Chapter 137: Chapter 137

As it turned out, they got lucky. Delph showed up the same day, although he stretched the definition of ‘day’ slightly. The professor waited until both Damien and Sylph had gone to bed and were just starting to drift off to sleep.

He pulled the door open and strode into the room with all the grace of a furious bull. “Wake up. There’s been an attack and the two of you are the only responders in range to assist.”

Damien jerked upright, blinking the traces of sleep out of his eyes. “Really?”

“No, you doofus. You’re surrounded by professors and I’m right in front of you,” Delph said, crossing his arms. “This is your final, and you’re being graded. Get out of bed.”

With a sigh, Damien did as Delph instructed. By the time he threw on his coat, Sylph was already waiting beside him.

“Follow me,” Delph said, turning and walking out of the door at a brisk pace. Damien and Sylph exchanged a befuddled glance before jogging after him.

Delph led them through the darkened streets of the campus. There were a few other students still milling about, but many of them seemed to be drunk, lost, or otherwise inebriated. Nobody paid the trio much attention.

It didn’t take Damien long to realize that Delph was bringing them to the arena. His suspicions were correct, and they stepped through the portal a few minutes later. Delph slipped through the stands and hopped over the ledge, floating down to the sand below.

Damien and Sylph jumped down after him, watching the professor warily once they landed. Delph smirked.

“Awake yet?”

“Not really,” Damien said, rubbing his eyes. “Why couldn’t you have done this earlier today or tomorrow?”

“You never know when or where you’ll need to fight,” Delph said. “You should be glad I didn’t start the exam inside your room. It wouldn’t have survived.”

“Thanks,” Sylph said dryly. “So what’s the exam?”

“It should be a familiar one to both of you,” Delph said. “I’m going to transform into a monster. The two of you may work together to attempt and make me concede defeat. I will scale my power to an appropriate level.”

“I thought finals were supposed to be solo?” Damien asked.

“They are,” Delph replied. He cocked an eyebrow. “So were the ranking battles. You two would still find a way to cheat, so I figured it would be easier to get the problem out of the way before it could arise.”

“Fair enough,” Damien admitted. He cast out his mental net as they spoke, channeling more Ether into his core. It was already largely full from the previous day, but he wasn’t about to take any chances with Delph. He kept the Ether moving, directing it into both his hands and feet as he prepared to cast gravity sphere.

“Are you both prepared?” Delph asked.

“Is this the same exam you gave your other students?” Sylph asked.

“That’s a strange way to say if you’re prepared or not,” Delph said. His skin rippled, turning gray. “I think I’ll take that as a yes.”

Delph’s body surged upwards until he was almost twice their height. A clammy blueish hide covered him and his fingers lengthened into claws. Jagged fangs sprouted from his mouth and his armor vanished.

Within moments, not a trace of Delph’s original form remained. He’d been completely replaced by a savage looking humanoid creature. The wendigo let out a hiss, its breath foggy in the night air.

Damien promptly formed all four of his gravity spheres and lobbed them at Delph. Before the spells could even detonate, he cast Devour and wrapped the rune in his mental energy before it could detonate.

The wendigo twisted out of the way, contorting its body as it tried to avoid the gravity spheres. One of them caught Delph in the side while the other three just barely missed. There was a muted thud and the wendigo staggered. It was pulled off balance by the other three spheres behind it, but it didn’t look to be seriously injured.

Sylph’s dark blade formed in her hands and she darted forward, thrusting it towards the wendigo’s chest with blinding speed. The monster’s hand flashed forward, batting the strike away. It leaned forward, breathing out a wave of frosty air.

She dove out of the way as frost covered the ground where she’d been standing. Damien shivered as the temperature dropped several degrees. The wendigo turned to follow after Sylph, but she flickered and faded from view.

Damien enlarged a grain of sand beneath his foot, sending a pillar crashing into the monster’s chest. It tumbled backwards and landed on its feet, letting out a hiss and charging towards him.

