Not physically—though dragging a half-conscious body across cracked bone-glass terrain wasn't exactly light work—but emotionally. It was the weight of silence.
Of unanswered questions. Of fear wrapped in the shape of someone who was never supposed to fall.
Nathan gritted his teeth and pulled harder.
Elara walked ahead, scouting every shadow, spear drawn and gleaming.
Her expression hadn't changed once since they found him collapsed on the ground—blood on his neck, eyes half-lidded, mumbling nonsense.
He hadn't woken up yet.
Just brief flickers of awareness—eyes fluttering, mouth twitching like he wanted to speak. But nothing coherent.
Not even his mana was responding right. It pulsed wrong under his skin, like it wasn't just depleted, but poisoned.
'What the hell happened to you…?'
Nathan crouched for a moment and adjusted Merlin's arm over his shoulder. "Hey. You're supposed to be the one who knows what's going on," he muttered. "Remember?"
Elara glanced back. "We need to move faster."
"Right," Nathan said. "I'll just summon a flying chariot real quick."
Because she wasn't joking.
Because they were still in the unknown.
Nathan could feel it now.
Not just the corrupted mana. The way the land breathed, pulsing like a lung under their feet. The way distances shifted when you blinked. The way the shadows whispered if you stared too long.
Now they were being watched.
They'd been watched since they found Merlin.
Elara said nothing, but Nathan knew. She moved differently—more tightly coiled. Her stance was ready to strike at anything, even the wind.
"I think," he said softly, "we should stop pretending we're not screwed."
Elara didn't disagree.
Ahead of them, the terrain dipped. A shallow ravine—broken pipes and ancient machinery half-buried in the dust.
Nathan crouched again, setting Merlin down against a piece of rusted steel. His friend didn't stir.
He exhaled, wiping his forehead with a sleeve.
Elara kept her eyes on the path.
"…He's not stable," Nathan said, quieter now. "His mana's wrong. Whatever did this to him—"
"He's alive," Elara cut in.
"That's enough for now."
Nathan looked at her.
And that was how he knew she was scared too.
"…Okay," he said. "Then what's the plan?"
Too light to be natural.
Nathan spun, hand going to his dagger. Elara was already in front of Merlin, spear lowered.
But nothing was there.
The ravine was still.
"…Did you feel that?" Nathan asked.
Then she whispered, "We're not alone."
A shadow flickered at the edge of the ruined slope. Something pale. Barefoot.
Nathan's blood ran cold.
For a moment, just a moment—he thought he saw something.
Long white hair. A thin frame. Too thin.
Nathan's throat tightened. "That… was a girl, wasn't it?"
But her grip tightened on her spear.
Merlin stirred behind them.
"…Hey. Merlin? You with us?"
Merlin's eyes cracked open.
Nathan blinked. "What?"
Merlin's hand twitched toward Keryx. His eyes were still unfocused.
But his voice came clearer.
And that's when the ravine shook.
A presence—massive, overwhelming—descended like a curtain pulled across the sky.
Nathan's heart slammed into his ribs.
A shimmer of gold light burst across the field.
Hair like flowing starlight, blue as crushed sapphires, eyes white and cold as death. No seduction. No mischief. Just quiet, absolute power.
She stood between them and whatever else was in the dark.
Ash drifted through the air.
Nathan swallowed hard.
Merlin was still slumped, unmoving again.
Morgana didn't look at them. She stared into the void where the pale girl had vanished.
"…Handled," she said simply.
Then turned her gaze to Nathan.
But there was no warmth in it.
"You children," she said, "have no idea what you've stepped into."
'The hell is she even doing here?'
Nathan's mouth went dry.
And for once, he didn't have a joke.
The winds here weren't real.
They whispered like they were, howling across the ridge, weaving between stone and ruin. But Morgana knew better.
This wasn't air—it was mana, dying slowly, groaning through the bones of a world that should've never been born.
And the breath turned into a pulse. A wave of warding magic, rippling out from her boots and brushing away the ambient filth.
