The pained daemonic gloves pitifully whined from being hit by each other. Zoey allowed the two hound heads to chew through the lava daemon’s corpse. Although they got stronger through devouring magji shards from daemons, eating the flesh of daemons seemed to strengthen them as well. Magji shards increased their magji qualities, while the flesh made them tougher and more durable.
“Maybe we’ll be able to block bullets with just our boxing gloves in the future!” Zoey excitedly wondered.
“That would be badass, but I'm sure we can already do something like that, dumbass... We haven’t used our full strength ever since Victor taught us about Heart Oaths.” Zoey replied back.
“Is the limiter still on?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That lava daemon wasn’t as strong as we hoped she’d be.”
“Those fuckers at the top would definitely try and punish us if we leave the South Wing...”
“What should we do?”
“There’s only one thing we can do.” Half of Zoey’s face erupted in purple flames as she grinned.
“Hehe, I wonder how high our skills will rise after killing all the daemons in the South Wing?” The other half stayed the same.
“Maybe if we’re lucky, one of those magjistar assholes will try and pick a fight with us.”
“Oh yeah! I forgot all about the people after us!”
“Do you think someone’s following us right now?” Zoey couldn’t help but giggle with a slight turn to the doorway.
Zoey’s monologue was interrupted as soon as she asked this question.
“Acid Volume: Acid Spray!”
“Water Volume: Hydro Blast!”
“Shit, how did she find us out?!”
“It doesn’t matter. Move quickly and remember, she’s that guy’s student. Don’t underestimate her!”
“Why the hell is she naked?”
Zoey quickly identified the leader of this group. With a burst of blazing fire shooting out of her back like flames from an uncontained explosion, Zoey appeared next to him at blinding speed. She grinned while looking into his eyes, which managed to lock with hers.
‘Oh, he can keep up with our speed?’ Zoey wondered.
She tested the waters by throwing a sharp hook aimed directly at the side of his skull as she was still mid-air. Zoey’s fist, limited by both her limiter and heart oath, smashed against the big guy’s head, sending him spiraling like a windmill off his feet. With that confirmation, Zoey realized that his eyes were good, but his body couldn’t keep up. That’s never a good combo, but maybe he wasn’t the fighting type of leader but the type of leader that did better by giving orders and commands. She didn’t really care, but maybe she should’ve held back a bit... He was bleeding from his head, and anyone that was anyone knew that wasn’t a good sign. Despite killing like maybe dozens or hundreds of daemons, Zoey still hasn’t killed an actual human. Nor did she want to! At least, she didn’t think so.
“I hope you guys are actually trying to kill me and not just picking a fight with me for some reason.” Zoey didn’t want to get put on trial for murder just because she was defending herself. Wasn’t there a thing like excessive self-defense or something?
“Damn, brat!” One of the magjistars appeared behind her.
He swung down an honest-to-God katana at her. The fire from the Lava Lady still hasn’t gotten out of her system yet, so Zoey couldn’t control herself from laughing. This guy must not have seen how they reached the big guy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have tried to attack from this angle. But Zoey couldn’t blame him. Attacking someone from behind was always a huge rush.
“Try again, dickwad.” A concentrated explosion of purple flames combusted from Zoey’s back.
This ignition sent the man flying past his allies near the classroom door and out of the hallway window. With the sound of shattering glass, Zoey moved in toward the two magjistars who tried to burn her with acid and blast her with water. The shock of seeing their friend fly past them still didn’t settle in for the two of them until they saw the girl coming toward them! Acid Guy sprayed noxious green fluid toward Zoey while the Water Girl covered the floor beneath them in water.
“You both look so scared from just a little girl,” Zoey spoke with a half-smirk. “I won’t bite, I promise!” Zoey lunged toward the Acid Guy while protecting her face with her gloves from the acid.
Multiple droplets of green acid landed on her shoulders, arms, and body. It stung badly, but just like she guessed, it wasn’t melting her flesh and bones. Abnormal Conditions should be the reason for this. And Zoey planned to take absolute advantage of her resistance to acid with some nice loving punches to his stupid face!
