Talking skull

***

Inside an office room within the castle, Jim and Juhie were searching for the relic all around the office room.

The Office was a mess after all the searching and still the relic was nowhere to be found. Both of them were exhausted after all the searching they had done.

The only odd thing inside the office room they managed to find was a skull. The skull was made up of black bones and on the top of the forehead, three horn like structure was present.

Jim's POV***

When I looked at the skull, a sinister energy was covering up all over my body. The eye sockets of the skull were making me feel like staring at an endless abyss.

It was a dangerous thing to have around. That was the conclusion I came to, when I looked at it briefly. Just when I was about to tell the Paladin about this, she was not there. I looked around all over the room and no one was there.

There was a creepy silence spread all over the office.

"Miss Juhie, where are you??" I shouted and called for her.

"PLEASE!! ARE YOU THERE?"

But no response came. My hands and legs were shaking and my heart was pumping like crazy. My body was covered with sweat and my mind went blank.

I ran towards the door and tried to open it, but the door was locked.

~BAM~BAM...

I started punching the door crazily.

"Haaaaaa!!. . . . . .hah. . . .ha,. . . . . Rey!!!, Natalie!! Kale!!! SOMEONE!!"

'Why? why? why? why do I have to suffer every time?? Fu*******k'

The trauma from all the way back resurfaced. All the memories of that incident kept appearing before my eyes.

I felt like I was drowning in the darkness and I didn't even realized that my breathing has stopped.

My eyes became much heavier, the last thing I saw before closing them was the eyes of the black skull staring at me.

****

Juhie's POV***

While I was looking around the room, my pair for the quest kept staring at the black skull. He was staring at it to the point where he even stopped breathing. I saw the scene and knew at a single glance that he was not in normal state. I rushed towards him.

When I closed down the distance between us, I saw his face changing from an emotionless face to an absolutely despaired one. His eyes were bawling out tears and then soon he fell down unconscious. There was black air emitting from his body.

'What happened here?'

[ You are filled with light, young child! ]

I turned urgently and looked back at the black skull, which now had a blue light burning inside his empty eyes. There was also a black air surrounding the skull which was the same as that of Jim which I assumed was called as Miasma. I quickly drawn my broadsword as the skull was quite a tricky opponent.

"What are you? What did you do to my companion?"

[You are the one trespassing in my territory and yet are asking me question! I commend your bravery girl.]

[As for your companion, I shall take his negativity in order to gain the strength I lost due to sleeping. You don't have to worry about him, when I woke up, your deaths were already a written in your fate. Hahahahahah!!! ]

Without wasting time I hit the skull with my sword at full strength, but it wasn't cut or damaged in the least.

"Tch."

'He is tougher than I thought.'

The talking skull was thrashed onto the office shelf. But it floated in the air again with a rage in it's eyes. He released the Miasma in the shape of knives and fired all at once. Even for me, these attacks were quite fast and I couldn't dodge every knife.

"Argh...."

My sword was starting to rust a bit, this was due to the constant clashes with the dark miasma. Fortunately, there was only a single cut on my leg which was healed by my skill. Though it drained more essence than the amount a normal wound would have taken.

Seeing the result of his attack, he once again gathered a big amount of miasma.

A huge wave of miasma which then turned in the shape of a many swords was fired at me. I quickly covered my whole body with the Light Essence. My essence element was light and the fundamental element of miasma is darkness, that's why I decided to play a huge gamble.

The result was that the light element cancelled out all the swords fired at me and left the talking skull speechless. My gamble was on spot.

'My light element was much stronger than his Dark Miasma.'

[Im-Impossible, you have the holy light!! I-I have to run away.....]

The talking skull was clearly panicked by watching my light element and was calling it holy whatnot, taking this my chance I casted my special spell-

{ Sword Of Truth : Sun's Wrath } + { Laser Rey } + { Goliath's Carnage }

An absurd amount of my Essence was drawn out and a my body was filled with an endless amount of energy.

'It was my time to attack!!'

"Dieee!!!"

The miasma that was covering the skull, took the shape of chains and rattled towards me to bind me before I reach the skull.

Since I already knew that the miasma is weaker than my light, I ignored all the attacks from it and focused only on the skull.

[ N-Noooooo....]

When the skull was within my range of attack, I unleashed the spell and my attack connected to the skull. Result was that the skull was bashed into various pieces.

The light glowing in the eye sockets of the skull died. There was one more thing inside the skull. One of the three horns on the skull was fake, and it was hollow from the inside.

Inside the hollow space, a silver wing was present. That wing was giving faint traces similar to that of the holy staff in the church.

'This has to be the relic.'

I then looked at the unconscious Jim and fell into various thoughts. The miasma was still there and now he had huge dark circles on his face, his body was also turning pale.

With no other choice, I used my skill { Purify }.

The miasma was gone from his body, so he should wake up any time.

"Uhm. . .mhm. . .. aaahhh!!"

'Bingo!'

"Hey, how are you feeling?" I asked him.

"...." He just stared at me blankly with confusion.

He didn't answered, which was expected somewhat. We already spent enough time finding the relic, so I really don't want to entertain this guy any further. So, I said everything in one go.

"Listen here, I don't know what you saw or experienced but you were under the effect of a Dark element skill called Miasma. Miasma only takes affect on the people with weak mentality or the people who had strong hidden feelings. It shows the target hallucinations and terrorize their mental state by showing them their darkest memories or their biggest fears.

The moment you started staring at the skull, you were already under the effect of miasma and fell unconscious. Thanks to you, the skull got enough energy to fight with me.

But as you can see, the skull is smashed into pieces and I already obtained the relic, I don't want to waste any more time. I am going to the main chambers."

I started walking out of the room without looking at him. After going further ahead, he started following me.

At least he is not retarded. But once again I had carry someone all on my own.

~Sigh.

Since I was born and left in the orphanage run by the church, I was always taught to live for the benefit of the church. When my unique Light Essence developed, everyone in the church placed high hopes and expectations on me. They started training me day and night without any rest. I was even sent in dungeons with the knights of church from the age of 12. Then they placed my title as the Paladin after watching my performance in the dungeon.

At that point, I never actually had a chance to meet with other people from my age. All the people I knew always referred to me as Paladin. After this went for a long time, even I started to prefer being alone.

But after coming to the Academy a lot of things changed. Now, I have friends I can rely on, this was all thanks to Elliott.

"Hm. . . . Why did I thought of him all of a sudden?"

Blowing all the useless thoughts away, I entered a big hall. There were many people present and were standing in front of a huge door.

'We are the last to arrive....'