"Zakia was out fishing as usual then he suddenly appeared before us and absorbed Bwana into himself." Chausiku said.
-_-....
"What do you mean absorbed him? " the three men asked in unison.
"I don't understand it either, it was like his body was a swamp, things sank into him the only thing I could think about was to escape, forgive me for being useless." Chausiku explained with anguish and helplessness lacing her voice.
"You mean he attacked you unprovoked? It doesn't make sense to me?" the man in green said suspiciously.
"When did he ever do anything sensible? Looks like that kid is a lot of trouble isn't he? " the sanctum guardian remarked.
As they were talking Chausiku plopped to the ground in exhaustion. The hooded man did not even spare her a glance and continued to speak.
"He indeed is, I guess we should report this to our own Corps' elders and find out where we go from here, oh, and take the girl with you, once she reaches full recovery we'll send someone to fetch her. " the hooded man stated as he turned to leave.
" Wait wait wait wait you're not actually going to leave this girl lying here right? Aren't you going to at least play your part and help with carrying her... Hey! " the dreaded man shouted at the end as he saw the hooded man showing no regard in helping and directly leaving.
The sanctum guardian remarked" What are you looking at me for? You're surely not expecting me to help you right?". The dreaded man clicked his tongue as he picked up the girl and hung her on his shoulder and he too left using a skateboard shaped wooden glider as he glided through the air to quickly report to his Corp.
" Saka, that fool he actually left her in the hands of the healers, I'm sure their high elder will find clues to what happened exactly, her explanation had too many loop holes. No use thinking about it now though." the sanctum guardian thought as the man on the glider disappeared into the horizon.
Now only the sanctum guardian was left in the spacious hall, he turned around and went around the alter and went towards the wall facing the alter, he took out a yellow paper talisman with complicated writing on it from his inner chest pocket and plastered it on the wall in a horizontal position after which he made a few hand signs and softly uttered.
"Open."
The talisman faded as if being rubbed out and the wall turned into a sky blue transparent membrane. The sanctum guardian walked through this membranous wall and seven doors appeared in front of him, the guardian did not bother with the other doors and went to the one in the middle with intricate grooves carved on it that formed symbols and went down on one knee in front of it.
"High Elder a situation has occurred regarding Zakia and it may require your opinion on a way forward we should take as the Talisman and Enchantment Corp."
A raspy voice came from beyond the door in the middle.
"Ja IL, how many times must I tell you not to report irrelevant issues to me? You know how backlogged I am with enchantments and such, what happens to Zakia is of no concern to me or our Corp but I can see that you're interested in something he has so just go there and do what you must and quickly return." the raspy voice from beyond the door said.
" Yes Master!!! "Ja IL got up with excitement as he walked out of the hidden room, the wall slowly went back to normal as if nothing ever happened.
"Now all that's left is to find two to three of those up and coming talents to cover my work and I'll be good to go." Ja IL thought.
In another sector of the Academy, the Shadow Corp.
From an ariel view the place would look like a wide open eye, with the difference being that the sclera would be black while the pupil and iris would be pure white.
The black area would be where all the facilities of the corp were located, such as libraries, sparring platforms, living facilities and the like. At the center of all this architecture was a white dome of fog encompassing the whole central area.
The hooded man made his way around the misty central area as if searching for a specific path to reach there. The fog was known for it misguiding properties so only a few people like him could walk through the fog and not lose their sense of direction.
After a while a three storey tall circular building made of black stone with a pointy rooftop entered his vision. He made his way inside and passed by many corridors and stairs to reach the private quarters of the man in charge.
In the room, a man with a wooden leg was sitting on a cushion holding a potion bottle in his hand and softly twirling it, he turned his gaze away from the bottle and faced the hooded man who had just come in.
A face that was far from it's prime but was also not old was revealed.The man had a scar running across his face. One of his eyes was all white indicating that the may have been cut across the face, thus his eye not being spared making it white.
The hooded man skipped the formalities and reported directly but also maintaining a certain level of respect.
