Chapter 84
While Nille fought, trained, and uncovered hidden truths deep within Sector 11, the rest of the academy students continued their own hunts across Sector 6.
For most of them, the day was still part of a structured academy exercise, an opportunity to earn points, gain experience, and prove themselves against real Malignants under instructor supervision.
The atmosphere across the open grasslands remained tense after the Kobold retreat. Smaller battles continued erupting as roaming Malignants emerged from deeper regions drawn by blood and spiritual residue left behind from earlier combat.
Among the first-years, several students had already begun standing out.
There was Alice, a seventeen-year-old exchange student from Canada who specialized in crossbow combat. Unlike traditional ranged users, Alice combined spiritual energy with precision engineering, allowing her enchanted bolts to pierce through reinforced Malignant hides with surprising efficiency.
Nearby, Diallo from Africa fought using curse-based spiritual techniques. At only eighteen years old, his control over layered hex patterns already made many first-years wary of him. Rather than overwhelming enemies directly, Diallo weakened them slowly through accumulated spiritual deterioration.
Naveen from India fought differently from both of them. Calm and composed, the eighteen-year-old earth user manipulated terrain itself during battle, raising stone barriers, creating unstable footing, and trapping smaller Malignants beneath compressed rock formations.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Lin Yue Meiying from Class Section A1 moved gracefully through combat using wind manipulation. Though only sixteen, her mobility was exceptional. Her attacks were light and difficult to predict, allowing her to strike quickly before retreating out of reach.
Close behind her was Xu Lian, a support-type spiritual user whose abilities focused on stabilization and recovery. She lacked offensive power compared to others, but her ability to regulate spiritual exhaustion during prolonged fights made her invaluable in group engagements.
Mika Arai specialized in barriers and reinforcement techniques. Unlike offensive shamans, Mika's role centered around defense, strengthening allies while creating temporary protection zones during dangerous encounters. Several younger students had already avoided serious injury thanks to her quick reactions.
Among the newer arrivals was Trần Hữu Khang, a first-year transfer student from Vietnam.
Unlike many students seeking attention through flashy techniques, Khang remained unusually quiet during the hunt. Even standing still, his presence carried a strange density, as though something beneath the surface remained constantly active.
At only Level 3, most students overlooked him.
But the few third- and fourth-year students paying close attention noticed something unusual.
Khang's movements lacked hesitation.
His breathing remained controlled even during dangerous encounters.
And unlike inexperienced students overwhelmed by fear, his eyes constantly observed the battlefield as though calculating far more than simple survival.
Meanwhile, the older students continued leading deeper hunts into Sector 6. Third- and fourth-years coordinated group formations, handled larger Malignant threats, and demonstrated why the academy considered them more combat-ready than the lower classes.
Yet despite the controlled structure of the exercise, few of them realized how close they had come earlier to walking directly into a war between realms, or how one hidden first-year student had already prevented a disaster none of them even knew existed.
While Nille fought, trained, and uncovered hidden truths deep within Sector 11, the rest of the academy students continued their own hunts across Sector 6.
For most of them, the day was still part of a structured academy exercise, an opportunity to earn points, gain experience, and prove themselves against real Malignants under instructor supervision.
The atmosphere across the open grasslands remained tense after the Kobold retreat. Smaller battles continued erupting as roaming Malignants emerged from deeper regions drawn by blood and spiritual residue left behind from earlier combat.
Among the first-years, several students had already begun standing out.
There was Alice, a seventeen-year-old exchange student from Canada who specialized in crossbow combat. Unlike traditional ranged users, Alice combined spiritual energy with precision engineering, allowing her enchanted bolts to pierce through reinforced Malignant hides with surprising efficiency.
Nearby, Diallo from Africa fought using curse-based spiritual techniques. At only eighteen years old, his control over layered hex patterns already made many first-years wary of him. Rather than overwhelming enemies directly, Diallo weakened them slowly through accumulated spiritual deterioration.
Naveen from India fought differently from both of them. Calm and composed, the eighteen-year-old earth user manipulated terrain itself during battle, raising stone barriers, creating unstable footing, and trapping smaller Malignants beneath compressed rock formations.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Lin Yue Meiying from Class Section A1 moved gracefully through combat using wind manipulation. Though only sixteen, her mobility was exceptional. Her attacks were light and difficult to predict, allowing her to strike quickly before retreating out of reach.
Close behind her was Xu Lian, a support-type spiritual user whose abilities focused on stabilization and recovery. She lacked offensive power compared to others, but her ability to regulate spiritual exhaustion during prolonged fights made her invaluable in group engagements.
