The Arrogance of Humility 4

Celina’s magic summoned countless ice needles and spikes launched towards ash-covered Malus, freezing everything in the magic’s path. The spectators could feel the intense cold that some magi used fire magic to heat themselves.

Iggy’s magic engulfed the ash with dark clouds while flames and brimstones surrounded the circle sigil. The flame, dark cloud, and brimstone combusted and rose to the sky, forming a black blazing pillar visible from afar.

As soon as Celina’s and Iggy’s magic collided, explosions happened, forcing the spectators, except for Lance to flee from the arena. A force of intense heat and cold surrounded Malus’ side of the arena, causing a thick mist to appear. As soon as their magic stopped, wind swept away the cloud and mist, revealing nothing but an empty crater.

“We did it?” Iggy muttered as he fell on his knee, tired.

“We should be,” Celina replied as she panted.

Malus was nowhere to be found, causing them to worry a bit.

“Did we overdo it—?” Celina muttered with shock on her face.

“No way. We reduced the effect. He couldn’t be dead.”

“Then, where’s he?” Celina asked as she looked around. She later noticed the black matter near them vanished. “Iggy! On your guard! He might be still—!”

From the sky, a dark matter smoke floated to the crater where Malus stood. The smoke solidified and expanded, creating a hollow portal. Malus calmly walked out of the portal, unharmed, shocking both of them. The portal changed into a ball, floating next to Malus.

“H-How?!” Iggy muttered with shock as his eyes opened wide. His hands went cold as he bit his lips.

“That’s all?” Malus said, disappointed with their struggles.

“Iggy! We have to—!”

As soon as Iggy and Celina were about to move their limbs, two dark matter shaped like wedges launched at them with full speed, piercing their chest and pinning them to the ground. The wedges missed their vitals, but they felt intense pain, almost causing them to black out.

They struggled to remove the wedge, but before they could touch the wedges, the black matter wedges dissolved into their body, mixing into their blood. Their skin darkened and their veins bulged wildly. Both of them screamed as they felt an agonizing and burning pain covering their bodies.

Malus walked to them with a cold, disappointed face, ready to end their suffering with a final blow. Malus' scepter glowed, and the dark matter next to him floated to them. But before the dark matter touched their body, Lance dashed into the arena and kicked the dark matter ball away, surprising Malus.

“That’s enough,” Lance said with a scowl. “Stop your alchemy magic now—!!!”

“Or?” he replied with little to no care.

“Or I’ll force you to do so,” Lance threatened as he took an azoth dagger from his pocket, pointing it at Malus.

“Oh?” Malus smirked; he liked Lance already. “I suppose you’re far stronger than them, no? From your robe, you must be a master alchemist to know that I use both magic and alchemy.”

“I am. So undo it now—!”

“Why would I listen to you?” Malus asked as he stared right at Lance’s eyes. “I only listen to the winner’s words. Since you impressed me, I’ll let you breathe for today. But the next day,” Malus turned. “Prepare yourself.”

The top of his scepter glowed, and he muttered, “Bathin.”

The dark matter ball engulfed Malus and turned into black smoke, flying and leaving the arena. The spectators returned to see both Celina and Iggy writhing in pain.

“What are you all waiting for?!” Lance asked aloud to the students. “Bring them to the infirmary!”

Professor Arkana arrived at the scene later, along with some other students. Shock etched on her face as she saw both top magi defeated.

Lance inspected the blood mixed with the dark matter on the ground, and Professor Arkana got closer.

“Who did this?” Professor Arkana asked, worried.

“You are late, Professor.”

“Forgive me,” she said. “The professors were busy because of a sudden meeting.”

“Sigh. A transfer student did this,” Lance replied as he touched the black blood with his gloves on.

“Transfer student?” she said as her eyes opened wide. “Don’t tell me… Malus?”

“How do you know?”

“B-But… He’s the grandchild of the academy founders.”

“You don’t say!” Lance said, surprised.

“He’s the best student from the southern academy. We received the report that he would be transferred here soon, but we didn’t expect him to come so early and did this to the students.”

Lance took an empty vial from his pocket and collected the blood samples.

“I’m going to need this to take care of him later,” Lance thought.

Meanwhile, outside the academy, on the street, Lucy just got her sage robe fixed at the tailor. She was with Gina, walking along the busy empire street.

“You let yourself get injured?” Gina asked.

“Hmph! Of course, I don’t!” Lucy huffed as she pouted. “Boys just couldn’t go easy on girls.”

“Wasn’t it otherwise?” Gina asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not the one going easy on him?”

“Of course I’m not! He went all out on me while I’m trying to defend myself!”

As they were talking, Lucy bumped into an unknown boy of their age.

“Ah, sorry!” Lucy apologized.

Lucy looked at the robe the boy wore; it was a modified sage robe.

