The Academy no longer felt like a place of learning.It felt like a chessboard.And we were all pieces being moved by hands we couldn't see.
Since our return, the Council of Scholars had gone from background figureheads to silent puppeteers. Their presence loomed like a storm cloud over the campus. The once-bustling courtyards now pulsed with whispers and sidelong glances. Students walked in small groups, casting glances over their shoulders.
Something had broken.
And something else was crawling through the cracks.
Interrogations Begin
By the second day of our return, the Council made their move.
They didn't come for me or Kieran.
They went for Darian Voss.
The summons came publicly—right in the middle of class. Two high instructors entered the alchemy hall during a lecture and whispered to the professor. Darian stood up before they even called his name.
His expression was unreadable. But his eyes met mine before he left.
There was no arrogance. No smug grin.
Just understanding.
He knew exactly what this was.
Later that night, Kieran returned from a shadowing operation he'd conducted near the Council chambers.
"They're digging," he said, pulling off his cloak. "Hard."
"Darian?" I asked.
"Holding up. But they're using magical probes now. Trying to trace memory fragments—force him to recall forbidden information."
I clenched my fists. "He doesn't even know anything."
"Not the point," Kieran said. "They think he might. That's enough."
Elara paced the room. "So what do we do?"
"We keep quiet," I said. "And we move faster."
Because it wouldn't be long before the Council's attention turned to us.
Whispers in Stone
While the Academy watched the Council tighten its grip, I focused on my training.
Divin Force wasn't like mana. It didn't respond to will or pressure—it responded to intention.
Every night, I returned to the hidden chamber beneath the Academy, sometimes with Kieran, sometimes alone. The blade from the ruins remained sealed inside a crate beneath the floorboards, but its presence could still be felt—a dull hum in my chest whenever I stepped near it.
And then, one night, something changed.
I was standing alone, trying to expand my use of Displacement when the floor beneath my feet pulsed.
Literally pulsed.
Like a heartbeat.
Startled, I knelt and pressed my palm to the stone. For a long moment, there was nothing. Then—
Boom. Boom. Boom.
I blinked. Not sound. Not mana.
Something deeper.
I pressed harder—and that's when I felt it. A ripple. A current of Divin Force running beneath the chamber floor.
Something was buried here.
I called Kieran immediately. He arrived twenty minutes later, barely out of breath.
"I felt it," he said, kneeling beside me. "It's an anchor line."
"A what?"
"A tether. The same kind of energy that supports ancient seal runes. Only this one is… older."
I looked at him. "You're saying it's not from the Academy?"
"No," he said, rising slowly. "I'm saying the Academy was built on top of it."
Beneath the Academy
We didn't sleep that night.
Instead, we dug.
Using both Divin Force and mana to shape the earth, we peeled back layers of stone until we uncovered a spiral staircase made of obsidian and silver, untouched by time.
The air that rose from it was cold. Still. And filled with the scent of something long buried.
Kieran glanced at me. "You ready?"
I nodded. "Let's find out what the Academy's been hiding."
We descended slowly, the stairs winding deep beneath the school. The glow from our enchanted lanterns dimmed the further we went, as if the light itself didn't want to follow us.
At the bottom of the stairs, we reached a door made of smooth, dark metal, inscribed with runes I didn't recognize.
But they responded to me.
The moment I stepped forward, the runes glowed faintly—then vanished.
The door creaked open.
The Chamber of the First Path
The room was vast—wider than any lecture hall, shaped like a perfect circle. The walls were lined with glowing crystals, and the ceiling shimmered with projections of stars I had never seen.
But what caught our attention was at the center:
A raised platform. A pedestal.
And on it…
A book.
Bound in metal. Locked with a shifting sigil.
Kieran stepped forward, cautiously. "I've seen a diagram of this once. In a scroll that was supposedly destroyed."
"What is it?" I asked.
He looked back at me. "A Pathway Codex."
The word struck something in me.
I stepped closer. The sigil on the lock flickered when I approached. It didn't reject me.
It welcomed me.
"You can open it," Kieran said, his voice tense. "But be careful. If this is what I think it is, then it contains a link to something beyond even Divin Force."
I nodded once.
Then, I placed my hand on the lock.
The First Glimpse
The sigil unraveled, and the book opened.
Not with a creak or flutter—but with a pulse, like a ripple in reality itself.
The pages weren't written with ink. They were etched with symbols that rearranged themselves as I watched.
And in the center of the book, engraved on a circular disc, was a single phrase written in perfect Common:
"Pathway of the Endbringer – Stage One: Witness."
The moment I read it, the world shifted.
I wasn't in the chamber anymore.
I stood in a void of color and sound. Flashes of stars collapsing. Planets breaking apart. Titans made of thought and belief rising from oceans of molten reality.
And at the center—A single figure.Masked. Cloaked.Holding the same blade I now carried.
It looked at me.And spoke with my voice.
"You are late."
Torn Between Two Selves
I staggered back into the real world, the book closing itself with a final hiss of light.
Kieran caught me before I fell.
"What did you see?" he asked, breathless.
"I saw… me," I whispered. "But not me."
"Another version?"
I nodded. "Or the same version, caught between timelines."
Kieran's expression was grim. "That confirms it, then. These ruins… this codex… they aren't just relics."
"They're checkpoints," I finished. "Anchors left behind by something—or someone—trying to guide the next Endbringer."
"And it's not just prophecy," Kieran said. "It's a choice."
I looked at the blade again. The whispers had grown louder.
The Harbinger was on the move.
But so was something else.
Something older.
Something inside me.