, was ecstatic about this news. He didn't care whether it was an ancient or a modern spell as long as he had learned something new about spellcasting and spirits in general. While Orou had plans to go outside and snoop some more, he forgot about everything he wanted to do and he was slithering around the house with great speed, impatiently waiting for Grizz to finish breakfast. Grizz simply laughed at Orou's behavior and after dressing up and making sure his hidden daggers were in place, he opened the door and started heading towards the east.

The two of them made their way past the abandoned street they were in and passed through several alleyways to arrive at a shady looking street. The beastmen here were dressed in all black and Grizz snickered at the lot that just passed by them, saying he didn't know if they were thieves, hoodlums or occultists gathering to simply hang out. Of course, this provoked several hostile looks at Grizz, but most of the beastman stopped staring once they saw Orou following Grizz.

Orou had hoped that they would get there sooner rather than later, but an incident occurred while walking towards the meeting spot. Another group of hooded figures passed by and one of them got dangerously close to Grizz. Orou didn't even notice it but he turned around to look at the group when one of the hooded figures screamed in pain, his hand twisted by Grizz's. The group stopped as several of them raised daggers in their hands, warily looking at what Grizz was about to do.

"You should take your filthy hands and shove them up your ass instead of my pockets, buddy," the beastman screamed in pain as Grizz continued twisting his arm until an audible crack could be heard. Shoving the beastman aside, Grizz turned his back to the group of hooded figures, intending to walk away from them, but before he could do that, the beastman who was rolling in the ground in pain screamed out loud: "Get him!"

Grizz sighed and, pulling out the two shortswords by his side, he gestured towards two of the hooded figures, saying to Orou: "I'll take them, deal with the rest." The hooded beastmen immediately got into position, creating a surprisingly secure formation. Two hooded beastmen were at the back while there were five others protecting them from all harm. The figures in the middle started muttering something to themselves and with his spirit sight, Orou saw a single formation that resembled a crescent moon start being formed. What was surprising was that there were two separate wills constructing the same formation with one will creating the right side and the other, the left side.

Orou didn't intend to hesitate but seeing a formation being created in the air turned on his competitive mood. Using his two wills to speed up the process, practically imitating what the two occultists were doing, he started creating a serpent made from blood. The two wills constructed the formation with ease and familiarity, meeting in the middle to create a single blood serpent. Using one of his wills to start creating another serpent, Orou guided the already existing serpent to attack the hooded beastmen.

Meanwhile, Grizz had already begun attacking the beastmen. Using his two shortswords, he skillfully danced around the entire formation, inflicting the beastmen with several cuts as he avoided all of theirs. Moments later, the beastmen that he was fighting was rolling in the ground, holding one of his arms where Grizz had cut him. A mixture of blue and purple was spreading up from the beastman's arm and moments later, his entire body turned completely purple and he stopped breathing. The rest of the beastmen started to become a lot more cautious, trying to not get cut and to protect the two beastmen that were chanting.

Out of nowhere, a serpent made entirely out of blood wrapped around one of the beastmen protecting the spellcasters. In his third vision, he saw the blood serpent absorb the black strands within the beastman's body and this time, as the serpent drained the beastman's blood, it didn't even leave a husk of a body behind. Absorbing the last black strand of the beastman's body, he turned into nothing more but dust that was quickly carried away into the air. Another beastmen fell to Grizz's evil poison and the last of the guarding beastmen shrieked in terror, screaming out: "It's a forbidden s-," before being interrupted by the second blood serpent which hungrily drained his blood.

The two beastmen looked oblivious to what was happening around them and Orou saw in his spirit vision the formation was completed. Of course, he could have interrupted the spell at any moment, but he was quite interested in what the spell would do, so he allowed the two of them to survive for a moment later. As the blood crescent was finished, the two beastmen slit their own wrists and the blood that sprayed out of their bodies was the finishing touch the spell required. All of the sudden, the surroundings got darker and Orou could smell a thick scent of blood in the air. The crescent moon formation had risen high in the sky and was continuing to shine down upon the spirit world as a blood mist slowly began surrounding the two of them.

The blood fog began digging into Orou's skin and slowly, he started bleeding out of his body. The bleeding got more intense as time went on and deciding that he had enough, Orou sent the two blood serpents to finish off the two occultists who were desperately trying to flee the scene of carnage. Orou observed the blood crescent that was hanging in the air and deciding to do something about it, he sent one of the blood serpents to bite at it. Surprisingly, instead of going through the crescent, the blood serpent bit into the crescent and tore a chunk out of it, but in retaliation, the crescent let out a wave made from blood that slashed the serpent in half.

While the first serpent couldn't do the job, the second one did. Using its tail to smash at the crescent, it shattered into countless pieces and the mist, as if it was never there, dissipated from the air. Grizz sighed as he started dragging the corpses into a nearby alleyway, saying something about not wanting to leave a mess behind. Looking at the sky in spirit vision, Orou saw that a few fragments of the moon still remained, resembling strange sorts of spirits before fading away.