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Chapter 47 - MOTHMAN—PART 2

Slowly, a black shadow smothered Alicia's entire being. It could also be seen the giant magician issued a pair of giant wings. Splayed moth wings with eye patterns spread out on various sides, glaring at the triplets. Magnificent wings. Magnificent, intimidating wings. That was the expression coming from the recesses of their hearts while being fearful to die.

The Mothman uttered to Alicia, "You are alone here, girl! No Magisterium Wizards will come to help you, unlike the time we sent that idiot Necromancer back then!"

Alicia's eyes widened, "You—so it's you...!"

"You won't be able to escape. Especially you, Crimsonmane girl. Die in your dome!"

The Mothman then raised his hand high. No chanting, no muttering. There was no recitation of absurd sentences in such a gruesome voice like the corpse-loving mage at that time. Instead, just a sound of buzzing, hissing, and squeaking. The Mothman invited the insects to come out of unreachable corners.

The magician's wings flapped and shattered into thousands of angry bees all of a sudden, stinging every side of the protective dome with a barrage of stings. One insect stung and died straightway, but one dies a thousand rise. The stings created a landscape of flashes on the force field's surface, which caused Alicia to scream out loud and half kneel. Nadine and Gilmore immediately put their arm around Alicia and asked her to wake up, but Alicia did not cease her screaming. As the matter of fact, her body stiffened even more. As time slipped away her protection was becoming weaker. The malicious Mothman just looked down while glancing and sneering at Alicia.

"I told you, your body won't be able to survive. My bee sting contains black magic that can give an artificial jolt as high as the voltage of an electric pole. Imagine if there were thousands of them! Do you know what happens if you get electrocuted, young girl? You're right! Your body will become more numb, resulting in tighter gripping to the voltage source. You will be forced to keep your dome intact. You cannot let go until you are weak, your insides are on fire…, then you die."

"Stop it, please!" Nadine screamed as she sobbed. "Just take the Arcane source, but don't make her suffer!"

"𝘏𝘦𝘺! 𝘠𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮, 𝘺𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘨-𝘮𝘢𝘯! 𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘨𝘰 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢, 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦! 𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘰, 𝘺𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘯𝘵! 𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘰!" Gilmore cursed the Mothman while tapping the Arcane dome, which could not electrocute him, as he was not the owner of the Divine Grace.

"It's too late, children," mocked the magus, "As she said... she has already said the answer. And you shall join her once she is dealt with!"

"GG-Gil…m-more…! N-Nad-dinee!" Alicia tried to communicate with her convulsing mouth. "E-e…yes… E-ea-rs… C-cl…. CL-CLOSE!"

Her words took aback her two friends. They wondered the reason she ask them to do that. Alicia could only shrieked louder and louder, which explained enough that she could not explain at length. Gilmore and Nadine backed away and covered their eyes and ears.

The Mothman was confused by their behavior. Alicia gave a gleaming look to those wide empty eyes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

The desolate and depressing city vista suddenly turned blinding white.

𝘉𝘈𝘈𝘈𝘔𝘔!!

The eardrums of the entire congregation were pierced by a terrible whiz. Nadine and Gilmore did not escape the whiz, but thanks to Alicia's suggestion, the two of them were not as dazed and petrified as the other practitioners.

Not much time was wasted for the insect mage to get up and adjust his senses after being ripped apart by the noisy shock. Some of his men could not even lift their bodies due to the reaction between the black magic and Arcane still corrugating inside them. He saw all the bees disappear. And so did Alicia and her two other best friends.

"They're running away! Get your feet up and your magic broom! Scatter! Kill them all and take the magic ball!" The Mothman was about to flap his wings again, but was restrained by the pain from the reaction of the two magical energies. He then concentrated his concentration and spiked his mana and Khaos essence, replacing the previous ones that were eaten by Arcane. The cultivation that went through pain. Screams and rage he let out as the forms of expression. He became violent, his round eyes turned red, and his beautiful wings spread again. As his wings flapped, the Mothman soared and merged with the horizon.

***

Gasping breaths broke the silence of Hamstagg's streets. Gilmore and Nadine stomped their frantic feet with haste. Even though Alicia was limp on the man's shoulder, it did not stop The Big Yin from equaling Nadine's speed. Alicia herself had not fainted, she was just debilitated. They could finally pass the Eidyn monument, showing that the magic that made them wander around had been cut off.

They did not care about the people looking at them with confusion. Nadine shouted, "Get out of the way! A group of black magicians is after us! Get away from here!"

The residents seemed to ignore the lady's chatter, before they actually saw a collection of soaring mages from various directions, flying toward them. But that was not what makes the people disorganised, but a giant moth that loomed over the city like a winged monster. A number of nearby civil guard units responded to Nadine's warning. How significant it could be for several armed forces to fight against the magic-fuelled vultures gazing from the sky?

***

The Eidyn National Library was located not too far from the Eidyn monument. A group of people came out of the library door, turned out to be Lachlan Haddock, the Grand Magus, accompanied by his right-hand man Bartholomew Strongbark, along with three Magisterium wizards, and David Whistlehoff, the prison warden. Haddock and Bartholomew were seen carrying stacks of tiered books. Bartholomew could not stop barking due to the heavy books he had to carry, to which Haddock casually replied, "Oh, for the sake of Silent Divine. Don't nag, Barthie! Was it you who cleaned my room full of messy books?"