He dashed to the side, spinning and drawing the rune to summon Devour. It sprang to life before him moments before a blast of icy air swept out of the wendigo’s mouth. It vanished into the dark circle, which snapped shut a moment later.

Another pillar made of sand shot out from beneath Damien’s feet. The wendigo was so close that it couldn’t completely avoid the attack. It twisted to the side, but the strike still clipped it in the stomach and spun it around.

Sylph flickered to view at its side and slashed at the creature with her sword. It blocked the strike and hopped backwards – landing right in front of Damien’s prepared Devour rune. He triggered the spell, then cast Expunge on it.

Icy wind howled free of the spell, buffeting the wendigo from behind. At the same time, Damien formed a gravity drill in his hand and sent it shooting out towards Delph’s monstrous form. Sylph created a shadowy dagger in her hand and hurled it as well.

The beast snarled, slowed by its own breath weapon, and raised its hands defensively. The gravity drill slammed into its hands, chewing a hole into the creature’s thick flesh. Sylph’s dagger caught it in the stomach, sliding in several inches before vanishing.

With a snarl, the wendigo loped towards them. Damien glanced at Sylph and gave a pointed look at the gravity sphere forming in his hand. She nodded.

He channeled Ether into the gravity sphere, overloading the spell with several times the normal amount of energy before hurling it straight at Delph. Sylph darted towards the wendigo as well, leaping into the air long before she was even close to it.

Damien detonated the spell midway between them. Empowered by the extra Ether, the detonation yanked Sylph and the wendigo towards each other. The wendigo lost its footing as it flew, unprepared for the strength of the spell.

Sylph had no such problems. She held her sword out in front of her and flew feet first towards the wendigo. They slammed into each other. The dark blade punched through the wendigo’s chest, erupting out the other side. She ripped it free and flipped back, landing in the sand with her blade still at the ready.

The large hole in the monster’s chest slowly sealed itself. Damien started to form another spell, but the gray skin faded away. The monstrous features disappeared and Delph returned, a mixture of annoyance and pride on his rough face.

“Well done. I’m sure this doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but you outperformed all of your classmates,” Delph said. “This was the fastest I was defeated.”

“It’s not like you were going all out,” Sylph said, allowing her blade to vanish.

“You wouldn’t have lasted a second if I did,” Delph smirked. “But you did okay. Especially you, Damien. You’ve progressed more than I ever could have expected this year. It’s hard to believe that the mage in front of me could barely even run a lap around this arena a few months ago.”

“He still has trouble with that, actually,” Sylph said with a small laugh.

Damien glared at her. “Running is hard.”

Delph let out a small chuckle and shook his head. “I’m eager to see what happens to the two of you through your next years in college. Speaking of which, congratulations on passing your first year of college.”

“How do you know we passed our other exams?” Damien asked.

Delph cocked an eyebrow. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just imply that I don’t know everything that happens inside Blackmist. Now, before I cut you two free to go do whatever students with no class do, I’ve got one more question. A serious one.”

“What is it?”

“Students that finish Year One are permitted to request a transfer to another mage college. So long as your standing is good enough and the other college has room, it is usually accepted. Do either of you wish to request a transfer?”

Damien blinked. He’d completely forgotten about that. Nolan had mentioned it in the beginning of the year, but he honestly didn’t care about which college he was going to. That being said, getting out from under Whisp’s thumb was certainly tempting.

He mulled over the situation for a few moments. If he left, there was no guarantee he’d be rooming with Sylph – or if they’d even be at the same college. On top of that, he’d started to get friendly with Nolan and was well aware that Delph’s tutelage was a large reason why he’d progressed so quickly.

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Sylph met his eyes and an unspoken conversation passed between them within a second.

“I’ll be staying at Blackmist,” Damien said.

“As will I.”

A grin spread across Delph’s face. “Very good. I look forward to seeing you both soon. Enjoy your break, and don’t do anything too stupid.”

Delph twisted in on himself, condensing into a small mote of gray light before vanishing and leaving them alone in the arena. Damien let out a slow breath and shook his head.

