Something was embracing him.

  It looked human. Made of bck Ether, dark magic magic energy.

  [Warning… corrupting entity of unknown origin detected detected]

  |Aspen!|

  “Right!”

  Aspen got in front of me while I got into a defensive position. That crazy idiot was not done, even when he knew how it was going to end!

  I was entirely focused on the ethereal entity. It seemed human for a few moments, but it morphed every so often. No discernible features on its face, and seemed to be whispering in Forehead's ears.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Luna demanded an answer, “what are you doing?!”

  But Forehead did not answer. It seemed Luna could not see the creature that was holding him.

  What did that mean? Was he under its control or…?

  “I told you that those stones and books you found were dangerous, pup” Ade commented, “Now you are under their spell.”

  “Silence!” Forehead yelled, and a wave of dark matter pushed all of us away from him.

  Luna and the other wolves did not manage to fight against it and got pushed away. I managed to hold my air, and Aspen stood her ground. Ade used a spell to block the energy and to prevent Luna from getting injured.

  “Everyone! Get away!” Luna ordered.

  Many wolves moved away from the danger, but the ones that seemed to want to fight stood around and began to circle Forehead.

  “It seems, brother…” I heard a voice coming from the humanoid form, “we failed…”

  “Heh… we did, brother… but we can still do something,” White forehead answered.

  “B-brother?” Luna and Ade asked almost at the same time.

  “The sword… destroy it, and the soul that made us fail is gone!” The creature said.

  Forehead looked at me.

  I shook for a moment as his sight was both cold and threatening, deep eyes darkened, eyes stared at me.

  |D-did I just become enemies from an unknowable horror from the depths?|

  [Analysing… most likely]

  Very useful, Erika.

  The creature lunged at me. I swung in response, but my bde went through it!

  Behind it, hidden in the dark Ether, came Forehead, who managed to hit me with his wind bdes at point bnk.

  [HP: 38/48]

  Those spells hit hard. I was happy I evolved and got better stats or I would have been dead.

  But magic was still pretty much more dangerous. If he decided to use that paralysis spell and hit me, I was going to be toast.

  [Warning… Wis, which is 10 right now for you, is your capacity to negate such an effect. If you compare with the rest of your stats, you can tell it is low. Is better to avoid getting hit with spells]

  “Lay down, pup!” Luna screamed.

  Dark orbs spawned around her and she threw them at Forehead, and in the midpoint turned into nets, but something invisible stopped them.

  “H-huh?!”

  “Either he or the spirit that is with him raised a barrier. We cannot intervene.” Ade expined, calmed as ever.

  “Hell we cannot!” Aspen yelled and threw herself at it, only to get expelled by the bounce of her own force, “agh! This barrier sucks!”

  Yeah, I was alone. The barrier surprised me as well. I did not notice when they raised it up around us, and maybe it was when they sneaked the surprise attack on me, but I could see it.

  That meant that was my fight and Forehead’s.

  “We pnned everything… we were going to be heroes, but then you had to appear, damn sword!” Forehead said.

  |You are just murderers! Don’t come at me with that hero's crap!|

  Good, I needed it to keep talking while I thought about what to do.

  Because if this continued, I would have to kill him, just like I did with that King’s hunter.

  “What do you know?!” Forehead barked, “I am tired of being seen as the errand wolf… always looked down by the rest! What does a damn human know about that?!”

  I shot a fireball as my surprise attack, and the Ether being had to block it with its hand!

  I did the same as them, I lunged myself against him, passed through the entity and cut horizontally at Forehead. I almost got him, cutting some hair and drawing some blood from her left ear, leaving a clean cut on it.

  “Grrrr! You insolent piece of scrap!” He yelled.

  More tendrils came out and grabbed me by my handle, and I could not move.

  “Now, go down on the same pits of despair I have felt every day until I met my new brother!” He yelled.

  The entity and Forehead were staring at me while the tendrils covered me, and even my vision began to blur.

  [Warning… magic effect blurring cognition. Initiate a counter measure]

  I tried to run away, but I failed. The darkness consumed me entirely.

  What I hated about him was how much he loved to talk as if everyone owed him something after trying to kill a lot of wolves just because of his ambitions.

  After hearing him talk about being looked down upon, a memory fshed in my head.

  A small bittle of pills was on my table with a gss of water I had just drank to take one of my meds. It was meant to calm me, but I was still about to burst into tears. I had just read a letter of rejection, with my manuscript on the table. By the state of the seal on the manuscript, it was obvious they did not even care about reading it.

  I forgot how many times I got rejected already. No one wanted to take my novel.

  And there it was, on my phone, a message from my mother.

  “Just give up already”

  “You already know you have no talent”

  I continued, but I never got any of the books I wanted accepted by any editor. Some read it, others didn’t. No matter how many books I wrote, no one wanted to publish me.

  One of my friends, at the end of the day, said the only thing that kept me going.

  “I wish I could be as stubborn as you,” Liana, my closest friend said, “maybe I could have that comic book contract already!”

