Dark Magic!

Just a few seconds after Celina was taken away by Lyra, James and Freddie decided to visit Clyde. After all, they haven't been able to see him for the past few days. They snuck into his tree house and saw him asleep on the bed.

"Huh? There's no way Clyde would go to bed when the sun is high up in the sky" Freddie tilted his head and James agreed. It was either he's training or roaming around, trying to deal with any threats.

"He must have trained overnight"

"Ah! Yes!"

They jumped to conclusions and decided to leave for him to have a rest. Just before they crossed the door, they heard a wince from Clyde who was asleep.

"Did you hear that?" James exchanged glances with Freddie. Freddie rushed to where Clyde was asleep and shook him.

"Hey, wake up", he said, and Clyde turned to the other side, exposing his bruised shoulder. It had turned red and was swollen.

"What the hell is that?" James furrowed his eyebrows and stepped back.

"Probably an injury he got from training. Wake him up. We need to take him to a healer," Freddie spoke. They tried to wake him up, but he was unable to wake up. He could only wince in pain and spin around on the bed.

Without trying to force him to wake up, they carried him out and took him to the healer.

She was surprised to see Clyde after not being able to see him for a few days now.

"What happened to him?" The healer queried.

"We found him this way on the bed. But, he has a serious injury on his shoulder" Freddie explained.

"Shoulder? That's strange" The healer left her desk and examined Clyde, who also hadn't woken up. She saw the shoulder and raised an eyebrow. She was sure she healed the injury the last time Clyde was here. That was the last day of his training with Celina.

"I can't heal this. I'm sure it has something to do with the fight" she said. Freddie and James were confused.

"What fight?" They were curious.

"The one with the..." Just before she could give any response, Clyde sat up immediately. His friends rushed to him, wearing worried looks on their faces.

"He's finally awake! What the hell happened to your shoulder?" James went straight to the point.

Clyde was silent as if he didn't want to give any answer yet. But if he hid it forever, he could get summoned by the lord and get questioned. He lowered his head and touched the shoulder.

"It just happened after the last spar with Celina. It seems like her aura is dangerous. She had just hit me once with her wooden sword and... It resulted in this. I thought it would heal, but, It gets worse every day" he gritted his teeth, trying to endure the pain as the healer continued to check the wound.

"When something like this happened, why did you hide it to yourself? If it's about Celina, we could tell it to the lord and gain a favour from him. Everyone wants a favour from the lord" James spoke, but Clyde shook his head. He wasn't interested in that kind of thing. He was worried that kind of thing could put Celina in danger. What if she's sent out of the Lost City because of her strange powers?

"It's fine. I'm sure it'll heal with time. Where is Celina?"

"She's done with her training. She's with the demon queen"

"What? Already?" He furrowed her eyebrows.

"Okay, okay! Now that you two have brought in the patient, I'd like to focus" The healer clasped her palms together. Before they could leave, Clyde called them back and made them promise not to tell anyone about the injury, especially as it was related to Celina.

They promised not to tell anyone, especially Aetherius.

.

.

Celina arrived at the darker side of the Lost City. The deeper she floated with Lyra, the more the sky got darker. She turned her head to look back and couldn't see anything anymore. It was just dark skies with a forest below.

"Where are we going?" She hesitated to ask Lyra.

"Don't talk to me, brat!" Lyra replied and flew towards the castle. They arrived and Lyra flew into the window before cutting off her telekinesis. Celina landed on her feet carefully and looked around. She didn't know where she was, but she was sure it was far from the elf's village.

She didn't even get to say goodbye to Eria and Clyde before leaving.

"Now you're acting like a five-year-old child. Are you missing the blonde queen?"

"Eria?"

"Yeah, whatever her name is" Lyra waved her hand and walked towards her throne with an unusual style. The chair was so high and dark. She sat on it and leaned her hand on the armrest.

The throne room got silent for a few minutes before Celina broke the silence.

"Are we going to do anything, demoness...I mean, my queen" She wasn't sure of what to call her.

Lyra diverted her gaze elsewhere. She was just staring at Celina, wondering what she could teach the five-year-old monster. She's a demon queen with demonic black magic but she has an affinity for fire magic.

Those were the only elements she could teach her but...

'Where do I even begin? If I train her as I do to the younger demons, she could die'

She thought to herself and focused her gaze back on Celina who was still looking around the throne room.

"Before we start, what do you know about dark magic?" She asked.

"Uh... It's dark?" she replied. Lyra couldn't help but laugh. Normal human kids would have cried and tried to run away. Even the younger demons that stood before her always trembled in fear, yet a human kid dared to stand before her without even bulging. A pleased smile appeared on her face.

'This is going to be interesting'

She grumbled and stood up from her seat.

"Dark magic... A lot of people claim it's evil, nasty, dangerous. I'm sure you'll have an affinity for dark magic..." Lyra said to her.

Celina looked away, knowing she had no affinity for dark magic. It was even on her stats.

"...you just have to unlock it" Lyra's voice snapped her to reality. She was finally interested in this so-called dark magic.

"How do I unlock it?"

"You're too pure, Celina. Dark magic, as you say, is...dark. All you have to do is do something evil"

"But..."

"Don't worry, I'm here to help you" Lyra placed her hand on Celina's shoulder. Celina stood there, curious about what was going to happen next.

"You've learnt to use the sword and aura, right?" She queried as if she didn't know and Celina nodded proudly.

"Excellent. Here you go!" Lyra used her telekinesis and brought Celina a real sword. It was a little heavy but her strength could handle it.

"Do I swing it five hundred times?" She asked, her eyes blistering with excitement.

"This isn't like your weak training with that little elf. Like I said, sweetheart, this is going to be hellish. I want you to attack me with everything you've got till you breed hatred, anger and darkness inside you. Go on, fight me!" Lyra said.

Celina gazed at the sword and looked back at Lyra. She didn't have a reason to try to fight Lyra and even if she could, there was no way she would win against the demon queen.

"Do I have to?" Celina's voice trembled.

Lyra frowned, holding back her anger.

"You're still a kid, after all. Seems like I'll have to boost your anger a little" Lyra raised her hand and stretched it towards Celina.

Immediately, a burst of the dark magic ball came flying towards Celina. Celina, who didn't know anything about magic used her aura sword to protect herself. There's no way she would survive if she gets hit by that ball of dark magic. As it flew towards her with great speed, she used the sword that had been embedded with aura to slice through it. The dark magic divided into two and crashed into the wall.

{Number of unlucky points: Max (-1000)}

'This demon witch is going to kill me! How many points did I lose?'

Celina had just realised that. She turned her head and watched how the wall that got ruined repaired itself.

Her eyes narrowed back to Lyra, who was preparing to launch another attack.

"Never take your eyes off your opponent, Celina" Lyra threw another attack at her and she avoided it.

{Number of unlucky points: Max (-1000)}

There was yet another notification from the system. All she could think of was the fact that she was going to die if she got hit by one of those balls.

"Okay, now, playtime is over. Since you can cut through that, let's see how you can avoid these..." Lyra, at the snap of her fingers formed over twenty dark magic balls over her head.

Celina saw it and smirked.

'Ha! She's really after my life. She's going to kill me'