The person was Malus, but they didn’t recognize him. In the other hand, Malus recognized Lucy because unknown to her, she was a famous student known by everyone from academy branches.

Malus stopped and looked at her.

“You…” he muttered. “You are Luxianne, correct?”

“Ah, yes! Pardon me, but… Have we met before?” Lucy was clueless.

“Oh my! This person is scary!” Lucy thought, afraid as she got goosebumps all over her body from Malus’ hostile pressure.

“No.” He looked deep into Lucy’s eyes, causing her to feel pressured.

“Then… Do you need anything from me?”

“Nothing, yet.”

“Y-Yet?”

Malus sighed as he moved past Lucy and Gina a step forward.

“Next time we meet, you will grovel before me,” he threatened, surprising both Lucy and Gina before walking away with his scepter glowing and a dark matter appeared. Lucy turned and chased after Malus, demanding an answer.

“Wait! What do you mean by t—?!”

The dark matter covered him and turned into smoke that floated away from the scene. Lucy was about to use her magic to chase after him, but Gina held her shoulder.

“Lucy!” she said as she pulled her shoulder.

“Gina! I have to—!”

“I’m as confused as you, Lux! But let’s calm down for a moment. He might be a stalker or a person who’s jealous of your talents.”

“Gina… I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s return to the academy!”

Immediately, both of them hurried to the academy and saw the half-destroyed arena and the distressed students.

“The arena…” Lucy muttered, remembering a visible explosion caused by Iggy and Celina earlier. “The explosion earlier might have caused this.”

Gina asked other students about what happened when they were away. She asked a magus student, and he told them everything.

“A transfer student did this,” the student said. “He’s a monster with powerful and strange magic. He’s targeting third to fourth-level students from the lowest to the highest. He defeated Rez, Cletus, and both Iggy and Celina.”

“The person you’re talking about… Is he a sage who brings scepter with him?” Gina asked.

“Yes! W-Wait! How did you know—?”

“We bumped into him about ten minutes ago,” Lucy said.

“Eh?! And you’re still fine?!”

“Then, the arena… Did he cause this?” Gina asked.

“No,” the student said. “It was Iggy and Celina. They used a combination attack but that guy was unharmed.”

“I see,” Lucy muttered.

Wanting to know more, Lucy grabbed Gina’s hand, taking her to the infirmary.

The students gathered in the infirmary's front, curious about the injured conditions. As soon as Lucy and Gina appeared, the students made way for them. Inside, injured Cletus, Iggy, and Celina rested. Cletus received minor injuries, while Iggy and Celina received severe injuries.

A wiseman professor was inspecting their condition. It was a tall man in his mid-30s. He had a sand tone skin, a Grecian nose, dark brown eyes, and a short black ponytail undercut hair with a short stubble beard. He’s an easygoing and caring person.

“How’s their condition, Carl?” Lucy asked.

“Good Afternoon, Professor Carolus,” Gina greeted as she bowed slightly.

“Good Afternoon, Luxianne, Regina,” he greeted back. “The others are fine, but Iggy and Celina…”

They looked at both of them; they were writhing in pain and began mumbling how painful their bodies were feeling. Their fingers and toes were swollen and their skin darkened.

A female magus brought them glasses of drinking water for the injured and a clear white liquid inside a bottle.

“Do you know what’s happening to them?” Gina asked.

“They’re suffering from azoth poisoning,” he replied. “But I have never seen an effect like this before. I couldn’t apply alkahest to their body either, fearing that I could damage them more instead.”

“Can you separate the azoth from their blood using alchemy?” Gina asked.

“I could be but… The azoth had merged with their blood. If I try to remove the azoth, I would also remove their blood,” he replied. “The rest is fortunate because they suffer less. I could treat and heal Cletus and Rez in time by applying alkahest to their wound and drawing the tainted blood out.”

Alkahest is a universal solvent capable of dissolving any mineral (including Azoth) into liquid. It’s made of caustic lime, alcohol, and potassium carbonate. Alkahest is always liquid.

Because both Celina and Iggy were not in the condition for questioning, Gina and Lucy asked Cletus. His right shoulder had a bandage to cover the wound.

“How are you doing?” Lucy asked.

“Ah! I think I will be okay,” Cletus answered as he drank some water. “The wound… It’s itchy!” Cletus scratched his right shoulder.

“Please tell me everything that happened,” Lucy demanded, and Cletus told them everything about his fight against Malus.

“I see…” Lucy commented with a concerned face.

“His magic… I’ve never seen such magic before…” Cletus said as his face went pale and his lips quivered in fear.

Lucy went to Professor Carolus.

“Do you have their tainted blood sample?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, Lancelot gave the blood sample to me,” Professor Carolus said.

“Have you researched it?” Lucy asked.

“Not yet but, Lancelot is doing it now.”