At least, that’s what would’ve happened if the water surrounding the two magjistars didn’t suddenly come to life and bound her arms and legs. Zoey immediately sought out to expel all the flames remaining inside her to free herself. Her body exploded with violet flames that roared to the skies, wanting to devour all and any.
‘Wait! We can’t!’
‘We can and we will!’
‘Killing daemons is one thing but people...! Not yet!’
‘These fuckers are trying to kill you!’
‘Who cares!? This is about my sanity! Who gives a shit about them!?’ Zoey forcefully controlled the bursting flames that sought to melt every inch of the classroom into, spiraling upward and downward from her body.
A cyclone of purple spinning flames violently spun around Zoey’s body. The heat from Zoey’s flames was melting everything inside the classroom, forcing the magjistars into retreating. The expulsion of flames lasted for only five seconds, but for some reason, Zoey felt like she was in that tornado for an eternity. Inner Zoey and Regular Zoey were merging back together.
The part of her brain that was losing its grip on reality was being locked up again. Zoey could properly differentiate herself as one instead of two. No more we, but I and me. She was one person with one brain and one personality. As the flames extinguished entirely, Zoey gripped her fist tightly.
“Never eat fire again...” She reminded her daemonic gloves.
They licked at her face to show that they understood and were sorry, but Zoey pulled her face back in disgust. They just freaking ate a corpse not too long ago! She didn’t want to smell corpse breath or have blood, organs, and stuff on her face! And not to mention...
“My fucking clothes were all burned up!”
As Zoey was handling her business, her actions weren’t unknown to everyone else in the South Wing and the magjistars watching over the joint case. While no one but a certain someone knew it was her specifically, the ramifications of her actions were quite obvious. It all started with the lowering of the temperature and the massive influx of daemons fleeing from somewhere. People started to notice that it wasn’t as hot as it was when they first entered the South Wing despite heading deeper inside the South Wing.
“What the hell is this? I didn’t know it was my birthday.” Jacky smiled as she saw the horde of fleeing daemons coming toward her from down the hallway.
“Shouldn’t we be running...?” A magjistar nervously backed up.
“If you think you can outrun that, be my guest.” Another magjistar began channeling his mahna as he stepped closer behind Jacky.
“Don’t get in my way, you losers. Mama’s got a few new children to raise.” Jacky ran toward the sea of daemons with her spiked baseball bat.
From her body, black lightning pierced the floor in front of her, and at the sight of the zapped floor, a creature appeared. A wide massive disgusting wall of flesh appeared that blocked off the corridor. At the moment, it seemed that Jacky and the other magjistars were safe. But most of the magjistars knew that this wall daemon wasn’t summoned for their protection, but for some reason, only Jacky knew.
Four more lightning strikes happened around Jacky, summoning four more daemons that latched themselves onto Jacky and her weapon. As Jacky prepared herself to take on the horde behind the flesh wall, the wall began to get pushed in. Blood dripped from its pink skin, and a sorrowful groaning sound could be heard from it. It was in pain. Anyone could tell.
“Alright, shut up, you big baby.” Black lightning struck the wall of flesh, and it disappeared, freeing the daemons.
Jacky went in swinging wildly like an unstoppable hurricane. Blood, bones, flesh, and magji shards went flying across the hallway and coating Jacky’s body. A swing here, a swing there, Jacky felt unstoppable! One swing to bash the head of a daemon inward, a homerun swing to decapitate a few daemons, and even a self-taught twirling technique to hit multiple enemies at once when she was surrounded! Jacky let herself completely go wild until she felt the ground underneath her feet rumble violently.
“An earthquake?” Jacky looked outside the window, and her mouth hung in shock. “What the fuck is that...?”
A cyclone of purple flames could be seen shooting into the sky before reaching the barrier placed by the leaders of the joint case. It struck against it heavily but didn’t manage to break through the combined efforts of the Grade-B magjistars who made the barrier.
“My new baby... I’ve found you!” Jacky’s eyes sparkled as she saw this.
