Miracle, ‘He blocked it! He broke through Nina’s spell, Alex doge!’ However, it was too late as two serpents made of electricity emerged from the smoke of explosion binding Alex and Nina.

“AAhhhh!” the two screamed in pain as electricity coursed through their bodies. It wasn’t long before the lost the strength to fight from the pain.

‘Hmph and here I thought I could have a little fun.’ Loren thought as he took to the sky and went after Blake.

Blake was hiding in the forest waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Although Augustus had dispatched them immediately, it’ll still take them some time to reach him. But he was marked with Loren’s curse. It didn’t even take him minutes to reach him and stand before him. Blake got up and slowly stepped back trying to think of a way to run. But it proved futile as Loren instantly closed the distance between them and grabbed his face and shoved it into the ground.

Loren then took the box away and was about to deliver the finishing blow when suddenly a cloaked person appeared beside him.

“You’ve had your fun Loren, let’s go, we have much work to do.” The man said as he placed his hand on Loren’s shoulder.

Loren had an unwilling expression. “Don’t forget this school including the forest is that man’s territory… we are only able to do this much because he isn’t here at the moment. But if we kill them… not even all of us combined will be able to stop him.”

“Tsk… fine!” With that they vanished.

…

“Hm… Au… Augu… stus” Alex said as he woke up seeing Augustus’s face.

“How are you feeling?”

Alex realized he was in a hospital bed. You tell me, my body is aching all over?”

“You’ll need some rest.”

“Where are those two?”

Augustus pointed beside him. He then saw Nina and Blake in their respective beds, unconscious.

“Nina will be fine but Blake is a little serious, don’t worry though he’ll recover quickly.”

Alex, “Loren one of the Six Great Curses, rings any bells?”

Augustus nodded and said, “The Great Curses, an infamous group where each individual wields a special type of curse magic. They disappeared several years back. We thought they were dead.”

“Well, you thought wrong. So, what is it that he was after?”

“An artifact, a powerful one. They are up to something very bad and their occurrences are becoming more frequent.”

Augustus took a seat before he continued, “And we have detected a pattern.”

Alex, “And what’s that?”

Augustus, “They’re trying to bring someone back, back to life.”

“And I presume that someone should not be brought back to life?” Alex raised his eyebrows. At this point he wasn’t surprised it was possible to bring back the dead. He wasn’t any different if having a hole punched through your chest doesn’t counts as death that is.

Augustus nodded.  “The thing they took was an artifact containing life as well as death.”

Alex, “Yeah that part about life and death? I am not really from your world so…”

Augustus sighed as he said, “It’s difficult to explain, just understand that it is capable of holding life and death. It means it can be used to bring back a person back to life who controls death but needs life to remain alive himself. This was a specific made artifact, useless alone but dangerous when they collect the other remaining ones.”

“You are talking as if you know who this person is.”

Augustus nodded. “I only have a hunch and I hope I am wrong. Anyways whoever he is, he is one step closer to being brought back to life.”

Alex, “Well I beg to differ.” Augustus looked at him with a confused expression.

Alex reached into his pocket and removed the small box which Blake had found behind. Augustus opened the box and found the flower with the black and green shade.

“How did…”

“I knew we would be defeated, Miracle- the soul inside my soul holder told me beforehand. Before Blake left, I had swapped with him the boxes. Of course, we were relying on the fact that they don’t know how the box looks or that they don’t try to unlock the shabby mana seal we placed on it. I was hoping that we could stall them till at least the reinforcements arrive. I never really believed that they would be dumb enough to not even look inside the box.”

Augustus, “But how did you know what was in the safe, what if it wasn’t a box?”

“I had already talked with Blake about it, he told me that there was a box.”

When Alex had suddenly hugged Blake, it was at that moment that he had switched the boxes with him.

‘He knew they would be defeated and so he sends a decoy all the while keeping the real artifact right under the curse’s nose.’ Augustus evaluation of Alex went up as he processed what he did.

Alex, “So I want to ask, why in all the worlds there are, you hid that artifact in a school’s library?”

Augustus gave a slight chuckle before saying, “Now why would I do that? Until last week I didn’t even know where it was. As for who placed it there, that’s a mystery.”

“I see… anyways I never want to get electrocuted that badly ever. If I hadn’t pulled the mana from the sword around my body at the last second…”

Alex instinctively shivered imagining about the pain. “Though what I don’t understand is why did they not kill any of us?”

“Because you guys were in the school’s area.”

“Huh?” Alex tilted his head in confusion.

Chuckling Augustus shook his head without bothering to explain as he got up to leave, “Well, you rest well, everything at school’s taken care off, you can return when you are fully healed by tomorrow. I’ll take my leave now.”

“Augustus” He turned back to Alex’s voice.

“One last question before you leave, why did you send Blake on this mission?”

After a little pause and as if judging something about Alex, he replied “There’s a mole in the Council, except for me and other council heads, no one is aware that Blake works for me.”

“But it looks like the mole is much bigger than you thought.”

“Are you suggesting…”

“I am placing the facts on the table. How else did that Loren guy knew to follow Blake?” Alex asked with a meaningful look. He then continued, “I don’t think Blake or those artifacts would be safe unless you find out who is it.”

Augustus gave Alex one last glance before he left. Augustus didn’t want to believe it himself, but he knew Alex was right.