It seemed that they were on guard as the gate opened suddenly, perhaps they had some scheduled system or were always on-guard. Luckily enough it didn’t seem like they had expected this to happen so there weren’t many guards between himself and the blue tower.

Though to Gilliam’s dismay he had to jinx it, he suddenly heard a loud horn being blown from the static gate he came through.

Damnit.. He should have killed the guards there to stop this from happening. Well... It was clearly too late now as it only took a few solid seconds for a second horn to sound in the city, then other places.

The whole place was now aware of something happening... Not wanting to be suddenly caught off guard he used the time to cast two new layers of barriers, ending up with three again. At this point he realised that the second and third layer draws more energy than when he just casts one. Trying to make a mental note about this for later he flew as fast as he could towards the top of the blue tower, if he was lucky he might be able to reach it before they could mobil*

His train of thought was instantly interrupted by seeing a massive stone coming flying his way, he couldn’t dodge it at this speed and... this was going to hurt... Unless.

Trying his best to time it properly he made a wide vertical swing with his sword at the boulder once it got closer, the blade passed through it without effort, though there was nothing that actually moved the boulder pieces to the sides so they still crashed into his barrier. Due to the boulder having been cut in two, the hit to the barrier was lessened a little, moving to the sides along the curved surface let a little of the energy be redirected rather than landing full force into it. This still took out most of the energy in the third barrier but it left it still existing.

This was good news for Gilliam but, he didn’t have time to celebrate now, he was getting closer to the tower, this might still be doable! He flew over the guards on the ground without effort, and the flying force was easily taken out with either some well placed sword swings or just a variant of the multi Aether sphere spell. Making sure to spread the cast out to maximise the explosive potential of it did wonders, opening up the sky for him to keep flying ever closer!

More of the flying rocks came his way, now that he was nearing the city he could easily see that they were using some catapults and trebuchets to send them his way, with expert aim. Since Gilliam was somewhat aware of it this round it was easier to dodge, and in some cases an Aether sphere with a burrowing quality added to it could easily penetrate the rock and explode inside, taking out the major danger which could let his shield handle the rest.

On the fly trying something, Gilliam realised that he could take advantage of a concept of how magic worked, since a large part of it was the mental idea when cast, he could wildcard and generalise the magic circle as long as it was specific enough.

Manifesting a circle he started filling it with runes; Aether, sphere, multiply, exploding, guarding, homing, seeking(demon). His mental image was a swarm of spheres that hovered around him, guarding him and attacking demons in a certain range.

Keeping the magic circle to fly with him at this speed was oddly problematic, but with some concentration he was able. This spell took a substantial amount of mana to cast, but it was worth the effort as it worked exactly as planned. After the teal circle had been fed with the needed mana it imploded into itself as a glowing sphere, this glowing sphere then split up into a bunch of smaller spheres that did indeed start hovering around Gilliam like he was now an atom and they were his electrons!

The next step was to see if they worked as intended, a test he only had to wait a few seconds for as a weird long-necked demon with an oversized head and two pairs of wings came flying his way. Two of the spheres ejected from their circular path around Gilliam and darted towards the flying creature. Naturally it did its best to dodge but they corrected their path mid flight and connected with the enemy, one hit the chest and the other only managed to hit the shoulder. At the moment of impact they both exploded with the force of a small grenade, not enough to bring down a building but they were literally in contact with the creature. This blew solid chunks of its body before its lifeless corpse fell towards the ground.

Success! This spell was amazing, costly but very good for protection. A quick note, something nobody had explained to him before but it seemed that a spell ate up much more mana the more runes he put into it. Sort of making sense but not something he had considered before... Or did he realise this before and just forget? He had no idea at the moment, this required thinking he didn’t have time to consider at the moment.

Having done his best to dodge incoming projectiles, most of them he managed but some came in too fast and even with his weird sword skills he couldn’t hit them all. He had to re-cast the second and third barrier a few times before he got in range of the tower, likewise he had decided to attack some of the incoming demons himself so he didn’t consume all the auto-orbs around him. They would be very nice to have later.

