A Sorcerer’s Journey

Dior, who was from section 19 of the Holy Tower of Seven Rings, had been widely thought of as a high-rising sorcerer, and very likely to become a level-two sorcerer, after almost a hundred year of knowledge obtaining.

But to fight an already level-two sorcerer? He hesitated with a somber look.

A level two sorcerer’s stronger power aside, they typically held managerial positions in their school, and every school’s president was in some way connected to the best sorcerers on the Sorcerer Continent. To confront a level two sorcerer might unwisely antagonize his/her school.

And the distinction between a level one and level two sorcerer was huge. When a level one sorcerer had succeeded progressing into a higher level, all of his/her sorceries would be then strengthened to a whole new level, too. The new level would represent an intensification of skills that could be counteracted by no average sorcery tricks nor mere gifts.

Dior was someone destined to become a level-two sorcerer, so he would not be held accountable for giving this ship up, only if this ship had been a common one.

The problem was that the ship was no ordinary one. It had two geniuses onboard, and the point of this recruiting mission by Sorcerers Dior and Apollo had been about getting the two safely to the Lilith School of Sorcerers for the Holy Tower tryouts.

“You may take the ship, but I need to take two people with me,” Dior said in faked calmness.

“No sh*t about bargaining. F*ck off or you will get yourself killed,” the other sorcerer threatened, and his hoarse voice turned into a snarl.

“Taste this!”

Dior had initiated an attack.

A spear made of ice appeared in front of Dior, and was then charging at the other sorcerer. It was as fast as an arrow that had been shot off the bowstring, and it left a white streak in the air.

Infuriated by being attacked by an inferior sorcerer, the sorcerer on the cloud of crows growled and waved his arm trying to sweep the ice spear off when the spear suddenly broke to thousands of shorter ice spears coming faster at him.

The defender got shocked and even scared for a moment, and he then stamped the crows under his feet so hard that he was sprung to a much higher place to dodge the shower of flying spears.

It was a narrow escape.

Meanwhile Dior had gone astride his stick, which he was holding in his hand, and flew it in the opposite direction to escape.

The other sorcerer chased.

Green, who had watched the confrontation on the deck, breathed heavily:

“It seems that something big is gonna happen.”

A few hours later, the ship went into another chaos. It had been said that Legend Knight Barron had been murdered by Kyrie. Nobody could figure out the reason because a few hours ago, they were fighting together against the Hurado Leviathans.

Glenn had a feeling that it was somehow related to Dior’s, but he couldn’t think of the exact reason.

As dictated by Dior, Barron had to kill Kyrie and Bionna if there was no guarantee to keep them as students of Lilith School of Sorcerers.

So, when Dior left the ship, Barron went for Kyrie.

Kyrie was idling with his little mouse in his new cabin, and he had had a hunch that something bad might come. So, he had prepared himself for any possible dangers.

As Barron went to his cabin saying he’d like to have a talk with him. Kyrie was on full alert. Barron at the time was holding his sharpened axe behind his back, but he had been kicked by Kyrie onto the ground before he could display the shining axe.

The next minute, Baron flourished his axe at Kyrie for several times, which were either dodged or fended off by Kyrie, who did the defense by grabbing a chair, a lamp, or anything around him.

Noticing that Baron desired to kill him at every stroke, he decided to strike back. That was when Baron was beheaded by Kyrie’s sorcery and Barron’s neck, without a head on, was just as smooth and glossy as the tentacle being crosscut.

On the following day the crow-riding sorcerer flew back to the ship, and Sorcerer Dior did not. As the rider landed on the deck, the flock of crows broke into two lines and scurried into his loose sleeves.

Everyone onboard was frightened on seeing his face, which was only a piece of skin with no features – no eyes, no nose and no mouth.

“You tykes, embrace Nilmar, the great sorcerer from the Black Isotta School of Sorcerers. Call me Fake Faceless if you’d like to,” Nilmar said in a vicious voice.