“Damn it, why him?” Lucy thought, peeved. “Well, there’s no helping then.”

Lucy grabbed Gina’s arm and went outside, searching for Lance.

They went to the grand laboratory, but Lance wasn’t there. There’s only one place Lancelot could go to research then, the abandoned laboratory under the academy.

They opened the door at the very end of the hallway and descended downstairs.

The underground laboratory gave everyone who entered it an eerie and unnerving pressure because once, a terrible experiment to control a demon from Maleficium severely backfired, causing it to go on a rampage. Since then, no one, even the professors, wanted to research there.

There were lots of laboratory tools and flasks there, but most of them were broken and obsolete. Sparks of electricity from malfunctioning tools and flickering flames added to the feel of abandonment. The air and the smell there felt stuffy and humid because of the lacking of ventilation.

There, Gina and Lucy saw Lancelot experimenting and analyzing the blood sample with the equipment he brought from the main laboratory.

He was serious, but as soon as he saw Lucy descending the stairs, he lost all of his focus and went over-dramatic like usual.

“Oh!” He stood and began praising redundantly. “My wonderful, splendid, beautiful, gorgeous god—!”

“Lancelot,” Lucy said coldly. “What do you know about the blood?”

“Perhaps I’ll talk after a kiss—!” Lance opened his arms to hug and kiss Lucy, but she slapped him on his right cheek.

“Be serious!” Lucy shouted.

“I am serious, my dear—!” he said as he hugged her.

Lucy pushed and slapped him again, this time on his left cheek. Now, Lucy’s hand marks were on Lance’s cheeks.

“Okay…” Lance said as he caressed his slapped cheeks.

Lance sat and continued his research while the girls watched. He tried to separate the blood from the black substance through distillation. After some tries, Lance separated the blood from the black substance and put the substance in a measuring cylinder.

“This is an impure Azoth,” he said. “But I don’t know the rest.”

Lucy examined the cylinder.

“Careful,” Lance warned as he grabbed Lucy’s hand. “Don’t touch it directly as it could—”

Ignoring Lance’s words, Lucy dripped a drop on her finger.

“Lucy!” Lance muttered aloud.

Much to their surprise, Lucy was fine. The substance didn’t harm her the slightest. Lucy bit her thumb to draw blood and dripped the blood into the cylinder. The red blood became darker as soon as it came into contact with the black substance. Lucy healed her wound using her magic and examined the cylinder again.

“Have you tried alkahest to dissolve the azoth?” Lucy asked.

“Not yet, but I’ll try it now,” he responded as he stood and opened a drawer next to him. He distilled the substance again and mixed the impure azoth with alkahest to dissolve the azoth. He distilled the solute to remove the azoth and alkahest. The result was an unknown pitch-black goo.

“Is this oil?” Gina asked.

“Pretty sure it isn’t,” Lance replied. “If this is oil, then it would evaporate when I heated it. But, I found no trace of oil from the azoth.”

Lucy looked at the black goo for a minute. The black goo seemed familiar to her, but it was too early for her to jump to a conclusion. Lucy stood and pointed on the open ground near them.

“What are you going to do?” Gina asked.

“Searching for the answer,” she replied.

A black hexagram sigil appeared on the ground, and the eeriness increased as soon as the sigil expanded.

Both Lance and Gina felt uneasy as their hands went cold from fear. This kind of sigil could only mean one thing: The Forbidden Maleficium.

“You’re using Maleficium?!” Gina asked, afraid.

“This sigil…!” Lance muttered.

“Don’t be afraid! Demons won’t dare to lay a finger as long as you have a firm will!” Lucy said as she closed her eyes and muttered, “Buer!”

A creature manifested from the hexagram, a centaur-like creature with a head of a lion, the body of a man and a horse with five goat's legs. The creature spoke with a rough male voice and beastly howl.

“Who called me?” the demon asked as it looked around.

Lucy moved forward and replied, “I did. I’m the summoner.”

As soon as the creature moved an inch, chains appeared from the hexagram sigil and constricted the demon, preventing it from doing anything.

“Gah! I’m a busy one, mortal. State your business and finish this as soon as possible.”

Lucy looked at Lance and told him to pass her the black goo cylinder. Lance did so, and Lucy showed the black goo to the demon.

At first sight, the demon could recognize the black goo’s source.

“Amaymon,” the demon answered.

“Amaymon?” Lucy was clueless.

“That’s the only thing you need to know about this.”

“Tell me more!” Lucy insisted as the chains constricted the demon tighter.

“I have nothing else to say, even if you insist—”

“Where does this thing come from?” Lucy asked.

“Amaymon.”

“Sigh!” She became fed up. “How do you remove this substance from blood?”

“Amaymon.”

“You’re just repeating the same words—!”

“Because it’s only the answer, mortal!”

The name Amaymon wasn’t too foreign in Lucy’s ears.

