84 First Midnight Order Encounter (1/2)
His deep rest lasted until the complete dark of night arrived. In the midst of eerie silence, sudden shrieks and screams echoed throughout the Iris City. Bolting upright, Greyson blocked his ears and fought the disorientation after just waking up. Bewildered, he quickly walked towards the nearest window to take a look at the situation. Instincts acting up, he dove backwards away from the window right before a loud explosion blew apart that side of the wall. Eyes adjusting to the dark, Greyson's eyes darted around to find any traces of an enemy, however, he could not react until he saw the cold gleam of a blade slicing towards his neck. Hairs standing on end, Greyson rolled backwards to dodge. A cold trickle of blood ran down his neck as Greyson pulled his hand up to run his fingers across the spot. His face immediately turned ugly, however, when he felt the quick paralyzing of his neck. Poison! A sinking thought ran through his mind thinking through the entire scenario. Almost on cue, the echoing screams grew closer and a horrifyingly deformed flying creature with no eyes approached and allowed a dark cloaked man to hop onto its back.
”Midnight... Order...” Revolving his light element, Greyson struggled to get his words out of his restricted throat. Blood red eyes stared back at him before flying off. Even Greyson was shocked that his first encounter with this group would be so random. Sweetbow spoke to him about the most dangerous group around the world. The Midnight Order did not belong to any specific country and instead had thousands of branches all around since their power could not be used in an aboveboard manner. They specialized in forbidden death spells and extremely bloody magic experiments. Sweetbow explained to Greyson that although the Midnight Order was demonized throughout the world, every country and powerful family had shady dealings with them. Assassinations, hard to obtain goods, slaves, even new experimental equipment. As they are not bound by any moral constructs, although unsavory, the Order truly makes remarkable discoveries. They also have fatal attraction for people with weak to no talent as there are spells which include killing others to steal talent or use their mana to boost your own. Many wanted criminals were these exact people who continued to kill in order to increase their level.
Pushing the poison out of his system, Greyson quickly grabbed the still sleeping Lucius from the bed and jumped out of the building through the new hole in the wall. He could see many black flying figures twirling around the city with eerie shrieks continuing to echo around. Multiple places in the city were on fire and he could see the blood staining the ground. Spells lit up the sky as the soldiers and families all worked together to defend their home. Pausing in thought, Greyson hesitated to get involved. After all this was not his home and he did not understand the level of the opponents. Would he be running to his death to defend a random city? His morals fought against his rational thinking. Slowly hopping around the city, Greyson saw the corpses on the ground and the crying families. Feeling sicker and sicker, he could not prevent his face from turning pale. Nausea hit him in waves as he could smell the burning flesh and the metallic stench of blood. Knowing he could not ignore the attack with his conscience intact, he hardened his expression before shooting towards the middle of the city.
Finding the open city square, Greyson sat down in the middle and created a metal dome around himself. Trying his best to mentally flip through the spells he learned recently, he finally opened eyes thinking of the correct one. Biting his finger, he started tracing out a mana gathering array to help boost the power of his spell. After he finished the array, Greyson could feel the intense mana flowing towards him. Flipping his hand, Mesmer appeared in his palm. The gentle sound of flute starting to ring out from the square. A beautiful golden light spread out as far as Greyson could push it. Underneath the warm light, the fighting citizens could feel their exhaustion fade, injuries close, and their mana slowly recover. It continued to spread until around half the city was covered by this light. Although he wished he could cover the entire city, even now sweat beaded down his forehead. Without becoming a magister, this area was the limit of his support. Large concentrations of light element radiated from inside the metal dome. Even Greyson could not believe that the support spells he learned would come in handy so quickly. He was worried before that he wasted his time learning them.
As he expected, attacks soon began to bombard the shield he put up earlier. Trying his best to keep his concentration, Greyson continued to play to try to lengthen the time people could run under the light to heal. He knew he could not keep the spell up for long, but just this amount of time could make the world of difference. Dent after dent appeared on the shield as the ground shook. Feeling the weakness in the shield, Greyson finally pulled the flute from his lips and the gold light began to recede from all parts of the city. Putting away his flute, he pulled out Genesis. Allow the shield to fall away, he spun and sent wind blades in all directions. Only a couple of the group fell to the ground from the attack, however, Greyson still counted around 10 surrounding him. Preparing himself, he could not help but inwardly sigh. The mana gathering array definitely assisted him greatly, but his mana stores were still half gone. Pushing any thoughts of regret from his mind, sharp fighting intent radiated from his eyes. Before he could attack, though, a horn sounded. Almost immediately, all the attackers broke the charm on their necks and their bodies faded into the shadows disappearing. The fighting came to a dead stop.
Confused, Greyson could not understand what just occurred yet. They came suddenly and left just as quickly. As he reflected on this to himself, a bunch of flying figures came towards him. Landing on the ground, Greyson finally looked up due to the noise. He recognized the Greentree family head as one of the people. He stood behind the man in the lead and with three other figures. The one in front was surprisingly a middle-aged, average-looking woman with deep red hair and brown eyes. Not an ounce of warmth could be seen from her expression as anger pulsated off her person. Greyson glanced at the three other people. One was a decrepit old man, the other a good-looking young man, and lastly a beautiful woman. Put together with the Greentree family head and leading lady, they made an oddly mismatching group.
”Ahem, uh, Greyson, we would like to know if you saw who cast the light spell earlier.” Stepping forward and breaking the silence, the Greentree head coughed awkwardly before questioning Greyson.
Raising an eyebrow, Greyson looked at them with slight irony in his eyes.
”Well I would not say I saw him per se, but I definitely know who it was.”
”You know him?! Great, could you tell us?”
”Of course, you are looking at him.” Finally, unable to continue in this play, Greyson just honestly told them. He was curious as to why they were looking for him instead of the Midnight Order that just came and attacked. All five of the group's eyes widened as they looked Greyson up and down. Feeling slightly peeved by the obvious disbelief in their eyes, Greyson's brows furrowed.
”Greentree Family Head...” Greyson began.
”Please, just call me Rollin.”
”Mr. Greentree, I believe you witnessed me using light magic before. I don't see why this comes as such a surprise.” Feeling that they were not on a first name basis, Greyson kept the address simple. Looking slightly embarrassed by Greyson obviously drawing a line, Rollin just laughed to break up the atmosphere.
”Ah, yes, however, your level was not high enough for such a large and sustained output of mana for that kind of large spell.”