  So when I heard Forehead say I did not know that feeling, he was wrong, and it infuriated me to think about what he did.

  Even without knowing those wolves he got killed because of his selfishness, I knew he was full of crap and I felt anger for their deaths. I knew what rejection felt like, I knew what feeling that no one appreciates you is like. But I never would have thought about killing anyone because of it.

  Even when my mother, after my father died, made me feel sick on my stomach.

  Magic followed the will of the caster?

  [Warning… exactly. I only make it easier to cast specific spells. Fireball is a mixture of different elements and magical components. Just give me the order, and we will come out of this one]

  I might be a weaker mage than him, but I was a stubborn bitch.

  I remembered the elements on Ade’s. One of those was fire. I focused on my Fireball spell.

  [Fireball Lv4]

  It had leveled up since st time. It was causing more damage. But what I cared about was something else.

  The two fme-like symbols surrounded me when I thought about love. They were small, very small, but I could notice them. It was a stream of them that moved around me.

  Then… what? I managed to get that energy, and it was circling me. The one with two figures that reminded me of fmes. That was the fire element, so how did I…?

  [Will it. You need to focus and wish for it tondo as you want. It will take form. Saying what you want might help visualiza it]

  So… what could I do? I thought at the different spells I had seen. Bdes, nets, energy bursts.

  |Expand!|

  The fire did go off around me! But it fizzled almost immediately.

  I was getting close!

  [MP: 43/54]

  But that used my MP! That meant I was limited in the amount of tries I had…

  I tried again!

  Fzzz!

  It went longer, but nothing.

  I was not sure if it was going to work.

  [You are fighting against him. Remember he has more power]

  |Fire, expand! Burn!|

  Fzzz!

  Again, longer, but not enough!

  “Are you seriously trying? Give up already!” Forehead voice reverberated through the darkness, “I am not letting you get out of this one!”

  “Surrender like you did?” I tainted back.

  The darkness shook. Or moved, like it trembled.

  “You little…”

  I decided to focus harder that time! More energy, more MP! More of the fire element surrounded me, so I was gathering more of my magic power!

  Even if it was little in comparison, I was going to make it work!

  |Come on! Burn, fire from within me! Show this idiot what real frustration feels like!|

  [Mp: 0/54]

  I used my st reserve of MP and made the fire expand as far as I could!

  “T-this is?!” the Ether creature asked in surprise.

  [Magic recipe stored, new skill learned! Fire Burst Lv 01]

  The fire burst surrounded me and expanded further, breaking the spell that imprisoned me out.

  The Ether entity and Forehead, surprised, did not have time to dodge and got hit by the burst of fire that followed.

  I made it! I managed to create a powerful spell on the go! Although it left me without magic points, I made it work! Being stubborn helped me in this new world!

  I hoped there were no consequences from that.

  And when I saw Forehead, he was with multiple burns, having failed to defend himself with a counter spell.

  |That is for using that spell on me earlier! Now, surrender or I am taking you out myself!|

  “G…ghhh… y-you…” Forehead failed to stand up, before slowly getting up on his four legs, “you are mocking me… like everyone did to us… you are enjoying this… don’t you?”

  “She is… mocking us… brother…” the entity answered, “kill her, let’s kill her and then show why the other wolves should follow us! We will find the nd outside of the caves!”

  They began to move.

  Then it was going to be a st stand.

  I was not going to let them kill me.

  I prepared myself, my bde up and ready to attack.

  He began to cast his wind bdes.

  I dodged and cut through them, getting a hurt in the process. I ran out of metal items to heal myself.

  [HP: 31/58]

  27

  20

  12

  I only cut through the ones I could not dodge. My HP was lowering to an arming rate.

  And when I was close.

  We exchanged a final blow.

  My bde cut horizontally, and went through his side.

  He fell dead the next second.

  Only the entity was left.

  I was out of MP and little HP, and the barrier was still up.

  Even so, I got into position, even if I was bluffing.

  The entity looked down at Forehead’s body, who died in desperation just to prove himself as a capable member of his Cn.

  “Rest, brother,” the spirit said, and closed his eyes, “you did well.”

  |You care about him…|

  “Maybe… maybe not…” the being answered, “since I am in this form, I am not even sure I have feelings. I only knew we had a lot in common. So, I gave him what he wanted to achieve my own goals.”

  |Power?|

  “Someone who shared his plight.”

  The entity pced his hand on the body, and it slowly disappeared.

  “My name is Ramad, human spirit… you better remember it well.”

  Huh?

  |Alice|

  I answered in doubt.

  “Without him, there is little I can do to harm you… so consider yourself lucky.” Ramad was staring at me through his bnk face, I could feel it, “we will meet again, remember this promise, Alice the sword.”

  Then he banished.

  The barrier also.

  Everything went silent for a few moments, as I slowly realized we came out of it.

  |Good… we made… it…|

  Then, I went dark once more.

  I only managed to register one final message from Erika.

  [Warning! Magic reserves low for a prolonged period of time! Making adjustments to save User’s life!]

  SoullessDiaz