For a while, all was still.
Despite the invisible spatial barrier encasing a large portion of ElderGlow Academy, there was no imdiate panic.
No alarms. No swarms of enemies descending. Just a heavy quietness that blanketed the sealed section.
It was the dead of night.
Most of the students were asleep. The few who were still awake had already retreated to their dormitories under curfew.
No one yet knew that part of the academy had just been cut off from the rest of the world.
No one except those who stood at the heart of the trap.
And now... the hunters would et the bait-setters.
Dean Godsthorn, still brimming with residual magic from his forced escape and return, stood with both hands behind his back, staring silently into the night. His fingers flexed once — just a twitch — and space bent at his will.
No theatrics.
No flash.
Just a quiet twist in the air, as if the stars blinked the wrong way.
A mont later, six individuals fell from thin air and crashed hard onto the courtyard stone tiles, rolling and coughing as the spatial twist unraveled.
Hooded. Masked. Three n. Three won. All with foreign magic essence signatures.
None of them were familiar.
All now trapped with them inside the seal.
Elias and Razel stepped forward instinctively.
Lord Terrace remained back, calm and unreadable, but his right hand was resting atop the hilt of his sword. Not poised. Just ready.
Dean Godsthorn stepped toward the downed group, his expression unreadable.
The orbs still humd softly on the containnt pedestal nearby, glowing faintly. But for now, they were ignored.
All attention was on these six.
Godsthorn spoke, voice like tempered steel.
"You have precisely one opportunity to explain yourselves."
No one answered.
Two of the intruders hissed under their breath, one trying to reach for sothing at their hip — but Razel was faster. A thin flare of mana snapped the offending hand with a focused mana whip, leaving a red welt and a smoking glove.
"Next person who reaches for anything," Razel said evenly, "loses the hand."
Still silence.
Dean Godsthorn looked them over slowly. His posture didn’t change. His voice remained quiet.
"You’ve trespassed on sacred ground. Interfered with spatial foundations. Tampered with academy wards. You have one chance to make sense of it."
Finally, one of them — a woman with pale silver tattoos across her jawline — raised her head.
"Even if we told you," she rasped, "you wouldn’t believe it."
"Try ."
She smiled faintly. "You were never the one we feared."
That got a twitch from the Dean’s eyebrow.
But he didn’t respond to the bait.
Another man, tall and wiry, laughed suddenly. Loud and harsh.
It echoed across the silent courtyard like a blade scraping stone.
"You really think you’re scary, old man?" he barked. "You caught us. Congratulations. Now what? We both know you won’t kill us. You need us."
Dean Godsthorn’s gaze didn’t shift. "Why?"
The man smirked. "Because you’re desperate for answers. And n like you? You want to know more than you want revenge."
His words carried confidence.
Too much.
Godsthorn’s eyes narrowed slightly — the only sign that anything had changed.
"I see."
He raised a hand — not to strike — but to speak.
But soone else moved before he could utter a word.
SHINK.
There was no warning.
No glowing circle.
SLASH!!
No charging stance.
Just a blur, and then a sound like sothing wet being torn in half.
One of the hooded prisoners — the laughing man — stood in place for a heartbeat.
Then his eyes widened. He looked down at the blade now protruding from his chest.
Split clean through.
From behind.
Lord Terrace stood just a few steps away, his arm outstretched, sword in hand. He’d moved so quickly even the shadows hadn’t caught it.
The blade slid free with a faint hiss.
The body dropped — lifeless. Dead before it hit the ground.
The courtyard went still.
Even Elias looked surprised.
Razel tensed slightly but said nothing.
The remaining five captives froze — their confidence crumbling like dust under stone.
Lord Terrace turned to Dean Godsthorn, his voice cold and asured. "Just because you don’t want to spill blood doesn’t an I’ll tolerate mockery aid at you."
Then, almost casually, he turned and drove his blade through another one — a man who had been inching backward.
No warning.
No words.
Just a clean, ruthless execution.
This ti, blood pooled on the stones.
The silence was oppressive.
One of the remaining won began to tremble. Another dropped to her knees.
The silver-tattooed woman who had spoken first gritted her teeth.
Dean Godsthorn finally spoke again, this ti with the weight of judgnt behind each syllable.
"I gave you a choice. You chose arrogance."
He turned to Elias.
"You said you saw this coming."
"I did," Elias replied, voice low. "Not the shape of it. Just the mont."
That was all Dean Godsthorn needed to hear.
He looked away, not asking for elaboration.
He understood.
