'Some things seem to have changed.'
They were moving faster.
He muttered under his breath, "Damn it…"
Liliana stepped in front of him. "What are you not telling us?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Is it a cult or something?!"
Liliana didn't back off. "Merlin. You're clearly planning for something, and this—whatever this is—it's not supposed to happen! This place is supposed to be secure!"
His eyes snapped open.
She read the answer in his silence.
"Shit," she whispered.
The very air around the West Wing shuddered like glass beneath too much weight. And then came the sound—barely audible, but wrong.
Like something crawling between layers of the world. The way mana snapped when summoned violently. The way a soul fractured mid-ritual.
Students below in the courtyard started to look up. Confused. Uneasy.
The barrier lit up in jagged lines, runes flaring across the sky like lightning caught in glass.
'It officially begun.'
Liliana turned toward him again, voice low and firm. "Merlin. What do we do?"
He exhaled once. Cold. Sharp.
"…We wait thirty seconds."
A crash echoed across the far end of the field. The sound of wood splintering. A scream.
The breach had begun.
A scream cut through the courtyard like a blade.
One second, everything was still.
The next—shadows peeled themselves from the air.
Not metaphors. Not tricks of light. Real shadows. Living things that didn't belong to anyone, uncoiling from the cobblestones like thick, oily smoke. One of them lunged.
The student who screamed went down fast, a blur of movement and shriek and blood.
The alarm bell roared.
The wards turned crimson.
"Liliana," Merlin said flatly.
"I see it," she breathed.
The stairwell turned into a blur beneath their feet as they raced down, Merlin's coat snapping at his heels, Liliana right behind. He could feel her mana flaring, a quiet hum of defensive light building between her palms.
Below, chaos began to spread.
Adrian just stepped outside, tray in hand, laughing at something, when the barrier screamed. That's the only word for it. Like a metal scream across stone.
He turned on instinct—and dropped the tray mid-turn.
His eyes locked on the distortion ahead.
Figures—wrong ones—were bleeding into the world through cracks in the light.
He whispered, "What the fuck is happening..."
He reached for the dagger at his belt.
The grin on his face was gone.
Seraphina was with Ethan still in the dining hall.
She noticed the flicker before the bell rang. Her gaze shot up from her tea to the jagged rune lines flashing across the sky.
Then the scream hit as
She was on her feet in a breath, chair falling back with a thud. Calm, calculating, eyes already assessing.
"Ethan," she called without turning. "Get the younger students into the south wing. Now."
Ethan moved with a little bit of hesitation and concern on his face.
Dorian had been walking alone through the upper corridor, far from the noise.
His steps halted the moment the mana pulse hit his skin—like walking through a wall of cold oil.
His red eyes narrowed.
The sky cracked open.
He just adjusted the gloves on his hands and whispered something.
A thin layer of mana formed around his boots.
"Something is definitely not right," he muttered, already moving.
Elara had been in the arboretum.
When the barrier ruptured, the plants screamed. Not audibly—but to her, to an elf attuned to mana flow, it was deafening. The trees bent the wrong way. The flowers shriveled.
Then she turned, pale hair trailing behind her, and sprinted without a sound.
He was the last to register it.
The moment the scream hit, his fork froze halfway to his mouth. Then he looked up.
The window above him warped—twisted inward like the glass itself was afraid of what was coming through.
He rose slowly. The humor drained from his face. For once, he said nothing.
His hand found the runemark under his sleeve. His pulse thrummed.
Merlin and Liliana hit the bottom stair as a summoned creature tore through the west gate. Tall, lanky, limbs too long. Its skin shimmered, translucent but thick, dripping like melting glass.
Liliana's eyes widened. "Controlled?"
Merlin nodded once. "Barely. They'll lose control within the hour."
He flung his hand outward, a slicing sigil carving itself midair. "We hold the west stair."
Liliana's voice was quiet. "The others—?"
"They'll come, soon." Merlin said, jaw clenched.
