26: Shroud Of Darkness.

He had his hand over his eyes as he tried to process everything that was happening around him until he heard the strange voice.

" Who knows what manner of knowledge I shall be extracting today."

" A curse." He mumbled in shock with a slight gasp as he took his hand off his eyes and tried to turn his gaze towards where the sound of the voice had come from.

It was a big mistake on his part and prompted him to quickly reassume the previous once again while grunting loudly in pain.

" I don't get it. The dust in my eyes... it's almost like it wants to eat into it until I go completely blind."

A smirk slowly crept up his face as he mumbled those words and it wasn't long before he stood straight on his feet once again, his right palm still against his eyes.

" Well now you damned bastard, how about you tell me more about this knowledge extraction of yours — you're a damned thief I can tell, but where you plan on stealing from is what I want to know."

" You're one cocky kid now, aren't you? Left hopeless with no chance of survival and yet stands before me with no fear at all."

He slowly removed his palm from his eyes, trying as much as possible to make his eyes remain as tight as they were; any slight freedom meant excruciating pain for his eyeballs.

With that done, he was now able to properly sense the mystic energy around him and could clearly feel the presence of the curse although it was very faint.

" This was the main reason for trying to provoke it — a quick assumption of waki no kaeme along with a sound-splitting slash and it should have been done for." He thought, gripping onto the hilt of his sword.

Knowing now that the curse wasn't present in the room with him and was merely stretching its control to that extent, he slowly turned towards the exit.

The books and furniture were still flying around uncontrollably and would hit him occasionally; it was only a matter of time before they would become too much of a burden to deal with.

Infusing his hand with lightning which slowly transferred to the scabbard of his sword, he drew it in the blink of an eye and sent a horizontal slash towards the door.

The strike hit the side base of the door, slicing it off while they both remained as seemingly nothing had happened.

The sword slash was so swift and clean that it had seemed nothing had happened to it even after it was cut.

He ran straight towards the door immediately after that and kicked it down, making his way outside once again.

His only cause for distress was that he couldn't sense any ounce of mystic energy that could be equivalent to that of an advanced curse or anything higher, but the kids seemed to be fine so far, which was the only reassurance he needed.

He burst through another and went straight into a storage room painted with dust just like like every other room he had been to.

" The other four headed off to the classroom blocks." He mumbled, finishing off the last of the basic curses he had found lying around.

With that now out of the day he made his way to the classrooms and didn't hesitate to run straight through the hallway.

The foul scent which filled the place caught him off guard but there didn't seem to be any curse present as far as he could tell.

The place had been exorcised clean but the ominous presence still illuminated the place with its dark aura and it must have been the reason why the other three hadn't returned yet.

He heaved a sigh as he tried to take another step forward and that was when his heart skipped a beat.

His gaze met nothing but darkness as he was left with the feeling that he was feeling through the sky.

The heavy rushed against his face and he kept his eyes tight in an attempt to get himself out of the hallucinations that now deluded him but that was when he felt his face crash against the hard ground.

That prompted the sudden realization in him that it certainly wasn't a mirage but what sight stood before him as he opened his eyes was his greatest surprise yet.

*******

The other three had proceeded well so far and it seemed that their number of curse encounters had reduced drastically the further they went.

Just as Alex had mentioned, they were currently in search of the source of the dark presence they were feeling with his clone slowly trailing behind them.

Clone creation was a simple and peculiar type of deception that worked simply based on what instructions remained on the caster's mind when the clone was created.

This also meant that it wasn't very reliable in certain situations unless the caster had grown powerful enough to overwrite an instruction after the clone creation; Alex's clone would do nothing else other than protect them, and even curses were ignored, unless they tried to harm them.

The journey had now seemed fruitless up to the point that they simply turned around and gave up.

Just as they were about to move forward...

A dark shadow enshrouded the surroundings and Alex's clone instantly vanished.