“At the end of the day, it all doesn’t matter. If I escaped, I’ll escape whatever this is too. If I didn’t escape, I’ll escape.”

After telling himself these words, Villin’s entire attitude changed. His eyes became sharp as he scoured the room. 

There was a certain aura radiating from him, looking at him, one would feel empowered in some way. It was almost unthinkable someone’s attitude could change so drastically in but a few seconds.

Villin thought deeply about what he could do now, and just as he was about to cast a couple of spells to assist him, the environment faded. This space was created out of fear, when the fear connected to it dissipates, so does the environment.

Villin watched as the room began to fade, he felt incredibly confused. He still had no idea what was going on.

------------

“Hihihi, how have you been doing, little pumpkin?”

Hearing these words, the Kitsune moved back, only to find a wall was just behind her. She felt terrified. Just a couple of meters before her stood a Kitsune in human form, just this already made clear that they were over a hundred years old.

The kitsune took the appearance of a middle-aged man with white hair. He had a large scar on his cheek and a wicked smile covered his face.

“Nononono, this isn’t happening, he died!” the Kitsune mumbled as she tried looking around for a sign this was some sort of illusion.

The man in front of her was the tribe leader, Alatar. He was extremely powerful and extremely ruthless.

Just a few years earlier, there were still four tribes within the valley, then came Alastar, who was the sole survivor of a tribe to the east. When he arrived, he was immediately invited by each of the tribes’ leaders. He had eight tales and was capable of shifting into a human. His strength was as great as any of the tribe leaders.

But, he didn’t wish to go underneath anybody. He established his own tribe with but a few members. The other tribe leaders obviously weren’t happy with yet another contender, and so they foiled him in any way they could. Then, they attacked him together. It looked like the Kitsune from the east would lose despite his vast combat experience, yet, just as his defeat seemed inevitable, he grew his ninth tale.

His power rose to a tremendous level, and the three tribal leaders were killed. The Kitsune within the valley had no choice but to submit to him.

Things looked like they would turn out fine. Alastar was powerful, capable of killing any other magical beasts that were threatening the tribe. 

But then, then he began talking to the humans from the south. The tribe was already extremely unhappy when Alastar began selling their prey to the humans. The corpses were apparently quite valuable to him.

The reason why the Kitsune weren’t happy wasn’t hard to guess. They all knew the history of these lands. Long ago, the Kitsune weren’t limited to the northern continent. There were a total of five continents where magical beasts roamed the lands. Then the humans spread, as far as the Kitsune knew, they now held all of the four other continents, and all magical beasts were forced to live in the north.

Still, they did nothing, they had nothing they could do.

Just a month before the moment she was going through now, some of the tribe members that openly disagreed with Alastar began disappearing. The previous day, she followed Alastar, and found out he was selling his own tribe members to the humans, in exchange for magical crystals and other artifacts that could help him go stronger.

And now, he stood there before her. She knew he had somehow found out that she saw him. She knew that he would knock her out and sell her to the humans as well, despite the fact that she had seven tails, making her one of the strongest Kitsune on the island.

“What’s wrong Ashera? Feeling scared?”

She wanted to say no but she knew her tails had tensed up, giving her true feelings away.

She desperately tried to think of what was going on. This had already happened, she had been taken by the humans, tortured, and finally put inside of Villin, a different human that had also been taken prisoner. He escaped and she became happier, capable of remaining within the mind without having to care about a physical body.

Yet, now she was back here, in front of Alastar, the only creature that was capable of making her feel helplessly terrified.

Before she could even say anything, she felt cold tendrils of mana honing in on her mind. It surrounded her mind in fact, giving her no way to resist.

Ashera felt terrified, more so than ever before. She tried to tell herself that this wasn’t real and that she was still within Villin’s mind, but she couldn’t focus on that thought as the fear enveloped her entire being.

Alastar looked at his terrified tribemate with glee. The humans had offered truly great rewards for a seven-tailed Kitsune but he hadn’t been able to choose who to give up since they were all rather useful to him and none had shown signs of treachery.

And then came Ashera, snooping about.

It was an ideal opportunity, not one he was about to give up.

---------------------------------

“Wh-what’s this?” Silver asked in confusion as she saw the orb shift, showing this new scene.

The headmaster smiled simply, “I believe this should be the rogue consciousness that was hidden within Villin’s mind. When you go through the curtain of fear, physical things no longer hold importance, since Villin and this thing each have their own fears, they go through their own tribulations.”

“A Kitsune?” Silver wondered in confusion. Why would a Kitsune bind itself with a human, and how would it even do such a thing.

The headmaster didn’t seem like he knew much more as he squinted while observing the scene. The Kitsune that went by the name of Ashera went limp when her mind got controlled by Alastar. She was no longer capable of moving her body at all as long as Alastar didn’t allow her to.

Under his control, the Kitsune was forced to follow him silently as they made their way through the tribe. Most Kitsune were sleeping and those that weren’t didn’t see anything odd as Ashera seemed to be following Alastar by her own free will.

Ashera followed Alastar out of the valley and they began making their way south. On the way, they encountered a couple of magical beasts but all of them were relatively weak, the fights also weren’t exciting since the beasts simply fell down to the ground, mental attacks weren’t all too cinematic.

After moving for a couple of hours, the two of them approached a small hill that didn’t look special in any way.

Once he scouted out the area around it properly, Alastar carefully approached the top of the hill. “I’ve got what you wanted, a seven-tailed Kitsune.”

Alastar said these words in a normal tone while looking at what seemed to be thin air. A few moments later the human that was hiding there dispelled her invisibility and appeared. The invisibility spell she used wasn’t to hide from Alastar, it was to hide from the other savage magical beasts that could appear in the area.

When the human revealed herself, Silver noticed that the headmaster took in a sharp breath. After a couple of seconds, Silver also recognized the female and felt similarly surprised. She had seen the person that revealed herself once, it was the Decorus headmaster, Elsa Decorus. One of the most powerful magi on the continent went to deal with magical beasts herself, it wasn’t hard to imagine how important this piece of news was to The Academy.

Elsa Decorus looked at Ashera with piercing eyes. She seemed to be content as she waved her hand, and a pile of books appeared in front of her.

“Here you go, all the mental techniques Decorus was capable of acquiring, it has been a pleasure doing business.”

Alastar took a few steps forward and inspected a couple of the books, they could help him become quite a bit stronger.

Still, he wasn’t a fool and knew Decorus was most certainly keeping certain techniques for himself, “Tsss, this is a seven-tailed Kitsune you know? One of my own tribemates at that. For you to only give two-dozen techniques in return, it seems rather unfair.”

The Decorus headmaster looked serious as she stared at Alastar, “Don’t push it, you savage beast.”

In return, Alastar smiled wildly, “Push it? Oh, I think I will.”

Saying these words, his magical energy spread around him, Ashera felt terrified when she felt his cold magical energy spread across the entire area. 

Yet, Elsa wasn’t to be outdone. The temperature of the entire area went up substantially, two different kinds of magical power clashed, neither one allowing the other to outdo them.

And then, it was time to fight.