Soon after, the group began moving again. To get to another team first they would have to walk for about ten minutes to get to the area they were checking, then they guessed they would need to jog for another five minutes to catch up. 

If that team’s situation were the same as their own, they would continue to group up with the rest of the teams before attacking the treasury together. The dormitories and treasury were quite far apart so other than the traps which the teachers could mostly work around, they shouldn’t have any opposition for a while. Then, before the fight in the sixth grade ended and Decorus sent people back to the first grade, they would be gone.

As they moved Villin became more and more sure the students were either entirely gone or in their respective rooms. This meant the defenses overall were probably at their weakest currently.

Not just Villin, almost everyone in his team had similar thoughts, as did professor Crumb who was once more walking around four minutes behind them, just in case they coincidentally missed students. Sadly, all of them were wrong.

They had only been walking for around six minutes when they began hearing sounds up ahead, after a few moments they identified the sound as those of explosions and the breaking of walls. 

Everyone in the team instantly went on high alert and began running toward the sound of battle. They were specifically instructed not to use spells that were too loud to minimize the risk of detection, and Decorus students focused most of their energy on learning transfiguration, they generally wouldn’t have spells like that.

This meant the team they were heading for was probably in trouble and forced to use their most powerful spells.

As they ran forward the sounds got louder and louder, they could hear people shouting and screaming up ahead, every second the battle seemed to become fiercer as the intensity of the sounds increased.

Just when the group suspected they were only about two turns and one minute away from the action, a boy in a green robe stumbled into their hallway. The boy had a large gash on his forehead but it didn’t manage to pierce his skull. His green robe was partially burnt and a large wound could be seen on the student’s soldier, clearly caused by fire.

Seeing him Villin was about to cast a spell to finish the boy off, but just before he did so, he heard the boy exclaim, “Thank god you guys are here! It was a trap, Decorus isn’t working alone, they have been ambushing the teams one by one and they are working with-”

Villin’s group luckily realized he was a part of one of their teams in time and so nobody sent out a spell. Yet when he was in the middle of explaining a situation the boy suddenly lost his breath. But a moment the cause became clear as a red ball of fire burnt its way through the boy’s intestines, creating a hole straight through the boy’s stomach.

When the boy fell down, the reason for his death quickly became clear. A creature had just come from the boy’s direction. The winged creature looked like a large green lizard that was about three meters long. Its neck was very long and also the only part of the dragon that was in a different color as it emitted an orange light.

The creature wasn’t flying at this point in time. It simply looked at the new group it encountered with its green eyes. 

“Mafoli!”

Villin was the first to react and he immediately realized what the student tried to tell him. Without hesitation, he pointed his wand toward the creature. As it was observing them, vines suddenly began sprouting out of the ground around it, trying to trap the creature.

Angered the green drake jumped up before the vines could reach it and it began flying toward the group.

Seeing the green drake coming towards them the students quickly snapped out of it and began sending spells toward the creature.

Six different spells hit the creature at the same time, before it could spit out another ball of fire, the creature crashed to the ground, killed by the first wave of spells.

Even though the first enemy had seemingly been easily dealt with, nobody in the group felt good. Everyone knew that summons were the signature art of Mafoli, one of the top ten schools that had been becoming a lot stronger recently. 

After a few moments passed, Villin finally spoke “Let’s go in, save who we can, and get back to the professor, he should be able to guide us towards an exit.”

Hearing Villin’s words the others nodded, nobody even proposed leaving right now. Everyone involved in this situation was considered to be brave and each of them had at least some battle experience, they quickly began moving forward.

When the group turned the corner, the situation instantly changed. Creatures and students alike were laying dead on the floor. They saw panthers, ice goblins, and pixies laying alongside students in both green and black robes. The back robes further confirmed Mafoli was involved in this and currently the group didn’t have time to check who was with them and who was actually with Decorus.

It was only when they were standing there they noticed something was wrong, the sounds of explosions and the breaking of walls had disappeared, other than flames that were ravaging one of the rooms connected to the hallways it was completely empty.

Villin looked at the people alongside him before sending his puppet forward. The puppet was quite fast and the contraption quickly made its way to one of the nearby hallways, looking for the enemies. When it peeked into one of the hallways, Villin suddenly froze, shocked by what was hiding from them.

Dozens upon dozens of creatures were waiting for them. There were close to a dozen green drakes attached to the ceiling, they had to do this because the floor was filled with bears, panthers, ice goblins, and various other creatures. Behind them were students in green robes who were working together trying to create a golem that was three meters in size.

Sadly, the puppet didn’t evade their perception and they also seemed to know it wasn’t theirs. The puppet managed to jump back just before a barrage of spells passed it.

“RUN!”

Villin only said this one word before he turned around and ran back the way they came from. This group might be able to take care of two or three drakes, they had no chance in dealing with such a large number of enemies.

The group didn’t hesitate to follow his command, they had already felt incredibly nervous since they heard the sound of fighting stop, additionally, they saw nearly a dozen spells nearly hit the puppet that had been sent out, this meant at least a dozen humans were waiting for them there, and they didn’t doubt that summons and golems were there as well.

Still, Villin was hopeful. The professor was only a few minutes behind them, they should be able to reach him quickly. Sadly, before he even spotted the professor the walls in front of them began shifting closing off the road ahead of them.

They could feel the entire school was shifting, where certain hallways closed others opened, the layout of the entire school began to change. Previously the hallways were absolutely massive allowing all sorts of creatures and golems to reach after them. Yet now all there was were a number of thin hallways on either side. They were each barely two meters high and one meter sideways. This was one of Decorus’s trump cards. It was meant to split up enemy forces while still keeping them controlled, the enemies would still believe they could get out if they escaped through one of the hallways while in reality, it all led back to the same places, there was no way out. The fact that large creatures and golems couldn’t pass wasn’t important either. As they would now be stuck they could simply keep making new golems and wait for students to come to them after which they had a dozen drakes and a few massive golems to finish off the already exhausted students. The new hallways were purposefully smaller in size to make the enemies feel hope, but this also meant they would have nowhere to dodge.

Villin didn’t know this and as he saw drakes flying behind them, creatures that would surely soon catch up to them and set them aflame, he was forced to make a decision.

“We split up, go through different hallways, and try to make your way towards the professor, if you can’t find him, we’ll meet back up at the place where we entered. We can try to escape through there.”

Nobody had time to comment on the plan as everyone began running into the different hallways together. Villin did the same, he ran the same way as a boy named Marvin, the weakest member of their group.

It didn’t take long before they realized something. There were no doors anywhere. Even if they wanted to they couldn’t hide out in any sort of classroom. Secondly, they noticed the layout had become almost maze-like. It didn’t take long for Villin to figure out what had happened, after seeing multiple dead ends he knew there would be no way out other than the way in. Knowing this he tried to find a way to escape anyway. Thinking back to the map he tried to orient himself properly, finding out where exactly they were.