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Thomas’ eyes grew wide in surprise at the mention of there being a gorgon at Senna’s new school, a scenario that was completely beyond his ability to fathom how it came to be.
“Is it really that strange for a gorgon to be at my school?”
“Of course! Gorgons are native to Greece, especially the isles. You might find one anywhere around the Mediterranean Sea, they are from the offspring of ocean gods, but definitely not across the pacific ocean all the way in America.”
“Fine, but I’m still not calling the client to claim that their son was eaten by a schoolmate. You are wrong about that.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you are a shitty detective.”
Thomas had a look of hurt his face before rebutting, “A boy goes missing, there is no corpse, and there just happens to be a gorgon at his school. I think you are the shitty detective, not being able to realize something so simple.”
Senna sneered in contempt to which he shrugged indifferently on the matter.
“We never came across a gorgon in Europe, so you don’t fully understand it. Gorgons are man-eaters, in more ways than one. They are either eating men, mating with them to reproduce, or mating with then eating them. If you are investigating a town or village plagued by a monster around the Mediterranean, and it is the men who keep going missing, nine times out of ten, it’s a gorgon.”
“That is hardly a reason to jump to conclusions”
Thomas clicked his tongue while shaking his finger before Senna’s nose matter-if-factually, but quickly retracting it when she attempted to break the wagging digit.
“Aveline couldn’t find any signs of life, and there was also no corpse. Gorgons crush their target to death with their tails before swallowing the body whole, leaving nothing behind. This gorgon is just finishing Grade 10, while men have been going missing for ten years. Just like I said, if men keep going missing, nine times out of ten… It’s a gorgon.”
“What? That’s beyond stupid. If they eat people, why would they only eat men?”
Senna was becoming more and more angry with Thomas, who seemed oblivious to her increasing temper.
“Of course they can eat women too, its not unheard of. They simply only have eyes for men, thus they are inevitably the ones to get eaten. Why are you being so stubborn on this point, Senna?… Wait, do you like this gorgon? Did you make a friend?!”
Senna look down towards the seated Thomas with an gaze reminiscent of the heart of winter.
“Don’t feel so betrayed, I am really happy you made a friend, but, that’s just the way it is. They can’t change what they are.”
“…Then maybe I can’t change what I am either.”
“H-hey, don’t say that,” Thomas panicked and unsuccessfully tried to stop Senna as she stormed off back up the stairs and into their home, slamming the door so hard it splintered the door frame. “…That’s the way they are born, it’s hereditary.”
Things remained difficult between Thomas and Senna after that, with Thomas refusing to admit fault and Senna being poor at communicating.
At school, Helena still acted as her ‘buddy’ to help her around the school, but Senna had turned turned her suspicion towards her and created greater distance between them. She secretly followed the gorgon with her eyes, monitoring her every movement.
The more she watched, the more suspicious she became. Helena was exhibiting the traits of gorgons that Thomas had described with an uncanny level of accuracy.
She was completely uninterested in the girls of the school, barely even remembering any of their names other than Senna’s, and even then she felt the snake girl would occasionally forget it and have to pause her thoughts and remember.
On the other hand, she seemed to know every boy in school… except for the one she and Thomas were searching for.
“Helena,” Senna asked one towards the end of lunch, “Do you know much about the boys in Grade 8, oh, Grade 9 from next year.”
The gorgon’s eyes lit up with excitement, believing she had found someone with whom she could share her passions.
“Of course! I know absolutely everything about everyone! Would you like to know who is the strongest? What about the tallest? The one with the biggest muscles, or… the one that is just delicious to watch in his gym clothes? Someone else?”
“…I heard there was a boy called Adrian Nikolic, a scholarship student like us. Do you know of him?”
“Hmmmm, scholarship student… Nope!”
“No?”
For someone who knew everything about every single boy she pointed towards, that she hadn’t even heard of this boy was unusual.
Senna was heavily conflicted. She didn’t want to admit it, but Thomas’ deduction of the situation was seeming more and more likely. Whilst she refused to let the overly friendly gorgon touch her, she had felt a form of kinship with a fellow supernatural creature that was doing her best to change her nature and fit into human society.
