Shit.

Exiting the potion's classroom late into the night Loki hid under illusions and slipped back toward the Seventh floor.

Checking the Marauder's map, Loki couldn't see any students lingering there like last night.

'Did they give up because of yesterday?'

'Probably.'

Loki nodded to himself and continued walking toward the Seventh Floor, yet he still donned an illusion to keep himself from being recognised by the paintings.

Walking up to the wall he recognised morphed into the doors Loki began to walk around the corridor while focusing on the riddle Salazar had given him but then even before he finished his first round he stopped.

'The air is distorted?' Loki thought as he saw the air behind him shift like something hot was making it wave.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as he looked around himself with his enhanced night vision.

He couldn't see anyone or anything out of place in the corridor, yet his instincts were blaring at him like sirens on a seagull.

Ducking for what appeared to be no reason at all, Loki collapsed to the floor and rolled away from where he was just standing.

And it was good that he did because as soon as he stood up and looked back, he found, to his horror, a girl standing with a particularly foul-looking bone knife in her hand.

Loki's brain fired at the new information and he came to a single conclusion.

'They tricked the Marauder's map somehow!'

Rolling away from the place he was standing on instinct he felt heavy vibrations pass through the floor, Loki found the stone on the spot he was just squatting smashed into pieces.

A little distance away was a boy holding his wand pointed in his direction.

'Wand!'

'I need to use my wand!!' Loki reminded himself and forcefully ripped his wand from his sides while dodging the spells the boy cast on him.

Jumping away to dodge the latest spell, Loki pointed his wand at the girl who was getting super close to him while holding the mean-looking knife.

'For some reason, I feel like getting stabbed by that knife wouldn't be good news.'

Loki ducked under the girl's swipe and pointed his wand at her face.

"Velox Acus!!" Loki exclaimed sending a spiraling needle of wind and lightning right at her head.

The girl, in what could only be described as a feat of gymnastics and inhumane flexibility, bent backwards while balancing herself by extending her leg into the air, dodging the spell Loki had unleashed at such a close distance.

"IMPERIO!"

Loki jumped back, away from the girl and narrowly dodged the spell from the boy behind her.

'Damn! They want to capture me alive for some reason!!'

'Is it to open the damn room!?'

Loki dodged another blow from the boy holding the wand before he ducked low and jumped backwards to keep both the boy and the girl in his view.

'To trick the Marauder's map, they would've to trick the castle.'

'I don't think it is quite possible to trick the castle, at least not as easily as being able to do it without coming in contact with the castle wards.'

'But then…how?'

Loki was forced to halt his thoughts which were wnadering and dodge another swipe from the girl holding the mean bone knife.

'Possibly a Beyodner item from the Darkness pathway?'

'No, I doubt they could've gotten their hands on such a thing…'

'Then someone higher up in the castle is helping them?'

'Adam?'

'But why wouldn't 'He' just directly stalk or attack me if 'He' wanted me?'

'No…there's some other method…'

But Loki wasn't given enough time to think about it.

The boy suddenly let out a guttural *growl* as he landed on his forearms and started running at Loki like an animal.

'I've won against a Saint you fools!! You think you can take me down with just this much!?' Loki cursed in his mind as he jumped over the boy running at him like a rabid lunatic dog.

Then with a swipe of his wand, Loki shouted, "VIRIDIS RUPTIS!!" sending a fast-moving torrent of green sparks towards the girl who was also running at him.

The girl tried to dodge the sparks but Loki smirked.

'That's what I wanted you to do you fool!'

*BANG*

Creating a loud sound, Loki exploded the torrent of green sparks that flew toward the girl, creating a large explosion right above her face.

Much to Loki's horror however, at the last moment, right when the explosion was set off, the girl threw the knife in her hand right at Loki.

The explosion boosted the knife, increasing its speed to turn it near invisible, as it shot through the air, flying at Loki's torso.

With a quick step to the side, Loki barely dodged the knife as it made a small scratch on his face.

Loki felt fine for a second but then almost collapsed to the floor.

His entire face felt like it was on fire.

The single scratch drew a thin line of blood all across his cheek but he couldn't beat out the immense pain that it caused.

Loki brought his hands close to his face in an attempt to tear it off, but he controlled his actions somehow and dodged sideways just in time for another one of the boy's charges to narrowly miss him.

Sweat immediately formed all across Loki's body because of the terrible pain and his vision began to blur while his mind felt like it wanted to knock itself out to escape the pain.

More than the physical pain, Loki felt himself being consumed by mad ravings while his body started to bubble and wriggle from the inside.

It felt like someone had put his organs into a blender and poured back the resultant slushie into his body.

Loki felt terrible.

Without casting a new spell, Loki jabbed his wand backwards purely out of instinct as the tip of his wand penetrated the chest of a third student who was sneaking up behind him with the knife the girl had tossed in his direction.

Loki felt a splash of blood tint his fingers red but he didn't have any sense of stability inside his mind to care about it.

In a completely inefficient and pain-filled struggle, Loki pushed his spirituality out of his body, into the air and brought his focus entirely on an explosion.

In the next few moments of silence, Loki saw the girl push herself off the ground and run to him, while the boy behind him recovered from his stab and raised the knife to stab him again while the third boy raised his wand to cast the Imperious charm again.

Loki felt the moments stretch to eternity but in the blink of an eye all the three students were knocked backwards, all three hitting the walls in different directions as they collapsed, momentarily knocked out.

Loki bolted, but as he did he bent low to pick up something for himself.

At this moment, he could do nothing else but run. Simply keeping his illusion up, something that had been second nature to him until today, was making his breathing harder and heavier.

Still under the cover of shadows, Loki ran, but given the amount of noise he was making running through the corridors, it was a surprise that he didn't get caught.

He rushed into the dungeons and entered the Slytherin dorms, running into his room, before closing it and locking the room away with a wall of spirituality that he barely managed to set up.

Looking around himself, Loki felt the world spin. Everything looked so distorted in his perception that he felt like he was simultaneously inside the depths of an ocean while tossed into the depths of space.

Lost.

His body felt like it was being compressed and expanded at the same time.

With terrible focus, Loki took the four steps counterclockwise to enter the Sefirah Castle.

The ravings and wailing that he heard almost made him lose control, but Loki somehow entered cogitation and prevented himself from losing control.

Once inside the Sefirah Castle, the grey fog stirred to help his body calm down and once he felt he was stable enough, Loki activated spirit vision and examined his body in a mirror he conjured.

He could see the cut on his face, but that wasn't what caught his attention.

It was the small web-like system of lines and cracks that had spread from the wound, all over the right side of his body.

'Shit. I've been corrupted.'

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