Long before the academy stood, before its towers touched the clouds and its halls filled with bright young mages, there was only a tear in the world.
It opened at the center of an ancient battlefield, a wound of pure shadow where fallen warriors vanished without a sound. Out of that darkness crawled a presence older than kingdoms, older than magic itself. Scholars would later call it the Primordial Devil. It was not a creature of claws and fire, but an intelligence of pure ruin whose thoughts could hollow a man's mind.
The founders of the academy arrived to end it.
Three archmages, the strongest of their era, carved light through the darkness and bound the entity inside a cylindrical chamber deep beneath the earth. They reinforced the prison with layers of runes, chains of crystallized mana, and a seal formed from their combined life force.
The chamber did not destroy the devil. It only forced it into silence.
The archmages left a single warning etched into the stone above the sealed door: Do not listen.
Centuries passed. The academy was built above the chamber to watch over it. Generations of mages lived and died without ever knowing the truth buried six floors beneath their feet.
But the seal was not perfect.
Deep underground, between flickering runes and failing chains, the Primordial Devil stirred for the first time in two hundred years. The silence cracked. A whisper hissed through the chamber, thin as a breath, soft as dust falling.
"Someone approaches."
It listened to the footsteps above. Hundreds of students, dozens of instructors, a constant echo of magical lessons and daily chatter. But one presence stood out among them. Quiet steps. Slow. Observant. A mind that did not shout with arrogance or fear.
"A child with clear eyes," the devil murmured.
It tasted the aura drifting faintly from the upper floors. Steady, unnoticed, calmly studying the world while others rushed past.
"Perfect."
The word curled like a smile.
The chamber's runes shivered. A thread of its consciousness slipped upward, searching, reaching for the one mind sharp enough to notice what others ignored.
In a cramped dormitory room far above the sealed door, a junior mage paused in his reading. His candle flickered, though there was no breeze.
For a moment, just a moment, he felt something watching him.
Then the feeling vanished.
He looked around, confused, but saw nothing out of place. Just the quiet night. Just the silent tower.
Just the beginning of a path no one had predicted.
Far below, the Primordial Devil whispered again, pleased.
"You will see me soon."
***