Kael walked in the opposite direction of the fallen boys, the shadows still lazily swirling around his feet like they were hungry. His mind was sharp, already calculating the next steps, when a whisper of movent behind him sliced through the silence.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Three sets of hurried footsteps. Three racing hearts. The three boys—the survivors—were trying to flee, stumbling over their own fear as they scrambled toward the old staircase they had co down from.
Kael stopped walking.
His head turned slightly, a tired smile forming at the corner of his lips.
"Ahri…" he murmured, not needing to raise his voice.
The nine-tailed fox, who had been walking beside him with her usual feline grace, halted as well. Her golden eyes shimred at the sound of his voice. A dramatic sigh slipped from her lips.
"n are so predictable," she said with amused disdain. "Take power from their hands for one second… and they go running like rats."
Then she leapt.
Her body arched through the air, glowing with a soft silver light. Her nine tails flared out like velvet in motion, wrapping around her form before she landed with the grace of a goddess.
When her feet touched the ground, she was no longer a fox.
Ahri now stood as a towering woman—two ters of pure arcane presence. Long pale pink hair cascaded down her back in waves, reaching her hips. Her ethereal robes floated like enchanted silk around her curvaceous, perfect form. The tails remained, dancing in the air like celestial serpents. And her eyes… her eyes were the most devastating of all: golden, ancient, inhuman.
She gently extended her arms—and with no visible effort, three magic circles blood beneath the fleeing boys' feet.
THOOM.
Three dos of energy surged up in a blink, encasing them in prisons of pure arcane force. The structures were crystalline, with ancient inscriptions spinning like constellations within the walls of magic. A divine sealing spell—far too old for anyone there to understand.
The boys thrashed in terror. One scread. Another cried. The third only stared at Ahri.
And then his eyes t hers.
That was when it ended.
All three bodies collapsed within the dos at once, like puppets with their strings cut. Unconscious. The sheer weight of absolute fear had been too much for their fragile minds.
Ahri gave a small, mischievous smile, twirling one of her tails slowly, like an artist finishing a delicate painting.
"Looking at gods doesn't always end well, little boys…" she said with a serene tone and a cruel glint in her gaze.
Kael chuckled softly, shaking his head.
"You really do love a show."
Ahri glanced back at him over her shoulder, with that dangerously enchanting little smile.
"Of course. I am one."
Kael turned slowly, the shadows that covered him slipping back into the darkness as if obeying a reluctant master. His footsteps echoed heavily in the silent chamber, each sound like the prelude to a sentence. The masked man - or rather, what was left of him - trembled on his knees, his missing arms leaving trails of warm blood on the ancient stone.
Kael stopped in front of him. Anger burned silently behind his red eyes, but it was a controlled, thodical fire. A calmly cultivated fire.
Without saying a word, Kael grabbed the bloodied hood and pulled it off with a dry heave.
The wooden mask fell to the ground with a dull thud. And under the hood...
An ordinary face.
A boy. Maybe a year or two older than Kael. Brown, disheveled hair. Freckles. Weak jaw. A slight tremor in his eyes.
No hidden runes, no eyes as black as death, no ancestral scars that suggested a link to the abyss.
Nothing.
Kael remained motionless for a second, just staring.
"...You're kidding ."
The boy was breathing hard, but managed to muster the strength to speak through muffled sobs.
"Please... I just... I only sold to them. I don't even know the na of the guy who-"
Kael raised his hand.
And kicked the boy in the chest hard enough to knock him to the ground.
"You. É. A. Student?"
The boy choked on the pain. He coughed. But he nodded, desperate.
Kael rubbed his face, the veins in his neck popping with frustration.
"I thought you were at least a teacher. An agent. A cultist." He snorted in disbelief. "But no. You're just a fucking student."
He crouched down in front of the boy, with an expression of disgust so pure it was almost worse than any threat.
"So tell , shit student... who gave you the formula?"
The boy shook his head frantically, tears running down his dirty cheeks.
"I... I swear I don't know! I only get the packages in an enchanted box... they show up in my room on Thursdays... I don't know who's in charge! I swear!"
Kael looked at him for a long, silent mont. Then he stood up.
And took one of his arms - the only one still attached to his body - and held his ankle firmly.
"What... what are you going to- NO, NO, WAIT-"
CRAACK.
A wet, high-pitched sound filled the room as Kael pulled on the boy's little toe. The bone snapped off like a rotten twig. The boy scread, arching his body with the shock of the pain, his face turning white.
Kael only said one word, cold as icy steel:
"Speak."
The boy sobbed, trying to breathe. The pain was so great that he could barely form words.
"I... swear... I... don't know... n-nothing..."
Kael turned a little to the side.
