We reached Floravista by the afternoon and, surprisingly, we landed directly on the road outside the building, with the engines turning towards the ground and the wings folding upwards. The street was deserted and blocked off in a half mile radius, but the amount of mana radiating from the building told me that it was not enough, though only weak-willed people would be drawn closer from such a distance. Up close, as we were, the tendrils of Dark Magic were already trying to wrap around us.
Unsurprisingly, the four clergymen recognized the "attack" and repelled it by channeling mana into their robes. Of course, that meant that Morgan and Rae were left unprotected, though Rae noticed the foreign mana and used the spell that I had been teaching her on the ride over to hold off the corrupting influences. Morgan could resist it to a certain extent with his ability to divide his mind, but I was not comfortable with him being even lightly affected as he was my business partner, so my hand lit up with a silver glow.
"Morgan, I'm going to place a Blessing on you which will help you resist the effects of the tainted magic that's drawing people into the building. The effects aren't permanent, nor will it protect you if you were to enter the building," I said, drawing the attention of the clergymen.
"You can perform Blessings?!?" Golden Sun exclaimed before Morgan could even reply.
"Among many more things," I chuckled then touched Morgan's forehead after he gave me a nod.
The silver glow moved to the tip of my finger until it completely disappeared, and a silver diamond was left behind on Morgan's brow. His face, which had been tense due to the subtle stress that resisting the Dark Magic caused, relaxed, and he gave me a grateful nod, having instantly noticed the difference.
"Thank you, Miss Zarra. Your Blessing is quite powerful, so I hope you will look after my daughter," Morgan replied with a soft sigh of relief.
I scoffed, "Even without your request, do you think I would let my student suffer? This will be a great test of her Will, but I won't let her be in danger."
"Thank yo..."
"Test? This is a Grade Six infestation of Dark Magic, at least! Physical demons are likely to be in there, and you want to go in without any equipment AND you want to treat it like a test for your 'student'! How stupid can you be?!?" the white-robed man, who had been flying the jet, scolded loudly.
"Enough, Deacon Paulo. If Cypher Sage entrusts his daughter to Miss Zarra, then she must be capable," Golden Sun said calmly, but I could tell that he was disturbed by the Blessing that I had cast over Morgan.
"Thank you. We'll follow your lead as we enter inside, Golden Sun," I replied with a relaxed smile.
The white-robed man who had spoken up gave a snort while muttering under his breath, "Know your place, Witch."
Shaking my head, I ignored his words while also adding him to a mental list of 'who not to help'. Golden Sun did not waste any more time and led us towards the building while Morgan returned to the jet. The building itself looked unassuming, similar to other apartment complexes around it with seven floors, but those of us with an eye for Magic could see black tendrils of mana radiating from the walls and ground. Although I could not see the ritual glyphs, I was confident that this spell was designed to drain a person's Life Force, and possibly even their Soul, to fuel the summoning of a Daemora being; nasty beasts of Chaos and Destruction that listen to no one but their own instincts, yet Mortals were always lured into setting up such rituals.
The moment that we crossed the ten-foot mark of the building's walls, everything changed... though only I could fully resist the effects. It was a subtle change, a slight shift in every Mortal's vision, that even managed to slip through the natural Blessing of the clergymen's robes, or Rae's use of the White Guiding Light spell, that slowly made all five of them start to drift apart without realizing it. In a sense, I made myself invisible to the ritual spell, hiding myself in a cloak of mana that let the Dark Magic wrap around me, feeding it just enough to ignore my presence, and followed Rae as she wandered around towards the back of the complex.
Now that I was inside the ritual spell ward, I could see the true details of the building, which had numerous walls with large holes knocked through them. It made perfect sense since the boundary spell was designed to separate and disorientate its victims, so each opening was an access to truly draw in the unfortunate victims into the real danger of the ritual. I glanced over to the side where the pool of the apartment building was arranged... and found several dead in the waters; spared from the true horrors of what was inside, yet still dead due to this Dark Magic.
Rae walked through what she thought was a doorway, held by me for her, yet what she found inside was the hallway of her apartment. Suddenly, she forgot that I had been holding the door for her, or even that I was there, as she walked down the familiar corridor. Exhaustion gnawed at her mind, fuzzy memories of a mission for the Hero Alliance, so she felt like it was just another long day like the ones that she had experienced countless times before. Stopping at her door, she pressed her thumb against the lock-scanner then opened the door when it chimed. She did not even bother going to her bedroom and simply collapsed onto the couch in her living room... but, of course, this was not her living room.