Elias had made his choice inside the Maze of Wills.
And this? This was part of that price.
The five remaining captives were forced into kneeling positions by Razel and Elias, now far less gentle than before.
"Start talking," Razel growled, eyes locked on the tattooed woman.
She spat blood, then hissed, "We’re not the tip of the blade."
"Then who is?"
She smiled, even through the pain.
"Soone you won’t see coming."
Dean Godsthorn turned to Lord Terrace and spoke through a subtle mind-link.
"They’re not suicidal. Which ans there’s more."
Lord Terrace nodded slightly.
"I’ll begin scanning the outer edges of the sealed zone. There may be others."
Godsthorn turned back to the trembling prisoners.
He didn’t need threats anymore.
They understood now.
There would be no rcy.
Not this ti.
The courtyard was still thick with tension, blood slicking the stone tiles beneath two cooling bodies.
The remaining five captives knelt in silence, surrounded by figures who each commanded terrifying authority. No one dared speak. Not after Lord Terrace’s casual executions. Not after Elias’s vision had been proven right.
And not with Dean Godsthorn standing just behind them, his aura like a mountain pressing down.
Then... Footsteps.
Soft, firm, asured.
From the corridor connecting the central courtyard to the arcane archives, a tall, robed figure erged.
Long coat. A crooked cane. Thin beard curled slightly at the chin. And eyes that seed almost perpetually half-lidded in contempt.
Dean Oryll.
He looked around at the scene. The glowing orbs. The blood. The sealed spatial layer hovering faintly like a warped mirage around the periter.
He whistled once, softly.
"Well," he said, "either a lesson in restraint has just ended... or war’s about to begin."
Godsthorn turned toward him. "You’re inside the seal."
Oryll tilted his head. "So it seems. I was ditating in the eastern observatory. Hadn’t realized I’d been boxed in."
Lord Terrace glanced at Razel. Then back at Oryll. "That makes three of us."
Oryll stepped closer, cane tapping on the ground. "Where are the others?"
"Dethrein left imdiately after the tournant," Razel said. "Claid he needed to collect sothing from the city."
"And the Dean of Thornevale?" Godsthorn asked.
Oryll’s mouth twitched. "Gone. Took her entire class with her—Year One through Five."
That gave even Elias pause.
Razel crossed his arms. "She left before this happened?"
"Just after the tournant ended," Oryll confird. "Said she had prior arrangents. Official-sounding. Claid she’d submitted clearance days in advance."
Godsthorn’s expression darkened.
Now that it was being pointed out, the timing felt... precise.
Too precise.
A mass departure of students and faculty?
And the seal activation occurred barely hours later?
"She knew," Lord Terrace thought but it ended up slipping out of his mouth.
Even if it wasn’t true, at the very least, it was suspected.
Elias didn’t speak. But the way his fingers twitched told Godsthorn he was already tracing or trying to trace paths. Trying to thread the maze of probability in his head.
"So," Oryll said, eyeing the prisoners, "I assu we’ve questioned them?"
Razel gave a sharp nod. "Tried. One spoke in riddles. One mocked. Both are dead now."
Oryll nodded. "Good. The rest?"
"Silent," Godsthorn said. "But not brave."
Lord Terrace sheathed his blade with a faint hiss. "They’ll talk."
Oryll approached the captives, leaning slightly on his cane.
Then — as if amused — he gave a small grin.
"I’ll try my luck."
He crouched in front of the woman with silver jaw tattoos.
"Hello," he said pleasantly. "Tell —who set you here?"
She didn’t respond.
Oryll shrugged. "Fine."
His cane tapped once on the ground.
Woooooong...
A light shimr pulsed.
The woman’s eyes widened—her body seizing slightly. But she didn’t scream. Not even a gasp. She just trembled. Visibly. Deeply.
"You feel that?" Oryll asked softly. "A little pressure on your nervous system. No pain. Just... whispers. Repetition. You’ll start hearing your own na backwards. Then everyone’s voice will sound like your dead mother’s. Then you’ll think your lungs have stopped working."
He tilted his head.
"It’s not real. But your mind won’t know that."
She shuddered.
Still, she didn’t speak.
Then suddenly—her body arched.
A/N: Hello Dear Readers. I want to use this dium to apologise to you all for the inconsistent updates these past few weeks.
This is my final sester as a University student and it is quite arduous for . It is very tasking and so I barely have the ti to write and update new Chapters but as the sester cos to an end soon, I want to assure you all that daily updates will Indo return strongly. Thank you all for reading this far. I love you all.
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