Chapter 168: A Wounded Fighter

Silver and the headmaster looked at the situation inside of the glass ball with their full attention. No matter what, this was a big deal. There wasn't much known about Kitsune but they knew enough to know that a nine-tailed Kitsune was a fearsome enemy, their mental attacks would be more destructive than that of any human.

Silver anticipated the fight, expecting for mountains to be moved and craters to be made. Sadly, she was disappointed.

The fighting styles of a Kitsune and a human were extremely different and it made it something that was extremely weird to watch. One side was attacking openly, as balls of black fires and streaks of various colors shot out of her wand.

The other side's attacks were invisible. The only reason the spectators knew Alastar was attacking fiercely was the fact that most of Elsa's attacks missed and they were much weaker than one would expect from one of the strongest humans on the continent.

Still, explosion after explosion could be seen on the glass ball. Sadly, they could only see a small part of the battle as Ashera, the Kitsune stuck within the curtain of fear, was being thrown about like a ragdoll.

She clearly had a lot of mental pressure on her as she was only barely able to dodge the attacks coming towards her general direction. Since the glass ball focused on her, most of what they could see were flashes, with the occasional clear sights.

After about five minutes of distinct flashes and missing spells, Elsa Decorus seemed to be getting enraged. Even though Alastar wasn't able to truly harm her mentally, he was a major annoyance. She would constantly lose focus, making her incapable of casting complicated spells or aim properly.

The ground surrounding them began to shift as the headmaster began using the art she was more skilled at, transfiguration.

For the following five minutes, the environment was being manipulated, Alastar was forced to dodge a number of earth spikes and golems as he continued his mental attacks.

Sadly, now he was the one unable to properly focus on his attacks. At one point, when he narrowly dodged a cave-in that happened below his feet, he lost focus for a couple of seconds.

A couple of seconds were enough for Elsa Decorus to be able to cast a proper spell. All around Alastar, fire appeared in waves, walls of flames headed towards him at rapid speeds, giving him no way to dodge.

The spell she cast didn't require Elsa to concentrate once the casting was complete, and so, even though Alastar tried to disrupt her concentration, it didn't matter.

A few seconds later, just as the fire was about to reach him, he roared. The sound held a tremendous mental force that directly attacked the Decorus headmaster. She hurriedly tried to defend her mind but was incapable of doing so as it felt like a hammer had been taken to it. 

All Silver and the headmaster could see was blood leaking down from Elsa Decorus's nose as the roar continued and Alastar burned.

As for Ashera, she was terrified. She could feel the invisible battle that had been going on, she was capable of seeing the true fight and it terrified her. The strength of the two competitors was so vast she couldn't compare to them in the slightest.

Then she blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself within a cell, in a secret research facility of Decorus, deep underground. This was her second-worst memory.

"She's been harmed." the headmaster called out toward Silver as he stopped looking at the glass ball, the current scene was of no importance compared to what had just happened.

The headmaster opened his mouth for a moment before closing it again. This was the first time that Silver felt that the headmaster was truly serious. He wasn't playing games or testing her, what they had seen was of high importance.

Mental damages were hard to heal, the fact that Elsa Decorus was bleeding out of her nose after the fight meant she probably took substantial damage. Even though they didn't know the exact timing of this event, if it was a year ago or less, it was likely she would still be affected by the mental wound.

It also gave more perspective to her merging with Mafoli and her attacks on The Academy. 'Appear strong when you are weak and weak when you are strong' was a core belief of the schools. Her attacks on The Academy showed her confidence, because of this the headmaster would never risk attacking Elsa Decorus herself, since it seemed that she would be properly prepared for such an event.

Because the two spectators were so deeply lost in thought because of this realization, they missed it when the glass ball focused back onto Villin.

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"What is going on?"

Even though Villin thought this, he was beginning to have a proper idea. First, there was the bit with the dark hallway, when he feared getting lost, the pillars disappeared, when he was afraid the light would go out soon, it began flickering. When he thought back to the cell with fear, he found himself back there, then, when he overcame that fear, he got sent back into darkness.

Villin no longer thought he was going crazy, this felt too supernatural for that. Just as he thought he would be stuck in this darkness forever, his vision shifted again.

This confused Villin somewhat since he wasn't thinking about any fear he might have currently, he was simply existing within the darkness.

After a bit, the area around Villin had been constructed. He found himself laying inside of a rather soft bed. With his eyes open, he looked towards the ceiling.

The ceiling was white, and in the middle was a white bulb. It took Villin a few moments to recognize it as a lightbulb.

With that realization, Villin jumped out of the bed. He was in a small room that had a bunch of items inside of it. There was a desk to his right with a laptop sitting atop of it. To his left was a wardrobe, it was opened slightly letting him see the clothes hanging within.

On the wall above his bed was a Harry Potter poster he had had for many years and never bothered to change.

Villin felt stunned as he recognized this room, in order to test how accurate this representation was, and once more, perhaps find a hole in the 'illusion'. Villin stepped over to the nightstand and opened it. Looking inside the shelf were a bunch of regular items including a bouncy ball, some sleeved pokemon cards, and some other small toys he kept.

Instead of taking any of these, he took the shelf out entirely and lifted it up, looking at the bottom part of the shelf. There, he saw a small ziplock bag taped onto the bottom of the shelf, the bag was filled with some green plants.

"Damn!" Villin thought, somewhat stunned at the find. He was the only one knowing of this little secret he once had.

Ever since he came to the magical world, his memory of earth had been fading more and more, but now that he was here, he found it quite easy to recall a number of facts.

This was his room long ago, before he moved out of his parents' place. He walked over to the mirror that was connected to the wardrobe and looked at himself. Seeing his old self, Villin took in a deep breath, he had almost forgotten how he used to look like. An average looking boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.

After seeing his sixteen-year-old self, Villin tried entering his mental space, only to find nothing. He couldn't cast magic or anything, causing him to feel powerless.

Still, he didn't freak out this time, instead, he felt confused. Why was he brought here now? He thought he figured out that his fears would become reality, then why did he come here?

Sure, losing his magic was scary and despite all the harm he had gone through he wouldn't want to go back to his life on earth, but he didn't think it was something he was all that afraid of either.

Did something happen when he was around the age of sixteen?

Villin thought of it for a bit but wasn't sure. He knew his youth had been quite shitty. He also fully realized that he repressed the memories from when he was young. His life only really started when he became an adult and left his parents' house.

Still, he would imagine he would be able to recall a fear around this area when he tried to think about it.

With hesitation, he opened the door of his room, revealing the spiral staircase just a few meters before him.

"Villin! Come down, it's time for school!" he heard a feminine voice yell out from downstairs. As soon as he heard this voice a bunch of memories came back to him and he instantly felt a whole bit worse. He recalled what was going to happen.