Chapter 53 Magic

Fingers were snapped.
The complete darkness was turned into an enlightened environment. Josiah’s eyes went out of focus for a second. He could now catch the barren walls and the surroundings with his eyes. The light source was unclear, but it illuminated everything with a weak, yellow light.
Over the ground, there were a lot of unknown objects scattered over. Dolls, metal tools, jewelry, curtains… The purpose of everything was mysterious. And to his left, Josiah could catch the silhouette of the owner of the voice of who directed to them a while ago: a short man on a dark blue robe, covering his head with a hood. The man didn’t look very physically strong. He seemed weaker than the people he was used to sparring with inside the army. Josiah couldn’t see his face because the light source seemed to come straight from behind him, rendering his face pitch black.
“You…”
“Witness the power of magic!”
The man extended his hands to Josiah and a huge mass of fire came towards him. A concentrated ball, like a campfire set on the ground, was thrown to him. However that was created, Josiah felt it was better to dodge it and think about it later.
He dropped his body to the right while Lenny, who was right at his side, jumped to the left. The ball then passed through the middle of them, hitting the wall of the pit, behind them.
A huge crashing sound was made when the fireball met the wall. Josiah looked back and saw a significant mass of dirt was taken off and spread around, burning a huge perfectly circular hole in the wall.
‘What? He can do that with the hands?’ Josiah thought amazed.
“Neat, huh? I teach my people how to overcome life’s difficulties with magical power. For that, some sacrifices need to be made.”
Josiah got his body up, carrying an angry expression.
“So you are the one who did that with all of the people. With Ray. But also to the people of the village. The people in your own village!”
“As I said, it was needed. But don’t worry, the sacrifice is annual. We need a huge lot of blood in a short period of time, but now it shall only happen after other thirteen months. Of course, we people of Bhule all know how the rituals work, and we have been surviving with it for years and years. When there are visitors the quota is met with ease, but there are years where nobody comes around, so we need to resort to selecting the least productive blood.”
“The son of the baker! Is it because he is a child!?”
“Of course, Eneris and his personnel often come and check to try and find something, but they all meet the same end. Worry not, like kids. I will make sure you don’t leave this place. Not like there is a way of climbing up without magic, anyway. If you are good you can donate yourselves so that I can harness your blood for the next year. This way you from the army can save people for the next quota. Sounds good, heh? It’s your duty to protect the people, after all.”
“You talk too much!”
Lenny had swooped, contouring the place aside the walls and was almost right to the side of the magician while he was talking big to Josiah.
She attacked him with her knife first thing. Lenny didn’t care if he defended or counterattacked her during the motion. It sufficed one small cut with the knife and she could start using her bloodbound power to cause his bloodflow to change to the point he couldn’t control it anymore.
The magician did the unexpected: after shifting his attention to her briefly with her words, he predicted Josiah would use the opportunity to strike as well, maintaining himself in a position to aid her in case he got rid of her. So he shifted his attention right back to him, to spot Josiah running toward him on a straight path.
He then launched another fireball right at Josiah, not giving him time to dodge.
Of course, as a result, he let himself get cut by Lenny, as well.
“Argh!” He exclaimed as he felt the blood running. He quickly used his arm to launch Lenny’s childish body back away.
“Haha! How do you like that, kid? If we are going for suicidal attacks then we might as well do it all of us, no?”
“Joe!” Lenny shouted, worried.
Josiah was rolling on the ground. His armor had been set on fire, and he desperately rolled on the ground to try and do make the flames go away.
“It’s useless. The magic flames cannot be put out unless I wish them so. Such is the power of the annual rituals.”
“Damn it!” Josiah shouted.
Seeing those words were true, he did the only thing he could: he began removing the armor he was wearing and tossed it to the side.
“Hah! Think I’m going to let you do that?” The magician mocked. He extended one of his palms to Josiah.
“Hey! I’m the one fighting you!” Lenny shouted and leaped to him, her knife in the right hand.
Since she was so close, he had to quit trying to do something to Josiah and concentrate on the girl. She pestered him until Josiah could take his armor off and throw it at the ground. Lenny even managed to get another bruise on his arm with her knife. The magician’s blood was visibly running from the wounds.
As she saw him getting more serious, she stepped back and began focusing her bloodbound power. Although the effect of the knife was great, it was still at level 6, which meant she needed a lot of effort to control the flow of the opponent after stabbing him.
“Damn it! My blood…” He noticed right away. “You…”
He faced Lenny, who was with the back to the wall.
“This knife… I see… It has the power to control my blood flow. You cannot fool the wisdom of the gods. I know you are trying to lock my abilities. But you underestimate the wonders of magic. I don’t need any bloodbound power to make these work!”
This time the magician didn’t launch a ball of fire, but a ball of some sort of condensed energy. Lenny didn’t feel anything physical touching her body, but she could sense something coming very fast, like a really fast small tornado. She tried to dodge jumping to the side, but the magician was too close and the speed of the attack was too great.
The attack threw her violently to the wall. The stones cracked as she knocked on them, making an awful noise, and her body slid from the wall onto the floor. The ball finished her in an instant.