When I saw two groups of people fighting I decided to do the logical thing. I had no idea which side I should support so I killed all of them with a mix of Fire and Shadow magic. Shadow magic is surprisingly almost as good at killing people as Fire magic is.
Considering that Leila’s house is now a combat zone, I decided to teleport Lotus back to Nyx's manor. As I was planning to leave the manor and investigate what was happening, Lotus began speaking. “The soldiers with the flower insignia on their armour are my family’s knights. Why are they here? They aren’t allowed to leave the territory while on duty!”
“Maybe their duty is to attack the capital? That or your family declared war on Leila's family so that they could kill you. Then again it doesn't make sense why they are so openly attacking Leila's manor instead of just trying to assassinate you. Won't they get into trouble for warring in the capital?”
“Maybe they have some excuse to fall back on? My family might get punished a small bit, but if they have a proper excuse to attack Leila's family then they could probably get away with it just by bribing some people, and maybe having some of their noble privileges taken away.”
“Hmm, I still feel like the idea to attack in the capital is dumb. Surely the citizens would panic if they heard the sounds of fighting. Not to mention that the capital's guards would surely try to break up the fighting. …Well I guess it doesn't really matter in the end. I just have to kill your family and its soldiers and then there'll be nothing else to worry about.”
With that said I teleported out of the manor to a nearby fight. The battle ended near instantly when I used Fire magic to burn and kill them. However, I also happened to burn up the nearby buildings and a few of Leila's soldiers. A soldier with a battleaxe started rushing me, probably to avenge his comrades, so I decided to teleport away. I could just kill them, but I'd prefer to avoid killing all of Leila's guards. I should also be a bit more careful with my fire magic so that I don't destroy too many buildings.
As far as I can tell with Air magic, the soldiers are mainly concentrated around the center of the capital in the noble's district so I probably wouldn't ruin too many livelihoods if I let loose with Fire magic. Only rich people live and do business here after all. I’d just rather not trouble Mary with the costs and problems of repairing the capital if I can avoid it. Besides, It's not like I'll be placing myself in danger if I don't use the bigger magic, it’s just going to take a lot longer to kill everyone. I shouldn’t have to worry about anyone hiding to cause trouble later either because I can easily find anyone unskilled in hiding with Air and Shadow magic.
Of course both types of detection magic have a flaw, but together they rarely struggle in finding the target. Air detection magic only allows me to find stuff by how Air flows around their shape so I can’t identify between similar looking objects. Not to mention I can’t see areas that have very little air flow. Thankfully Shadow detection magic actually allows me to kind of place my vision over a far away shadow which allows me to look at something as if I was standing there. I can’t actually see in the dark though, so Shadow detection magic is only useful when what I’m looking at is lit up. Not even Nyx has found a solution to this problem, but I guess everything has a limit to how useful it can be.
Anyways, since the capital is lit up pretty well at night because of street lamps, I started using Shadow magic to find more soldiers. It didn’t take long before I realized something was wrong. As soon as I started searching with Shadow detection magic my vision went dark. At first I thought the specific area I was looking at was dark, but when I searched through other shadows in the capital everything stayed dark. I stopped using Shadow detection magic and all of a sudden I could see again, but why?
Why can my eyes see perfectly fine but my magic can't? The fact that I can't see through my magic suggests that there is no light anywhere in the capital. If so, then why can my eyes see the many lamps around me, not to mention the moon and stars in the sky? It's almost as if either my eyes or Shadow detection magic are seeing an illusion, while the other is seeing what's truly there. The question is what exactly is causing the supposed illusion?
I can only assume that this is caused by someone's magic, but who's? Or even what magic is being used? Shadow magic seems to fit the most considering the fact that everything's dark and I might be seeing a falsely lit illusion, but very little makes sense. How is the entire capital covered in darkness yet me and the soldiers that are fighting can clearly see? If this is truly Shadow magic then who is casting it? Me and Nyx are the only Shadow Spirits alive right now and I doubt Nyx would do this.
There really isn’t a good way to find the answer to my question, so I guess I should continue my plan of eliminating the enemy soldiers. Hopefully I don’t miss any since I can only use Air detection magic for now. When I tried to teleport into a building so I could fight the next group of soldiers I instead found myself on a nearby rooftop. Is my Shadow magic just malfunctioning for some reason? Did my blood getting sucked earlier somehow affect my combat ability?
Before I could contemplate further a shadowy figure appeared directly in front of me. I reflexively attacked with Shadow magic as quickly as I could but the figure only distorted when the attack went through his body. Since my attack was ineffective I decided to escape, but when I tried to teleport far away from this fight I once again just ended up on a nearby building. It didn’t take long for the shadowy figure to appear in front of me again and begin to speak.
“You were not invited to this place and yet here you are. If you wish to intrude upon our world so badly, allow me to welcome you.” A sword suddenly appeared in his hand and he began to attack. I awkwardly ran backwards to distance myself. I managed to avoid his attack, but I fell over in the process. The hair accessory I wear to suppress my power fell out of my hair as well. Even with my superhuman strength and speed I am just not used to fighting someone who excels in physical combat.
To give myself time to get up I set the ground around the figure ablaze, but the figure only distorted again and walked through the fire. He was still far away from me so he threw his sword at me. I avoided it once again by creating a barrier of wind around me and the sword fell at my feet. Since magic didn’t affect the figure I tried picking up his sword in hope that I could kill him with it. When I was about to grip the sword it suddenly disappeared.
I looked up and tried to figure out what happened to it and I realized the shadowy figure was next to me once again with the sword somehow in his hand. Before I could react the figure plunged the sword into my gut and my vision went dark.
“I win, you lose.”