Jacky immediately began to slaughter her way through the wave of daemons to reach the daemon who caused that fire tornado. “Out of da’ way, you useless bastards!” She yelled.
Chapter 84
“She is a lot stronger than I thought,” Joseph muttered to himself. “I wasn’t wrong in my decision earlier, it seems.”
Around Joseph laid living and dead bodies of magjistars. The living ones were chained up and sucked dry of their mahna, while the dead ones were already drained and now just attracting scavenger daemons. Most of the groups after Victor’s apprentice came his way but not all of them. As he said before, he’ll do what he can, but he wasn’t going to go out of his way to do everything. It looked like Victor’s apprentice didn’t need his help anyway.
As Joseph was guarding the north entrance into the South Wing, he was watching Victor’s apprentice’s battle with the fire daemon the entire time. To be more accurate, he was actually analyzing her strength for the future. He was immensely interested in her. In one sense, they could be said to be rivals to a certain extinct. His teacher and her teacher are both magjistars that have been acknowledged to have reached their peak. Everyone in the magjistar community has their eyes on him and Victor’s apprentice to see if they will live up to their teachers' legacies. Will they also be the peak of their generation, or will they fall before the summit?
“Hmph.” Joseph wasn’t worried about his future.
Victor’s apprentice was another case, on the other hand. Multiple bounty hunters after her, a bounty placed on her head so early into her magjistar career, disliked and possibly schemed against by the top brass of the OM, and she’s monstrously talented. The most important part out of all of those is her talent. No one would care about her past her being Victor’s apprentice if she wasn’t as talented as she is now. She proved her strength like a show-off with Victor, and now everyone knew that she wasn’t just some gully that got lucky and caught the interest of Victor. Joseph could only click his tongue. He couldn’t possibly fathom what was going on inside the head of Victor and his apprentice to go around defeating well-known geniuses in the magjistar community.
“Whatever, it's none of my business.” Joseph shrugged as he suddenly blushed and turned away. The girl just burned off all her clothes…
“But it wouldn’t hurt to make friends with another genius like myself. That summoner girl from earlier wasn’t bad, but she seems more difficult to befriend compared to Victor’s apprentice. She’s also weaker than Zoey and me, so why bother?” Joseph muttered.
“Not it.” One of the Grade-B magjistars watching over this joint case quickly said.
The three leaders all saw the spiraling column of flames bursting through the roof of the South Wing. It was giving off some impressive heat and mahna even from the school gates, but none of the leaders were particularly worried. Power at that level was nothing for magjistars of their strength. They all just assumed it was one of the squad leaders taking on a particularly strong daemon. None of them could remember a squad leader that used purple flames, but then again, none of them wanted to go deal with it themselves either.
“Not it.” The second leader quickly said.
“What are you two, children? Grow up.” The third leader frowned, knowing she had to be the one to go check on the situation in a bit.
“Guess we know who’s going in first.” The first leader smiled as he got into a more relaxed position.
“Should’ve been faster.” The second leader happily told her.
“Shut it before I kill the both of you.” The third leader threatened.
The two leaders grinned at each other without saying another word to each other. With a disgruntled huff, the third leader slowly walked over to the South Wing. When she got over to the South Wing, she better see the squad leader of the South Wing winning, or else she might just kill the daemon and the squad leader, even if she has to get punished for killing a fellow magjistar. Dealing with an annoyance so that it could never annoy her again seemed like a good idea to her.
Much to Jasmine’s surprise, what she saw when she arrived through the man-made hole in the roof wasn’t the battle between a squad leader and a strong daemon, nor was it the aftermath. After jumping through the melted roof, opening and reaching the hallway, she saw a naked young girl robbing the clothes off of an unconscious woman bleeding from the mouth. Around her were multiple other unconscious bodies with various injuries. Some ranged from severe, while others were crippling.
“I knew you’d be trouble, but I didn’t figure you’d go this far to stir up trouble.” Jasmine quickly chanted a spell and fired it at Zoey, who was in the middle of changing clothes.