"My lord, I'm sure you already know that Chausiku and Bwana were done in by Zakia, I issued that mission to them so I suggest that I be the one who sets out immediately to apprehend this heinous villain who has no regard for his fellow academy people, those two had decent talent, Zakia cannot be allowed to escape punishment again, in his corp we can understand, but he crossed the line by doing the same even to one of ours. "
"Still as righteous and straight forward as ever eh, Saka?, Well since you feel this way, why don't you go and hunt him down eh?, Won't that be interesting?, go Saka, go hunt down the one who killed one of ours." the man declared in a manner that made one not figure out what was going through his mind.
He added on and said.
" I knew you would not let it go, so someone else will cover for you after you leave, and do be careful, you know he's not as simple as he seems. " the man said as he stroked the long goatee on his chin.
"Yes Lord." Saka did not show any emotion on the outside but inside he was excited as justice would be served at last, Zakia's behavior had always bothered him but now he could do something about it.
Healer Corp
White marble buildings could be seen everywhere some circular, some rectangular but all of them had thatched roofs. This was the part of the Corp were the higher class individuals resided.
One of these complexes belonged to the High Elder. At the moment she was in a room with all kind of bottles, containers, and gourds put neatly in shelves. Dried beast skins were hung around the room resembling some form of art display. Plants that looked exotic were planted in sacks filled with soil, giving the room a serene and healing atmosphere.
The highly wrinkled elder was in this room with the dreadlocked man, the man was sitting on the floor in a subservient manner as he clapped his hands twice to prepare to speak. While the high elder was by a work bench concoction something.
"High Elder Zakia has been reported to have killed a Shadow Corp disciple and wounded another. A course of action is being taken by the other corps, so what stance should we of the Healer Corp take?" the dreaded man inquired.
The high elder let out a sigh and spoke.
"That boy I wonder how he escaped detection from me though, others will now even say I'm incompetent but no worries, that's for me to deal with, what I want from you, is to go after him and try by all means to bring him to me, if you can't, try and help him escape in any possible way you can, I have to leave now to meet some people, I'm counting on you Zane. "
" You can count on me High Elder." the dreaded man stood up to leave.
" Yes, I know which is why I'm giving you this task." said the High Elder.
Zane bowed his head and left. The destination? Zakia's village.
These three men Zane, Ja IL, and Saka took different paths to get down to the village but they arrived at almost the same time, but what they found at their destination was an unusually quiet village it seemed like it had been abandoned for decades. They knew something was wrong.
The sanctum guardian didn't waste time and flickered his long sleeves to show his forearm and used an enchantment tattooed on it. He mumbled a word.
"Bird"
A half transparent bird manifested from the tattoo on his arm. The ethereal bird silently flapped it's wings and flew up to get a bird's eye view of the village. What was seen by it were deep circular pits at the edges of the village forming a perimeter around it.
When the bird vision investigated further one could see man made carvings in the exterior of the village all the way to it's center. One would see that a high level Spell had been cast by inscribing it's Spell Array on the ground in the village.
Ja IL had a half transparent screen hovering in the air in front of him, the two men accompanying him could also see from it, all inhabitants had vanished not even one person could be found, as a matter of fact nothing with vitality could be found even the environment was affected the trees around the village were dry like having lost all moisture.
"This.. this is the Soul Taker Spell!!!" Ja IL shouted.
"What! It actually is, so you're telling me that such a spell was used on ordinary citizens by Zakia..... that boy is vile and insidious, he deserves death by fire how could he do this! " Saka shouted.
"It even looks like he modified it, at first he could only dissipate the souls of those in certain range of him but now it looks like not only the soul gets dissipated, now even the fleshly body can be dissipated and even the surroundings too, so this is what the girl meant when she said she saw her companion sink into his body can it even be called a Soul Taker Spell at this point? Truly fascinating." Ja IL came up with his own theory as his interest in the Soul Taker spell grew more and more.
"It looks like the boy was improving while everyone was thinking he was a cripple, it even looks like he got stronger than before." Zane said as he looked at his two companions not showing his emotions but inwardly, worry washed over him.
" Did Zakia really do this? I don't believe this. Massacring a whole village of hundreds? For what? No, somethings' wrong, maybe the High Elder really did not cleanse him properly. Dammit, Zakia really went too far this time, even l won't be able to defend him, I may even be deemed a traitor and be taken down with him by these two, no I have to find clues before they do and find him first and take him to the High Elder. " Zane thought as his mind started to race.