The air had turned heavy—thick with the pressure of raw magic. It pressed against my chest, humming like a pulse that wasn't mine. Every breath came with the metallic taste of mana in the air.
The ritual was nearing its peak. The leader of the cloaked figures moved in slow, deliberate circles, his voice a low chant that made the runes on the floor flare brighter. The girl in the center was trembling now, her hand shaking as she struggled to maintain her hold on the floating sphere.
A faint line of blood trickled from her nose.
Thalia noticed it too. Her fingers brushed the hilt of her sword as she whispered, "She's a vessel. They're forcing the mana through her body."
I frowned, the realization chilling me. "If her control breaks, the feedback will—"
"—kill everyone in this room."
We didn't need to say more. The decision was made. We couldn't let the ritual reach completion.
The leader raised his hands, and the chant grew louder. Shadows swirled across the floor, and the air grew colder. The sphere's glow intensified, each pulse faster than the last. The girl's body convulsed once—then twice—and the cracks on the orb's surface began to spread.
Thalia met my eyes. No words. Just a nod.
We moved.
I leapt from behind the crates, boots hitting the stone floor with a muffled thud. My sword came free in a single motion, the steel glinting in the flickering light. Thalia was already moving—faster than I expected—her blade catching the faint moonlight that filtered through the narrow window.
The first cloaked figure turned—too slow. My blade struck across his staff, snapping the channeling conduit clean in half. The backlash threw him backward into the wall, where he crumpled and didn't move again.
Thalia's sword met another's at the same instant. Sparks danced as steel met steel. She twisted her wrist, disarming him in one fluid motion before driving a knee into his gut. He fell to the floor, gasping.
Chaos erupted.
The leader roared something incomprehensible, and the runes flared violently. I felt a rush of heat as a pulse of magic burst outward, cracking the tiles beneath our feet. The girl screamed—a raw, painful sound—and the orb flickered erratically, spilling light across the chamber.
I threw up a barrier spell on instinct, the faint sigil forming before me as the wave hit. It shattered on impact but absorbed the worst of it. My ears rang, but I was still standing.
Thalia wasn't far behind me. "We can't destroy the orb! It'll detonate!" she shouted over the noise.
"Then disrupt the ritual itself!" I countered.
She nodded, already slicing through one of the glowing lines that connected the orb to the floor. The light sputtered, and the hum faltered for a second. I took advantage of the moment, lunging toward the chanting leader. He swung his staff, black smoke trailing its arc.
Steel met wood. The shock of impact jarred my arm, but I pushed through it, twisting my sword to break his rhythm. He tried to chant another word—Thalia's boot hit his side, sending him sprawling.
The orb flickered again, and for a heartbeat, the light dimmed. The girl collapsed to her knees, the metallic sphere wobbling unsteadily in the air above her.
"She can't hold it!" I shouted.
Thalia raised her sword and, with a precise slash, cut through the final rune line on the floor. The entire circle dimmed. For a moment, the room fell silent—then the sphere pulsed violently, sending out a ripple of energy that threw us both back several paces.
The light faded. The glow died.
Smoke rose from the cracked stones.
The girl lay motionless, the orb resting beside her—dull, lifeless. The cloaked figures who had survived were slumped against the walls, either unconscious or trying to crawl away. The leader was gone; the shadow where he'd fallen was empty.
I sheathed my sword slowly, the sound of metal sliding against leather loud in the sudden quiet.
Thalia glanced at the girl. "Alive," she murmured after checking her pulse. "Barely. Whatever they were channeling through her… it almost consumed her."
I exhaled, running a hand through my hair. "And the sphere?"
"Dormant. For now." She crouched, studying the faint markings on its surface. "But this isn't ordinary magic. These runes… they're foreign. Ancient."
"Church-related?" I asked.
Her eyes flicked toward the mural on the far wall—a depiction of an angel, wings spread, hand raised in benediction. But the lower part of the mural had been defaced. Symbols had been carved into the stone beneath it—symbols that matched those on the sphere.
She stood. "If the church knows of this, they've kept it buried for a reason."
I stared at the mural for a long moment, then at the unconscious figures around us. "We can't alert anyone yet. Not until we understand what this is."
Thalia gave a small nod. "Agreed."
We moved quickly, disabling the remaining cultists, then gathering what little we could—fragments of notes, a broken charm, and the now-dim sphere.
