CHAPTER 330: THE CRACKS

The corridor opened into a wide atrium where the warm morning sun poured through the stained glass. The colored light scattered across the marble floor, painting everything in soft hues of red, gold, and violet.

Normally, it would have been a welcome sight, a peaceful transition from the tense training arena, but Merlin felt his senses sharpen rather than relax.

"Something’s still wrong," he murmured, almost to himself.

Elara’s eyes flicked to him. "You mean aside from us seeing you fight ghosts in a simulated forest?"

Merlin allowed a faint smirk. "Yes. There’s a residual distortion in the air. The Cabal didn’t just touch the simulation, they left a thread. A trace. Subtle, but detectable."

Nathan frowned. "You mean like... a trap?"

"Not exactly. It’s more like a marker," Merlin explained. He paused, letting the golden glow of his mana swirl faintly around his hands. "They want to track us. Or at least me."

Liliana’s grip on her water orbs tightened. "Then what do we do?"

Merlin considered. They couldn’t just ignore it; the trace was active, subtle enough that normal detection spells wouldn’t register it, but powerful enough that anyone trained in layered illusion or distortion would notice.

It was a test of patience, of perception. And if they followed it blindly, the Cabal could strike anywhere.

He turned to the group. "We stay together. We move slowly. Every action we take leaves a footprint—they’ll notice it, and we’ll be ready."

Adrian raised an eyebrow. "Sounds simple in theory, complicated in execution."

"It’s not complicated," Merlin said sharply, his golden eyes scanning the atrium. "It’s meticulous. And mistakes cost more than just pride."

Sera’s ice shard glinted as she crossed her arms. "And what if they escalate? If they send someone or something to test us again?"

Merlin looked at her calmly. "Then we respond. Together. We’re all capable of more than a single illusion can measure."

Dorian, who had been silent at the back, leaned against a column, his red eyes glinting with focus. "I hope they do. I want to see their full strength."

Elara stepped closer to Merlin, lowering her voice to a quiet murmur. "Don’t underestimate them. They won’t fight fair."

"I never do," Merlin replied, a small curl of a smirk appearing on his lips. "I just make sure they regret it."

The group began moving again, this time with more purpose. Every step was calculated, each breath measured, their senses stretched to pick up the slightest anomaly in the air.

Even the sunlight filtering through the glass felt like a potential vector, a medium through which subtle mana distortions could travel.

As they walked, Merlin’s mind raced. The Cabal’s presence, though indirect, meant they had an inside connection, someone manipulating the academy’s systems, perhaps even instructors who were unaware. Their abilities were growing, yes, but they couldn’t rely solely on strength. Strategy, anticipation, and unity would be critical.

A flicker of movement caught his peripheral vision, a shadow that didn’t belong. Merlin’s hand instinctively formed a soft aura shield, barely perceptible but enough to react if anything tried to breach the circle of the group.

"Did you see that?" Liliana whispered, her voice tight.

Merlin nodded once. "Yes. Keep moving. Don’t react until I say."

They continued through the atrium and into the inner halls of the academy, each corridor twisting slightly, almost as if the architecture itself responded to their movement.

It was disorienting, subtle enough that it felt normal at first, but Merlin’s enhanced senses picked up the unnatural alignment.

"This isn’t normal construction," he muttered under his breath. "Someone’s modifying the flow of mana in the building itself."

Nathan’s eyes widened. "So even the academy is compromised?"

"Not exactly," Merlin said, shaking his head. "Just certain areas. Enough that we can be observed without realizing it."

Elara’s hand brushed against his arm, steadying him as if sensing the weight of his thoughts. "And you can feel it because...?"

Merlin exhaled slowly. "Because I’ve seen these patterns before. In the Cabal’s simulations. The way they redirect ambient mana, how they seed traces that only the trained, or extremely sensitive, can detect. They’re clever, but predictable if you know what to look for."

The group reached the training courtyard, sunlight breaking through the arches in stark angles. Merlin paused, sensing the air more acutely here. A faint pulse, like the heartbeat of hidden machinery, emanated beneath the stone.

"They’ve left something here," he said, stepping forward cautiously. "Something designed to be found—or triggered."

Nathan tightened his grip on his daggers. "So we find it before it finds us?"

Merlin nodded. "Exactly. We need to uncover it, understand it, and ensure it doesn’t compromise anyone else."

Sera’s frost shard shimmered in the sunlight. "And if it’s dangerous?"

"Then we neutralize it," Merlin said simply. His eyes flicked toward the others, each of them resolute. "Together. That’s the only way we survive this. And I promise—we will survive this."

