I closed my eyes with lids heavy from exhaustion, while a hot tear escaped the corner of my eye, carving its way across my pale skin.
I was lying on that cold medical bed, my weary mind replaying the pain-stained memories of the days I spent in this human slaughterhouse.
Every day here is a repetition of an unending hell; where they try to incite the "Void" in my body with their intense magic, or plant forced mana into my veins that clashes with my steel nature in a fierce battle where I am torn apart from within.
I was receiving doses of pain that shattered my soul, and they would not stop until they watched my body exhale its final breaths and my eyes fade out of consciousness.
In that critical moment, they would rush to me frantically, placing that mask over my face so I could inhale that mysterious substance.
I would devour that air with a greed and pleasure that stirred terror within me; its positive effect was supernatural, almost divine.
As soon as it entered my chest, I felt an immediate restoration of my cells, as if my body, which seconds ago was on the verge of death, had become new again, coherent, as if I had never been tortured a day in my life.
I lay there, watching the cold white ceiling, wondering with a bewilderment tinged with fear:
"What is this cursed substance? And where do they get this power that rebuilds shattered bodies in seconds?"
Is it liquid mana? Or the essence of souls distilled for this purpose? I felt that I had become addicted to that relief that follows the agony, and this increased my hatred for Vasilios, who turned me into a medical mystery oscillating between life and death daily.
After I regained my fragile consciousness from that forced coma, I found them circling around me like crows; their cold hands and brass devices feeling my body, monitoring my vital signs that flickered then stabilized by the effect of that suspicious serum.
And of course, they did not forget their most important ritual: the mana test.
I watched them with coldness and contempt as they tried to provoke a single spark of aether in my veins, but the crystals remained dormant like dead stone.
Their clumsy minds refuse to grasp the simple truth that I scream in silence: My body is an insulator, a black hole that swallows their sanctity and turns it into nothingness.
But what is the use of talking to "scientists" who are mad and mentally deranged, who do not see me as a human, but merely a biological puzzle waiting for dissection?
I tried to gather the remnants of my shattered self and relax a little, bracing for the usual round of torture that had become my life routine in this slaughterhouse, but the creak of the metal door interrupted my thoughts.
The door opened and Vasilios entered in the flesh; that man whose shadow I hadn't glimpsed since he threw me to these monsters, contenting himself with sending his deep voice through the loudspeakers to order the start of hell.
He walked into the room with a provoking dignity, his shoes clicking on the marble with a coldness that matched the coldness of his heart.
My eyes met his, and I felt an overwhelming urge to jump off this medical bed to sink my fingers into his neck, but I remained still, slowly watching how this tyrant would justify his presence now after all this torment.
I stared at him with an extraordinary calm, while he gazed at me with his usual coldness, his black eyes fixed on me like two daggers, neither blinking nor moving at all.
He looked in his full, provoking elegance in his luxurious formal clothes and his black hair styled with extreme precision, as if he hadn't just stepped out of a laboratory smelling of death and agony.
He pulled a metal chair with a sharp screech that tore through the room's silence, placed it directly in front of me, then sat on it with his legs apart, resting his hands on his knees, still eyeing me with those piercing looks that tried to penetrate my skin to reach the mystery of my composition.
His gaze suggested that he didn't see a girl in pain, but saw a complex "algorithm" he hadn't decoded yet.
I exhaled my breath with clear irritation and quickly shifted my gaze away from him, looking toward the cold white ceiling.
I felt my nerves stretched to the point of explosion; if I kept staring at that bastard's face for one more second, I might have lunged at him and torn his throat without feeling, unconcerned about chains or consequences.
His silence pressed on my chest more than their cursed devices, as if his very presence was the harshest stage of torture.
The silence reigned over the place for several minutes, a heavy silence during which I could hear the rebellious beats of my heart.
I couldn't bear him sitting there watching me like a piece of scrap under study.
