CHAPTER 323: SIMULATION (4)

Nathan and Elara shot forward shoulder-to-shoulder, perfectly in sync despite the chaos.

Nathan’s blade crackled with lightning—he didn’t even consciously summon it; adrenaline simply pulled the affinity out of him.

He cleaved through the first shadow.

It burst like a puff of black smoke.

Elara drove her spear straight through another, earth-reinforced tip shattering its torso with a shockwave that rippled the fog.

"Left!" she called.

Nathan pivoted, slashing twice more, sparks scattering.

"Got it!"

Dorian disappeared—

Not faded.

Not slipped.

Disappeared.

Even the fog didn’t know how to follow him.

A shadow lunged for Merlin’s back—

Dorian’s dagger slid out of the fog, catching the creature at the neck, bisecting it cleanly before dissolving back into nothing.

Another shadow swooped low at Liliana—

Dorian reappeared behind it, blade already buried in its spine.

"Stay centered," he murmured to Liliana. "The fog wants panic."

Liliana nodded, face pale but determined.

Adrian roared, swinging his battle axe in a wide arc that cleaved through three shadows at once.

"WHO WANTS ROUND TWO?!"

"Adrian," Ethan muttered, ducking under a claw swipe, "stop yelling or more will come."

"They’re ALREADY coming!"

Ethan sighed as though inconvenienced by existence itself, grabbed a shadow by the neck, and incinerated it in a burst of red flame.

"Fine. But if I die, I’m haunting you."

"No you won’t," Adrian grinned. "You’ll be too pretty a ghost to scare anyone."

Ethan stared at him. "Stop talking."

Merlin stood at the center, but he wasn’t idle.

No—

He was overwhelmed.

Not by fear.

By information.

Every shadow form that lunged at the group tugged at invisible threads he could feel—lines of mana connecting them not to the simulation...

...but to an outside puppeteer.

The Cabal wasn’t just hijacking the illusion.

They were feeding it.

Strengthening it.

Directing it.

They were searching for the fault.

Searching for him.

He could sense the moment a new presence entered the illusion—a mind like a cracked mirror, observing through a thousand shards.

And it focused entirely on Merlin.

"Everhart..." the whispers breathed.

"...show us why you should not exist..."

His pulse trembled.

Something inside him pulsed in answer.

A ripple of gold and blue lightning traced along his arm, visible even beneath his sleeve. It wasn’t a spell. It wasn’t conscious.

It was his aura reacting—

Unstable. Unpredictable. Wrong.

Elara noticed first.

"Merlin... your arm."

"I know," he whispered.

Nathan glanced back, eyes wide. "Dude—what—what are you doing?"

"Nothing," Merlin hissed. "That’s the problem."

The shadows sensed it too.

Every one of them twisted toward him in eerie unison, necks snapping grotesquely.

Dozens of empty faces aimed at him.

Then they lunged—

All of them.

The group tensed—

But before anyone could move—

The ground beneath Merlin flared gold.

Merlin’s aura burst outward in a shockwave.

Boom.

Fog evaporated.

Shadows disintegrated.

The forest floor cracked in a perfect circle around him.

Silence swallowed the world for half a heartbeat.

Everyone stared.

Even Elara.

Even Nathan.

Even Dorian’s mask of indifference fractured.

Liliana squeaked. "Merlin?? What was THAT?!"

Ethan blinked. "...you good, man?"

Adrian whistled. "That was awesome!"

Sera, ever analytical, whispered, "That wasn’t an affinity spell. That wasn’t even mana shaping. That was... raw core output. But no human—no student—should be able to—"

Merlin didn’t hear them.

He heard the Cabal’s voice.

Only the voice.

"Sunder the aberration...

Correct the path...

Everhart must be—"

Merlin stepped forward, eyes narrowing.

His voice was cold.

"Enough."

The fog froze.

Literally froze—tiny crystals forming in the air around them.

The Cabal puppet stuttered, form flickering.

Merlin’s aura rippled once—

And the entire illusion quaked.

The Cabal agent’s voice warped into static:

"...deviation confirmed...

...subject too stable...

...terminate—"

"No," Merlin whispered.

Lightning and wind surged around him like halos.

"You don’t get to decide that."

The fog creatures lunged in a final, desperate wave—

And the group moved as one.

The shadows lunged, forming a tidal wave of dark tendrils and warped bodies, but something had changed in the atmosphere.

It wasn’t fear anymore, or panic, or even desperate teamwork. It was resolve—raw and tangible—as every member of the group stepped up without hesitation.

Nathan and Elara burst forward first, intercepting the left flank. Nathan cleaved through the front-most shadow with a diagonal strike, lightning trailing off his blade like a glowing comet tail. Elara followed, spear thrusting with such precision that two creatures dissolved before they even fully completed their leap.

Their rhythm was so natural it almost looked rehearsed—Nathan’s aggressive momentum and Elara’s clean, surgical control blending seamlessly.

Behind them, Adrian barreled through the center line like a one-man avalanche. His battle-axe swung in heavy arcs, dispersing shadows with each impact.

Every creature that tried to flank him found itself blocked by Sera, who placed thin sheets of ice in their paths, redirecting their leaps so Adrian could cut them down in clean counters.

Liliana stood slightly behind Sera, hands trembling but controlled. Small spirals of water shot out one after another, swirling around teammates to either trip lunging shadows or blind them at key moments.

Fear was written on her face, but so was determination—she kept firing, even when her breathing grew shaky.

Ethan didn’t bother forming proper stances. He fought like he was bored with the whole scenario. Flames dripped lazily from his hands, melting through shadow-forms with casual flicks of his wrists. The creatures screamed as they evaporated in bursts of heat. He barely blinked.

Dorian moved where he was needed without a single wasted motion. One moment he was at Liliana’s side, intercepting a shadow about to strike her from above; the next, he was behind Merlin, slashing through an approaching tendril.

His expression stayed unreadable, but he was watching Merlin carefully, always returning to circle him like a silent guardian who didn’t want to admit he cared.

And in the middle of it all stood Merlin.

But he wasn’t fighting.

He was listening.

The fog didn’t just fill the space—it vibrated with intent, messages woven into mana like threads of venom. The Cabal agent controlling the illusions wasn’t entirely present, more like a projected consciousness, but the hostility bleeding through was unmistakable. Someone wanted him dead. Not the group. Not Elara or Nathan or the others.

Just him.

Even the shadows’ movements were telling; they passed by students if they weren’t blocking, tracking Merlin directly, snapping toward any space he moved.

Nathan realized it too. "They’re locking onto you—why?"

Elara drove her spear through another shadow and didn’t look away from Merlin when she spoke. "This isn’t normal. Who is targeting you?"

His throat felt tight. He couldn’t answer, not truthfully. Not without revealing things he could never reveal. But he didn’t have to lie—not when a new surge of pressure built in the air like a tightening fist. The fog churned, twisting into a cyclone before collapsing inward.

A single figure took shape from the mist, its form vague and constantly warping, like someone badly reconstructed from smeared charcoal. No face. No arms. Just a tall, humanoid silhouette made of black vapor and malice.

Nathan’s blade crackled. "That is definitely not Instructor Hale’s design."

Dorian stepped forward slightly, daggers angled just so. "It’s watching him."