Mika Arai specialized in barriers and reinforcement techniques. Unlike offensive shamans, Mika's role centered around defense, strengthening allies while creating temporary protection zones during dangerous encounters. Several younger students had already avoided serious injury thanks to her quick reactions.
Among the newer arrivals was Trần Hữu Khang, a first-year transfer student from Vietnam.
Unlike many students seeking attention through flashy techniques, Khang remained unusually quiet during the hunt. Even standing still, his presence carried a strange density, as though something beneath the surface remained constantly active.
At only Level 3, most students overlooked him.
But the few third- and fourth-year students paying close attention noticed something unusual.
Khang's movements lacked hesitation.
His breathing remained controlled even during dangerous encounters.
And unlike inexperienced students overwhelmed by fear, his eyes constantly observed the battlefield as though calculating far more than simple survival.
Meanwhile, the older students continued leading deeper hunts into Sector 6. Third- and fourth-years coordinated group formations, handled larger Malignant threats, and demonstrated why the academy considered them more combat-ready than the lower classes.
Yet despite the controlled structure of the exercise, few of them realized how close they had come earlier to walking directly into a war between realms, or how one hidden first-year student had already prevented a disaster none of them even knew existed.
Nille slowly opened his eyes as faint light filtered through the small dorm window.
For several seconds, he simply lay there without moving.
His entire body still felt heavy.
Even after sleeping, dull soreness lingered across his muscles, especially around his arms, ribs, and shoulders where Eruko's strikes had landed repeatedly.
Nille quietly exhaled while staring at the ceiling.
He had never experienced such an exhausting spar before.
Not even during previous hunts.
At first, he wondered why the fatigue felt so overwhelming compared to his earlier battles. But the more he replayed the fight in his mind, the clearer the answer became.
Eruko's fighting style was completely different from anything he had faced before.
The Ogre wasted almost no movement.
Every strike was direct.
Efficient.
Heavy.
Eruko did not rely on flashy techniques or excessive motion. Even his footwork was minimal, conserving stamina while maximizing force behind each attack.
Meanwhile, Nille had been doing the exact opposite.
He relied heavily on agility, rapid movement, constant repositioning, and repeated bursts of spiritual energy to avoid being overwhelmed. Against weaker enemies, that style worked well.
But against someone like Eruko, it drained him far too quickly.
The Ogre had forced him to continuously move, dodge, counter, and react without ever allowing him proper recovery time. Every missed step consumed stamina. Every forced evasion burned energy.
And worst of all, his attacks lacked enough concentrated force to permanently damage Eruko's regenerating body.
Nille slowly sat up from the bed, rubbing his face tiredly.
Now he finally understood what Eruko meant about spiritual flow.
Nille had been fighting efficiently for survival, but not efficiently for endurance.
Eruko, despite his massive body, controlled his energy and physical movements with frightening discipline.
Nothing was wasted.
Every action had purpose.
Meanwhile, Nille's fighting style still leaked too much stamina and spiritual energy during prolonged combat.
Nyx quietly spoke inside his mind.
"You finally noticed it."
Nille gave a tired smile.
Because for the first time, he realized strength was not only about speed, power, or techniques.
Sometimes, the deadliest fighters were not the fastest or strongest, but the ones who wasted neither movement nor energy.
Nille woke up around 10 PM.
The dorm room was quiet except for the faint sound of rain tapping lightly against the window. His body still ached from the fight with Eruko, but the exhaustion was no longer unbearable.
Slowly sitting up from the bed, Nille rubbed his eyes before quietly asking,
"What happened during the hunt?"
Nyx immediately responded from within the Celestial Cloth.
"Many students were wounded, but there were zero fatalities."
Nille relaxed slightly hearing that.
Nyx continued.
"The hunt officially ended around 5 PM."
"Several students gained significant points from the Sector 6 operation."
A brief pause followed before Nyx added,
"Lin Yue Meiying has officially entered the academy bulletin board rankings."
That caught Nille's attention immediately.
The academy rankings were highly competitive, especially for first-years. Reaching the bulletin board meant a student had finally gained enough recognition and achievement points to stand out publicly among the academy population.
Nille quietly took out his phone and checked the updated rankings.
Sure enough, Lin Yue Meiying's name had appeared on the lower section of the board.
For someone her age, that alone was already impressive.
After staring at the screen for a moment, Nille opened his messages and sent her a simple text.
"Congrats on reaching the rankings."
He hesitated briefly before adding another line.
"You did well today."
After sending the message, Nille leaned back against the wall quietly.