***

"Yeah! I bloody cleaned it, damn it! I cleaned it like I was your fancy slave!"

"Well, don't clean it, funny! You can always ask the maids to do it. It doesn't even require mana."

"Of course, if the books don't make it to my desk, which turns out to be–oh, right–next to yours!"

As Haddock and Bartholomew stuffed the books into a giant winged sling bag and delivered them far into Skycastle above the sky, they heard some sort of commotion from the direction of the monument. "Grand Magus, look!" pointed one wizard at a pair of teenagers who were panting but did not give up on running and making them even more tormented.

"That, Grand Magus, right?" asked Nadine, who saw him from a distance. "Grand Magus! Help us!" she screamed.

"Kids?" Haddock and the others stared at them for a moment. "Fellas, looks like our regular drinking event will have to be cancelled."

Some of his colleagues complained. Haddock walked up and meets the triplets. "You," he said, "what are you doing here? Alicia! Is she all right? What are you up to this time?"

Gilmore put his best friend down. Alicia did not run, but her breath was just as bad as her friends. When she saw David Whistlehoff's figure that reminded him of the Moth Man, she immediately drew her Orb, shocking everyone there. David looked unimpressed, but his body was on alert, too.

"Alicia! What's the meaning of this?" Haddock asked the girl.

"A group of masked mages and an Insect-Man were attacking me and my friends for the Orb!"

"Insect-Man, she said?" Haddock and the others then turned to David Whistlehoff. He was probably the only practitioner of the mystic art of Arthromania—a mystical art that focuses on the manipulation of all things on Arthropods—in the entire kingdom of Camelot. But if there was another insect mage, then clearly something was wrong.

"What are you talking about, kid? Whistlehoff has been with us all along!" Bartholomew said.

Whistlehoff opened his trademark gloomy voice. "You're not making this up because you're holding a grudge against me, miss?"

"Hey, Mister. Look at her now!" Gilmore snapped at him. "Is she really making it up with her condition like this? A group of black wizards headed by an insect mage actually ambushed us!"

Whistlehoff was silent for a moment. He admitted the teenagers were not in the mood to fable. "If there was an insect mage other than myself in Camelot, I would have known—Divine Mercy, that bug mage is actually there!"

Whistlehoff pointed to the Mothman and his men hovering in the twilight sky, gazing at them from a distance. The insect mage was smart. He kept his distance because his eyes found the figure of a Grand Magus, who seemed to advance to protect the three juveniles. Alicia, although fond of magical things, did not seem to know about the reputation of the head of the world's magical organisation nicknamed "The Europa's Wonder Boy", to the point that they had to think twice if Haddock was directly involved in the battle, with or without the might of Arcane. The Mothman wisely decided to retreat. They all disappeared in the middle of the orange skyline. Time was ticking, and the Eidyn civilization was still moving, forgetting what happened.

"Good thing they're wise," said Barthie.

"Not that it's over," Haddock retorted. He saw Alicia's reddened arms and sad face, he gripped her both hands. Haddock could feel the muscles in her hands contracting from the jolt. It amazed him that the girl's body looked fine. There were no burns or organ failure. Just drained energy.

Even though the magic she experienced was just a pseudo-electric sensation, without Arcane's power, Alicia could have lost her life force. "You're all right, miss, but you still need treatment. Let's go to Skycastle, I'll concoct a healing potion for you. We'll let you know about Donar and Leith—"

Haddock suddenly stopped.

"Oh, no, it came back again." Gilmore held the girl anxiously.

The girl was tired. Her body ached. Her emotions were mixed. She really wanted to vent her passionate anger. To Spencer, uncle John, and aunt Aimee. To Alasdair, her grandfather. To House Crimsonmane. To the world. To herself. However, the girl bowed down, for she was unable to do so. All she could do was grip the skin of her hands until they were red, then hit her own temples repeatedly with clenched fists.

Alicia wept.

"Alicia…. Don't hit yourself!" Haddock tried to grab her hand. He asked Gilmore and Nadine for an explanation, but their lips were too heavy to lift. Only a look of regret could be given to the Grand Magus, which was certainly not enough to explain what had happened.

"T-they… are my family," the girl said while sobbing. "A-after… all these years… they… th-they…"

Everyone there watched him. Even Barthie and Whistlehoff felt a glimmer of concern.

"…They s-still want to kill me…."

She forgot about all the deadly stings during the fight earlier. Even a slight bruise caused by her self-harm was not as painful as an old wound in the recesses of a torn heart. It would be very difficult to close the wound this time. Not without reason, she said so. Several members of his family had conspired to plot an assassination for her, solely to 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘺 the image of Crimsonmane. Now, the same goal, equipped with a spice called 𝘚𝘦𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. Haddock looked at the girl with thoughtfulness. The idea of a pure magician's lineage disgusted him. Sacrificing an innocent little girl for the sake of the fame of the family name was something that could not make sense to him. Killing one's own family for the sake of Divine power only multiplied his fury. The Grand Magus began to share his anger towards Alicia's family.

Haddock held Alicia's hands to stop hitting herself. He hugged the girl, and the girl also surrendered on the Grand Magus' back. She really needed comfort at times like this. "I promise to hunt them all down, Alicia," he whispered. "We will investigate your extended family soon. They will be well-deserved." Alicia still had not ceased her moaning, but Haddock let her be. He embraced the girl to stand up, and with the others, returned to the magic castle above under the sky. []