I slowly lowered my gaze from the ceiling and aimed my red eyes directly at him, a look charged with all the resentment and hatred that had accumulated in my chest throughout the days of torment.
I said in a hoarse voice, coming from a dry throat but carrying a tone as sharp as a blade:
"Haven't you had enough of watching your 'deadly weapon' dying daily?"
I didn't wait for a response from him, but continued with a bitter smile dripping with sarcasm:
"Or did you come to see for yourself that my 'empty' body still refuses to submit to your filthy laws? I told you before, Vasilios.. your magic is worth nothing against my bones, and no matter what you do, I will remain the hole that will swallow your arrogance in the end."
He tilted his head slightly, and his black eyes remained frozen, which prompted me to say the word that was gnawing at me from within:
"Tell me.. is my family okay? Or did you come to trade my life for their safety again?"
At that moment, I was ready to do anything; my death didn't matter to me as much as the thought of him touching a hair of Mikey or Aiden, which ignited within me a desire to demolish the entire academy over his head, even if my body was bound by thousands of chains.
Vasilios smiled with a suspicious calmness, a smile that didn't reach his cold eyes, then sighed deeply as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He stood up with provoking dignity and said in a commanding tone:
"Follow me."
He turned to leave, but stopped suddenly at the polished doorstep; his back remained extended before me like an impenetrable wall, and he spoke in a deep voice that pierced the lab's silence:
"Aria.. remember well that everything you went through was for your own benefit only."
Then he left the room without giving me a chance to see his features or respond to him.
I knitted my brows with confusion mixed with resentment; my benefit?
What kind of benefit requires tearing my cells apart under the weight of magic and crushing my will in dark dungeons?
Why does this man act with a strangeness that makes my mind boil with questions?
Is he trying to manipulate my mind or is there a terrifying truth behind those words of mystery?
I didn't give myself room to indulge in thinking; I stood up quickly from that cursed bed, ignoring the remnants of pain gnawing at my joints, and rushed to catch up with him.
My steps were fast, and confusion was clearly drawn on my tired features, while my red eyes watched his phantom in the hallway, determined to wrench a satisfying answer before this place clamped its jaws on me again.
I began walking beside him with angry steps, my eyes never leaving the sides of his face, trying to penetrate that icy mask he wears.
"What do you mean by your words, Vasilios?"
I asked him in a sharp tone, but he continued walking as if I were a mere invisible ghost; not a single hair of his expression changed, making the boiling in my chest cross all limits.
I couldn't control myself; I reached out and grabbed his arm firmly, pulling him toward me with a violence that threw him off balance and made him face me.
The safety distances between us shattered, to the point that his warm breath began to brush my face, but my anger was more flaming than to retreat.
I stared into his black eyes which never lost that provoking serenity, and said in a hiss dripping with threat:
"Vasilios.. don't test my patience any further!"
He met my threat with a playful side smile, a smile that made my brows knit with confusion and rage.
And with a slow and sudden movement, he raised his hand and caught a strand of my red hair, beginning to pass it between his fingers with a suspicious pleasure as he brought his face closer to mine, whispering softly in a way that made the hairs on my neck prickle:
"Things will become clear in due time.."
His eyes were roaming over the details of my face with microscopic precision, as if he were rediscovering a mysterious puzzle.
"What is wrong with him?!"
I shouted in my mind; am I turning now from a mad scientist's lab rat into a victim of an arrogant deviant?
I struck his hand violently to push it away from my hair, and stepped back with features increasing in sharpness and cruelty.
"You really are a scoundrel!"
I hurled it at his face with utter contempt.
Instead of anger, his loud laughter rang through the hallway, a clear laugh as if he completely agreed with me.
He continued his way coldly while still smiling, while I followed him with a deep scowl, wondering secretly about the identity of this schizophrenic who leads me; at times a butcher and at times a frivolous aristocrat, and to which abyss he intends to throw me next.