That’s right, whilst it wasn’t any particularly deep knowledge, she knew gorgons traditionally ate humans, a species which she was indifferent to their life and death.
The thought that she was still a slave to that instinct formed a giant rift between them in her heart, as if they were no longer similar.
She also questioned herself, whether it was all worth it in the end.
“Why do I bother,” Senna silently asked her heard.
Jack Riddle stood under a nostalgic overpass. The sounds of wheeled cars humming and hover cars zipping by on top of it drowned out any sound of a person crying in pain.
He stood surrounded by Alan West and his cronies, his elder sister, Erin West, sat on the base of one of the pillars supporting the overpass without caring for what they were doing. She knew her brother bullied Jack, but she personally couldn’t care less about some nobody scholarship student.
Jack saw the homeless bum seeing them from a distance before abruptly turning around and fleeing.
He didn’t fight back, instead taking all the jolt spells designed to torture his nerves. Different from his previous life though, right now all those lightning sparks were being blocked by a magic coat shielding just above the surface of his body.
The Alan and the others though, it looked like he was a helpless lamb being tortured by them. What they couldn’t see was that his magic was constantly spreading into the ground before extending out like roots beneath the surface of the concrete, even climbing up the pillars unseen.
Harold, who was slightly larger than the other boys, then cast his overcharged jolt spell which had killed him the first time.
As soon as the spell was absorbed and nullified by Jack’s mana shield though, he had entered a new timeline that he previously never got to experience.
Alan and his friends all started laughing uproariously, Harold even commenting, “Ahh, damn that felt fucking awesome! I have to tell you, I’ve been feeling so constrained.”
Alan nodded his head and agreed.
“Tell me about it. It feels much better to let loose.”
Erin West, however, had been startled by the bolt and accidentally dropped her phone, causing the screen to crack upon impact with the ground. The holographic display split as a result and one half of the screen kept flickering on and off like a tv with a bad signal.
“What was that!?” She shouted in annoyance, “Huh, what have you idiots done now? Did you kill him, seriously? What the hell is wrong with you!?”
Alan, Thomas, and the other two boys turned their heads and looked at her simultaneously with disdain.
“And, dear sister, what if we did? You don’t have to worry about it anymore. Hey, you can come out now.”
“What? What are you talking about? I’ll beat your ass long before dad does for…”
She trailed off nervously as she saw a homeless man poke his head out from behind one of the concrete pillars and display a giant grin full of damaged teeth, one of which seemed to have been replace by gold.
He then made his way over towards the group in a light jogging dance.
“Hey, Alan, what’s going on? If this is some sort of prank, it’s not funny, alright?”
“Actually, it’s quite hilarious if I were to say so. I am long done with this charade with you. If you weren’t so valuable to-”
“That’s enough!”
Erin pulled out her wand from her sleeve and waved it through the air in order to cast paralysis spells on everyone here before teaching them a lesson. She still didn’t know what she was to do with the dead body, that was for their father to figure out, but she would at least teach her younger brother and his idiot friends a lesson to not go against her.
She was already a First Circle Mage, having completely formed her first mana ring in her heart but yet to assign her first spell to it. Choosing the right spell to bind into her very magic was a huge decision which she was in no rush to accomplish.
Even despite that, she was already immensely more powerful than any mage apprentice, let alone her younger brother who was less than half her talent and didn’t put in anywhere near the same amount of effort as she did.
“Gvp Mal-”
Before she could chant ‘Gvp Mala Mekh’, the spell to completely paralyze another and turn them into rag dolls, Alan waved his hand and a huge force gripped her wand and ripped it from her hand before sending it flying across the road.
“Wh… What was that?”
Erin was spooked immediately and all the danger senses in her body were ringing. Alan and his goons all began laughing at the same time at her, and that is when things became even weirder for the girl with red stripes in her long blonde hair.
Alan’s entire eye, including the sclera, turned pitch black alongside the other boys. The homeless man was the same, who had somehow gotten behind her much faster than she anticipated and without a single sound.
He grabbed her from behind, one of his dirty hands clamped over her mouth to stop her from shouting whilst the other held her still in a vice-like grip.
Her eyes teared up not just from the fright, but that the homeless man stank of rot and decay, an extremely pungent stench that assaulted her nose and made her dizzy.