Suddenly magic erupted from the ground near the tower, as well as from the tower itself. An ice-spear came from the tower and three irregularly flying orbs of fire came flying from the ground towards him. Their speed meant that he had no way to dodge at all.

The orbs impacted with the third barrier, breaking it instantly. The ice spear came right after and handled the two other barriers. Luckily for Gilliam the last barrier had enough strength to handle the remainder of the spear which shattered into snow, instantly melting in the hot air.

This left Gilliam defenceless, something he didn’t want to risk, instantly casting another barrier, but this time modifying the barrier magic circle to include a subcircle that multiplied it with three, this ate up a dramatic amount of energy but worked as intended.

He instantly ended up with a triple barrier as intended, but he didn’t have enough energy for another one of those left. Had he only saved some of the mana crystals he could consume those but that was not possible.

Instead he would have to commit another war crime and use the draining magic again. There was a problem mixing it with his defence spell that was currently keeping things away, but there were only a few orbs left of that now.

Casting the inky black spell again he manifested the circle as before, activating it to... no avail. As it was about to activate it sort of violently shook itself apart like it refused to be cast. Gilliam didn’t know why this was, but his best guess was that since this didn’t cost anything to cast, it seemed to consume the needed energy from its victims, since nothing was close enough to drain it couldn’t ignite, so to speak. He currently had three barriers again, so as long as he wasn’t hit by that combo again he should be good.

Almost like on que, the spells had been cast again and the orbs of fire were heading his way again, the ice spear coming not far behind. He couldn’t dodge, but also didn't want the barriers to be destroyed again, he didn’t have the needed mana to restructure them.

A twitch in his arm gave him a good idea, he could do his best to attack them like he did the boulder, hitting them properly should destabilise the spell, however the sword had a weird weight to its weightless blade. When moving it around it’s almost like it has a momentum to work over which helps its cutting power. However the blade doesn’t have this in the slender form.

Dismissing the wide blade, keeping only the long and slender blade Gilliam readied himself for the split second as the spells came in range.

First the irregular flying spheres came flying in range, he swung after them but could only hit one, the sphere disintegrated into particles that bounced off the barrier, however the remaining two impacted and instantly destroyed the third barrier.

The ice spear was still on its way in, doing his best to ignore the popping of a third of his life line he aimed for the longer and more predictable arc of the spear. Swinging towards the head of the spear he managed to barely hit it, the mana in the blade and the mana in the spear collided, disintegrating the spear into snow. Gilliam considered the thought that if this was a real spear he would still have been hit.

He was running out of energy, and with only three of his guardian spheres left he had to make a choice to regenerate energy in the thick of it, or just make his way towards the orb. Not having the luxury of them maybe moving the orb so that took priority.

Flying up towards it he still had two hurdles left, one was the still incoming barrage of things, luckily most missing but some contacting, eating up valuable energy from his barriers. The other was that he didn’t know who or what waited for him in the tower, but as it was closing in he would have to cross that when he got there.

Another barrage of the small spheres of fire came in, as well as the ice spear, knowing how things worked now he aimed for them again, missing all the fire orbs but hitting the spear again. The orbs removed another layer of the barrier, easily, their erratic movement made hitting them incredibly difficult.

Around him more flying demons were closing in, below him the streets were practically flowing with demons and the gore of their fallen allies. The remaining three of his orbs flew out and contacting with their respective targets, taking them out of the air if not outright killing them.

This was his make or break moment, he was nearing the tower but there weren’t any good windows he could just fly through, manifesting a magic circle for an Aether sphere to just open up a hole on the wall was little effort, giving it the needed energy to manifest was possible but much harder. The magic circle collapsed into a sphere that instantly sped towards the wall and exploded as soon as it contacted, tearing open a hole and ejecting the debris both inside and outside the room.

