I hate flying.

  Ducking under the bright light approaching him, Orion stabilized himself as best as he could. The spell was functioning properly, and the broom’s enchantments were performing as intended.

  The only problem was that since everyone had managed not only to lift off but also to demonstrate some degree of control, Madame Thurgood decided it would be a good idea to take them a bit farther up for a little game of catch.

  Typically, this consisted of either a free-for-all, where students would attempt to tag each other with harmless Torchlight spells, or of teams, but that was seen as a bit too advanced.

  The only problem was that once Thurgood had given the go-ahead to start, everyone turned against him. He couldn’t even claim it was a conspiracy, since they hadn’t known they would be playing today.

  It was just that everyone had decided at the same time that tagging him would be more fun. And once they saw him evade the first few barrages, even those few who had been reluctant to gang up on a single person changed their minds.

  “Gah! Damnit!” Orion shouted, applying enough force to the back of his broom to perform a vertical barrel roll, thus avoiding another bolt.

  “If you’d let yourself be tagged, this would be over!” Dorian shouted gleefully, swooping down beneath him to launch another attack.

  It was a weak thing compared to what he was capable of. Dorian would never be a powerful mage, but he didn’t need to be, given his more martial inclinations.

  In a fair fight, Orion would have flown circles around him. Unfortunately, this was not a fair fight, and he was forced to abandon his latest attempt at retaliation when a flock of teenagers came at him from above.

  Caught between two fires, Orion made a clever choice to take advantage of his opponents' nature.

  He wasn’t the most aggressive person, but anyone would react negatively to being ganged up on. Perhaps teaching them exactly why he was the best in the class would allow him to have a peaceful lesson next time.

  The Torchlight that came to be between his hands resembled a high-lumen flashlight more than a light bulb in intensity.

  It was midmorning, and the sun was shining down on them. Yet, a new star was born as Orion altered his formula to massively increase its luminosity.

  The beam enveloped the children and continued upward, stretching high into the sky like a pillar of light. It was entirely harmless, of course, yet still impressive.

  “Aaaaah!”

  “Turn it off!”

  Sweet, sweet screams. When you come at the king, you better not miss.

  The entire attack group that had tried to pincer him from above fled desperately, rubbing their eyes and focusing all their attention on staying on top of their brooms.

  In other circumstances, Orion wouldn’t have resorted to that much, but with Madame Thurgood present, he didn’t fear for their fates. Even if they slipped, she’d catch them long before they could fall.

  With that done, he turned his attention downward. There, Dorian, Luna, and a few others were staring at their classmates in horror. Orion did not let that mistake go unpunished.

  Multicolored bolts of light struck several of them, breaking them out of their funk, and Orion readied himself to unleash his wrath upon the remaining ones when he felt something splash on his back.

  Freezing mid-motion, he turned his broom around, his hand still outstretched and glowing with Light mana.

  There was the last person he would have expected to betray him.

  Selene floated a hundred feet away, retracting her hand with perfect calmness. “You were wide open,” she smiled, seemingly enjoying his stunned expression.

  Almost without his consent, the magic he was holding sputtered out. Orion sighed, grumbling to himself, “I should have known you were waiting for me to get distracted.”

  She was, after all, the only other person who could honestly claim to have mastered the magic they had been taught so far. And if his inspection was anything to go by, she had gone even further.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  [Selene - Lv. 29] [Acolyte of Foresight - C-Rank]

  “Alright, children, that is enough for today. We’ve already made more of a ruckus than I expected,” Madame Thurgood yelled from below, where she was helping the others down safely.

  Several students were still rubbing their eyes, even though Orion had infused his Torchlight with enough Light mana to ensure they shouldn’t have any issues recovering.

  Sighing, he directed his broom downward. It wasn’t that he wanted to win or even thought it was possible, but he would have preferred to lose due to being overwhelmed, not because of distraction.

  But then again, that’s a legitimate way of winning.

  “Don’t look so glum,” Selene smiled as she swooped down beside him. “We should see something interesting soon enough.”

  Before he could ask her what she was talking about, a screech echoed through the mountain valleys, and a strong wind whipped up.

  The Lunar Sanctum sat on the southern flank of a mountain, so eagles and other large birds weren’t exactly an uncommon sight. But this time, something felt different.

  First, they had never come this close. The Sanctum had powerful protections in place, and any animal that attempted to approach with hostile intent would be erased from existence before it could land. Secondly, there were usually more than enough adult witches watching over the more vulnerable children so that, even if an intruder got through, they’d be easily handled.

  But what happened when the garden they were flying over was devoid of others, and more importantly, when they were so far above it that its protections did not include them?

  Another screech echoed, and Orion was finally able to see where it came from. Or rather, what it came from.

  In comparison to the massive eagles that sometimes swooped by, she didn’t appear very impressive, but that was only on the surface. Her wickedly sharp talons alone made her lethally dangerous. Along with her sharp teeth and a mix of avian and human features, it was clear what was approaching.

  It was a harpy, a creature considered capable of sapient thought yet unwilling to conform to the rules of polite society.

