My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror - Chapter 25 (Patreon)

She was gone. The professor frowned and tilted his head. His eyebrows rose imperceptibly upwards and he flickered to the side.

A line of darkness appeared in the air where he’d been standing. The ground around Delph suddenly erupted, filling the air around him with sand. Sylph’s form faded into visibility as the sand covered her.

Delph teleported out of the way as another black line nearly dissected him. The sand covering Sylph collapsed to the ground.

“Sylph can also teleport?” Damien asked in disbelief.

“No. That’s not teleporting. You’d know if you had any access to magic, but her form isn’t disappearing and reappearing. It’s kind of just… shifting,” Henry said begrudgingly. “It seems to be inferior to teleporting in every way, but I suppose mortals might consider it impressive for a student.”

Delph shifted his stance. He disappeared and Sylph’s magic sliced harmlessly through the air once more.

“Very impressive,” Delph said. “I can’t tell if you’re hiding your power very well, or if your magical strength is just low.”

The professor tilted his head. Then he spun, thrusting his hand into what looked to be an empty spot in the air beside him. His hand tightened around something and he yanked backwards.

A bubble of darkness formed in the air as Delph dragged Sylph back into vision, his hand wrapped around her wrist. Instead of resisting, Sylph used the momentum to throw herself towards the professor.

As her body fully left the bubble, Damien realized she had a thin blade made of inky energy grasped in her other hand. Delph realized it at the same time, but it was too late. The weapon was already a millimeter from his neck, and it showed no signs of stopping.

The air around Delph inverted in color. Time seemed to slow to a halt for an instant. Damien’s ears popped and a trickle of blood started to run out of his nose. Sylph’s magic shattered like glass and evaporated into the air. She crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Damien’s mouth nearly dropped open.

“What was that?” He asked, shocked. “What did you do?”

“Magic,” Delph replied dryly. “Magic that I didn’t think I’d be using against a student. Your friend likes to go for killing blows during training exercises.”

“Is she okay?” Damien asked worriedly. Mark had started to move again, and the bald student was struggling to his feet. However, Sylph was as still as the sand beneath her.

“She will be,” Delph said, rolling his shoulder. “I can honestly say that I didn’t expect to be breaking a sweat today. She didn’t cut me, but I think the dean would have my throat if I didn’t apologize somehow. I suppose I owe her something.”

It seemed more like Delph was speaking to himself than the students. His gaze refocused on Damien and he jerked his chin towards Sylph’s prone form.

“Is she your roommate?”

“She is… how did you know?” Damien asked. There were half a dozen other questions he also wanted to ask, but after watching Delph manhandle the other students, he decided it would be best to keep them to himself.

“You said you followed her gaze. You’re more likely to be paying attention to people you know, so it was a safe guess,” Delph replied with a dismissive shrug. “Take her back to your rooms. I’ll be taking the other students to a healer, but they can’t help with my magic. She’ll wake up in an hour or two. I removed all the magic from the area around me, so she’ll probably feel weak for a bit.”

Delph didn’t wait for him to respond. He shimmered through the air, tossing Mark over one shoulder and the bald boy over the other. Then the professor tapped his wristband and vanished without a second glance in Damien’s direction.

“What in the seven planes was that?” Damien asked, staring at the space where Delph had been standing.

Henry didn’t respond.

“Henry?” Damien asked, his brow furrowing. There was a long pause. Then he felt Henry let out bewildered sigh.

“I have no idea what he did,” Henry said in awe. “I’ve never seen that magic before.”

“That’s… cool, I suppose,” Damien said.

“You don’t understand,” Henry snapped. “I’ve seen every form of magic that humans have. I’ve been watching the earth for millennia! How could something be this foreign to me?”

Damien walked over to Sylph and knelt on the ground beside her. He nudged the girl’s shoulder. She didn’t respond.

“We can worry about that later,” Damien said. “It’s not like Professor Delph is going anywhere. If you don’t know what happened, I suppose I just need to get Sylph back to our dorm.”

“Did you not hear me?” Henry asked, exasperated. “New magic! To me! How are you not comprehending how important this is?”

Damien rolled his eyes. He hadn’t heard Henry this panicked since they’d made the contract four years ago. With a sigh, he put his back against her chest and grabbed her arms, pulling them in front of him.

Sylph was heavier than he’d expected. Damien gritted his teeth and rose to his feet with the girl essentially slung over his back.

“You need to start getting more exercise,” Henry said, taking a quick break from his ranting about magic to prod Damien. “You’re lucky this girl is barely more than half your size or you’d be dragging her back to your room.”

“I think I preferred it when you were terrified about Delph’s magic,” Damien grumbled, trudging towards the exit at the end of the arena.

“Not terrified,” Henry said. “Shocked. You couldn’t even begin to comprehend how unbelievable it is to learn something new after millennia of stagnation.”

That was a fair enough point. Damien would have shrugged if that wouldn’t have involved having to lift Sylph’s body more.