Void Domain, Book 06 полностью

One student with a multitude of lip and face piercings raised their hand. “You’re going to teach us to summon demons?”

“That is the current plan–”

“Heh, wicked.”

“But,” Eva said with a slight glance towards Catherine.

“Shackles,” the succubus said, picking up on the hint admirably in Eva’s opinion. “Demons can be bound to select locations within the mortal realm. By drawing out specific patterns on the ground, you can contain most demons and their powers. These are vitally important as most demons will attempt to kill their summoner before anything else.”

“Why?” someone asked.

Eva pulled a stack of thick books out from under the teacher’s desk as Catherine answered.

“Freedom. Kill the summoner and any witnesses and the demon will be able to do as they please without any nasty contracts or restrictions. In the event that a demon does end up serving a mortal, they like to know that they’re not serving a weakling.”

“As you all read your contracts, you should already know this. It still bears repeating just so there are no accidents. These books,” Eva said as she started handing them out, “are not to leave this room. It is considered a violation of your contract and the penalty will be paid.”

The books were far thicker than any one that she owned. Probably thicker than most Devon owned. From her cursory glance through them when she first arrived in the classroom, Eva was surprised to find them set up like any regular textbook. She fully intended to borrow one and read through it.

It wasn’t like she had signed any contracts.

“If you’ll all turn to chapter one, we’ll start discussing shackles in-depth.”

Far more in-depth than any lessons Devon had given, that was for sure. While she could read far faster on her own, at least something good would come of wasting her time with this disaster.

Catherine pulled out a thick piece of chalk and swiped it around the board, leaving an almost perfect circle in its wake. “Like most drawn magic, shackles all begin with a circle…”

And thus, the lesson was underway.

Eva threw herself to the ground. A near invisible blade of wind skimmed over the tips of her hair.

That’s fine, Eva lied to herself as the ends of her hair drifted to the ground around her, my hair was getting too long anyway.

A second gust of wind curled between the ground and her body. Eva’s eyes grew wide as she felt the air draw in on itself. She felt a moment of panic before being launched up into the air.

The world spun. Sky turned to trees which turned to ground before snapping back to the sky. Bile churned in her stomach as she flipped end over end. A small, very unterrorized sounding scream escaped from Eva’s lips as she reached the peak of her flight.

Eva pushed herself as hard as she could, clamping down on her fear and focusing her concentration on the thing she had been trying to do since the start of the fight. She pushed her mind and her magic, trying to gain a slight advantage in the speed her perception.

For a brief moment, Eva felt something. A sudden moment of clarity made it through the blur of motion.

On the ground below her, Zoe Baxter stretched her arm out. The tip of her dagger glowed with crackling electricity.

In that continuing moment of clarity, Eva switched tactics. Her current strategy of uncontrollably flinging through the air was just not working out for her. Being wildly opposed to lightning bolts coming anywhere near her, Eva stepped.

All of her concentration switched to the act of stepping. Her body warped through space, moving from several feet in the air straight to the ground. She aimed for a cluster of trees that would hopefully obscure her from Zoe long enough to get back on the offensive.

To Eva’s surprise, she managed to land on her feet.

Phantom momentum sent her stumbling backwards. Eva landed flat on her butt with a thorned bush prickling at her back.

Eva stepped to her feet again, this time managing to stay standing.

Before anything else, Eva stepped directly to another crop of trees. Zoe would have heard her stumbling around. Her enhanced hearing wasn’t something to be dismissed easily.

To further combat the professor’s enhanced senses, Eva did something she hadn’t done in a long time. With a burst of pure chaos magic, Eva flooded her surroundings in darkness. Zoe still had her ears and nose, but sight made up such a drastic portion of human senses that it would definitely be worth it.

Even more so for Eva. A little darkness wasn’t about to get in the way of her sense of blood.

Unfortunately, it did interfere with her teleportation. Eva did not have enough blood to coat every surface of the forest. Even if she split the blood into fine particles and scattered it around, it would be too easy to miss a thin tree. She did not want to wind up with her leg destroyed by stepping into a tree.