Behind her, the children watched in silence.
Elara stood poised, but her hands trembled. Nathan, for once, wasn't grinning. He crouched protectively beside the collapsed boy—Merlin Everhart, pale and bleeding, his mana frayed like splinters jammed under skin.
Morgana stepped toward them, heels crunching bone-dust.
"Don't speak," she said. "Not yet."
Nathan opened his mouth anyway. "You—"
She flicked two fingers.
The sound left his throat, but no words followed. His eyes widened. He pointed at his throat, panicked.
Morgana didn't flinch.
"You'll get it back. I just need one minute of silence."
Morgana knelt beside Merlin, her eyes tracing over the burns, the neck wound, the tangled mana like spiderwebs stitched with static.
But ishe hadn't finished.
That was the problem.
This wasn't just damage. It was marking. A predator's signature.
She pressed her palm lightly to Merlin's sternum. Her magic seeped inward—delicate, surgical. She traced the pathways of his core without disturbing them. He groaned faintly but didn't wake.
'Good. Let him sleep.'
His mana was stable—barely.
The signature that clung to him, however, made her expression tighten.
She'd killed the girl earlier.
And yet—something remained.
Like a breath in the back of the throat. A shadow behind closed eyes.
The sealing charm she whispered next had not been spoken in over a century. It bloomed across Merlin's chest in a slow-spinning web of runes—binding, purifying, anchoring.
But he would never be the same.
She turned to Nathan and Elara. Lifted her hand, and the silence melted.
Nathan immediately coughed. "Okay—what the fuck?"
"You're welcome," she said.
Elara stepped forward. "Is he—?"
Nathan looked down at Merlin. "…That's it?"
"No," Morgana said. "That's everything. And that's why you two are leaving. Now."
"We're not leaving without him," Elara said sharply.
"I never said you would."
A portal tore open in the air like silk being sliced. Gold light shimmered at its edges, humming with layered magic—a multidimensional weave, bound with leyline anchors and continent-bypass stabilization.
Nathan's jaw dropped. "That's not something they teach first-years…"
Morgana gave him a look. "They don't teach stuff at all."
He muttered, "Right. Of course."
The air behind them was already starting to shift. The corruption didn't like what she'd done. The demon continent knew she didn't belong—and it was trying to adapt.
She stepped back from the portal.
"Pick him up," she said. "Take him through."
Nathan hesitated. "And you?"
Morgana tilted her head. "I stay."
Elara's brow furrowed. "Why?"
"Because something worse is still watching," she murmured. "And it'll crawl out the moment my back is turned."
Nathan crouched, slipping his arm under Merlin's and lifting him slowly.
"Careful," Elara said quietly.
"I got him," Nathan muttered. "He's heavier than he looks, though."
Morgana stood at the edge of the gate as they crossed.
Just before they stepped through, Nathan turned his head. "Hey," he said, voice low. "That thing… Subject 0. What was she?"
Morgana looked him in the eyes.
The portal swallowed them whole.
Morgana turned, cloak shifting behind her, gaze locking onto the ruins where something still trembled beneath the surface. The air warped—twisting slightly, like something was trying to decide if it wanted to re-enter the world.
The portal snapped open again in the middle of a locked chamber. Nathan stumbled through, dragging Merlin's limp form with Elara following close behind.
The moment they stepped onto the tiled floor, the ambient hum of the Academy's barrier returned—familiar, soft, too clean.
Nathan dropped to his knees, easing Merlin onto the nearest bed.
Instructors rushed in seconds later, likely alerted by the spell signature.
Sophia was the first to arrive, coat half-on, eyes blazing. "What the hell—"
"Later," Elara snapped.
Nathan looked down at Merlin, still unconscious.
He didn't let go of his arm.
Not the kind that wrapped around you like a blanket, but the kind that settled inside.
That coiled between your ribs, burrowed into your lungs, and replaced your blood with ink.
Merlin floated in it alone.