"Ahri."
The fox-goddess walked in elegant steps towards him, still in the form of the haughty two-ter woman. She crouched beside the boy, analyzing him as if he were an insect.
Kael stared at her.
"Is he being controlled?"
She looked at the boy for a few seconds, her golden eyes penetrating his soul.
"No." The answer was simple. The answer was simple: "There's no mind control, no curse, no pact on him."
Kael squeezed his eyes shut.
"So he's telling the truth?"
Ahri smiled. Slow. Cruel.
"No." She ran her fingers over the boy's cheeks, like soone caressing a broken toy. "He knows. He just doesn't want to talk."
Kael was silent for a mont. Then he turned back to the boy, his eyes dipped in a shade of red that looked like light pouring from a distant hell.
"Then let's make him talk."
And the world of that ordinary student ended.
Kael didn't hurry. He didn't shout. He didn't get worked up.
He started with the little things. A clean cut on his thigh - not deep enough to kill, but painful enough to create despair. Then small streams of dark mana seeped under the boy's skin, squeezing his nerves, his veins, his most sensitive endings.
Ahri stood to the side, watching as if she were attending an opera.
"Pain is a universal language, Kael," she said with an almost maternal tone. "And the weak... always learn to speak."
The boy scread. But the sealing dos muffled any sound. Up there, no one would hear.
In the deep darkness of the Academy, hidden in the stone foundations and ancient roots, Kael was digging to discover the origin of sothing much, much bigger.
And if he had to open each body, one by one, until he found the answer...
Minutes passed.
The floor of the underground chamber was soaked with blood, sweat and tears. The boy, now unrecognizable by the swelling on his face and the mana burns on his skin, was barely breathing. But he was still alive. Kael had made sure of that.
He knelt down beside the practically inert body.
"Tsk. What a piece of shit, huh..." he muttered, almost disdainfully.
With a snap of his fingers, he summoned a simple spell: Basic Healing. A pale light enveloped the boy's dislocated and severed limbs. The bones popped back into place with uncomfortable pops, the skin partially nded, but there was no care in the gesture - only practicality.
Nothing was really right.
Kael just needed him whole enough to walk... or be dragged.
"I can't kill a student. Rules, right..." he said with a bored sigh.
He then grabbed the collapsed boy by the hair, lifting him like a sack of potatoes with a single hand. His body wobbled like a broken doll.
"Ahri."
"Hmm?" replied the fox, still in human form, admiring the runes in the room like soone looking at a painting.
"The other three."
She made a gentle gesture with her hand. The energy dos shattered with an ethereal crackle. The three fainted again in the sa instant, the shock of the magical release overwhelming their already weak senses.
Kael walked over to them, bent down and, with a silent growl, grabbed two in each hand - all by the hair. Four boys dragged like sacks of garbage. One in each hand, two on their backs.
The march began.
Up the old staircase. It went through secret corridors. It reached the main wing of the academy.
And then it erged into the great marble corridor where the stained glass windows cast magical light down the steps. Students, teachers and even one or two mbers of the academy guard stopped to stare.
Silence.
Kael walked, his gaze hard and his expression stone cold. No words. No explanation.
His boots thudded heavily on the ground. And behind him, the trail of dragged bodies created a path of sha and dread.
" Is he...? "
" What happened to those guys? "
" My God, he's... he's carrying them like dirty clothes... "
"His eyes... his eyes are so red... "
Whispers. Fear. And, above all, respect.
Kael didn't care.
He went up to the top floor of the central tower, where the principal's office was - the only black oak door inlaid with arcane gold.
He didn't knock.
He didn't ask.
He just entered with a slow, heavy kick that opened the doors as if they were made of paper.
Inside, the principal raised an eyebrow. Next to him, Lyra spun around in her chair with a slight pop, her eyes widening at the sight.
Kael stopped in the middle of the room.
Without saying a word, he threw the bloodied boy on the floor like a useless object. Then he dumped the other three on top of him, a pile of limbs and dirty clothes.
The silence was absolute.
Kael then pulled the last intact purple vial out of his pocket - the sa magical compound glowing with that sickly pulse.
He threw it into the air.
Lyra raised her hand and caught it effortlessly, her eyes already shining with recognition. Her fingers trembled.
Kael crossed his arms.
"Take it and investigate. I found these vermin trafficking this crap... under the South Wing. In a separate dinsion."
"Dinsion?" Lyra questioned.
"Spatial ability. That worm in the cloak was in another dinsion selling this crap. Reinforce the security of this place." He ordered before walking off nervously.
"He's... pretty nervous, huh?" Lyra asked.
"How could he not be? He loves the little girl who was attacked by imbeciles who used this drug. Of course he'd be nervous."
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