Drowning in my whirlpool of endless thoughts and questions, I walk behind him mechanically as if I were a commanded shadow, and I didn't notice that he stopped suddenly until my body collided with his solid back.
I stepped back two steps, and I felt then a strange trembling coursing through my limbs, a suspicious sensation I hadn't known before, as if my body was rejecting something my eyes couldn't see.
I exhaled forcefully, and pressed my fists until my nails sank into my palm, trying to hide that cursed trembling from his gaze.
Vasilios turned slowly, and glanced at me with questioning looks that penetrated my defenses; the knot in his brows increased as he examined my features with suspicious precision, then tilted his head and said in a low tone:
"Are you alright, Aria?"
I nodded my head with exaggerated speed, trying to confirm my illusory balance, but he wasn't convinced.
He raised his finger and pointed toward my face coldly:
"If that's the case.. then why are you perspiring?"
I was surprised by his words; am I really sweating? I hadn't felt a spark of moisture on my skin until that moment.
I raised my hand and passed it over my forehead, and a cold sweat as icy as snow slid onto my fingers.
I blinked several times in shock; what on earth is happening to me?
As if I am fighting an invisible beast gnawing me from within.
I gathered my usual coldness and said dryly:
"It's nothing.. I just feel a bit of heat."
He pulled his head back slightly, scanning my face with a clear suspicion he couldn't hide, then let out a resigned sigh and turned to open the massive door that faced us.
I walked in behind him, feeling a contradiction tearing through my mind; why does he care about me now?
And why did I catch that fleeting flash of anxiety in his black eyes?
Is he not the same person who threw me into the hell of his experiments?
His contradictory behavior screams that behind him lies a great secret, a mystery buried deep within this academy, and I swore to myself that I would reach the truth, no matter the cost.
As soon as I crossed the threshold of that vast hall, I felt as if I had entered the lair of the masters of this world.
The hall was so expansive that the sound of my breaths echoed back to me, and in its center, semi-circular chairs were lined up, occupied by a crowd of sorcerers, no less than twenty in number.
Their gazes were fixed on me—cold, surgical, examining every inch of my body as if I were merely an unknown
"specimen."
Their attire exceeded the limits of luxury; robes made of ethereal silk woven with mana threads, encrusted with jewels that blinked with a faint light—an exaggerated opulence that made even Vasilios's elegant clothes look modest beside them.
At that moment, a terrifying spark of realization ignited in my mind: these are the High Sorcerers, the absolute authority above which no crown rises, those who pull the kingdom's strings from behind the curtain.
If my intuition was correct, Vasilios's own authority fades before their might.
I stood beside him, but my body began to betray me; the trembling that was just a prickle had now turned into violent tremors shaking my limbs.
I felt the air escaping my lungs, my breathing rate accelerating madly to the point that my chest began to heave conspicuously before their eyes.
I swallowed my saliva, which had dried in my throat, and closed my eyes with excessive force, desperately trying to curb this disturbance and imprison my body's screams behind my eyelids, while the magical pressure in the hall clamped down on my soul like the jaws of a predatory beast.
My eyes widened in shocking bewilderment, and I felt as if a thick veil had suddenly been lifted from my insight. Damn.. what is happening?
How have I begun to sense the pulse of "magic" in the surroundings as if it were drums beating?
It was no longer just a sensation; I could clearly hear the horrifying flow of mana as it surged through the veins of those sorcerers sitting before me, like flowing rivers of raw energy.
Even their auras, which were invisible to me, began to manifest before my eyes with complete clarity; colored phantoms wavering with the air, making it tremble and disturb around them with a suffocating pressure.
I said to myself in panic:
"No, this is impossible.. I must be hallucinating!"
But Vasilios's deep voice woke me from my daze as he announced coldly:
"Let us begin."
I looked at him and saw him eyeing me with a mysterious look, a look that carried within it a knowledge of what my body was going through now.
He turned his gaze toward the crowd of sorcerers and said in a confident tone:
"I know that the news has preceded us to you.. therefore, I present to you Aria, the hole that swallows magic."