Zoey was unaware that there was anyone still left and took the spell head-on. Pain shot up and down her body like lightning as fury quickly rose within her. Pulling the jacket over her head and putting her arm in the sleeves, Zoey took a look at the bitch who attacked her out of nowhere. She glared at her before recognizing who she was.
“Victor was right...” Zoey slowly got up and placed her hand on her aching stomach. “Combo Volume I: Combo Time...”
It looks like someone high up in the OM did come after her. Zoey just didn’t expect they would do it so directly! This woman wasn’t hiding her face or voice or even magji. Was she confident in being able to take her down without anyone finding out in time?
Zoey grinned at the thought. Against someone like this, she didn’t need to hold back at all. She’s probably related to those bounty hunters from earlier. It was probably her who put up the bounty in the first place!
“Don’t you feel ashamed picking on someone more than 30 years younger than you?” Zoey mocked as she released her limiter completely.
“30 years younger!? How old do you think I am!?” Jasmine angrily shouted.
“56.” Zoey guessed.
“I was just going to punish you a little, but now? You can only blame yourself, brat.” Jasmine began chanting something.
“Time to go all out.” Zoey prepared to use the final technique taught to her by Victor.
A bright light flashed from Zoey’s forehead, slinging her head backward like she was shot in the head. Her legs stayed rooted to the ground as Zoey’s muscles began to slightly bulk up, displaying veins. This was the first part of her technique: Overdraft! Unlocking the first passage allowed her to consciously use 100% of her body’s strength.
At the same time, Jasmine’s spell was firing straight at her. Unlike earlier, Zoey could actually see what was coming at her this time. It turns out this woman didn’t use any special connate magji or learned magji but a generic spell that any magjistar apart of the magji world can learn. The Basic Volume spells, handy spells that are used to help magjistars get used to handling mahna and magji.
Zoey’s fist moved in combination with her body. Shoulders, core, legs, and all worked as one to uppercut the incoming beam upward. As Zoey’s hound head landed on the spell, it was unable to resist the sudden force enacted upon it. It shot through the roof, and Zoey zeroed in on Jasmine before dashing forward like a blur.
“Tch, a muscle head brat. Of course, a troublesome kid like you would be that type of magjistar.” Jasmine clicked her tongue in annoyance as she began chanting once more.
Zoey felt liberated at being able to use so much of her strength but at the same time... She wasn’t able to control herself at all! During her dash to get closer to the woman, she tripped over one of the bodies that she intended to step over and horribly rolled down the hallway toward the lady. In a desperate attempt to protect herself, Zoey balled up like a hedgehog rolling across the floor at the speed of sound.
“...” Jasmine was nearly unable to react to the strange sight.
Jasmine would’ve stayed her hand if the crazy brat wasn’t speeding up toward her! The brat was still intending to attack her even like that! With a properly formed barrier, the kid crashed straight into it at full speed. Jasmine smirked. She could already see the brat collapsing from pain after hitting her barrier.
The sound of something shattering didn’t register in Jasmine’s ears because of how ridiculous it would be. Unfortunately for her, Zoey heard it quite clearly and was aware of where she was and how close she was to Jasmine. Zoey quickly unfolded herself to take advantage of her position right now, but Jasmine wasn’t a peak Grade-B magjistar for nothing. With one of the many rings on her finger, she suddenly vanished from her current position and appeared down the hallway in complete disbelief.
“You’re not the only one who can teleport.” Zoey began rapidly flashing down the hallway using her own magji tool. The ring she was gifted from Alexander and Lindsay!
“Enough! Water Volume I: Draconic Wave!” Jasmine shouted.
A puddle of water appeared in front of Jasmine’s feet. From within it, a large dragon made of water flew out from it. It gave a gargled roar as it looked into the eyes of Zoey before flying toward her. Zoey was very impressed and amazed by the spell but was even more excited to see how it stood up against her fist! The left hound head, Max, was delegated to this duty. Zoey’s left arm slightly twisted in a corkscrew manner as it viciously growled at the dragon coming toward it.
SMASH!
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So, no checking to see what was actually going on, or trying to interrogate the kid, just murder?
I don't buy it.
hahaha get wrecked old crone (is she 56?)
30's.