Chapter 203 - 204
Voice taking on a tortured tenor, the man fell to the ground in evident pain, swatting at the other Inverted with flailing arms as if trying to get them to flee. As Mr. Herst knelt down to help the man up, Anice noticed that all of the streamers in the area around them were beginning to smoke. Within seconds, they suddenly burst into flames with a very visible bending of the air, at which point the old teacher turned around, his clothes igniting as if catching a spark while covered in black oil. Eyes wide and face pale, Mr. Herst yelled over the crowd in a surprisingly forceful, frightened voice.
"Everyone, flee now! Flee as far as you can!"
Those were the last words that the man would ever speak, for the mysterious visitor suddenly roared much louder than a person should have been capable of, his screams coinciding with a blinding explosion of roaring flames that had a diameter of about thirty paces and a height several times its width.
"Demons!" came countless voices, though these were quickly snuffed out as the flames grew more violent.
Silence reigned as everyone was rooted in place from sudden shock. All of the Inverted, including Mr. Herst, had been killed by the unexpected spellwork, along with over eighty people that had been standing around them. Nobody had expected so many to die at the drop of a hat, especially so thoroughly. When the pillar finally subsided about ten seconds later, not even a speck of ash remained of the people that had been caught up in the firestorm. As if it were an optical illusion, the buildings closest to the Inverted man were suddenly cloaked in flames, as were the people that hadn’t been close enough to be eradicated by the initial spellwork.
The man wasn’t finished.
"Mom..." Lily whispered in a daze, staring at the cobblestones where her parents had just been standing, stones which glowed red like molten metal. "Dad..." Her parents along with their modest little flower shop had been completely disintegrated by the unexpected attack.
The triplets were so out of sorts that they could only watch on with wide eyes as more and more people began to catch fire from the sheer energies that the man exuded. Dozens of unfortunate souls began to run around while shrieking their death throes in a nightmarish chorus of tortured screams, all of them covered in flames that were less devious than those of the pillar but just as deadly nonetheless. Seeing this, the celebrants seemed to come to their senses at the same moment.
"D—demon!" someone screamed, their words igniting a powder keg of pandemonium as they were echoed by hundreds of others.