  She was closing in quickly, and a quick calculation told Orion that while he could possibly accelerate himself fast enough to get within the Sanctum’s protections, he’d likely splatter himself, and worse, he’d have to leave Selene behind, along with the others who were just beginning to realize something was wrong.

  A bolt of light erupted from below as Madame Thurgood tried to ward off the attack, but the harpy simply flew around it, sending a crescent of glowing green energy down, forcing the witch to retreat and defend her charges, lest they get hit.

  A powerful gust of wind descended upon the unlucky few who had yet to descend, but instead of pushing them down, it encircled them, wrapping them in a bubble and cutting them off from any hope of retreat.

  Down below, Orion saw Madame Thurgood trying to save them. Her hand whipped out, and a burst of light surged upward, but the wind bubble surrounding them merely rippled at the impact, and another cutting arc pushed her back.

  Whatever she’d tried, it wasn’t enough. And now, the harpy was upon them.

  She was even uglier now that he could see her clearly. Certainly, she may have had some female features that, on a human woman, could be considered pleasant, but the predatory look she displayed heavily undermined any attractiveness.

  While the elves could be exceptionally beautiful, to the point of seeming unnatural, the harpy could only be described as such from afar. Up close, she was disturbing.

  Orion felt adrenaline fill his limbs. He had faced danger before, but it was the first time he felt so outmatched. The ghoul had been dismantled by Eire’s golem. His mother had effortlessly handled the knight in Silverpeak. Lucina’s guards hadn’t really wanted to harm him.

  This harpy, on the other hand, clearly wanted to eat them. There was no mercy in her expression, not even an acknowledgment of their youth, just hunger. This was a predator, and it intended to kill them.

  It would, if Orion allowed her to get closer.

  Offensive magic, it must be said, had not been his primary focus thus far. He could manage something in a pinch, but the fireballs and silver whips that thrilled his classmates held little appeal for him.

  However, that didn’t mean he was completely helpless. “Get behind me!” He shouted, both to Selene and the others whom the wind spell had grabbed.

  If there was one thing his experiments had taught him so far, it was that it took very little to turn a seemingly harmless spell into something truly dangerous.

  He had already shown as much by turning the harmless Torchlight into a powerful beam. It lacked offensive capabilities, sure, but it would still blind anyone looking into it.

  But that wasn’t what he went for. As the high winds whipped around them, and the harpy got close enough for him to see the individual teeth in her maw, Orion took his most recent discovery in his pursuit of the truth of magic and applied it in a new way.

  By reflecting Light mana upon itself, he could achieve acceleration—not, as he’d first thought, augmentation. That would require something to appear out of nothing, and even for magic, that was not possible. But still, it was more than enough.

  Tweaking the formula of the humble Torchlight into a more dangerous laser took only an instant, as he had already developed all the theory beforehand. By applying the principle of Foci Refraction, as Mothon the elf had called it, Orion could reduce dispersion to almost nothing, thus achieving a ‘perfected’ version of his spell.

  Fortunately, he still had the crystal with him, as he had been conducting experiments to determine how far he could push it.

  A laser, after all, was just optically amplified electromagnetic radiation—something he could summon in spades.

  [Verification Principle] activated as he continued to build up power, alerting him that the structure was becoming more unstable. What mattered to him, however, was that it would hold long enough for him to get it out. Whatever happened after was not his concern.

  Adding another layer of Θ? = Θt to the equation to ensure as much refraction as physically possible, his trait told him that he had reached the absolute limit of how far he could push it.

  The beam he shot towards the harpy, who had now arrived and was deciding which delicious targets to pursue first, moved so swiftly that even he, the caster, could only see it as a fleeting flash of light.

  It was there, and then it was over. So fast that if he had blinked, he would have missed it. Even that was enough for him to sag forward, exhausted. He barely had the presence of mind to stay atop his broom, supported in the air by the bubble of wind.

  The others didn’t seem to grasp what had transpired, judging by the screams of fear. Only Selene remained silent, watching the monster with wide eyes.

  The harpy, however, had noticed because it raised a clawed hand to touch her chest, where a human heart would be.

  It came out unblemished, but when she pulled it away, a narrow channel was visible through her body. Orion could see the sky on the other side.

  A cough shook the harpy as the magic holding them in the air wavered. Blood splattered from her mouth, and the sound that escaped her was more garbled than a roar.

  And yet, she didn’t go down. Somehow, despite having lost a good chunk of flesh through her chest, the harpy remained aloft. Blood dripped down her mouth, but her eyes were not clouded. If anything, they were even more focused.

  Previously, there was only hunger and the thrill of a hunt. Now, raw anger was taking her over.

  The air rippled around them, contorting in ways that made it hard to breathe. Orion couldn’t muster more than the strength to sneer at the human-bird hybrid. “I didn’t need to kill you anyway, stupid bitch.”

  He wasn’t sure if the harpy understood, but she opened her mouth and lunged for his throat.

  Silver light bloomed beneath them.

  Orion smiled. He had gained enough time.

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