Hardly had he finished his sentence when one of the sorcerers interrupted him in a tone of mockery and arrogance:
"For heaven's sake, Vasilios! What use will an insect like her, who doesn't possess a shred of mana, be to us?"
Vasilios smiled a mysterious smile that carried no friendliness, and replied coldly:
"I will not explain the matter with words.. but you are capable of experimenting."
I directed my gaze toward that arrogant sorcerer, and although my vision began to distort and colors started to blend, I bared my teeth in a wild rage.
I saw his phantom move, stepping away from his seat and preparing to face me.
I wondered in a silent cry within my depths:
"What now? Will he cast his magic upon me while I am in this state? Is this confusion and this strange feeling a result of their cursed experiments they performed on my body?"
I felt that I was on the verge of exploding, as every shred of mana I sensed in the hall began to pain me as if they were needles sinking into my new consciousness.
I raised my gaze, which was heavy with fog, and struggled to steady my vision on that arrogant sorcerer; I saw him raise his hand toward me with vanity, and suddenly magical fires erupted from it, raging with a terrifying orange flame.
His mocking smile suggested his absolute certainty that I would turn into a pile of ashes within seconds.
He launched his fires toward me, a mass of raging hell crawling through the air, threatening to burn everything that dared to stand in its way.
But, as soon as those fires touched my body, what happened made the hall drown in utter shock; I did not burn, nor did I even feel their heat.
Instead, the fires completely vanished, turning into fluttering golden particles that faded into the ether, as if his hell were nothing but a weak mirage that collided with my solid reality.
His arrogant smile dropped all at once, replaced by pale, shocked features.
His eyes bulged as he watched his power evaporate before an "insect," as he had called me.
He flared up in rage and lost his mind, starting to fire consecutive magical shots madly, with sparks flying from his palms.
However, every magical projectile that touched my skin would dissolve and disappear as if it had never existed in this world at all.
At that moment, all the sorcerers jumped from their seats in a state of collective shock and astonishment, and the whispers of mockery turned into a terrifying silence.
As for Vasilios, he stood tall beside me, a wide smile etched on his face as he eyed them with a look I couldn't distinguish;
was it pride in his "weapon" that he had polished, or was it the ecstasy of victory as he saw the High Sorcerers trembling before the "Nothingness" he had brought to them?
I stand in the midst of those falling golden particles, my body still trembling from the effect of the experiments, but I felt a hidden power beginning to settle in my depths, a power telling me that these "masters" are nothing but pygmies before what I have become now.
While I was standing there, fighting the fog that wrapped my vision, another sorcerer stepped forward from among those superior faces.
On his lips was a faint smile tinged with denial, muttering in shock as he looked alternately at Vasilios and at me:
"This is impossible.. truly impossible."
I exchanged a cold, stone-like look with him, even though a volcano of strange power was boiling within me, demanding liberation and tearing to come out of my pores.
He approached me more and began muttering strange words, whispers that stirred a chill in the air around me.
Suddenly, a phosphorescent green glow erupted from his body—specters of magic began to float around him before darting toward me with a swiftness, like a venomous snake that had finally found a gap to pounce on its prey.
But, at that moment, what happened shook the foundations of the hall and silenced everyone.
The magic did not vanish as golden particles this time; instead, I felt my body open up like a deep well. My body absorbed that green glow with a terrifying strength and greed.
I felt the magic permeating my cells, disintegrating and being erased within my own "void."
Vasilios's smile widened beside me, his features looking as if they had reached the peak of ecstasy and victory.
He was waiting for this moment with bated breath.
As for me, I could no longer bear it; that strange "entity" within me began to rage madly, demanding dominance.
I began to pant violently, and my limbs trembled to the point that the echo of my breaths began to resonate in the silent hall like a death rattle.