“My dear sister, you didn’t think I let you come all the way out here because I wanted you to take part in our fun, did you? No, I have much greater plans for you, or at least, for your body.”
“Mmmm!! MMM!!”
“Oh, there is no use struggling, my friend holding you could handle even a First Circle Mage, let alone some little girl who thinks she is above everyone else.”
Alan began to move closer to his restrained and helpless sister like a hunter stalking closer to its prey when laughter abruptly emitted from the “corpse” on the ground.
“Hahaha, hahahahahhahaha… HAHAHAHAH!”
All four students turned their heads’ with a frown only to see the “corpse” start shaking from the laughter before standing up uninjured.
Jack stood up without the slightest difficulty and brushed the dirt off his clothes before cutting off his laughter and looking at them with a gaze as if he were looking down upon ants.
“I had waited to see if you demons were going to reveal why so many of you are lurking inside Laurence Academy of the Gifted, but how can I lie there and willingly let you possess the body of such a beautiful girl?”
“I don’t know how you managed to stand back up, but you should have just kept playing dead.” Demon Alan smirked before grabbing the air between himself and Jack, unleashing his telekinetic demonic powers.
Counter to the demon’s intentions though, Jack remained unharmed. His collar rippled slightly, but that was all that happened.
“…Huh?”
Jack pointed his finger towards the demons and commented, “Did you expect that to do something? I will show you what actual power is.”
The former mage emperor merely flicked his finger back and forth, and the demons were knocked around as if they were being attacked by an invisible object.
The homeless demon was knock flying away from Erin before being hit again mid flight and sent crashing into the solid concrete ground. Alan and his cronies rapidly dodged and swatted at the air in order to defend themselves.
With their telekinesis failing to grab a hold of Jack, they resorted to using their wands to cast magic just as a human would. Jolts, fireballs, and minor charms were cast to catch him off guard, but it was a fruitless effort.
The more they fought back, the harder it was for them to avoid Jack’s invisible projectile. The demons didn’t care about damage to the body they were inhabiting, but it was enough to interrupt them and give Jack a chance to chain spells together like weaving a net.
Not just spells, they also held superhuman strength as a result of their demonic energy infusing with the host body. They closed the distance and tried to physically beat Jack down, but the closer they came, the harder it began to avoid Jack’s invisible flying mace.
Erin West sat on the ground in fright at this battle, her legs still weak from being captured by demons. She had never felt so powerless before nor lost in such a manner, shattering her confidence.
“Enough of this! The time for games is over!” One of the demon goons called out aggressively and made out as if to release a larger amount of power.
Contrary to their poses, they turned tail and tried to make their escape. ‘Alan’ even went towards his sister to grab her, who cowered and shook without her wand.
She regretted being so indecisive about choosing her first First Circle spell to bind to her mana ring. If she had, she would at least be able to cast that spell even without a wand.
“You’re correct. Enough time has passed, so there is no longer a need to continue playing games with a bunch of foul demons.”
The mana Jack had been spreading earlier suddenly became visible. Giant tendrils of alien characters and formations covered the entire ground in a hundred meter radius, even extending up the concrete pillars supported the overpass.
The demons stopped as if time had frozen. Erin looked up at her brother who had frozen in the middle of reaching towards her, his fingers fully outstretched. His mouth was twisted into a malevolent smile, but his eyes were currently full of panic and fear.
“W-w-what did you do?” She timidly called out, her earlier indifference, even arrogance, no longer to be seen.
Jack didn’t even glance at her, merely stating, “Stopping them from running away. I have some questions for them, after all.”
With a twist of his hand, the giant magic formation spread out on the ground flashed a deep blue and all the captured demons were pulled through the air, crashing onto the hard concrete floor before him.
They were pressed down to the ground by an irresistible gravity, each demon barely managing to prop themselves up with their hands and knees despite their strengthened bodies.
“Do you think you have beat us?” The homeless demon twisted his mouth in anger as her snarled, “I will tear apart your soul with my own teeth!”
The demon tried to escape the body and possess Jack, but he found to his surprise that he was trapped inside of it, unable to leave even if he wanted to. This was a situation that he had never met before, and it made him feel deeply unsettled.
