LXIV ||| Mount Everest Ain’t Got Shit on Me, But You Do

"Bloody hellish fuck," I gasped as I tasted the ice cream.

Oliver tilted his head softly in cheer amusement, "Is it good?"

"Fuck no. It's not good, it's divine," I moaned closing my eyes. "So damn good, oh my fair lady. Definitely better than all the other ice creams I've had so far. This Oreo cookie you put in it is also surprisingly good. Oh, Crone bless us," I sank into my seat, head falling back. "It's delicious."

When I opened my eyes again, I found his predatory ruby red gaze on me, hunger and lust beaming on them, "I'm glad I can make you have a very orgasmic reaction with more than my body, beautiful."

Gulping, I almost choked on the ice cream, "Thirsty much?"

He gave me that sexy feral grin, "For more than just your blood."

This nasty bastard, I'm sure my face is burning up right now. "So," I looked away, feeling too hot for the moment. "What's with Everest?"

"That's where the magical entrance to the Emerald Sky City is."

Wait, what? My eyes widened, "All this time it's been right there?"

Smiling playfully, he took a sip of his whiskey. Ugh, is everything this male does sexy? How can this be? "According to what I got on the book of architecture, in the very beginning it says that if you head to the highest point of the highest mountain on earth, and fly up until way beyond the clouds, as long as you are a supernatural being, you will find the Emerald Sky City. Nevertheless, there's a catch."

Now it's getting interesting, "What catch?"

"You can find it, and you can see it, but you can only enter and put your foot in there if you are invited by a black winged serpent. And it has to be a black winged serpent, because they are the Royals, the protectors of the Emerald Sky City, and they are magically bound to it," that's clever.

"Good that I'm a black winged serpent, then," I said with a smug.

"You know what that also means?" He tilted his head.

"What?" I ate another spoonful of my new favorite ice cream.

He crossed his ripped tattooed arms over his chest, "That Emerald Sky City might be potentially intact. There's no way your kind would have brought the Grand War of Pangea to their holy land, beautiful. They would definitely have left it protected for when the descendant of the future needed a refugee. And for when she needed to eventually gather the gargoyle army. Thanks to the Crone, they knew you would be coming one day, and they must have prepared for it, beautiful." Oh my bloody Crone, he's right.

But when I came to one more realization, I jumped from my seat, "Oliver, serpents lay eggs. What's the probability of they having eggs in there? Frozen in time and protected by the fact that no one would be able to harm the Emerald Sky City, without permission to get inside?"

His ruby eyes turned turquoise and widened as my words settled in, "In a way to save the future of all the seven types and not just yours?" He got up, dumbfounded, and as I put the ice cream bowel down, I jumped on him, lacing my legs on his torso to be able to look at him in the eyes.

"Oliver, my kind may not have been totally extinct," I gasped.

Hugging my hips, he touched his forehead on mine, "You think Mia may know about this? Should we ask her?"

"Tsk, she definitely knows. Nevertheless, she won't say it. She will not make this easy for me, or us. She will only brush the surface and tell us to finish all the books because all the answers we need are on them. And she also won't say it, because she's enjoying this. Telling us everything will be boring to her, and she herself told me she wants the fun of seeing me learning it all without her help," that old scheming witch.

He chuckled vividly, "Yes, that sounds a bloody lot like her."

"When can we leave Belladonna? I mean, to go out!"

"You want to go there?" A nod. "There's a festival in February 9th, it's the Lunar Starfall Festival, it happens every year on February and it also lasts from February 9th to February 15th, which gives us seven days. The last years always get permission to leave the Academy if the want to, while all the youngest classes need to stay and be part of it. Thankfully," he grinned, "we are on our last year."

"But it's only the students or are their parents allowed to visit if they want to?" Because if yes, it might get troublesome.

"Allowed, of course. Why?"

I cursed, "Then I'm sure Cosmos will be coming to see me. He's been worried about how I've been handling stuff, as I've been expulsed of four classes so far," I bit my bottom lip to hold my laughter.

"He won't be staying for the seven though, will he?" I don't know.

"Let's hope not. Does anything else happen on this festival?"

A nod, "There's a tournament, those who try it out are all divided in groups, then they hand their names to Mia, and she chooses the leaders. It happens on the 3rd day of the festival and it's what people look after the most. She always put me as the leader of my group and Felix of his, because he's the only one who was able to put a fight against me, even if I've always won. We always faced each other, and people looked after our fight the most, even when we were younger, as we both represented the Vampire and Dragon Courts, the strongest."