Inside he could see the demon mage sending out the ice spears, he looked similar to Sirzan so was probably the same sub-race of demon. He was clearly more powerful as that spear could easily take out his shield.

Having been knocked over from the explosion the demon mage got to his feet, he started channelling the spell, at the same time Gilliam could feel the mana from below, the irregular fireballs had started making their way again.

Luckily the debris on the way down hit all the fireballs, their irregular flight-path actually sent them into some rocks, detonating them down there instead of on Gilliam’s shield. He was not as lucky as the demon mage managed to send his spear flying straight at Gilliam. Though this time he was ready, the sword came down with practised timing but he had misjudged the range. The spear was allowed to impact into the last shield at the same time as the sword contacted it, though the spear disintegrated it was not until it was able to take out the last barrier.

Gilliam was defenceless.

An arrow hit him in the right arm, yanking that out instantly he had no other choice than to ignore all the shit in the air and aim straight for the demon mage in the tower. Yanking out the arrow and applying healing magic was the best he could do as he was on the way towards his target, taking another arrow in his left calf and one in the side of his torso. Not having time to handle them he pulled his sword back as the demon mage was channelling the spell circle for his ice spear yet again. Bringing his sword through the magic circle he destabilised it to the point of spell failure, at the same time the sword cut through most of his chest and came out of his back, almost bisecting him as Gilliam crashed onto the floor and due to being absolutely covered in all kinds of gore, slid into a rudimentary bookcase. He absolutely broke something, both the thin stone bookcase as well as in himself, but didn’t have time to react. Forcing himself to his feet, groaning out in severe pain from everything affecting him at the moment he took a quick look around. Ignoring the sounds of a door into this room being torn down he saw a single pedestal in the center of the room, an ornate box on top of it. Limping towards it he almost fell over twice on the way, he sent the sword back into the ring before he ended up almost falling a third time, but this time grabbing onto the pedestal for enough support. Opening the box he saw a crystal orb inside!

Thank you Sirzan!

The door splintered and an arrow came in, landing in his left thigh as he picked up the orb.

“You better be right about this!” he yelled out to Sirzan as he shattered the orb on the floor, thinking of the academy grounds.

The orb shattered against the smooth and bloodied stone floor, letting out a massive burst of energy in the form of smoke and particles. It all flew around for a split second before it collected into a half oval in front of him. Not taking any more chances he limped his way through the portal as soon as it looked stable. To a familiar white light.

Though he couldn’t see, he could feel grass as he fell on his face, landing on and pushing one of the arrows through his side all the way. Letting out a pained yell his vision was starting to improve.

Turning towards the gate he came through he called his sword in hand, he was nearing out of mana completely, the familiar feeling of mana starvation was just around the corner. Not more than a second or two later a male demon from Petal’s sub-race came through, instantly manifesting the wide blade Gilliam cut him in two, getting even more covered in blood and gore. A second later another demon came through, this one was four legged and looked like a weird hybrid of a tiger, a lobster with the skin of a lizard. Another swing of the blade also cut this in two before the gate closed behind them, letting him see the academy grounds properly.

Gilliam let out a loud laughter filled with triumph and all kinds of emotions lasting for two seconds as he put the sword back in the ring before he instantly passed out.

Gilliam woke up, narrowing his eyes to the light in the room and groaning something about food. He felt a weird dire feeling of distress, but at the same time some weird incredible happiness. This only made weirder as he had no reason to feel anything but calm and satisfied at having gotten back.

“Oh, you’re finally awake!” a familiar voice suddenly reacted at his side.

Tilting his head he saw something slightly uncomfortable, there were windows with the sun coming through, hitting an Angela who was as pale and white as you could get it, turning everything into an almost white blur as his eyes teared up from the stinging brightness.

“Angela?” Gilliam muttered in a questioning tone.

“I’m glad you still remember me.” She replied in a joking manner. “You gave us all a solid scare when you disappeared.” She added.

“Ah yes... The teleportationdaggerthing.” Stating half of the sentence as a single word had a strong hint of him not knowing the item in question that well.