Jack watched the demon attempting to escape while smirking.
“If you could just leave the bodies you are possessing to escape, it wouldn’t be much of an imprisonment, now would it?”
“…What do you want?” The demon inhabiting Alan’s body gritted his teeth and snarled whilst looking for a means to break free from this imprisonment.
“I want to know why so many demons have suddenly infiltrated the school. What are you evil things scheming?”
“Do you think we woul-kgh!!”
With one hand controlling the main trapping formation, Jack cast another, smaller formation, with his other hand that created a choker-like ring around its neck and cutting the demon’s words off mid sentence.
It coughed and spluttered as Alan’s face twisted in agony. Oily black veins appeared on his skin and his entire body tensed up.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to talk, there are other mouths here wh-”
“Stop!!”
Erin rushed forth and planted her body in between Alan and Jack, having regained her courage, even if her knees were still a bit unstable.
Jack was slightly perplexed, but overall unshaken by this intrusion. He had deliberately left her out of the trapping formation’s imprisonment as she was not possessed and a victim in all of this, but that was an action he was currently reconsidering.
“You do understand that is not your brother, but a demon, right?” Jack asked monotonously, staring her in the eye.
“I… I know, but my brother is still inside. I know he is still there!”
The demon looked at her and his face took a drastic turn before speaking to Erin in desperation, “Sister, you have to help me! This demon possessed me, but its been weakened! I can force it out, I know I can!”
Whilst hope sparked in Erin’s chest, Jack was not one to be fooled by such tactics and snorted in derision.
“Ignore its words, it is a creature of deceit.”
Perhaps it was out of concern for the girl’s feelings, but Jack turned his attention to the possessed homeless man instead of her brother.
“How about you? Will you tell me what you are scheming?”
The homeless demon gritted his teeth but didn’t have the same tenacity as the others.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Then you are worthless to me.”
The demon opened its mouth wide in a silent scream before blood splashed all over the concrete, including on the other demons and Erin. Erin turned her head to look before her knees gave out as she stumbled and she collapsed on the ground, dry heaving at the gruesome scene.
Black smog poured out of the remains, but even that was unable to escape. The demon’s true form, an oily black smog, was forced together and coalesced into the pinky-sized black crystal. Jack pinched the sealed demon between his fingers, a seemingly inert obsidian crystal, before casually pocketing it.
“I only need one-”
Jack was cut off as he suddenly dropped to one knee and vomited a mouthful of blood. The sound of shattering glass resounded under the overpass as the giant magic circle fractured and broke into pieces.
*clap*… *clap*… *clap*
A middle-aged man in a business suit and slick hair slowly clapped whilst walking into the area.
“F-father…”
Erin looked at the man in pure disbelief, unwilling to believe her own eyes.
“That’s not your father, girl,” Jack grimaced and glared at the intruder. He had not entered the common way, but reality itself had twisted around the man.
Mr. West’s eyes were pitch black, indicating his status as a demon. The power he held was worlds beyond what the other demons held.
“You scum only had one job,” The demon Mr. West spoke in an emotionless voice, “but you are instead out here causing a mess. How exactly do you plan to recompense me if you mess everything up?”
“S-sir, it’s not our fault.” The demon Alan hurriedly tried to explain himself but quickly shut his mouth when the latter sent him a furious glare.
Mr. West glanced at Jack whose mana shield revealed itself, blocking an invisible distortion in the air that tried to grab him.
With a light snort, the demon then raised his hand and the entire ground shook. Cracks spread through the concrete and up the pillars supporting the overpass. With a dire sense of danger, Jack responded by casting a rapid fire mage bolt at the demon.
The blue fireballs that flew like cannonballs weren’t blocked or dodged, but the curved unnaturally through the air and missed the demon, striking more concrete pillars and buildings in the background.
“You are impressive, but that is about it. If I were not injured, this would already have been over. Enough of this farce, you can go die now.”
“…Do you dare reveal your name, demon?” Jack mocked while glaring at the man.
“Astaroth, Duke of Doors.”
At some unknown point, the previously captured demons were no longer near Jack but instead stood behind Mr. West with sneers on their faces. Even though one of them was captured, there was no sense of camaraderie among demons, only winners and losers.