"What kind of tournament?" It actually sounds exciting.

"It will sound stupid, but believe me, it's better and crazier than it sounds," then he pressed his lips together. "Hide and seek."

"I've never played that, since you can't really play it with only two people, but Cosmos told me about it. Sounded exciting to me. He says there's a sport in the magical world called Eclipseball, with a magical ball that keeps 'eclipsing' as he called, it keeps randomly spatially switching from player to player. Each team has 12 players and one leader, a team of 13 at total, the game being centered on the leaders who are responsible for the win. Something like that," he sat down with me on his lap. "Cosmos talked about it superficially but I could tell he enjoyed a lot."

Oliver looked surprised, "You know about Eclipseball? That makes it easier, since the tournament is an eclipseball match, but not as dangerous as a real one, since in a real match you can die, and in the tournament our bracelets avoid that from happening. Even if I use disintegration on someone, they won't die, so it's easy to fight all teams but Felix's, since he nullifies it, and I end up fighting him just with my natural abilities and fighting skills. He's poor on that."

Of course, he doesn't like fighting head on. "Felix is a long-range fighter, no shite his weapon is the bow and arrow."

"I know. I used that for my advantage a lot, but the kid doesn't go down easily, I respect that, but don't tell him that!" His seriousness made me laugh. "Eclipseball happens on a maze-like magical arena, there's thirty different entries and each player enters a different one randomly. Mia always has the ball in the beginning, after we get into formation in the arena, then she throws it high and during the fall the ball picks a player also randomly to be the one who's going to seek the other teams."

"If you have the ball, you absolutely cannot stay still, you have to move and run after the first person you see from the other time. You're also allowed to use any kind of magic and power you have with no restrictions, and if you are one of the shifting kinds, you have to hold the ball with magic. Nevertheless, it's heavy, and it shifts weight depending on the player who's holding it, as it assumes your weight and you have to carry it quickly. That's why everyone hits the gym in here."

Oh, now it makes sense. "Now I get why Felix has a gym section in his lair. It's to train for the tournament."

A nod, "Mm-hm. You have an upper hand if you has super strength, like all vampires, wolf shifters, lion shifters, krakens, dragons, and seraphim which also helps a lot. It's a tricky game and the eclipsing ball is the most tricky and irritating part of it, as it may very well switch to the hands of the opponent you're facing. Another tricky part are the invisible portals around the maze that might also fuck you up, if you end up teleporting right to where the enemy team managed to gather."

"But what happen if you get hit with the ball?"

He grinned, "You keep playing, that is, if you don't get knocked out from it, but lose points on the match. If you get knocked out or temporarily killed, you are sent to the med wing."

"But, how do you win?"

"The only two players immune to the hit of the ball are the leaders, that's why they are the most important ones, and everyone wishes for that position, since it guarantees they will be playing from beginning to end. Even if they get hit, they are not out. Each one uses a crown entirely made of the gems that strengths them the most, and only a leader can take the crown of the other, also guaranteeing the victory or the loss will come from their hands. A combat of leaders is unavoidable, of course, and the one who takes the other's crown first is the winner."

A crown? "Do you get to keep the crown afterwards?"

Nod, "It's the leader personal trophy. I have many ruby crowns, as I won. Plus, all players of the team get a gold medal, the privilege to stay away from the academy for four days, and a thousand points in their annual student score that sets the ranking at the mid terms in 20th of June and the final terms in 20th of December. So, participating always played a part in."

That's a short time out of here. "You all only get a week or so of vacation in the end of the years?"

"In December, yes. Classes always began on the first Monday of the year, which might either be the 1st day or 7th, which give us a bit more free time out of her. In midterms we get from June 21st to July 25th, then it comes back again. This is a boarding school, after all, beautiful," he chuckled. "When we are sent here, we are not expected to go home until we graduate, to be honest. Come here at 7 to 8, and leave at 18 to 19 in physical age. It's the best academy for supernatural in the entire world, though."

"So I've heard," I scoffed. "But if it's so important, doesn't mean they expect us to be part of the tournament this year?"

He tilted his head, "They never expect the kids in senior year to participate, because we get twice more opportunities to get points than all the other classes, and in normal academy activities. We are also supposed to be always free from having to participate in any festival. So, I don't think so. I mean, there's one festival there is an exception, and it's so crazy that no one would ever miss it, but it's just one."

A part of me kind of want to be part of it, but we need to use this free time out of here to go see the Emerald Sky City. To go see my Kingdom. "Does the Ministry has any influence in this tournament, Oli?"