Apologies for shortness and anti-climactic fights.

Chapter 32 – The Beginnings of Change

Jaehwan knows he’s no match for Suhee. However, she doesn’t hesitate to attack them and he doesn’t hesitate when he tries to block it.

The force of the spell flings him back into the wall and it happens so fast Minho almost misses it entirely.

“You’ve been running around spilling overheard secrets for too long, Jaehwan!” Suhee shrieks as she charges forward.

It’s clear to anyone that she doesn’t care that Jaehwan is already knocked out, she obviously plans to go further than that.

Minho is running forward without even thinking, “Jaehwan!” he cries, watching in horror as the spell leaves Suhee’s hand.

He doesn’t know exactly what he expects to achieve, the best he could do was tackle the sorcerer after all. But he never gets to find out and Suhee’s attack never gets to make contact with Jaehwan because suddenly the guard is no longer there.

They have no time to get confused before the spell hits the stone wall and they’re engulfed in dust and pelted with small shards of rock.

As the dust clears Suhee and the prince look around furiously, trying to find Jaehwan. There, about three meters to the right of where he had been, is Jaehwan. He’s unconscious and obviously hadn’t moved himself. For a second Suhee doesn’t even register the cat that is sitting calmly on the guard’s chest.

And then it meows and Suhee clenches her teeth.

“You!” she screeches.

The black cat meows again and even Minho thinks it sounds like a taunt.

Instead of teleporting away Hakyeon blocks the first attack. He’s pushed back a little but it’s only because he’d underestimated how much power the king would put into the attack. The teleportation potion only works once and Hakyeon is deliberating when the best time to use it will be. Maybe he won’t have to use it at all.

Minji yelps and retreats behind the king. She’d considered taking her father’s side and attacking Hakyeon but after seeing him block an attack from her father she knew she was no match. She’ll just stay out of it and hope the king wins.

Hakyeon and the king trade simple energy attacks for a little while, each stronger than the last. Eventually the king starts to use less powerful but more deadly attacks, spitting out the words that cast the spells like poison. Things like lightening spells and heart-clench spells are thrown out in quick succession and Hakyeon blocks them without counterattacking.

He waits for the tiniest pause in the king’s barrage before he throws his hands forward, releasing a strong intuitive magic spell.

King Jihun knows instantly that he can’t block that spell. Intuitive magic is stronger than deliberate magic and frankly he’d never trained his. Without second thought he turns and pulls Minji in front of himself as a shield.

Hakyeon can’t believe his eyes and the look on Minji’s face says she can’t believe it either. Until that moment she’d actually thought she somehow mattered to the king. Hakyeon feels like he’s watching it happen in slow motion and he casts the strongest protections spell he knows around the princess, unable to let her suffer from something she’d had no part in.

The force of Hakyeon’s intuitive magic hitting the protection spell is enough to send them all flying. Hakyeon teleports the instant he feels himself get pushed back, casting a cushioning spell in the direction Minji is falling and then quickly turning to face the king.

The king is already starting to say the word that will cast the cushioning spell on himself but he never gets the chance. Hakyeon practically screams the no-magic spell and it leaves him with such force that he’s knocked back.

It feels like everything returns to normal speed then. Minji lands safely and the king, who had yet to even touch the ground, is hit by the no magic spell and blasted back further, now unconscious and unable to even try stopping the momentum.

A sickening crack announces that the king’s head has made contact with the corner of the table and Hakyeon’s back hits the floor at the same time. He lies there, panting and shaking from overusing his magic.

King Jihun’s crippled body holds both Hakyeon’s and Minji’s attention for a full minute before Hakyeon forces himself to his feet. He helps Minji stand, gladly noting that she had sustained nothing more than a bruise from this whole event.

“Is he dead?” she asks.

Hakyeon nods, still panting. “Yeah, I think so. You should go find a guard, I have to go find Leo.”

It takes him almost five minutes of running from room to room to find Leo in the entrance hall. While he was confident in Leo’s abilities he hadn’t really expected him to win against Suhee because it was harder to have a direct fight with intuitive magic. Maybe he’d overestimated her.

Suhee is lying on the other side of the hall, face down and unmoving. Leo on the other hand is sitting beside an unconscious Jaehwan and a flustered Minho.

“You’re in your human form,” Hakyeon notes, more surprised by that than by anything else.

Leo bites his lip to try hide his smile before he looks up at Hakyeon. “Yeah, I could suddenly transform.”

Hakyeon nods in Suhee’s direction. “Is she alive?”

This time it’s the prince that speaks. “Yeah, she’s just unconscious. I checked before.”

So it wasn’t Suhee, Hakyeon thinks to himself.

After figuring out why he’d failed to break Leo’s spell he’d deduced that Suhee must have cast it. He’d tried breaking it over and over with that knowledge and failed every time. After finding out the king was a sorcerer he’d tried again but it still hadn’t broken. After that they’d figured the only way the spell would ever break was if the caster died. And now he had and Leo could transform.

Hakyeon leans down and places a kiss on the Anyethi’s lips. “I’m really happy for you.”

Leo had never said anything about it, but it must have been so frustrating all these years to be unable to change forms whenever he wanted. It must have been disheartening to see Sanghyuk change forms several times a day. It must have made him resent Hakyeon.

“Thank you,” Leo replies, kissing him back.

Minho nods in agreement. “Thank you, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon feels a little embarrassed to be thanked for killing someone, even if it was the king. “If that’s all you need from me, we’ll go.”

Minho glances down at Jaehwan. “Actually can you stay for a few hours? I need to start everything in motion and send a bunch of letters and without Jaehwan I don’t have a sorcerer.”

“I guess.”

Franky he just wants to go home and he can tell Leo is exhausted from using his magic, but he may as well see this through to the end. Besides, he still needed to take the magic from all the guards and sorcerers from the front lines. It would take a little while but it didn’t need to be done today.

“I need to send a note to Hongbin anyway.”