For the first time all day, things felt… calm.
Nille sat quietly in his dorm, his thoughts drifting farther than the walls around him.
He missed Granny Amparo.
More than he usually allowed himself to admit.
In his mind, he returned to the small space where he often sat beside her tumba-tumba chair the place where she would rock slowly while giving him advice. She was never overly complicated in her words. Always direct. Always grounded.
When Nille was confused, she did not overanalyze things.
She simplified them.
When he made mistakes, she corrected him firmly, but never without care.
And when he got hurt or took unnecessary risks, she would always get upset first… then worry afterward.
That memory settled deeply in his chest.
Unknowingly, something within him responded.
The Celestial Cloth reacted.
A subtle resonance unfolded, connecting his spiritual awareness to something beyond the normal layer of perception.
The mirror realm.
Far away, beneath the protection of his land, the Kinabalu Worm had already altered the soil and spiritual flow of his small territory. Over time, fairies and elemental spirits had settled within it, turning the once simple space into a living, blooming ecosystem anchored to a mirrored spiritual layer.
Within that hidden reflection of his land, the Dalisay Fairy Clan had built their presence.
A shimmering overlap between reality and the mirror world formed inside Nille's indoor warehouse farm.
At the center of it all, Apo Bagani's protective enchantments still held strong, reinforcing boundaries and discouraging unwanted human intrusion. The land itself now behaved like a guarded sanctuary.
Even Lualhati, who could maintain her human form longer than most of her clan, often handled interactions with curious neighbors who wandered too close.
And in that moment, the connection stabilized.
A hazy, smoky distortion formed in front of Nille.
Like a window made of warm fog.
Through it, he saw it clearly.
Granny Amparo.
Sitting calmly on her tumba-tumba chair, just as he remembered.
Natty passed through the scene, floating casually with a basket of eggs in hand, moving between structures of the fairy settlement. Other Dalisay fairies crossed the periphery, their movements light and busy as they continued their daily tasks.
The mirror realm was alive.
Real.
Connected.
Nille instinctively reached forward, his hand touching the fog-like barrier. It felt warm—not solid, but comforting, like pressing against memory itself.
Natty suddenly flew back into view, then froze mid-air.
Her eyes widened.
"Nille?!"
Startled, she nearly dropped the basket before quickly stabilizing herself.
At almost the same time, Lakay rushed into the scene, his presence heavier, more grounded. His expression shifted immediately when he saw Nille standing there through the mirror veil.
For a brief moment, even he seemed unsure how to react.
Nille himself was equally stunned.
He hadn't traveled through any gate.
He hadn't activated a known portal.
Yet here he was, seeing his land's mirror reflection as if it had always been open to him.
Even Nyx remained silent, unable to immediately explain the phenomenon.
Behind Lakay, Lualhati arrived next.
The moment she saw Nille, her expression softened instantly.
Without hesitation, she crossed the space and stepped directly into view of the mirror connection. Her voice carried warmth and relief.
"Apo…"
She reached forward through the haze and, as the boundary briefly aligned, she managed to embrace him.
The sensation was strange, half physical, half spiritual, but real enough to feel like home.
"You're back…" Lualhati said softly. "We were worried. The land felt your absence differently today."
Around them, the Dalisay fairies began murmuring in confusion and curiosity.
"What happened to him?"
"Why is his presence , feels like this?"
"He feels… stronger."
"No, different."
"Like he crossed something he shouldn't have crossed."
Even Lakay remained silent, watching carefully.
His gaze was heavy.
Observing.
Measuring.
Not fear, but uncertainty.
Because something about Nille had undeniably changed.
His spiritual presence was denser now.
More layered.
Less purely human.
Finally, Lakay turned slightly and spoke in a low tone.
Lakay did not speak directly to Nille. Instead, his gaze shifted slightly past him—toward the space beside the mirror connection, as if sensing something deeper layered behind the scene.
Slowly, he reached into his garment and pulled out a small pendant.
It was old, simple in design, but clearly well-kept.
A gift from Maruha.
A token she had given before Lualhati once traveled to Nille's land to repay a debt. It carried a faint spiritual imprint, enough to act as a link between siblings even across layered realms.
Lakay held it tightly for a moment.
Then he called out again, his voice firmer this time.
"Maruha…"
A pause settled over the mirror realm.
Even the fairies nearby grew quieter, sensing the shift in atmosphere.
Lakay's expression did not change much, but his grip on the pendant tightened slightly.
"Sister… come here."
As the words left his mouth, the air within the mirror realm subtly reacted.