“He’s never going to stop doing that, is he? Would it kill him to just walk somewhere?”

“If you could teleport like that, would you just walk around?” Sylph asked.

“Well, probably not,” Damien admitted as they started walking towards the arena’s exit. “But it costs so much energy to use Warp Step, and I’m pretty sure Delph’s teleportation is harder than mine since it has so much more range. I wonder how much magical energy he’s got.”

“A lot more than us,” Sylph muttered. “That’s for sure. He’s insane. It’s little wonder he fought on the frontlines.”

Damien nodded. They let the conversation trail off, mostly in case Delph was listening. The man didn’t need an even larger ego.

They wandered back through the darkened streets of campus and ascended the mountain path back to their room.

“Do you think the grays took the offer?” Damien asked.

“What, to change schools?”

“Yeah. Nolan didn’t want to come to Blackmist at all, so do you think he’ll try to get transferred to that fancy school for nobles?”

Sylph scratched her neck. “No. I think he’s going to stay here. I’m not sure about Reena, though.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Damien said. They reached their plateau and headed back into their room. After cleaning up for the second time that night, the two of them headed to bed and drifted off to sleep.

It was cold. Damien’s skin prickled as a sharp wind brushed past him. His nose curled and he opened his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh when he found himself floating in a sea of darkness instead of sitting on a grassy hill.

“Herald. What do you want?”

Stars blinked around him. They slowly pulled together, forming Herald’s humanoid form before him. The eldritch creature examined Damien for a few moments.

“How is the girl doing?”

“Who, Sylph?”

“Yes.”

“She seems fine,” Damien said warily. “Why?”

“She houses a Seed of Corruption. If you don’t feel even the slightest amount of concern about that, you are more foolish than I believed.”

“Of course I’m concerned,” Damien said, crossing his faintly glowing arms. “But why do you care? Don’t tell me you’re going to try to convince me that she’s losing it and I need to kill her.”

“No,” Herald said, its impassive voices measured. “She appears… stable. I simply asked because you appear to care for her.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Are you… trying to make small talk?”

“Yes.”

“It’s creepy. Don’t. What do you want?”

“Many things,” Herald replied. “But I do not believe you would be willing to grant me most of them. My reason for this conversation is to give you direction. My analysis has led me to believing that this is the optimal course of action.”

“Optimal course of action for what?” Damien asked. “Destroying the world?”

“Saving it,” Herald corrected. “You have witnessed the corruption. It must not be allowed to spread. If it envelops the mortal plane, it will cease to exist and the cycle will be broken.”

“You don’t know that’s true, but there’s no point arguing it,” Damien said, sighing. “Let’s say you’re right, just for the sake of argument. What do you want?”

“I have waited until you have no obligations,” Herald said. “You do not have this school for the near future.”

“It’s called summer,” Damien said.

“Yes. In which you have no requirement to remain at your current location.”

“What are you getting at?” Damien asked warily. Herald seemed almost amiable, which was more concerning than if the creature had been trying to kill him.

“If you will not assist me in restarting the cycle now, then you will seek out and destroy the traces of Corruption before they can take too much hold in the world. There should be no logical objection to this request.”

“That might be doable,” Damien said slowly. “Until school starts, at least.”

“That was my expectation. You may even bring the girl.”

“She can make her own decisions. She doesn’t just do what I say.”

Herald cocked his head. “Meaningless words. She will come.”

The eldritch creature’s strange change of heart was really starting to get to Damien. As soon as he’d started to think he could handle Herald, it had completely shifted its approach.

“You’re playing at something. Your goal isn’t me cleaning up the Corruption these next few months,” Damien said slowly. “What is it?”

“You will witness the truth of the world,” Herald said. “And it will change you. Then you shall realize that the Corruption must be purged, and we shall end this cycle.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then the mortal plane will fall, and it will be entirely your fault,” Herald said.

The world shattered around him and Damien plunged into the darkness, the twinkle of the stars fading overhead. He plunged into an icy sea and sank beneath the ashy waves, Herald’s words echoing throughout his head.

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