Outside, the night air was cool, almost serene. The moon hung high above the spires, indifferent to what had transpired beneath its light.
Thalia adjusted her cloak, looking back once at the small chapel's silhouette. "This isn't over."
I looked at the orb in my hand, its faint lines still pulsing beneath the surface, like the heartbeat of something waiting to wake.
"No," I said quietly.
We took the sphere as evidence. Because of that, our mission had merely been a misdirection.
---
Elric Lewin's POV
Alaric and Thalia left the room to report. In truth, they were being careful. The organization had eyes in places even professors didn't suspect. Staying here and waiting for whoever came next would've been suicide; moving fast was smarter.
So, that left me.
I looked around the chamber—dim, reeking faintly of burnt incense and blood. The faint shimmer of ritual chalk still lingered on the stone floor, runes flickering like dying embers. A pity. It could've been fascinating to study if it weren't… you know, evil.
"Well," I muttered to myself, "let's see what's left."
There were only corpses and half-burned notes. Nothing useful. No hidden compartments, no secret conduits—just the stale air of failure.
Then it hit me.
A prickle.
A vibration through the air—faint but sharp, slicing through space itself.
My instincts screamed.
I tilted my head slightly to the left.
Shhhk.
A blade of compressed space tore through the air where my forehead had been a second earlier, splitting the wall in front of me. The faint hum it left behind vibrated through my skull. Another followed instantly—faster this time. I slid along the floor, pivoting to the side, the strike missing by inches.
And then—
Someone was standing just behind where I'd been.
A tall man, black coat swirling with faint distortions of air, one gloved hand wrapped casually around the cult leader's neck. His eyes were pale silver, unnaturally so—like the reflection of moonlight on water. The faint smile on his face told me he wasn't here for small talk.
He tightened his grip. The leader's neck gave a muted crack.
I sighed. "You got the information from him that quickly?"
The man tilted his head. "Oh, no. I just came to see it personally. This—" he gestured at the corpse "—was his punishment. Though perhaps I was too harsh. Seeing you here, it's obvious why he failed."
I blinked. "You misunderstand. I didn't do anything. I was just… observing while both sides had their fun."
That made him pause. His eyebrows rose faintly. "You didn't interfere?"
I shrugged. "Why should I?"
He seemed to actually think about it for a second, which was mildly impressive. Then he nodded slowly, expression unreadable. "Interesting."
A moment later, his eyes hardened. "But I still need to kill you."
I let out a quiet breath. "Ah, of course you do."
He was a pseudo-powerhouse. It's not like I couldn't defeat him—but why should I do the protagonist's work?
He smiled—one of those smooth, self-assured kinds that always precede something unpleasant. "Distortion."
Space rippled.
"...Ah, that one," I muttered.
The man threw a blade—not a physical one, but a compressed spatial cut. The moment it left his hand, it vanished—and reappeared beside my head. I twisted aside again, the blade passing so close I could feel the static burn on my cheek.
Distortion magic. Continuous, auto-locked teleportation path. Great.
He threw another. Then another. Each appeared wherever I moved, his rhythm tightening like a net.
I blurred, shifting across the room in afterimages. The sound of my boots scraping stone echoed like thunder.
He frowned. "You're not even using aura."
"Why bother?" I replied. "You are just destroying the walls."
For a moment, his expression almost cracked into irritation. Then he sighed, muttering something under his breath.
"Let's end this. You don't even want to fight."
He swept his arm once—and half a dozen spatial slashes bloomed outward, not toward me this time, but horizontally, cutting through the remaining cultists' bodies. The room filled with the metallic tang of blood.
The man exhaled, aura erupting around him—a blinding, white distortion shimmer. This went on for a minute. Then, for a heartbeat, the entire chamber warped, edges trembling like glass about to shatter.
And then—he was gone.
Teleported—erased from the coordinates.
I stood alone again.
For a while, I just listened to the silence. The air still carried faint spatial hums where the distortions had torn through reality.
"Well…" I dusted my clothes off. "That's going to be annoying to investigate for whoever comes from the academy."
A last glance at the broken runes, and I turned toward the exit. My senses still buzzed faintly, but nothing else approached.
I teleported away too.
My destination?
My inn.
A bed, a cup of tea, and preferably no more lunatics with space magic.