Greya was ensnared by strands, which had pierced her body and became reddened with blood.
The strings had forced her into a strange posture just like the clowns outside. It was as if a puppeteer was hiding somewhere nearby while controlling her actions.
There were glowing dots in the area that were trying to invade her body but without any success.
Greya let out a painful breath as she chased away more dots. Her original soul of a truth-finder wizard was getting weaker at an alarming speed. Should she “fall asleep” and allow the second soul of the little girl to take over, she would be possessed immediately.
“Ah...!” She moaned as she felt something sucking at her finger.
Apart from affixing her body in place, the strings were also draining her blood at the same time.
She couldn’t help but tremble under the great pain. Yet each time she did so, the pain would grow worse as the strings cut her flesh apart like the sharpest knives.
Blood loss, razor-sharp shackles, and flying spots that kept tackling her body... Greya was not sure for how much longer she could endure.
Her mana pool was almost depleted. For now, she solely relied on her soul to keep up her resistance. The hellish agony had lasted for two days now. She would either lose to the glowing spots or get completely torn up by the sharp strings, both of which didn’t sound pleasant.
“Heh...”
As a Gourmet, Greya had lived through a difficult life when she used to get kidnapped by other wizards. Triumphing from all the hardships had granted her a place on the path of truth.
She never thought that she would get totally defeated by a fox.
This strange darkness had blocked all possible means of transmission, so she couldn’t contact Felicia for help.
Is there someone else who will come save me? Perhaps not...
She stared into the darkness as her eyes slowly lost focus. Due to her strange character, she barely had any friends in the wizarding world, let alone someone who would care about her condition.
The second soul in her body was waking up.
She knew, that when that happened, “Greya” would never wake up again. She thought about admitting defeat and giving up. Yet there was something in her mind that refused to do so.
She kept struggling. She forced her consciousness to stay alert.
There were always miracles in this world!
The strings had taken too much blood from her, and her face was getting paler. Luckily, none of the strings managed to pierce her heart, which gave her more time.
But still, she couldn’t hold on for much longer.
She saw her vision growing narrower and darker, while her mind was slowing down to a halt. The last thing she was wondering about was why did the fox leave her here instead of killing her?
And... The “miracle” did not come after all...
“Tweet!”
Greya thought she was hallucinating before death. But the delusion of hearing Toby’s voice still gave her some strength.
“Tweeeet! Tweet!!!”
Is it really Toby?? But why? Did... Are Sunders and Angor somewhere nearby?
“To-Toby...” Greya tried to call out, yet a string that was pierced through her throat prevented her from letting her voice heard.
She saw a small ember approaching her from the darkness.
“You owe me a big one, Greya.”
Following the light, a certain gentleman’s voice came.
Greya tried to look up so that she could tell whether it was delirium before her peril.
It was not.
Sunders’ slim form appeared in the dim light while Angor floated beside him. Toby fluttered around them as the bearer of their oil lamp.
Greya felt her eyes watering up, while something in her nose made it difficult for her to breathe.
She was glad that her messy hair did a good job of hiding her miserable expression.
“Oh... how disgraceful of me, letting you see me like this...”
“Nice. You look just like a wired puppet out of a top-class puppet show.” Sunders observed the strings with a grim look despite his joking tone.
“Are you alright, Lady Greya?” Angor wanted to step up and help, but Greya quickly stopped him. The sudden movement caused more blood and flesh to come from her mouth.
“Don’t... these things are deadly. You’ll get yourself killed.”
While Angor listened to her advice and stopped moving, Toby rushed to Greya’s side while avoiding the strings. His small figure allowed him to find a way through the dangerous maze without a problem.
Toby gently nudged Greya’s cheek.
“Oh, you... Don’t worry, I’m fine,” whispered Greya.
Sunders snapped his fingers and created a bright sphere, which brightened up the entire teleportation hall like a sun.
This was a level-2 cantrip called Illumination, a further advanced version of Light. Wizards didn’t usually learn this cantrip because its only effect was to provide a light source, while the inferior versions—Light and Blaze—were good enough. They might use the cantrip to blind someone in a fight, yet such simple tactic only worked on unwary apprentices, while it was pointless when one was fighting against seasoned wizards.
Angor didn’t know why his teacher had so much time to learn this “useless cantrip”. But he would admit that the potent light could help them see every corner of the hall without leaving any blind spots behind.
Angor carefully looked around and saw a dozen teleportation arrays that were obviously sabotaged. Everything else in the teleportation hall was left as it was, which meant someone destroyed the arrays intentionally.
The strings bound Greya in the middle of the hall, while the other ends of them were connected to several stone pillars. Several pillars gave in and crumbled, while the strings remained unscratched.
So that was where the noise came from.
There was a large blood pool under Greya’s position.
Angor thought they should rescue Greya as fast as possible. He saw Sunders still observing a string nearby, so he also moved to a string that was not connected to Greya’s “prison” and tried cutting it up by using the sequence of gravity.
When affected by Angor’s gravity power, the string trembled a little, while the pillar that supported it suddenly shattered to the floor, causing smoke and dust in the hall.
Angor walked out of the dust cloud and saw his teacher giving him a stern look.
“Sorry, I just... gave it a little poke, and this happened.”
“You don’t ‘poke’ things with your gravity power.”
Sunders didn’t scold Angor too much since no harm was done.
“The red fox monster left these things here, didn’t it?” Sunders suddenly asked a question.
Greya coughed up some blood. “Yeah... you already met with it?”
“No, I’ve been going after it.”
Sunders cast a healing spell called Resuscitation at Greya. The green aura of life slowly patched up the cut wounds on Greya’s body, but it couldn’t help her escape from the strings.
Still, she looked a lot better after receiving the treatment.
“Thanks...”
Sunders snickered and extended the Spirit Bond between him and Angor toward Greya.
“Let me deal with these strings first.”
Since that string inside Greya’s throat looked rather dangerous, Sunders did so to help Greya avoid some pain.
Although Toby was left out of their “private connection”.
“How did you run into Fox, Lady Greya?” Angor asked a question while Sunders did his work.
“Fox... Is this how that fox monster is called?”
“Yup.”
“I see. There are strange voices praising some names, and I heard this ‘Fox’ among them.” Greya frowned. “There was quite a ruckus in this teleportation station just now. Why isn’t anyone coming? Someone must have heard all the noises.”
“Do you not know what these shiny dots are?” asked Angor.
“No... I only know I should not let them do what they want.”
Since he had nothing else to do, Angor offered to explain what happened to Sleepless City since the darkness showed up.
“Are you saying the outer city is so dangerous that no one should come in? Then why are you here? Also, the spots all disappeared when you came. Did you two scare them off?” Greya wondered.