He looked to the sky—crimson now. Cracking.
He muttered under his breath.
The courtyard was firelight and screaming.
A flare had gone up—one of the red ones.
The kind that shouldn't even exist inside the Academy walls.
His boots hit the stone steps as he sprinted from the stairwell, Liliana behind him.
They burst into the courtyard just as the first aberrant broke through the mana barrier—an emaciated thing, half-born from summoning smoke, eyes like wet coals, limbs stretching as if remembering how to be human.
Three students stood frozen before it. First-years. No more than children. One tried to cast, fumbled the sigil.
Merlin's voice was sharp
He didn't wait for them to obey.
Space magic surged at his heels.
Reappeared in a blink between the aberrant and the children.
'Feels better now to use my affinities.'
The rapier was already drawn.
His blade met the creature's neck with an electric crack—wind pressure burst outward from the strike, knocking the stunned students backward, giving them just enough distance.
She was already there—no words, no hesitation. Water curved around her fingers in a spinning helix. She raised her hand and drove it forward—
"Drown you dirty bastards."
The water spear struck the aberrant's chest, solidifying at the last second.
It howled—gurgling and wet—then buckled.
But not nearly enough.
Merlin turned just in time to see the summoning gate pulse again.
A second aberrant dragged itself through the smoke—this one taller. Arms too long. Mouth sewn shut. It ran.
Liliana grabbed the nearest first-year and shoved them behind her. "Get to the dorms. Go!"
But most weren't moving fast enough.
More portals opened—three.
Cracks in the air, stitched with sickly violet mana.
"Damn it," Merlin hissed.
A third aberrant burst through the south wall, dragging chain-links still glowing with summoning heat.
Then the others arrived.
Adrian didn't even slow as he entered the fray.
He jumped down from the second-floor ledge, landing hard enough to send dust up around him. No fancy spells.
Just a longsword already crackling with his mana—raw physical enhancement.
He swung upward in a brutal arc and cleaved the creature at the knees.
"I told you all this week was cursed!" Adrian shouted.
Ethan wasn't yelling. He never did.
He walked in slow from the east wing, eyes half-lidded. Looked at the carnage like someone watching a play he'd already seen.
He didn't smile. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever's happening, let's just get it over with."
Seraphina Alden arrived on the heels of a second red flare.
Her silver eyes locked instantly on Merlin—then the summoning gate—then the breach points.
She didn't speak. Didn't need to.
She raised her left hand, and summoned simultaneous ice walls protecting clusters of retreating students.
She met Merlin's eyes across the courtyard.
"You knew," she said coldly.
Merlin just replied, "Hold the middle."
She did as Merlin said.
Dorian and Elara appeared next—quiet as ghosts.
Dorian's expression was unreadable. His white hair caught the wind, red eyes glowing faintly. He drew a curved dagger but didn't strike yet—watching. Measuring.
Elara walked beside him like she belonged on another plane entirely. She lifted one elegant hand, and a veil of mana drifted across her shoulders.
Her earth barrier slipped between students and the south flank without a sound.
"Elara!" Liliana called.
Elara nodded once, curt. "I'm here."
Nathaniel came in last.
He wasn't running. Just moving fast enough to arrive.
His shirt was only half tucked in, his uniform jacket flapping open, and for a second it looked like he'd just wandered in from the wrong hallway.
But when his eyes landed on the chaos—the summoning smoke, the blood, the way Merlin was in front of everyone—his expression shifted.
That easygoing smirk faltered.
"This isn't a drill, is it."
Merlin didn't answer.
He was already moving again—mana lighting up around his legs, wind magic coiling under his boots for speed. He blurred forward, his rapier flashing—
The next aberrant had just turned toward a group of cowering students.
Merlin struck it low, then high—blade singing as lightning laced through the steel.
The aberrant spasmed and collapsed.
'Every one of the main cast is here now.'
Just called out loudly.
"Form a line. Get them out."
The battle had only just begun.