Though, a moment later a confused expression grew on Gilliam’s face as he had managed to place the distress and happiness feelings; they were not his own.

“Where is Savia, and Petal?”

Angela tilted her head as her face turned to her own confused expression. “Savia? Petal? Who is that?”

Her questioning tone sounded honest, and from the time he had spent with her he was very certain that she would not joke about this.

Gilliam’s expression changed, no longer confused and more angry, forcing himself to a sitting position before Angela managed to walk over and stop him. He looked at her with a mix of emotions. “Can you go find me Jial or Ghaos?”

The tone was absolutely not a question, it was just the remainder of his politeness shining through. Jial and Ghaos were the ones of the academy that Gilliam had gotten the closest with, not that they were close but comparatively so.

Angela looked a bit worried, but nodded before she pushed him back down in the bed. “You rest in the meantime, I’ll go find one of them.”

That also didn’t sound like a request, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Gilliam’s mind was spinning, there were a lot of questions. How long was he gone, how long was he out of it after returning but most distressingly; where is Savia and Petal?

Some thoughts of him ending up in an alternate universe came to mind, but he brushed that aside, he had seen too many movies. But something must have happened, Petal can be argued that she might be elsewhere but odds were very small that Savia wouldn’t stay glued to his face.

Being lost in thought for quite some time he suddenly snapped out of it to the sound of the door opening. Looking towards the door almost offended, Angela entered with Jial following her.

Good, this should be able to shed some light on things.

“Ah. Mr. Gibson. We thought you di*” Clearly wanting to start with some pleasantries and perhaps update him, Gilliam interrupted him before he was able to complete the first greeting.

“Where are they? Savia and Petal, where are they?” His voice was uncertain but very commanding.

His expression soured as the topic changed suddenly and seemingly to a bad topic.

Sitting down on one of the chairs next to the bed he sighed deep.

“You were gone for two weeks. Everything looked like you were killed by the student that stabbed you. Any attempts to scry on you came up blank. It all confirmed that you were dead. Your familiar and slave had nowhere to go. Without a master they could not stay here too long. We took care of them on your behalf for a while but a few days ago Garend came with a document. The document had some old rules about slaves and familiars not belonging to anyone. Allowing him to take ownership over them. Petal resisted. She got hurt. She hurt him. We were able to use this as an excuse to put her in the Academy holding cells. But your familiar was not as lucky.”

It was not hard for Angela to piece this together, especially since Jial defined what they were to Gilliam. Gilliam himself was getting more and more furious.

“She is alive, I can feel that much. Where is she?”

Suppressing the wish to raise his voice and shout, he did his utmost best to be relatively civil as he spoke through gritted teeth.

“Academy rules stop me from sharing any student information if I have any belief that anything negative might happen-” Jial had an odd tone to him as he explained the academy rules. “-But I can admit that I speculate that she’s still on the academy grounds. Without specifics there is only really one place one would store personal items.”

Gilliam made a mental note to make sure to make this up to Jial in the future, he was a clever man and through ‘totally not saying’ he bent the rules almost to their breaking points.

Turning to Jial with the most forced smile and suppressed anger Gilliam had ever sported. “My dear Jial, could you tell me what the number of Garend’s room is? I really do wish to pay him a visit.”

“Well, if it’s just to pay him a visit. I’m sure it will be fine. His room is 1-2-28”

Jial was his normal self, still speaking with weird pauses in sentences. And even though he was hiding it well, it was clear that he didn’t like Garend much, or he would not have told Gilliam like this.

Angela was very taken back at this, but seemed to accept things a little since a teacher was helping.. Of sorts. It was several times she wanted to break in but held herself back, not understanding the situation properly. She didn’t want to make it worse.

Getting out of bed immediately, ignoring the fact that he was only dressed in underwear and pants, or the fact that he never put those on himself. He arrived back here completely naked.