From my point of view, Rae climbed through a hole in the wall into what was once a corridor, but now, it was a series of broken walls that only kept the support beams intact. Aside from the rubble that littered the floor, numerous people were laying on the ground, with the lucky ones only in a trance-like state. The unlucky ones... well, the spells draining away their Life Force succeeded in taking their life and left their bodies as little more than skin and bones. For the few twisted Souls that had become victims of this elaborate ritualistic trap, their punishment was even worse as they were turned into undead minions that were moving through the corpses and taking them upstairs one at a time.
Just as Rae was about to kneel and lay down, joining the dying, a thought stirred in her mind which caused her to sit up in her 'dream world'. She needed to meditate, no matter how tired she was, and complete five cycles of the mana refinement technique that I had taught her before bed. I could not help but smirk and shake my head as I watched her dispel the illusion the moment that she started to sink into that meditative state. She had barely closed her eyes before she opened them again and looked around in panic at the numerous bodies around her.
"Not bad, kid... though, I think it was more the fear of 'not meeting my expectations' versus your own awareness that saved you from this trial," I chuckled.
Rae turned to me with a desperate look and asked, "What's happening here?!?"
"Dark Ritual Magic bullshit," I replied with a yawn. "A Call, some tests, and for those that can't pass, death to pay for the summoning of some Chaotic Beast of destruction."
She glared at me, but the initial fright caused from breaking the illusion and finding herself in pit of death began to ease, and she could think rationally again. "We need to help these people!"
"Alright, then how should we do that? Do you want to carry those that are still living to escape the building's influence? But, what about the next floor, and the one after that, and the one after that one? Look around... the ones on this floor were the weakest Willed of all people, drug addicts and the mentally impaired. There might seem to be a lot of people here, but these would hear the siren call from miles around, drawing them in..." I retorted, crossing my arms and giving her the stern look of a teacher lecturing her student.
Rae pouted for a moment but understood the hidden meaning and searched her mind for all of our lessons. "There should still be a Core on this level of the ritual if it's big enough to encompass an entire building! If we destroy that, the spell locking them into the illusion will break, which will wake most of them up, and they will then flee this place!"
"Great idea, except that you are missing a key piece of information about ritualistic Magic. A Ritual, in essence, is the same as a spell sigil, the fundamental written form of Magic, but to perform a Dark Magic Ritual, another 'force' is supplied... and one I have not mentioned to you yet," I explained.
"What 'force' are you talking about?" she asked.
I chuckled, "Let's see if you can figure it out, but I'll give you a clue for each floor that you can break through... though I'll be ashamed if you can't solve it before then. For this floor... the reason why your idea to break the core on this level is a terrible idea is because the other layers of this Ritual spell will react and intensify! Not only will the area of effect multiply, in order to gain more sacrifices, but if you were to destroy even the next floor's Core, it could start the summoning process early, which could easily become unstable if it can't be shut down properly in a quick period of time."
"That's not possible! You told me, 'disrupt a single circle of a spell sigil and the spell fails'!" she recited from some of the first lessons I taught her on spell structure.
I poked her forehead with an annoyed click of my tongue and chided, "And what else have I taught you? 'This world isn't everything you see'... I've been teaching you the basics since you weren't interested in the advanced forms of Magic, but that doesn't mean that you've even scratched the surface of what Magic can do."
She rubbed the spot with an accusing look, but I did not care since she was truly thinking about my words. "If the Ritual can react to the 'attack' then the caster must still be controlling it," she theorized.
"Perhaps... but you won't find that answer on this floor," I replied with a smirk.
"What about Golden Sun and his disciples?" she asked.
"You're free to look for them; I'm just here to ensure your safety and make sure whatever beast that gets summoned is eliminated before it can become a real problem," I said with a shrug then jumped backwards to catch myself on a 'floating mattress of air'.
Rae scoffed at my actions, but within her, a sense of security could not be ignored. While I knew that she was relying on me, I also knew that the next floor would cloud her memory again, and that would be when the real test started...