I saw Vasilios's features change suddenly; his smile vanished and was replaced by anxiety and suspicion, and he knitted his brows as he prepared to move toward me, perhaps to stop what he had started.
But I, with an instinctive movement, raised my hand in his face, commanding him to stay away.
He froze in his place, his eyes watching the terrifying transformation that began to occur to me.
At that moment, I surrendered completely.
I let the chains collapse, and I allowed that black entity to swallow my consciousness and take the lead.
What happened next made everyone's eyes, and Vasilios's above all, widen with a horror and shock they had never witnessed before; a halo of pure "Void"
emanated from my body—a material darkness that began to devour the light around us, announcing that Aria was no longer just an "insulator," but had become the ultimate predator of everything that is magic.
My red hair strands began to rebel against gravity, floating in the air like angry tongues of flame, while a terrible heat flared behind my eyelids; I felt my eyes glowing with a deep red like embers about to explode.
Without warning, my body turned into a hungry black hole, a predatory beast that hadn't tasted life for centuries, and began absorbing their energies and magic with hysterical madness.
The mana was flowing into my depths like liquid lava, thrashing violently within my veins, its heat burning my cells with a pain that exceeded all possibility.
I felt the veins in my head and body bulging to a terrifying degree, then they began to be coated in a dark blackness, as if a demonic ink was spreading under my skin to cover my face and limbs.
A prisoner of my own body, I struggle against a power beyond imagination and a pain that tears my insides and severs my limbs, until I felt the warm blood bleeding from me profusely.
Suddenly, my body reached the point of explosion; my insulating nature could no longer bear the presence of this magical intruder, and my being surged, rejecting this mana, only to hurl it back toward them with doubled force.
Magic erupted from my body like thousands of targeted shots, a cyclone of rebounded energy that tore through the hall's silence.
At the last moment, the sorcerers realized the gravity of the situation, and with the remnants of their exhausted powers, they gathered themselves to create a collective shield to ward off the imminent death.
But my explosion was stronger; the energy began to penetrate everything, piercing the luxurious walls and demolishing the ceilings, until one of the great walls collapsed under the weight of pure pressure.
The hall was filled with the dust of torn marble, and their screams and suffocated coughs rose amidst the rubble, while I stood in the center of this destruction, shattered in a scene that announced the breaking of "Aetheria's" pride under my feet.
I stagger right and left like the remnants of wreckage tossed by a storm, and my body, which was steel yesterday, has now become trembling with a fatal weakness.
I feel my warm blood flowing profusely from my nose, drawing deep red lines on my torn white shirt, and with every exhale that leaves my burning chest, a pained moan follows it, tearing my throat.
I struggle against the collapse with all the will I have left, refusing to fall before their eyes, but the darkness has begun to creep toward the edges of my vision.
The thick dust began to settle gradually, forming behind it their defeated specters like faint shadows amidst the rubble.
I opened my eyes with extreme difficulty, resisting the fog of pain, and my tired pupils moved to search for him..
he was standing there, in the midst of the destruction, looking at me with features behind which every shred of coldness had disappeared; I saw in his face a mixture of surprise and shock that paralyzed his senses.
He hadn't imagined in his wildest ambitions that his "weapon" would evolve with this terrifying speed; instead of just nullifying magic, I had become a human magnet that pulls mana from everyone's veins and hurls it like a destructive bomb.
His eyes fell on my gushing bleeding and my staggers that portended the end, and his features changed completely.
I saw a ghost of true anxiety invade his face, as he advanced toward me with a swiftness that no one had ever seen from him.
I reached out my hand in a final attempt to hold onto consciousness, but my powers betrayed me at the decisive moment.
The world went dark around me, and I fell into the abyss of fainting, and before the shattered ground could receive me and sink the marble fangs into my body, I felt his strong arms catching me, his body containing me amidst the dust of the collapsed hall.
I sank into the darkness, and the last thing I sensed was his accelerating heartbeat, and the sound of his disturbed breaths as he whispered my name above my head.