CHAPTER 293: EXPERIMENTS (1)

The room erupted in light and chaos.

Mana bolts tore through the air, shattering glass pods and filling the space with hissing vapor. Merlin raised a hand, space twisting, the projectiles vanished inches from his face, reappearing harmlessly against the far wall. In the same motion, lightning arced from his palm, catching one of the attackers square in the chest.

Elara lunged forward, her spear spinning in a blur of motion. Each strike sent a pulse of earth mana rippling through the ground, cracking the floor beneath their enemies’ feet. She moved like flowing stone, steady, deliberate, and utterly unstoppable.

Merlin ducked beneath a burst of energy, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Wind gathered at his heels, amplifying his speed. He slammed his palm into another guard’s armor, releasing a compressed burst of lightning that sent him flying backward into a wall.

Within seconds, the fight was over.

The last guard fell, smoke rising from his armor. Silence returned, broken only by the low hum of the still-active core.

Elara turned, breathing hard but steady. "We need to go. Now."

Merlin nodded, glancing once more at the unconscious student. "He’s coming with us."

Together, they lifted him and headed for the exit, but before they could reach the stairs, the lights flickered again.

A new voice echoed through the intercom.

Calm. Male. Cold.

"You shouldn’t have come here, Mr. Everhart."

Merlin froze. His blood ran cold.

The voice was familiar.

Elara looked at him sharply. "Who is that?"

He didn’t answer. His golden eyes darkened.

The intercom clicked once more.

"I told you once, the wolves bite back."

Then the floor beneath them rumbled, a massive surge of mana charging from the core room behind them.

Merlin’s instincts screamed.

"Move!"

He grabbed Elara and the student, and in one instant, space bent, the entire world folding in on itself as they vanished in a flash of blue light.

Behind them, the factory exploded.

A column of violet fire tore through the night sky, painting the clouds with smoke and ruin.

When the world stabilized again, they were several blocks away, crouched in an alleyway overlooking the burning district.

Elara coughed, clutching her ribs. "What... was that?"

Merlin didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the flames in the distance, jaw clenched tight.

Invoke.

The Veil.

And that voice.

He knew it.

He had read it once before.

"...Damien," he muttered.

Elara turned toward him. "What did you say?"

He looked at her, his eyes reflecting the firelight, sharp, cold, burning with purpose.

"An old friend from the wolves’ den."

The city outskirts were quiet again.

Too quiet.

The faint scent of smoke drifted through the morning air, mingling with the acrid bite of scorched metal. The factory’s ruins still smoldered in the distance, twisted beams clawing at the gray sky, walls half-collapsed, embers pulsing like dying stars.

Merlin sat on a chunk of broken concrete, his head bowed, the wind brushing through his hair. His uniform was torn across the shoulder, a thin streak of blood drying down his arm. Elara stood a few feet away, speaking softly with the others who’d arrived late from the academy, instructors, security mages, and a handful of healers.

But even as they moved and spoke and tended to the wounded, the air around them felt... still.

Like everyone was waiting for something to break.

The rescued student, a second-year boy named Cale Rynne, sat nearby, wrapped in a blanket. He looked pale and shaken, his eyes hollow, staring into nothing.

Merlin glanced toward him.

’He’s still in shock,’ he thought. ’...Or trying to forget what he saw.’

Cale had been in the center of the kidnapping ring, chained in a room that smelled of rust and damp concrete. When they’d found him, the walls had been marked with ritual lines, half-complete, half-faded. Someone had been trying to use him for something. But what exactly, Merlin still didn’t know.

[System: Traces of mana corruption detected in Cale Rynne’s bloodstream.]

[Source: Human Arcane Modifiers – Unregistered variant.]

[Note: Estimated success rate — 12%.]

Merlin exhaled through his nose. ’So it’s true... they were experimenting on students.’

He didn’t like that thought. It twisted something deep in his gut, not just anger, but unease. Because in the novel, this organization had always stayed on the fringes. They were scavengers, smugglers, criminals pretending to be visionaries. They never came this close to the academy.

Not this early.

Elara’s voice broke through his thoughts.

"Merlin," she called, her tone calm but edged. "You should let the healers look at that shoulder."

He looked up at her, meeting her violet eyes.

"...It’s fine," he said quietly.

She frowned. "You’re bleeding."

He glanced at the small cut, barely more than a scratch now that it had sealed. "It stopped."

Elara stared for a heartbeat longer before sighing softly and kneeling beside him anyway. She took a small vial of salve from her belt and dabbed it across his arm without asking permission.

Her touch was gentle, efficient, but not cold.

"You have a bad habit," she murmured. "Pretending you’re made of steel."

"...And you have a bad habit of ignoring when I say I’m fine."

"I’m used to it."

He smiled faintly at that, but his gaze drifted past her shoulder, toward the ruins again.

The wind picked up, scattering ash through the air.

Elara followed his line of sight. "You think they’ll come back?"

"No," Merlin said. "They’ll run deeper underground now. But they won’t stop."

"Then we find them again."

He looked at her then, really looked. Her violet eyes held that same unflinching certainty that always startled him. She spoke like the world would bend if she pushed hard enough. And maybe, for her, it would.

"...You sound sure," he said softly.

"I am." She stood, straightening her cloak. "Because people like that never stop until someone makes them."

Merlin rose too, brushing the dust off his hands. "Then we’ll make them."

Elara gave a faint nod, then turned toward the instructors who were finishing cleanup. The last of the fire suppression sigils dimmed, leaving only the sound of boots crunching over debris.

Cale’s voice broke through, quiet and uneven.

"...Why?"

They both turned to him. The boy was trembling slightly, his knuckles white as he clutched the edge of the blanket.

"Why would they do that?" he asked, his voice raw. "They kept saying something about ’breaking the balance’ I don’t even know what that means."