Everyone’s face was bleached.

Nilmar then moved his head around and dwelled his eyes on Kyrie and Bionna:

“Kyrie and Bionna! It’s good to see you two.”

At the moment, a student elbowed his way through the crowd and came over to Nilmar.

“No way, isn’t that Sam? What is he doing with that crow? Why is he approaching the Sorcerer?” Glenn whispered to Chris, who was beside him with his sister, and who was worrying about her condition.

Sam then handed the crow to Nilmar and said “Master”, as he bowed.

“You did a good job. You helped me take this ship.” Nilmar smiled and put the crow into his sleeve.

The students were greatly enraged at Sam’s betrayal of them, but none of them dared make a sound.

“The Black Isotta School of Sorcerers is where you are going to study. The school follows the principle of “Survival of the Fittest” Nilmar said. “Guided by that principle, I am gonna make a rule for you.”

The students cocked their ears for fear of missing a word of the rule.

“Every day I need to see five students dead. You either kill or be killed. Five! If there is one less, I will kill ten of you. And you will die ugly.”

“Like this!”

Nilmar pointed his finger at a student nearby, who then exploded. His body was blown up so utterly that pieces of meat from his body were spurted onto the students near him. Lafite and Nina threw up at this gory scene.

The deck reeked of blood since it had been sprayed on minced human meat, which reminded Glenn that the bloodbath was real.

After Nilmar’s tirade ended, he pitched a large tent on the deck and called the boatswain in to reroute the ship to the Black Isotta School of Sorcerers.

“That’s ridiculous! Five people daily! In less than a month, over a hundred of us would have been killed, then.”

“What if we couldn’t reach the school in two months?”

The students who were quick in math were panicked and scowled. But the group suddenly went into silence as a boy made a rough screaming.

That screaming boy had been stabbed by a girl! The girl’s pretty face turned hideous as she said:

“Rhea wouldn’t have died. It was all because of you!” She then repeated the stabbing three times before anyone had the time to stop her.

Everyone had become alert, because they knew that the original purpose of the assassination was to make herself a less likely target. The “Rhea thing” was merely an excuse.

It seemed that a massacre was brewing.

The next morning, the students and the knights appeared on the deck. Only, they had ganged up.

The gangs had formed a ring and in the center of it, two students were lying on the deck, dead. It was no surprise that one of them was the stabbed-to-death boy and as for the other body, no one knew how he had been killed, except the killer.

Then Sorcerer Nilmar showed up. Noticing that there were only two students dead, he lost his temper and shouted, “Three short from what I asked?”

Nilmar moved his arms and pointed at four students in the gang which was beside Glenn’s. The four students were then blown up and this time, the blood almost covered all the students around them.

“This is a warning for disobeying my order.” Nilmar rattled on. “The Black Isotta School of Sorcerers is a member of the Holy Tower of Seven Rings. You may protest that sorcerers are not allowed to kill humans at will. But let me tell you, from the day you were selected to become a sorcerer, you ceased to be humans. Mind you, the road in front of all of you is never gonna be easy.”

A group of knights went wild and scuttled towards a group of five students, which was standing opposite to them, and which seemed weaker, after Nilmar left for his tent. For a moment, the two groups were engaged in a fiendish fight. But it was lackluster, though. Outnumbered and lacking in sufficient strength, the student team had been routed, and all of them were killed by the cruelty of the knights’ machetes.

“Find five scapegoats among your own people each day or I will,” the man leading the gang of knights threatened, and blood was dripping from his shining machete.

Wade had been confirmed dead in the octopus attack. Chris’ sister’s eye was badly injured and Sam turned to be a traitor. Everything seemed to have conspired to go against Glenn’s group. But Glenn was bothered by a much more serious question:

“Does he have to kill? Would he survive the civil strife before reaching the Black Isotta School of Sorcerers.