At the sa ti, on the other side of Golden Scale Academy, Junior slowly opened his dorm room door.
The corridor was empty. The distant sounds of panic still echoed through the walls, but no one was nearby.
As soon as he entered the room, he fell to his knees.
His hands clutched his heart as he took deep, ragged breaths. His body trembled. His chest heaved.
He couldn’t help it.
The fear he had felt when he lost his sense of mana was overwhelming, more terrifying than the Sovereign of Eternal Flas taking away his eyes.
If he had to describe what he experienced in those ten seconds devoid of mana, there was only one word.
Null.
It was not darkness, not silence, nor emptiness. Just Null. The absence of absence itself.
But his thoughts were elsewhere. His mind raced, spinning through possibilities and impossibilities.
"How did the future change?"
True, he had been trying to change the future. That was his goal, his purpose, his reason for sending Cael the vision of the Wraith Princess.
But this... this was not part of any future he had lived.
There was no mana disruption in the tiline he rembered. No ten seconds of silence. No wave that blanketed half a city.
Then suddenly, his consciousness blurred.
The world around him dissolved, the dorm room, the walls, the distant sounds of panic, all of it faded into white.
He stood in an infinite white plane. No ground beneath his feet. No sky above his head. Just white, stretching in every direction, endless and absolute.
Before him, the golden book with black runic symbols hovered in the air.
The heavenly book.
Its pages were closed, but its presence was undeniably ancient.
But unlike in reality, he was not blindfolded here. He could see.
His eyes, which had been burned by the Sovereign of Eternal Flas, were whole again in this vast, infinite plane.
This was the second ti he had arrived in this vast plane.
The first ti, he had been sent to a world of celestials, a world of three moons, of empires and deities, of a life that had spanned three hundred years.
Junior raised his hand and touched the book.
The heavenly book opened with a blinding golden light.
Junior could not help but montarily close his eyes. When he opened them again, words had appeared on the pages, written in a script he could read as easily as his own thoughts.
---
O Seeker, I will answer three questions you have.
Be aware, O Seeker, that if you ask a question beyond the future and past that you have lived, it will be invalid and will not be answered.
Yet it will still be counted as one of your three.
---
Junior took a deep breath as he carefully read the words.
The aning was clear. He had lived two lives, his three-hundred-year life in the dieval world and two weeks into the future in this world.
The book would only answer questions about those two tilines. Anything beyond them was forbidden.
"Past."
Junior’s eyes widened. He took an involuntary step backward. His mind raced, connecting dots that should not connect.
"W-what? No, that is impossible."
He was in denial. He had lived in the "past" for more than three hundred years.
He had walked through that world. He had built empires. He had seen celestials with power akin to gods.
He had witnessed the World Devouring Serpent. He had faced the Sovereign of Eternal Flas.
That world was vast. That world was real. That world was separate from this one.
Now, the book was telling him... what?
’You are saying that this was the sa world.’
"No. It does not make any sense."
...
Deep within the forbidden land of Aranya Varsha, the forest had grown darker.
The canopy above blocked out the moonlight, leaving only scattered patches of silver that flickered like dying embers. The air was damp and heavy, thick with the scent of wet earth and ancient rot.
Luke walked ahead, his silver hair catching the faint light, his crimson eyes scanning the shadows between the trees.
Behind him, Lysa followed in silence, her boots squelching against the muddy ground.
Lysa kicked a loose stone.
"This is pointless. We are not going to find it."
Luke did not respond. He kept walking, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead.
"We have been searching for a day."
Lysa continued, her voice edged with frustration.
"The plant is gone. You saw it disappear. It is not here anymore."
Luke stopped. He turned his head slightly, his profile illuminated by a thin beam of moonlight.
"We keep searching until we find it."
Lysa sighed and followed. She did not understand him. She never fully understood him.
They walked in silence for another hour. The forest grew denser. The trees pressed closer together, their branches intertwined like clasped hands.
