# cycle eight, Ca’thir, of calendar Moonrachia
A meadow scene
It was so peaceful, to the point I didn’t want to move, just lying down and spending the rest of my life here
The grass was dancing, as if it were being hit by a breeze of wind, despite no wind
The sky was a flat grey, as if there were nothing beyond it
Like an empty meadow that merely exists, just because
“S@#M%^ M@”
And a gentle yet incomprehensible voice could be heard, as if I had heard it more than a thousand times, to the point I could trust it with anything I had
“M@#T$%”
It's so familiar, yet so distant
Like a language you once learned but forgot when growing up
“Are you someone I know?” Saying it into the clouded sky
It's just a dream, I will wake up soon, and nothing will happen
I will be fine, as I said to myself
The sky shook violently, as if existing on a different layer from the meadow
Slowly, something appeared, like a cloud, but it wasn’t a cloud
It warped into concentric circles until I realized it had become a magic circle
It has the core structure of summoning magic but with different calculations and functions than summoning magic
It's something I have never seen in my entire study
I tried to remember it, with every inch of progress, my head grew dizzy and throbbed with an unpredictable rhythm
Once I fully remembered it, I heard the same voices again
But this time, it gave something like a laugh or perhaps a scream
Before a loud stretching sound could be heard, something then descended in a faraway meadow
A yellow tower that I saw in one of my dreams fell from the sky, slightly covered with blood and pitted like the surface of the moon, yet sharp as bone
Once it hit the ground, everything was destroyed slowly and disappeared, except the tower, blood, and the bone-looking moon
And the red string that was tied around my neck
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Then I woke up and lunged into a sitting position, touching my neck as my heart hammered against my chest, and a loud throbbing filled my ears
The room was dark, with few light sources coming from the slit of the door and the windows
With trembling hand, I slowly move from my bed into my chair before opening my journal
And start journaling the dreams before my brain erases them
*****
07.08 cycle eight, Ca’thir, of calendar Moonrachia
The room was filled with a heavy atmosphere, a long table, and a long table surrounded by seats, each occupied by a teacher or an assistant who had stayed behind
It was a meeting on how to manage the class and the academy due to the lack of manpower
A lot of opinions arise
Such as unfairness and bonuses
And Maya manages all of them easily
Long story short, the meeting ended after around an hour, with the result that ‘it's still manageable.’
As I left the room, I saw Alias holding hands with someone in the hallway
When Alias noticed me, she was waving her hand in an excessive way
Well, I can’t just walk away from it
Slowly, when I walked closer to them, I noticed the girl beside Alias had a distinct features distinctly different from those of an Arnentia native
She has green eyes and a side plait hairstyle with slightly yellow hair, like a yellow pastel
“Hello, you must be Kaleth? Alias was talking a lot about you in the letter, and she hasn’t stopped talking about you since I arrived here.” A soft, motherly voice with a really warm smile
“My name is Eisya, Alias’s mother. Nice to meet you.” Eisya tilted her head slightly while offering a handshake
“Ah, right, the pleasure is mine.” Before I reach for her hand and do a firm handshake
“I’m glad she met someone who could show her different types of magic, because I can’t use magic freely, and Noah is often busy with his work.” Eisya then gives Alias a slow pat
“I’m glad I could be useful.” Before Alias tugged my sleeves and said, “Kaleth, show Mom that butterfly magic.”
“Oh, right, it’s the magic she often mentions in our letter.”
Well, it’s not that hard, it's just a summoning-type magic. It's not fully summoning, but rather luring a spirit that's close by and then giving them a butterfly feature with my mana
When I open my palm and gather my mana to create the magic circle, somehow, I lost control over my mana. Instead, the summoning magic formed the same circle from my dreams
A chill ran down from the nape of my neck to my tailbone, and slowly my ear is ringing, followed by cold sweat that appears on my forehead
The magic then alters its own core and activates
In the sky, there’s a loud sound like a bell that comes from heaven
-Bong… Bong…
Everyone, the teacher, the assistant teacher
Maya, Alias, Eisya, Rheya, Millenia, and the rest of the people at the academy
Staring at the sky at the same time
With surprised and confused faces
Then, slowly, something came out from the shadows
Something unnamable—neither human nor monster—that looked like a lump of blood
The thing had a feature that didn’t follow any anatomy, it was random
And each of them had a different feature from the others
One had three hands supporting its body, with facial features scattered across its stomach
Another one had no limbs and a lot of eyes that existed in its entire body
Slowly, many more come out, followed by the scream of the female teacher
With that, I instinctively cover Alias and her mom with my body while my eyes feel stinging
Again, that monochrome vision appears once more, the academy and the rest of the city bled into monochrome once more
But the entity appeared completely the same, still like a lump of blood that somehow could move
This time, the string filled every vision I had, stretching far beyond the city itself
When I glance around, the teacher and the assistant teacher are casting their magic to kill the entity
And in each of them, they had a red string tied around their own neck, while the rest of the string stretched far into the sky
As if each of them were a wooden puppet controlled by a string
And then, one of the assistant teachers that was using a sword was killed in front of me
When the entity touched him, his head exploded, and the red string was withdrawn back into the sky
With that, I could see a lot of red string was withdrawn into the sky in the entire city
I felt a tug on the back of my shirt
I was shielding her completely, so I doubted she saw the death, but when I look at Eisya's face, she still maintains that same face she used before, a calm with that warm smile
“Kaleth, I will leave Alias to you.” Then Eisya slowly lowered her face and kissed Alias on her cheeks
“From now on forward, listen to Kaleth, okay?”
Alias, in confusion, looks confused by her mom's act but still manages to nod
With that, Eisya walked to the front, heading into the group of the entity
Strangely, Eisya doesn’t have any strings attached to her
She keeps walking closer to the group of the entity
A lot of teachers, even Alias, are shouting toward Eisya, “MOM!”
But she glanced behind once and said, “Oh, great adversary of @#$%^&*, may your journey be filled with happiness despite all of the obstacles you will soon face.” A white glow of a halo then manifested above her head, like a crown of thorns
And then deliberately letting herself get touched by the entity
After that, instead of her head being blown up, her entire body scattered like a burst of light, which covered everything in warm white light that was somehow not even blinding us
Following that, tens, hundreds, thousands, or even more spears of light fell from the sky and pierced every single entity that still came out through the shadow
Slowly covered the academy, the city, and something even far away from my vision
“MOM!” Alias is screaming and trying to run to where Eisya was last seen. I was in confusion and shock that I had forgotten to cover Alias's eyes
She managed to see her mother…
Disappear…
Was everything my fault?
Was the magic circle summoning all of them?
The only thing I could do was hold Alias tight in place…
While the white rain of spears keeps falling from the sky…
---END---