The demon possessed Alan looked at his ‘sister’, who was still stunned and stated, “It’s such a shame, sister, you could have been something great. Perhaps I should eat this poor soul inside of me, just so you can hear his death woes~ hahahaha!”
At this moment, the concrete support pillars fully gave way, collapsing down alongside a large section of the overpass itself upon Jack and the girl.
Jack was unperturbed and glared at the demons who quickly vanished from sight behind a falling block of concrete and were not seen again.
Car horns blared as they came falling down from the overpass, whilst hover cars, only designed to self gravitate a certain distance from the surface via counter force, went careening further off and not into the rubble.
All of this sound was blocked by the thunderous crashing of giant concrete rubble falling like an avalanche, the cries of the victims forever drowned out.
Jack would have been able to escape without difficulty, but Erin could not. She stared up at the incoming rubble in despair as her life flashed before her eyes. At the last moment, she tightly shut her life and clenched her fists, waiting for it to all be over.
Despite the heaven shaking commotion around them though and the ground vibrating like a rubber band as a result, she did not meet the expected death.
Slowly opening her eyes, she saw Jack Riddle, the student one year her junior, standing above her like a hero. A large blue mana shield in the shape of a pyramid was erected over them, protecting them from the fallen rubble.
“Girl, hurry and get up. I need you to open a path before this place becomes our tomb.”
Engorged blue veins spread from Jack’s temples and onto his face, his eyes turning bloodshot from the combined strain of not just blocking the enormous weight of the falling overpass and subsequent falling cars, but also from his magic array being forcefully broken and suffering the backlash from that.
Erin was still shaking and mumbled something under her breath, to which Jack responded, “What? Speak up!”
“I said… My wand is buried under the rubble!”
“…”
The police arrived at the scene not long afterwards in a tactical aircraft equipped with all kinds of technology.
“Citizens, evacuate the vicinity immediately. I repeat. Citizens, evacuate the vicinity immediately!”
The electronic message was broadcast from the bus-like aircraft as it lowered itself down towards the scene of the accident. The overpass had been closed off automatically once the bridge collapsed with ‘CLOSED’ light blockades and signage that didn’t physically stop any vehicle, but short concrete walls had been raised further down the bridge that would stop anyone who tried to forcefully pass.
Mediplanes and ambulances were en route whilst the police secured the scene.
Ordinary citizens were amassing the area with phones to record the accident or were otherwise just careening for a look. The media would be here shortly too, most backed by massive conglomerates that would twist any news to benefit themselves.
Anthony Reeves was a part of this detachment, as the severity was extremely high. He leapt from the open hatch of the tactical aircraft before it even landed and begun forcing people to move away with a menacing expression.
Having escaped just in time, Jack Riddle was heading back towards his current residence, a condo he shared with the scion of the Frost MagiTech company, Charlotte Frost.
Following not far behind him was a meek Erin West, her makeup smudged and hair in disarray. Her fists were clenched up in balls as if to control her emotional turmoil.
“I have already saved your life, there is no need to follow me.”
“I… can’t go home.”
She wasn’t stupid. Her father and brother had been taken over by demons and they had intended for a demon to possess her body too. Going home would be suicide.
Not to mention that even though she had recovered her wand, which had miraculously been missed by the falling rubble, she stood no chance of defeating the demons.
“Then go to a hotel. Don’t tell me that you can’t afford one.”
Erin looked down at her phone, which displayed a message from the banking institute that her account had been frozen and credits locked until further notice. Her fists clenched even tighter to the point her knuckles turned white.
“…Are you going to abandon me?”
Jack snapped his fingers and the mana in the air immediately became excited. A rope rapidly wound itself and grew in size before binding her and causing her to fall to the ground with a dull thud. Despite this, she didn’t cry out in pain, merely glaring at him with determination.
He looked over his shoulder at her and commented, “I had no need to save you, but do not dare think that I now am responsible for you. From henceforth, your fate is your own. Do not bother me again.”
With that, he continued walking and left the tied up girl alone. His magic would wear off in an hour or two, and by that point, she would no longer be able to follow him.
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