Then, Luke’s watch beeped.
He stopped and raised his wrist. The screen glowed faintly in the darkness, casting pale blue light across his face.
As Luke read the ssage, his expression did not change, but sothing in his posture shifted.
Lysa watched him carefully.
"What is it?"
Luke did not answer imdiately. He read the ssage again, then pressed a button on his watch and said,
"We need to go back,"
Lysa frowned.
"Why? What happened?"
Luke turned and began walking back the way they had co.
"The Council called. They want to return imdiately."
Lysa hurried to keep up.
"Return where? To Karyal City?"
Luke directly stated,
"To the Council headquarters."
Lysa’s eyes widened. The Council headquarters. That was not a place you were called to for casual reasons.
"Did sothing big happen?"
Luke’s jaw tightened as he said in a low voice,
"Sothing at Golden Scale Academy. A mana disruption wave of complete nullification of mana that lasted for 10 seconds."
Lysa’s steps faltered.
"But that is impossible, right?"
Luke did not answer. His mind was already racing ahead, connecting dots that did not seem to connect.
But this, a mana disruption wave that blanketed half a city for ten seconds, was not part of any future he rembered.
His watch beeped again. Another ssage. He read it.
Luke’s face hardened as he muttered,
"The Council agent says they have evidence."
Luke continued saying,
"Caras captured two figures on the clock tower. They had horns; it was the Wraiths."
Then Lysa asked,
"Wraiths can nullify mana?"
Luke shook his head and said,
"Not that I have ever heard of."
Luke stood still in the middle of the dark forest as he cursed, his voice low and sharp.
"Damn it all."
Luke was already frustrated because he failed to obtain a celestial blooded plant.
And now this.
Luke did not believe it was wraiths. He could not. If wraiths had developed a weapon that could nullify mana for ten seconds, the war would already be over.
Humanity would have lost. He would have known. He would have seen it in his past life.
But he had not.
Even if they did create sothing to nullify mana, they would not show it to humanity in a silly way.
Which ant sothing else had happened. Sothing new. Sothing that had not existed in his original tiline.
Luke clenched his fists.
"Let’s go, we need to find out what really happened at Golden Scale."
...
Team Gray and the other teams from Everbright Academy were gathered in a large hall, provided by Golden Scale due to security concerns.
The room was crowded with students, their voices low and uneasy.
No one knew exactly what had happened, but everyone had felt it.
Cael sat in a corner, watching as others conversed in hushed tones. Edwin, Aria, and Brania were nearby, discussing the event with other Everbright students.
The hall doors opened as Seraphina walked in.
Yes, it was the Vice Principal of Everbright Academy. It had only been three hours since the incident, and there were no teleportation circles in Arhal City.
That ant Seraphina had teleported to the nearest center and hurried over.
Her presence silenced the room.
She exchanged brief pleasantries with the Golden Scale faculty but hurried. She was not here for small talk.
Then her eyes found Cael.
Her gaze locked onto him for a fraction of a second before sweeping across the rest of the room.
But Cael felt it.
After a few more words with the instructors, Seraphina turned and looked at Cael.
"Let us go on a walk."
Cael nodded and stood up. His face betrayed nothing, but inside, his thoughts churned.
’Here it cos.’
They walked in silence through the academy corridors. Their footsteps echoed off the stone walls.
Seraphina led him to a quiet courtyard, secluded from the rest of the academy.
She raised her hand, and a faint barrier shimred into existence around them, isolating the area from any potential eavesdroppers.
Then she turned to face him. Her amber eyes were unreadable.
"Are you the one who caused this ss?"
______
Unedited Chapter.
[A/N: Guys, comnt below if you want to focus only on Cael’s POV.
For the last few Chapters, I showed other main characters POV’s, which is both good and bad on their own rights.
Mainly, Pacing issues. So, tell , if I need to slow down or hasten up.
In the following Chapters, I will be more careful.]
Thank you.
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