In the instant Nicholas lost focus, the monster resembling a tree demon thrust with all its forked, branch-like legs and sprang into the air, hurtling straight at the repeater student in the middle of the crowd.
Nicholas instinctively stepped back and closed his eyes.
He only felt an immense, icy presence crashing into him, nearly freezing his soul solid. Every sound in the real world vanished from his ears, every ray of light disappeared from before his eyes, and he could no longer sense anything around him.
"Obey me, follow me, worship me..."
From within that icy presence came frenzied voices, as though hundreds or thousands of people were shouting from the depths of his soul: "Cast aside this worn-out shell, abandon those laughable principles. Only by giving up everything can you gain everything..."
"Give up..."
"Give up! Give up! Give up!!"
Nicholas's instincts screamed warnings in his heart, telling him to flee, to get as far away from that icy presence as possible.
But his limbs, like his frozen soul, had become stiff and uncontrollable. He could not even move a single step. From body to soul, he fell into boundless darkness in that instant.
Just then, a piercing cat's yowl mixed with what sounded like a goat's bleating suddenly rang out. Even through his eyelids, Nicholas could sense an enormous fireball, like the sun itself, smashing through the endless darkness, driving away the cold and bringing a trace of warmth back to the young wizard's body.
He forced his eyes open.
From the corner of his eye, he vaguely saw a yellow figure biting and wrestling with the tree demon. They rolled together before finally vanishing behind the white tower on the island in the middle of the lake. Yet the noisy, frenzied crowd around them noticed nothing