“You’re saying that Amaymon is responsible for this?”

“Correct.”

“I see—”

The demon moved its limbs, trying to break free.

“Now, you have your answer,” the demon said. “Now. It’s time for the consequences—!”

The demon broke the chains using raw strength and reached its arms for Lucy, causing both Gina and Lance to panic.

“Lucy—!” Lance called as he was about to pull Lucy out to save her.

“I’ll be collecting your—!” the demon barked aloud.

Lucy took a glass shard from a broken flask and slit her left palm to draw blood. She smeared the blood to the ground below the sigil and a pentagram sigil appeared, overlaying the hexagram sigil. The blood became dark and flooded the sigils, creating a pitch-black hole.

The black hole opened like a portal, revealing jagged rocks, brimstones, and fire. More chains appeared and dragged the demon down against its will. The portal began closing as everyone could hear the demon’s growl and scream got farther and farther.

The sigils burned, evaporating into dust. After that, Lucy healed her wound with her magic and fell on her knees out of exhaustion.

“Lucy!” Gina said as she helped her friend to stand up. “That was dangerous, Lux! Don’t you know what will happen if you fail?!”

“At least… We know the origin of the black substance,” Lucy said as she panted. “It’s from a demon Amaymon. If we want to cure both Iggy and Celina, we have to stop Malus.”

“What now?” Gina asked.

“We have to find and force him,” Lance said.

“I’ll find him—!” Lucy said as she forced herself to stand, but Lance stood in front of her, blocking her way.

“No,” Lance said. “You still have to rest. I’ll settle it with him.”

“He’s a Maleficium user, Lance!” Lucy insisted. “He’s dangerous! We have no other choice—!”

“We have the choice,” Lance replied. “After I defeat him, I’ll make him feel sorry and force him to undo his Maleficium of the victims.”

“Besides,” he added as he looked away. “I don’t want to let my beloved goddess dirty her hands! Don't forget that I’m the second-best student after you and I’ll make sure I’ll be the one worthy below you!”

“You dummy…” Lucy said as her face turned red out of embarrassment. “Don’t you lose against him.”

“How are you going to defeat him?” Gina asked.

“I know how to counter him,” Lance replied.

“You know?” Gina asked.

Lance took a seat on a desk.

“I do, since I know the composition of the substance now,” he replied. “The black substance is the mix between azoth and this black demonic goo from that Amaymon. The goo serves as a medium for his magic. Since it’s also mixed with azoth, he could transmute it to form anything.”

“However,” he added. “Azoth couldn't be lethal to humans, which led me to believe that the goo is responsible for such an effect. To defeat him, I’ll just have to separate him from his staff or the black azoth since his scepter produces it.”

“What would you do if you got hit?” Gina asked.

“I’ll apply alkahest to the wound and force the tainted blood out,” Lance replied. “Don’t worry though, I won’t be so stupid to let myself get hit.”

Three of them left the underground laboratory to the hallway. Before Lucy and Gina went their own way, Lance called Lucy for a moment.

“Hey,” he said. “Can we make a deal?”

“Lance. If it’s your stupid proposal, I’ll reject it.”

“If I win, I want you to wear the azoth necklace I made for you.”

After briefly thinking, Lucy nodded, seeing nothing wrong in that.

“Promise,” she accepted.

“YES!!! Now I’m one step closer to marry my goddess—!” he shouted aloud out of joy, but Lucy slapped him.

“Ouch,” he said as he held his right cheek.

“Don’t get the wrong idea!” she scolded aloud as her face turned red. “I’m taking the necklace as a friend!”

Lance gave her a smug smirk.

“Starting from a friend; ends as lovers—!” Lance commented vainly, but Lucy slapped him again.

Lance held his slapped left cheek and left them alone.

Gina and Lucy returned to the infirmary and explained everything about the substance to Professor Carolus.

“Such a thing exists?” he said, doubtfully.

“Carl. You have to find Malus and force him to undo his Maleficium,” Lucy said.

“Lux. We, the professors, could do nothing about this. Malus Draco is the grandson of the academy founders—”

“Then tell the founders! How could a mere student outrank the professors?!” Lucy said aloud.

“We told the founders about this,” he replied.

“And the result?”

“His father, the imperial sage general, will come tomorrow.”

“What?! But Celina and Iggy need treatment now!”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said as he prepared the alkahest. “Leave this matter to me.”

The girls left the infirmary into the academy's front yard. The arena had been fixed using magic. Usually, the students would use the arena for sparring, but because of Malus, they were in a worried state, fearing that their fight might attract him.

The sky was turning orange; it was late afternoon. At the dorm rooftop, Lance was observing the academy from afar, trying to look for Malus, hoping to persuade him.

After a minute of sightseeing, he thought of leaving, but a black fog flew and expanded behind him.