The Prince Of Magic

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For the first time that he remembered, his sight was blurred.

Everything seemed hazy, dark shadows pervaded the corner of his view.

Then, it began.

He heard a voice, one that he does not recognize.

"Please… Please… spare him! Take me! Take me instead! Not my baby!"

The voice was feminine. The fear and desperation in her voice could not be more obvious.

Then, another made itself known.

"Step aside, woman! I only want the brat!"

The second voice was deep, clearly belonging to a male. However, the way it was said was very odd.

The man was speaking, yet it was almost as if he was hissing, reminding him somewhat to a snake.

During the time the two voices spoke, he could see dark silhouettes of two individuals in front of him.

The one that was closer to him was the owner of the first voice.

From behind white wooden bars, he could see the woman has a deep red hair, glossy and somewhat wavy.

He couldn't see her face since she had her back to him. Instead, her attention seemed to be on the owner of the second voice.

Said man was tall, enough for him to tilt his head upwards to get a whole look of latter individual's height. The darkness of the room could not let him get a full view of the man's appearance, but from what he can tell, the man was pale, enough to make him question if he had ever been under the sunlight. His all-black suit made a stark contrast to his death-like complexion.

It might also be his imagination, but he thought that the man's skin glinted under the light, similar to a snake's scales would do when showered by sunlight.

What was even stranger was the man's eyes. Instead of normal round pupils, they were vertical and sharp, like a reptile's, dyed in dark red.

He could not discern the man's features clearly, only taking note of the man's skin tone, eyes and the fact that he seemed to be absent of any hair on his head.

His observation was cut off by the woman's pleas.

"No! Please! Just take me instead!" She begged, sobbing lightly in between her words.

The snake-faced man snarled, clearly displeased.

"You're annoying, mudblood! I should just kill you now!" Then, he became silent, grudgingly so as he glared down at the desperate woman whose arms were spread open. "But, against my better judgement, I will not. Consider yourself fortunate, woman. I shall spare you today, and you will only be burying two bodies after tonight!"

"NO –"

With a wordless cast, he pointed a wand in his right hand, forcing the woman out of his way and down to the side.

*THUD*

Due to the force, the red haired woman hit her back against the wall, causing her head to bang against the surface upon impact.

Her body slid down to the floor as she was quickly rendered unconscious.

His gaze turned to the front, which he found the snake-faced man towering over him like a dreadful looming shadow.

Now that he was closer, the light from the open window near where he was sitting gave him a chance to look upon the arrogant man's features.

And he was not disappointed.

The man did not look like one at all. Instead, he closely resembled a snake with the body of a man.

His face was absent of a nose and a pair of lips, along with any signs of hair on his head, above his eyes and around his chin. Light blue veins crawled up all over his head, almost unnoticed as they mostly came from the back. His teeth were sharp, almost jagged-like and similar to a shark's as he grinned maliciously down at him.

If he was any other person, the man's snake-like appearance and the way he looked at him predatorily would have bothered him.

To him though, he remained unperturbed.

The man's eyes took him a bit by surprise, considering he only knew one other person that had those.

Admittedly though, the person in question was no longer amongst the living, and he exudes a powerful and majestic presence, despite his prideful personality. The man before him, however, was different. If he were to make a comparison between the two, the snake-like man would lose in a heartbeat, both in presence and power alone. The difference between the two was simply too vast, like night and day.

The snake-faced man looked arrogant, inhuman, a bit unhinged yet wholly aware of his actions.

His dark crimson eyes widened, and the grin on his face turned manic.

The hand that held a wand rose, and the tip stopped in front of him.

"The prophecy shall take hold no more. You might become powerful in the future, my equal." He spat, as if the very word disgusted him.

Then, his manic grin returned.

"But tonight, you are just a mere babe. You are weak, feeble. As intolerable as it is for me to simply use a child's life in this manner, it must be done… for the sake of the world that I am trying to create. For the sake of my ideals!"

He inhaled deeply, glaring down with arrogant determination.

"~~~~"

His mouth moved, but no sound was heard as the tip of the wand lit up with a sickly green light.

His view was swallowed up by the light, then darkness came.

With it, a widespread fog pervaded his point of view.

The scene changed from a room with a woman trying to protect him from a man with malignant intentions to a world of darkness with a sea of fog.

Looking down at his feet, he felt something wet and possessing a metallic odor.

He can't see what it was due to the darkness, but he has an ominous feeling what it was.

Suddenly, a shiver went down his spine as a loud, indescribable screech pierced the eerie silence.

The sound was enough for him to shut his eyes tight and block his ears with both hands, not that it helped in lessening the volume of the inhuman noise.

When he put away his hands, he was not surprised to see smudges of blood on his palms.

His breath stilled, however, when he was interrupted by a giant shadow that suddenly loomed over him.

He looked up and tried to see, but the fog blocked his view.

Although, what he did saw was eight pairs of bright blue eyes with vertical pupils staring back at him.

The moment he made eye contact was the last thing that he would see.

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Bright emerald eyes stirred, though only one managed to open as the other had trouble doing so.

Few moments earlier as his brain tried to catch up, Hadrian Matius von Schweinorg found the reason why.

The culprit was the white, fluffy, rotund familiar that slid down on the side of his face, blocking his right eye from opening with its rear.

It seemed his familiar, Ryu, was sleeping on top of his head again.

The familiar gained such a habit after a day of bonding with him, and the rotund familiar also has a habit of moving while asleep, sliding down on his face without its awareness and causing its master no less irritation at its sleeping habits.

Still, even though he was awoken in a strange manner once again, there was only one thing in his mind.

In a quiet tone, he mused aloud.

"What the Root was that…?"

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