Hrodgar ran until the forest thinned into a clearing veiled in morning mist.
He stopped—not for lack of strength, but because the Ether roaring in his veins trembled on the brink of tearing him apart.
He set the three down upon the dew-soaked grass.
In his ancient eyes lay a calm so heavy it felt carved from old stone.
"This…"
His breath left him like cold silver smoke.
"…is far worse than I feared."
Lucen clutched his ribs, face pale as parchment.
"H-how did he even get in? The Academy isn't a place for a demon of that level to just—walk through."
Hrodgar's gaze lingered on the shadows behind them, where ashes of memory still seemed to hang in the air.
"Astra is neutral ground," he said slowly.
"Beings of the Divine and the Abyss may enter—so long as they do not exert more than three pulses of Ether upon its soil."
His hand tightened around his sword hilt as though he might crush steel itself.
"He hasn't broken any law. He's simply testing… how easily we tremble."
Alice hugged her staff. Her fingers were ice, yet they did not shake.
"Then we must tell Professor Solomon. He'll know what to—"
Hrodgar fell silent.
Then a weary breath escaped him—too heavy for muscle to bear, born instead from memory.
Memory of one who had watched gods fall.
"Solomon…"
He spoke the name like one whispers a forbidden chapter in a sealed library.
"He stands with no one. Light, shadow… to him they are but variables in a single equation."
Lucen shrank back. "Then… who protects us?"
Hrodgar turned, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.
He did not pull them close; he merely gave them enough to keep from falling.
"Go back to the Academy. Do not step beyond its grounds.
For now… it is the safest place you have."
They nodded—not fully believing in safety, but believing him.
At his familiar tower, two ancient stone slabs flanked the door like sentinels carved to guard a sleeping forest.
Hrodgar laid his palm upon one.
Runes stirred, blooming like ancient eyes opening to light.
Space split.
A golden portal unfurled.
He ushered them forward, voice stern yet gentle:
"Go. And do not seek me now. The world beyond is… restless."
Elior swallowed.
"But if we need to find you—?"
Hrodgar's gaze deepened, like a library of forbidden tomes locked behind centuries of dust.
"Light must learn to stand alone
before it earns the right to summon its guardian."
Not refusal.
A test.
He moved to push them into the portal—
and at that instant, Elior flicked a finger.
A speck-sized Ether scout leapt forth, burrowing into the fold of Hrodgar's cloak.
A secret thread of faith, spun into the only anchor they had left.
The portal sealed.
Hrodgar did not notice.
Light swallowed them whole, and vanished with the soft sigh of a candle snuffed out.
They tumbled into Astra's grand hall—awed statues of seraphs and sages watching from their marble pedestals, gleaming with a chill brilliance.
No one spoke.
None of them truly slept that night.
The Next MorningElior woke with hair a wild nest and eyes bruised with shadows.
Lucen looked like he'd wrestled nightmares—and barely escaped.
Alice still clutched her staff, fingers marked red where she'd held too tight.
The class bell rang:
Basic Ether Arts — Professor Elara Vynn
Elior pushed himself upright. His stance wavered, but his eyes did not.
"Not to act strong," he whispered to himself.
"Only to deserve the fear that kept me alive."
Lucen cracked the door open, managing a thin, trembling smile.
"We'll be stronger today. We have to be."
Alice fixed her braid, her gaze clear as winter frost.
"Yesterday we lived because someone else fought."
Her breath shook once—but her voice did not.
"Today… we earn our own lives."
Elior's fists tightened, blood warming his fingertips.
"If light stands still long enough to be devoured…
it deserves to fade.
Not today."
They stepped into the Academy corridor—golden walls stretching around them like a sanctuary suddenly too small for the world waiting outside.
Beyond the windows, last night's ash-clouds still drifted like a whisper from the fallen heavens:
"Grow up."