“Grass isn’t the bottom of the food chain. All things learn that once they are dead.”

- The Journey to the Afterlife

***Kingdom Newerth, Capital City***

***Marcus***

“So what you are essentially saying, is that we should fuck the law and grab this Trebor. Then we tear off his extremities until he decides to talk?” Charles raises an inquisitive eyebrow and studies me, his eyes locked on my face.

Clarity covers her face with both hands. “How did it come so far without our notice. Is it this world? Or is it me?”

I spread my hands in silent surrender. Maybe Seria was right and it was a mistake to pursue this matter by using official channels. I even rushed for a personal meeting with my parents to circumvent any other legal parties. Catching them in their office seemed like a present from the heavens.

Charles rolls his eyes. “Dear, don't get carried away. You did your best with the children. Marcus isn't like Perseus. These are extraordinary circumstances.” His expression turns pained. “If anyone is to be blamed, then blame me. When Perseus's mother died, I should have been there for him. I wasn't. And now he is down there in that cell.”

My mother looks away from Charles. Her expression says that she isn’t entirely unhappy with Perseus being locked up. I try my best to ignore my mother’s mean side. It’s not like I can do anything about their relationship. My mother will always carry the cross of being the second wife.

My father rises from his chair and gestures for me to lead the way. “Go and show me where to find this Trebor. If I am there, we can divert the legalities of the situation from the DF. We will simply say that Trebor is under the suspicion of high treason.”

I sigh in relief. It went exactly as I hoped. By involving my father directly, we can avoid the whole jurisdictional chit chat which would come down on me otherwise.

Just as I turn around, the whole palace shakes with the force of an earthquake. “What's this!? I've had it with the surprises!” I reach for the wall to steady myself.

Charles turns and grabs Clarity's hand to support her, then his eyes gain their silver hue. It's always like this when he has a vision. “Clarity, go, find our daughter and sound the alarm. The palace and the school have to be evacuated.”

My mother nods and vanishes with a flash of light. Apparently she knows exactly where to find my little sister.

Charles steps forward and reaches for my upper arm to pull me with him. Just as we reach the balcony, a crack appears in the room's ceiling and a part of it collapses into the room.

I purse my lips in dismay. Being buried under a ton of rock isn't lethal to a god. What's troubling me though, is the damage to the palace. It's a beautiful stone building with many archways and frescos. An earthquake as big as this one will do untold damage to the entire structure.

“We are in deep shit. Look.” Charles points at a red portal which starts forming right above the academy grounds. The portal isn't even completely stabilized and there are already spirits trying to push through.

My mind starts racing as I try to find a reason for Trebor's actions. When I noticed the suspicious placement of Trebor's acquisitions, I already feared problems. But this is beyond everything I suspected. “They are already executing their plans! Dad, you have to check properties which I reported to you. There must be a way to collapse the portal.”

Charles closes his eyes and opens them again, the silver hue gone. “That won't work. The portal isn't powered from this side. The spirits were already waiting for an anchor point in this realm. Destroying the circle which summoned the portal won't do anything.” He raises his hand and unleashes a blast of pure power at the portal, obliterating the spirits who are pressing through and probably a good part of the ones who are waiting on the other side. The portal wavers for a moment, but then the stream of creatures continues.

“Go and search for your brother. He must be down there somewhere,” Charles instructs me and uses levitation magic to propel himself towards the growing portal.

I snort, torn between following him and searching for my brother. Wouldn’t it be much smarter if I join the fight at the portal? As long as we fight the spirits there, we have the advantage of a bottleneck.

But maybe he saw something in his vision? I force my eyes away from the battle in the sky and jump over the balustrade. Releasing my aura, I propel myself towards the school grounds. Using my abilities, I home in on my brother’s signature with unerring certainty. He is directly under the portal. How unlucky can a child get? But then again, the portal opened directly above the main school building. It isn’t surprising for most of the students to be there at this time.

When I arrive, the building is already crawling with minor spirits who got past my father. As always, the creatures come in all shapes and forms. Touching the ground, I send yet another burst of mana through my muscles. The asphalt under my feet cracks as I propel myself towards the window from where I sense my little brother.

A spirit with eight spidery legs is trying to get inside, but a fireball forces it back.

Screaming, I try to gain the thing’s attention as I approach. And indeed, the spirit stops its attempts at entering the building and turns towards me. Satisfied, I summon an axe of light and cleave into it, burying the summoned weapon deep in its guts.

The weapon’s energies invade the creature and attack its nervous system as I kick it, sending it towards the ground.

Not wasting any more time, I enter through the window and find the classroom in chaos. Several students are playing cat and mouse with a vaguely humanoid spirit. The thing is standing in front of my brother who is trying to shield Adea.

With a burst of speed, I jump at the thing and ram it. At the moment I am not concerned about graceful fighting. What counts is taking out the spirits as fast as possible. Then I have to get the students out of here and find Seria.

Damn. She must be somewhere in the vicinity. I hope she is okay.

The spirit shrieks and rakes its clawed hands across my body. The full force of my aura protects me from grave injuries, so ignore the attack and summon a hammer. Bringing down the weapon of light, I hit its forehead dead centre.

The skull caves in and brain splatters everywhere. The spirit goes silent instantly and I whirl around to search for the next opponent.