The blooming land, the fairy dwellings, even the soft flow of spiritual energy across Nille's indoor farm, all of it shifted in a faint but noticeable way, as if something deep within the land had acknowledged the call.
Not alarm.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The mirror boundary in front of Nille shimmered again, the hazy fog-like surface rippling more intensely than before.
The connection felt less like a window now, and more like something that had just been noticed from both sides.
Nille stood frozen for a moment, unable to fully believe what had just happened.
He had not used any known gate, ritual, or structured portal to return home.
Normally, entering a Mirror Realm required very specific conditions. A person could not simply open one freely whenever they wanted. The connection depended on spiritual resonance, location, and an existing anchor tied to the supernatural world.
In simple terms, a Mirror Realm could only be reached if someone was close to an area already connected to it, or if a supernatural being helped synchronize the spiritual frequency needed to create a temporary passage.
That was why this situation confused Nille so much.
His land had already become partially connected to the supernatural because of the Kinabalu Worm, the Dalisay Fairies, and the spiritual ecosystem growing there. Over time, the area developed its own mirrored layer anchored between realms.
At the same time, Nille himself carried multiple supernatural connections within his body, the Celestial Cloth, the Dragon Heart, Nyx, and now the emotional resonance tied to Granny Amparo.
All those factors unknowingly aligned at once.
His longing to see Granny Amparo, combined with the spiritual anchor of his land and the evolving nature of the Celestial Cloth, accidentally synchronized with the mirror frequency connected to his home.
In short, Nille did not intentionally create the passage.
And yet, he had crossed into the mirror realm of his land as if distance itself had briefly stopped existing.
But deep down, he knew better than to assume it was that simple.
His thoughts drifted back to something far more personal.
A memory he had left behind in his grandmother's room.
Granny Amparo's small space had always been sacred in its own quiet way. A devout Catholic, she kept a simple makeshift prayer altar where her novena books, rosary, and a small pendant were carefully placed. It was a space filled with quiet faith and routine, something stable in a life that often felt uncertain.
Nille suddenly made a decision.
Without explaining much, he quietly excused himself from the mirror connection and walked toward her room.
There, he carefully retrieved the pendant.
He held it for a moment, his expression steady but thoughtful.
To him, it was not just an object.
It was part of her.
And as a shaman, Nille understood something important, objects deeply tied to a person's life, especially those with strong emotional or spiritual grounding, could serve as anchors for connection beyond death or distance. They carried residue, memory, and resonance that could sometimes be used to reach deeper spiritual layers.
He also understood something else.
If the disturbance he had just triggered truly connected multiple realms, then the Two Deans would almost certainly notice it. Entities capable of bending or perceiving time would not ignore such an anomaly. To them, fluctuations like this were not accidents—they were signals.
So if anything, this kind of reaction would be expected.
Carefully, Nille secured the pendant and made his way back to where the mirror connection had first appeared.
When he arrived, the hazy fog-like rift was still there, shimmering faintly as if waiting for him.
He took a breath.
"I need to go back."
His voice was calm, but firm.
The moment he stepped forward, the air distorted again.
At that instant, Maruha appeared at the edge of the warehouse, just long enough to see him clearly.
Without hesitation, she threw something through the air toward nILLE
A ring.
It spun through the haze toward Nille as she called out urgently,
"Nille! Take this, it's an artifact! We can use it to communicate!"
Nille reacted quickly, catching it mid-air just as the portal destabilized further.
The moment his fingers closed around the ring, the mirror rift collapsed around him.
As soon as Nille returned to his dorm, he immediately put on both items—the ring Maruha had given him and Granny Amparo's necklace.
The moment the necklace rested against his chest, he felt a faint warmth spread through his body. It was subtle, almost comforting, but enough to steady his thoughts.
Then he waited.
Nille knew the island's security systems were no joke. The academy did not simply monitor students, it monitored space itself. Spatial distortions, unstable spiritual frequencies, and unauthorized dimensional fluctuations were considered serious anomalies.
And what had just happened?
That was far beyond normal.
A spontaneous mirror-realm connection appearing inside the academy grounds would absolutely attract attention.
The Twelve Elders would likely notice it.
The Two Deans as well.
Especially beings capable of manipulating or perceiving time-related disturbances.
Nille quietly sat on the edge of his bed, remaining alert while the dorm stayed silent around him.
After several minutes passed, he finally spoke to Nyx.
"Check if security teams are being deployed near this area."
Nyx responded immediately.
Through her partial integration with the Celestial Cloth and the island's spiritual infrastructure, she extended a connection toward the academy's isolated communication network. Unlike ordinary systems, the island operated through a hybrid structure, part technology, part spiritual transmission.