His body was filled with scars, each of his massive wounds back in the demon world was healed, some by himself and some by others after he arrived; for example he didn’t have arrows in his body anymore. However though he was completely healed the wounds had left scars, the first time seeing his body like this had Angela react a bit, or it might have been the way he was acting.

As Gilliam was on his way through the door, Angela following him, Jial raised his voice.

“Don’t kill him.” This was toned as an order, something that Gilliam didn’t reply to as he kept walking.

Barefoot and bare chested, only wearing pants and his ring, Gilliam walked from the monitoring room he woke up in towards wing 1. Heading towards the main hall first.

He passed by several students and some of the people working in the healing area, he got plenty of uncertain or not scared looks, not caring for any of them.

“Sooo... I get it that you might have.. Had it hard..” Angela tried to be careful but didn’t know how to approach this. “But... I think it might be better to approach this with a levelheaded mind. Try to calm do*” the end of her sentence was interrupted by Gilliam’s raised voice as he suddenly stopped walking.

“You want me to calm down? No, Petal trusted me, Savia. Savia trusted me-” he put heavy, heavy emphasis on Savia’s name. “I can feel her, the dread, the pain. She is in a horrible situation and you want me to calm down?”

There was nothing she could reply with, the look on her face stated that she didn’t agree, but understood.

“At least... Don’t kill him...” she repeated Jial’s orders as a request.

Gilliam didn’t respond, just continued walking down the hallway.

Entering through the central hall he continued to get looks, first most likely for his attire, a simple cloth pants and nothing else. This was almost sacrilege to the nobles and posh people of the Academy. Others might be because of his expression, he didn’t notice any of them.

Jedark had noticed him and stepped in, seeming to want to say something with a smug looking face, but he immediately changed his mind as he got closer. It ended up with the students giving him the right of way, but as soon as he had walked up the stairs to the second level and entered the Northern Wing, most of them flocked after him wondering what was going to happen.

Angela was still properly mentally present, she overheard a lot of statements, most of it being speculation but she did hear some mentioning something about Savia, ‘the demon’ and ‘the slave’. She looked a bit confused at the moment but Gilliam powered on.

Ignoring any attempts to talk to him he soon found himself in front of the 28th door on the second floor. And he knocked.

It took a good solid few seconds before Garend’s voice, sounding as better than thou as always asked. “Who’s there?”

His tone was normal, seeming to not think much that someone knocked on his door.

“I want Savia back.” Gilliam simply replied.

Behind the door there was a gasp followed by complete silence, the emotional link to Savia pulsed with extreme happiness as soon as Gilliam spoke, she was definitely in there.

“I don’t know any Savia, if that’s your slave she’s not here.” His voice broke a moment but he managed to recompose himself. This sounded like the trained lie that one would say to technically not be lying.

Gilliam grabbed the door handle, but it was obviously locked.

“Open the door, Garend.” Gilliam ordered. “She better be unharmed.”

The threat had Garend behind the door vocally swallow loudly.

“No.” He was uncertain, but at the same time it seemed that he possibly felt safe behind his thick door.

“Open the door or I will.” Gilliam threatened.

“Hah, if you damage Academy property willingly, you’ll be expelled!” he clearly had him now, the voice of Garend stated that he had already won.

Angela placed a hand on Gilliam’s shoulder, shaking her head as soon as Gilliam looked at her. “He’s right, you don’t want to get expelled, let’s go get a teacher to settle this.”

Gilliam, while looking her straight in her eyes, called the sword from his ring. People reacted and murmured about some subspace concept, others commented on what he was going to do with a broken sword.

Turning back to the door Gilliam suggested the sword to manifest the wide blade, which it eagerly did. From a sword with a broken guard and blade, teal runes along its blade, guard and pommel, in the flash of an eye now stood the long wide blade he had used to stay alive in the demon world. People around took many steps away, most startled by the sudden blade manifesting, Angela included.

“Fine, I’ll come in then.” Gilliam stated to Garend through the door.

Behind the door was just silence.