The Insider System

Chapter 108: Bystander

Lake Had been messing around on the formation trainer for a few hours at this point and he had made a lot of progress in actually getting more mana out of his body but not much progress at actually controlling it. He had long ago passed what he had wished to achieve in coming here so he was about to rap it up and head down stairs when he heard one of the Masters say. "Another fight has broken out inside the city."

Lake didn't know what source this news came from but it didn't really matter because within half a second every one of the Masters had disappeared from where they had been sitting. Lake wasn't sure where they had gone but he was sure they all had responsibilities to the guild they had to fulfill during times like these since they were the backbone of the guild.

Standing up Lake put his plans to test his new found skill into the back of his mind and walked out into the stairwell. Flying down the center, Lake stopped on his floor and headed to his room. He wanted to watch whatever fight was going on and while he knew other balconies existed the one in his room would be the easiest for him to get to.

Stepping out Lake saw his servants were already outside and were watching the flashes of bright light that were coming from the city. In between the flashes Lake could see there were lots of people fighting in a few places in the city but other than obvious details like what color their clothes were Lake was unable to really tell what was happening.

It was still impressive that he could see anything though considering he was able to see individual people from miles away and while they were moving at a speed that was probably impossible for some jets in his original world. There was also some form of battle happening above the city but other than the flashes Lake had already mentioned that seemed to be coming from there he couldn't tell who or what was fighting in the sky.

After a while of watching the flashes of light that reminded Lake of a firework he had seen as a child He saw something new happen in the sky. He saw a pitch black bubble start to form and a few moments later five rust colored bolts came flying out from the bubble. Lake had expected something like this, but he was unsure why all five bolts were headed downwards towards the city.

He couldn't tell if the person was trying to destroy the city or just force whoever they were fighting into blocking, but either way Lake couldn't wait to see what would happen when they landed. As he watched them fall one of the spears suddenly disappeared. Lake assumed it had been destroyed but the way he saw it there wasn't enough time for them to stop the other four with how long it had taken them to stop the first one.

Right when he expected to see the next spear be destroyed based on the amount of time that had passed since the first Lake saw a golden shield start to rise from the ground. "Gasp." It wasn't that large but from its speed Lake could tell it was what would be responsible for blocking the rest of the attack.

Lake wasn't sure why people had gasped though it was much more important than anything else that had happened yet because they hadn't gasped when the attack aimed at the city had happened. Lake would ask after he watched the shield stop the bolts though because he wanted to see what would happen.

As the shield met the first bolt that Lake assumed was an Unholy spell based on its color of dried blood, nothing much happened. The shield just let out a small ripple of golden energy and moved on to the next one. Lake knew Holy and Unholy were the opposites of each other so he had been expecting the shield to have a hard time but he guessed he was wrong.

Losing interest Lake looked over to one of his servants and asked. "Why did everyone gasp when the shield was formed?" Lake wanted to know what the big deal was because to him it was just a spell on the same level as the bolts that had been sent down onto the city. "It's because no one has seen Holy magic like that since the Goddess was killed during the last war."

Lake nodded he hadn't really thought about that because to him magic was magic. He didn't really care what element it was as long as it worked, so he hadn't cared when he had seen something as rare as Holy magic. He guessed to other people it was a big deal especially when someone was able to use such a strong Holy spell.

Lake remembered he had actually met someone who could use Holy magic when he had been in the Light Temple. Her name was Mimi or something and she had told him it was really hard to train in Holy magic because there was barely any in the world anymore so it would take a very long time to even gather enough to cast the spell Lake had just seen.

Looking back to the fight, Lake saw that there were now none of the unholy bolts left and the shield was lowering back towards the city. After a while it seemed the fight might be wrapping up because the fight in the sky seemed to be over because there were no more flashes or anything.

Looking at the ground Lake looked to see if he was right and the two sides were disengaging from the battle. It seemed he had been right because the people that weren't wearing white robes were starting to disappear from the streets. "It seems this was just a probing attack to see how strong the members of the Light temple holding the city are."

Lake had to agree with Jason's assessment that was exactly what it was. They had all retreated after the golden shield had appeared so it was probably what they had been after. "There will probably be a real attack tonight where they will try and kill that Holy mage." Lake knew the Demon worshipers always did their best to kill anyone with the Holy attribute so there was a good chance that would be exactly what would happen.

Lake knew one of the reasons they killed Holy attribute holders was because they helped revive the Holy goddess in some way but Lake wondered if there was another reason. He remembered when he had read the book about different elements he had stopped on the section about Life magic because he had been confused why it existed when Holy magic had been a better version of it.

The book had said it had been created to heal around Unholy curses because for Holy magic to heal someone it would have to Fight the Unholy curse because they were opposite to one another. The two were natural enemies and it caused it to be almost impossible to save someone who had been cursed using Unholy magic because the clash between the two elements would usually be violent enough to kill the host.

It was possible that following that logic the only people who posed any real threat to the Demon Lord and his army were people like that mage in the city because from the fight he had just seen the Light Mage in the Sky had launched like a hundred attacks and it had done nothing to the Unholy Mage.

Lake hadn't even seen them fight back really because the only spell Lake had seen them cast had been at the city. It was almost like they had been disregarding the Light Mage Like they were nothing because they posed no real risk. Lake didn't understand the interactions between the elements very well, but he thought maybe Light just happened to be a bad matchup for some reason.

Now that the battle was completely over Lake headed back inside. It had been a good show but Lake had been too far away to really get anything from it. It had felt more like he was watching tv then watching something actually happening where he lived.

He was sure he would care a lot more if he was one of the people who lived in one of the now burning buildings. Entering his kitchen, Lake got himself a glass of water and sat down for a few seconds while he thought about what he would do for the rest of the day. Lake had nothing to do so he thought maybe Lucas would have something for him.

Lake was pretty sure that was how he was supposed to be acting anyway. Doing things for the guild was probably what most members did, and he was surprised that he hadn't been given anything to do yet.