Nyx quietly filtered through available activity.
Surveillance alerts.
Instructor communications.
Security movement logs.
Yet strangely, nothing immediate was happening.
No emergency lockdown.
No rapid-response deployment.
No direct investigation toward his dormitory.
Which only made the situation feel even stranger.
Meanwhile, as Nille continued waiting in silence, he unconsciously held Granny Amparo's necklace tighter in his hand.
And without realizing it, something around him subtly changed.
The necklace faintly pulsed once beneath his fingers.
Not with visible light.
But with resonance.
The ring Maruha had given him reacted as well, briefly syncing with the spiritual frequency lingering around the necklace before both artifacts became quiet again.
Nille never noticed it.
Exhaustion finally began overtaking him once more.
The constant battles, emotional strain, spatial distortion, and repeated spiritual overuse had already pushed his body and mind too far for one day.
Eventually, while still sitting against the wall near his bed—
Nille slowly drifted back to sleep.
While Nille slept peacefully inside his dorm room, the pendant resting against his chest faintly shimmered beneath the darkness.
At first, the glow was almost impossible to notice.
A tiny pulse.
Soft.
Warm.
Then, slowly, a small speck of light emerged from the pendant itself.
No larger than a firefly.
The glowing fragment hovered quietly above Nille for several seconds, as though observing him. The room remained silent except for his slow breathing.
Then the light drifted upward.
Without sound, it passed through the closed dorm window as if the glass did not exist at all.
Outside, the academy grounds were calm beneath the night sky. Security lights illuminated pathways while distant patrol drones silently monitored the outer sectors of the island.
Yet the tiny glowing speck avoided all of it effortlessly.
It moved with purpose.
Not randomly.
As though guided by instinct or memory.
The light crossed over rooftops, towers, training fields, and elevated walkways before descending toward older regions of the island few students ever visited. It slipped through narrow vents, broken drainage tunnels, abandoned maintenance shafts, and forgotten underground corridors buried beneath layers of modern construction.
The deeper it traveled, the older the island became.
Ancient stone walls appeared beneath the academy foundations.
Collapsed tunnels.
Ruined chambers covered in faded symbols no longer taught within the academy itself.
The speck floated through underground ruins that looked centuries old, remnants of structures far older than the institution standing above them.
Yet it did not stop.
It continued descending.
Level after level.
Past sealed gates.
Past hidden elevators.
Past reinforced steel doors humming with spiritual energy barriers.
The environment slowly changed.
The ancient ruins gradually gave way to modernized underground facilities.
Metal replaced stone.
Artificial lighting replaced torches.
Surveillance systems lined the corridors.
Some areas resembled laboratories.
Others looked military.
Highly advanced spiritual machinery operated behind thick reinforced glass, powered by systems far beyond anything ordinary students knew existed beneath the island.
The glowing speck silently moved through it all.
Undetected.
At one point, it drifted through a massive underground chamber containing layered rings of machinery surrounding what appeared to be a colossal suspended structure deep beneath the island itself.
The place radiated overwhelming pressure.
Ancient.
Artificial.
Alive.
Yet even there, the tiny spark only paused briefly before continuing deeper.
Further down, the underground structures became stranger.
The architecture no longer resembled human design entirely.
Some sections looked fused together between advanced technology and ancient spiritual craftsmanship. Thick cables intertwined with engraved pillars. Metallic surfaces carried old runic markings. Spiritual energy flowed through transparent conduits like rivers of light.
And beneath it all—
something enormous seemed to sleep.
The glowing speck quietly wandered through narrow cracks and hidden passages surrounding these lower depths, almost like it was searching for something it could not fully remember.
Several times, security systems reacted faintly.
A sensor flickered.
A monitoring device distorted briefly.
Yet nothing managed to properly detect the tiny light.
Eventually, after reaching the deepest accessible layers beneath the island, the glowing speck finally stopped.
It hovered silently in darkness for several moments.
As though listening.
Waiting.
Searching for something that was not there.
Then, without warning, it simply turned around.
The small spark retraced its path upward through the underground layers, passing once more through ancient ruins, hidden facilities, forgotten chambers, and reinforced structures beneath the academy.
Back through tunnels.
Back through walls.
Back toward the surface.
Hours later, the glowing speck finally returned to Nille's dorm room.
The tiny light floated quietly near him as he slept before slowly lowering itself back toward the pendant resting against his chest.
But instead of returning fully inside, the spark simply settled near something warm ... and furry