A soft hum began beneath the stone tiles, subtle but insistent. Merlin’s eyes narrowed, golden threads of mana rippling around his arms as he stepped forward.

"Stay close," he instructed. "And keep your eyes open. Whatever the Cabal left behind, we’re going to find it first."

The group moved in unison, their steps silent but deliberate, threading through the courtyard like a single organism, fully aware that every motion, every breath, was being observed, calculated, and perhaps anticipated.

The challenge had only just begun, and Merlin could feel the weight of the Cabal’s expectations pressing down, but now, he wasn’t facing it alone. Not with Nathan, Elara, Adrian, Liliana, Dorian, Ethan, and Sera by his side.

They had become more than classmates. They were a shield, a force, and a family forged in the fires of simulated death and real danger alike.

And when the first trap, or first clue, revealed itself, Merlin would be ready. Not just to survive, but to strike back.

The hum grew louder, pulsing in rhythm with Merlin’s heartbeat. The first of the Cabal’s hidden mechanisms stirred beneath the stone. And the hunt, long overdue, had truly begun.

The hum beneath the courtyard tiles intensified, vibrating faintly through the soles of their boots. It wasn’t loud, not enough to startle an average student, but the pitch was deliberate, engineered to slip under conscious attention and worm its way into instinct.

Merlin felt it immediately, the way the mana threads tightened like a snare, gathering at a single focal point beneath the courtyard’s center.

"Circle up," Merlin ordered quietly.

The group didn’t hesitate. They formed a tight ring, weapons ready, eyes scanning for movement. The courtyard was deceptively peaceful: sunlight pooling across pale stone, the faint rustle of leaves in the nearby garden, the distant hum of academy life.

But the air was wrong, bent in subtle angles as though space itself shifted around them.

Dorian knelt and pressed his palm against the tile. "There’s an anchor sigil under this layer. Very shallow. Someone implanted it recently."

Sera stepped beside him, frost coiling gently around her fingers. "How recently?"

Dorian exhaled. "Hours. Maybe less."

Liliana swallowed hard. "So they were here. In the academy. Today."

Nathan tightened his grip on his blades. "Then what are we waiting for? Let’s pull it out."

"Wait," Merlin said sharply.

Elara shifted her stance without needing further explanation, instinctively bracing.

The hum changed again—no longer a pulse, but a vibration fractured into two layers. A lure and a detonator.

"They want us to grab it," Merlin continued. "Because it’s not just an anchor. It’s a trigger. A relay point. If touched directly, it activates the entire thread they’ve left behind."

Ethan groaned. "Why do they always have to make everything complicated?"

Adrian cracked his knuckles. "So how do we disarm it? Smash it? Burn it? Freeze it?"

Merlin stepped forward until he was at the exact epicenter of the vibration, golden-and-silver mana swirling around his arm.

"We don’t disarm it," he said. "We trace it."

Elara blinked. "Trace it where?"

"To whoever left it."

The group stiffened.

"Can you actually do that?" Nathan asked, startled but hopeful.

Merlin’s eyes sharpened. "Normally? No. Cabal threads collapse the moment you try to read them. But this one is sloppy, rushed, unstable. Probably because they weren’t expecting someone like me to be here."

Sera raised a brow. "Someone who can tear illusion constructs apart with brute mana?"

Merlin didn’t smile, but the corners of his mouth twitched faintly. "Something like that."

He knelt, placing his hand just above the tile without touching the anchor itself. Thin threads of corrupted mana rose like smoke. The air darkened around his fingers, the trace responding instantly to the pressure of his presence.

The anchor shivered.

Nathan instinctively stepped forward, but Elara caught his arm, shaking her head.

Merlin whispered something under his breath, a command woven in pure mana, and the anchor sigil lit up in response, pale violet, fractured, twitching like a heartbeat on the verge of breaking.

A voice drifted from the tiles.

Faint. Distorted.

But unmistakably directed at him.

"Everhart... you see too much..."

Merlin’s jaw tightened.

"Show yourself," he said softly.

The tiles cracked. Just barely—hairline fractures spreading like veins.

Liliana’s breath hitched. "Merlin—stop. It’s destabilizing."

"That’s the point," he murmured.

The cracks widened, and the sigil flared violently. A ripple blasted outward, passing harmlessly through the others, but slamming into Merlin’s mana like a hook sinking into flesh—trying to latch, trying to burrow deeper.

"I’ve got it," Merlin muttered, eyes blazing. "I just need—"

The anchor folded. Not exploded, not vanished—folded, like a piece of paper wrinkling into an impossible shape. The courtyard flickered. For a heartbeat, the world around them dimmed, replaced by a flash of an entirely different location.