But there is none. Just wounded and whimpering students with a badly wounded teacher. I think I talked to him a few times, but I never bothered to remember his name. With over a hundred teachers for the university grades alone it isn’t surprising that I don’t know everyone personally. “Silence! Pick up the wounded and ready yourselves to get out of here. We are going through the windows, so prepare your levitation spells.”

Not even waiting for an answer, I use a gust of wind to blow the glass out of the windows. As I do so, my brother pulls Adea to her feet.

“Go! Go! Go!” I take the lead, hurling myself out of the window. I encounter three more spirits. Summoning a bow of light, I sent three arrows of pure energy at them. They blast apart in a spray of blood and gore.

The students run for their lives as I lay down cover fire, following them with a levitation spell. It’s only when we reach the courtyard towards the palace, that I dare to take a breath and turn back towards the portal. It increased in size, despite the joint efforts of my father and several DF soldiers.

“No! We have to find Seria!” Adea’s screams draw my attention and I float down to join her and my brother on the ground. My little brother is trying to pull her further towards the palace.

I try to calm her down. “Adea, you should go with him. Seria is strong enough to take care of herself. Once you are safe, I’ll go and search for her.”

The girl shakes her head. “You don’t understand. Seria is-” Adea’s eyes widen and she covers her mouth with her hands. It looks as if she was about to spill some important information.

I squint my eyes at her. “What is Seria?”

Adea shakes her head and points at the portal. I turn around, just to see huge claws trying to widen it. And then a huge foot steps through and comes down on the school’s administrative wing, crushing it. Whatever is trying to come through, it’s too huge to fit the portal, even at its current size.

That can only mean that we are about to have a divine spirit right in the middle of our town. We can kiss the town goodbye if it gets through.

Adea reaches for her earring and starts muttering something. The earring looks suspiciously like one of Seria’s.

One moment later Seria appears right next to her. “There you are!”

She appeared out of nowhere. I blink in surprise. There isn’t even a trace of mana around her like it should be when someone teleports.

“You are here! I wished for you to save us and you really came. You must be a Jinn after all!” Adea hugs Seria, all the fear gone in an instant.

Seria awkwardly pats the girls’ back. “You wished for it? That can only mean that this crazy plan of mine might really work. But I need your mana to kickstart the spell.”

My brother approaches them. “A Jinn? Adea, don’t you know how dangerous-”

Seria kicks Caden and he folds over. “Get out of the way. We are trying to save this city.” She takes Adea’s hand and curls up her sleeve. “We need to perform a bloodspell, so that I can take control of your mana. You haven’t completely relearned to control it, so it would be too dangerous if you do it yourself.”

Adea pales. “But blood magic is… and control?”

Seria uses her fingernail to cut Adea’s forearm, sprinkling the blood all around them. The girl winces, but doesn’t scream. Then Seria cuts herself to add to the mess. “I hope you know what you are doing.” I comment with an insecure voice and hurry to pull my little brother out of the way.

Blood magic isn’t to be messed with. If it goes wrong, it goes seriously wrong. Like you will wish to never have been born wrong.

“Don’t worry! It’s all peachy!” Seria chimes happily.

The blood around Seria and Adea flows into a crazy and mad pattern. Seria places her hand on Adea’s shoulder. “Kneel down.”

Adea cringes. “Did you ever do this before?”

“The first time is always magical!” Seria slams her palm onto Adea’s forehead and the girl opens her mouth for a silent scream.

Immediately both of their auras merge and Adea’s eyes start glowing with blue light. Their auras are so dense, it feels like I am being pushed away. Is Adea really that powerful? I can’t follow Seria’s spell and shield my brother instead. The immense aura completely overwhelmed him.

When I look up again, Seria and Adea are surrounded by a dense sphere of mana. It is so powerful that it even melts the ground around them.

As I watch, thin lines of energy start spreading from the sphere. No, those aren’t lines, it looks more like a network of roots. The roots take a blue, ghostly form and latch onto Seria and Adea. A pulse of power lights up the entire network and it feels like something is trying to tug at my own aura. The network spreads towards the portal and surrounds it like a living thing.

Then huge, blue, ethereal roots appear at the portal. They stick to the leg and claws, then to the portal itself.

As I try to shield my brother from the strange energies, I realize that Adea’s mana didn’t call forth the network of roots. It just gave them enough power to manifest themselves as a physical thing. They seem to spread much farther than Adea’s mana is allowing us to see. And the roots appear to absorb the mana to somewhere else.

As I still try to grasp the nature of Seria’s spell, the blue roots completely enclose the portal and turn red as they suck away the chaos energies. Whatever is trying to get through the portal shudders and tries to retreat its leg.

But the roots don’t seem to be picky about from where they get their power. They develop huge thorns with hooks as they rend the flesh from the creature’s leg, tearing it to bloody bits!

Seria cuts off the power and carefully disentangles Adea and herself from the mana-sucking ghost plant. But that doesn’t stop the roots from devouring the spirit’s leg and absorbing the portal.

At last, the portal snaps shut as the power supply falls too low. Cut off from the power which gives the roots physical form, they also start fading away while they wriggle and search for a new source of power.

Seria carries Adea to me, smiling, but with shadows under her eyes. “That was tiring. I am glad that I had such a handy mana bag at hand to do this. Otherwise the roots would have taken me.”

Taken her!? “Don’t do that spell ever again! Whatever it was.”

.