CHAPTER 337: THE ANCHOR

Merlin didn’t flinch. Not outwardly.

Inside, the words hit with cold precision.

Something is following us.

Not someone.

Something.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t reach for mana. Didn’t move even a millimeter—because reacting would only confirm whether the follower was a threat.

Morgana watched him with the stillness of a blade held just above skin.

"Don’t look," she murmured. "It will notice."

Her tone held a faint curve of amusement and warning, as if she expected him to ignore her just to prove something.

He didn’t.

"...What is it?" Merlin asked quietly.

"A distortion," Morgana said. "Old. Sloppy. Trying very hard to pretend it’s unnoticed."

She raised a single finger and traced a lazy circle in the air.

A pulse of violet mana rippled out in a perfect ring.

Something in the trees flinched—so subtly most mages wouldn’t have sensed it. A shiver in the foliage, a hitch in the mana flow, a faint scrape of a foot on bark.

Morgana sighed.

"It lacks manners."

Then she vanished.

Not teleported—merely moved so fast the forest couldn’t keep up. The shadows swallowed her, then spat her out twenty meters away, one hand fisted in something invisible. She pulled, and the air itself warped, rippled, then tore to reveal—

A figure.

Small.

Wrapped in a cloaking charm.

Breathing hard, pinned by Morgana’s fingers like a misbehaving child.

A student.

First-year.

Wide eyes.

Terrified.

He looked about twelve.

Merlin blinked. "He followed me?"

"No," Morgana said calmly. "He followed Elara."

The boy let out a panicked squeak. "I—I wasn’t! I just—she told me you were leaving and I—I thought—"

Morgana flicked her wrist and the charm around him dissolved like ash in water.

He yelped.

"My Headmistress, I swear— I wasn’t spying on you— I just— Elara told me to watch the trail in case—"

"Elara told you to watch?" Merlin said, more stunned than angry.

The boy nodded frantically. "She said she’d break my ribs if I followed you too close!"

Morgana’s brow lifted. "How considerate of her."

Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose. "She bribed a first-year to tail me."

"Threatened," the kid corrected immediately. "I got no money out of this."

Morgana tilted the boy’s chin up with one finger. "Go back. Walk. Do not run. Running draws attention."

The boy sprinted full speed into the trees.

Morgana lowered her hand. "...Children."

Merlin stared after the fleeing disaster. "Elara seriously—"

"Yes," Morgana cut in. "She did."

A small pause.

Then a faint smile ghosted across her lips—barely there, but real.

"She cares for you," she said simply.

Merlin stiffened. "This isn’t about—"

"But it is," Morgana said. "Connections. Attachments." Her voice softened in a way that didn’t match her expression. "They make you strong... and also easy to break."

He ignored the second half. He had to.

"Why summon me?" he asked, regaining control.

Morgana’s gaze sharpened instantly. The forest dimmed around them, mana drawing inward as if the trees themselves leaned closer to listen.

She stepped toward him—slow, deliberate, precise.

"When you demonstrated your resonance yesterday," she said, "you revealed something you should not have been able to hide."

Merlin tensed.

She continued.

"You’re building a core faster than nature allows. Faster than training allows. Faster than any Everhart has recorded."

Her eyes narrowed, silver glinting with something old and calculating.

"You’re growing too quickly."

She lifted her hand.

Mana wrapped around her fingers, not bright, not loud—subtle, dense, ancient.

"And that is not natural," she murmured. "Or accidental."

Her hand hovered inches from Merlin’s chest—not touching, but weighing, as if testing how much reality would bend around him if she pushed.

Merlin kept his voice steady. "What is it you think I am?"

Morgana’s smile returned—small, patient, terrifying in its certainty.

"Unfinished," she whispered.

"And becoming."

She stepped back.

"And I will not let you grow up in the dark, Merlin Everhart."

A beat.

Then her eyes hardened.

"Because something else is growing with you."

Merlin’s breath caught—not because he understood, but because Morgana’s tone carried a precision he had never heard from her before. She wasn’t theorizing. She wasn’t speculating.

She was stating a fact.

Something else is growing with you.

The forest went unnaturally quiet—no breeze, no birds, no mana movement except the faint pulse of Morgana’s presence. It felt as if the world itself paused to hear his response.

He didn’t give one.

Because he didn’t have one.

"...What do you mean?" Merlin asked carefully.

Morgana stepped past him, brushing the air in a gesture that was almost idle. Too idle. Shadows curled around her fingertips as if eager to answer before she did.

"I do not mean possession," she said. "If something were inside you, I would have carved it out already. I dislike parasites."

Merlin swallowed. "Comforting."

"You’re welcome."

She turned her head slightly, violet light flickering in her eyes.

"No, Merlin. What concerns me isn’t within you—it’s around you."

Cold ran down his spine.

"Explain."

Morgana gave him a look that bordered on fond exasperation. "Must you order me like I’m one of your classmates? In time. For now, listen."

She moved through the trees, not walking so much as gliding, and Merlin followed because... what else was he going to do? Defy her? Run? Yell? None of that would work—Morgana didn’t trap people with force. She trapped them with inevitability.

"You are strong," she said simply. "Stronger than a second-year, stronger than a normal six-star, stronger than I anticipated you being this early."

He didn’t answer.

"You are also accelerating," she continued. "Your structure is stabilizing at a rate that contradicts base theory. That should be impossible without an external catalyst."

Merlin’s jaw tightened.

The novel.

The plot.

Every threat he’d dodged, warped, or prematurely triggered.

He said nothing.

Morgana glanced over her shoulder, studying him without softness. "But the catalyst isn’t your mana. It isn’t your affinities. It isn’t even you."

She stopped.

Turned fully.

And her next words felt like a hand closing around his lungs:

"It is the world itself."

Merlin froze.

Morgana watched him like she expected that reaction—had been waiting for it.

"You’ve noticed it, haven’t you?" she murmured. "Patterns shifting. Events occurring out of order. People remembering things they should not. Scripts falling apart."

His heartbeat spiked at the word scripts.

She watched it. Felt it. Understood it.

And didn’t push—because she didn’t need to.

"The Umbershade Cabal should not have attacked this early," Morgana continued. "Nathan’s resonance should not have awakened until winter. Elara should not be this strong yet. Half of your classmates should be lagging behind."

She took a step closer.

"And you—"

Another step.

"—were not supposed to reach six-star until your third year."

Merlin found his voice. Barely.

"...How do you know that?"

Morgana smiled.

Not sharp.

Not cruel.

But knowing.

"Because I watched similar anomalies fourteen years ago," she said. "A distortion that appeared, grew, and consumed an entire trajectory before collapsing under its own weight."

Her eyes locked onto his.

"You are not the first ripple the world has produced, Merlin Everhart."

Silence slammed into the clearing.

He felt his pulse hammering in his throat.

"...What happened to the others?" he asked quietly.

Morgana lifted her hand, brushing dust off her sleeve with practiced elegance.

"They died."

A cold wind cut through the clearing, sharp enough to sting. Merlin felt every hair on his arms rise.

Morgana continued in that same calm, clinical tone:

"The world does not tolerate unscripted power. It attempts to correct it. Erase deviations. Force equilibrium."

Her gaze pinned him.

"But you," she said softly, "are not a ripple."

Her mana touched his, feather-light but undeniable.

"You are an anchor."

Merlin’s breath stilled.

"The world is adjusting to you, not the other way around."

That should have been reassuring.

It wasn’t.

Because if the world was adapting to him...

Everything he changed

Everything he prevented

Everything he accelerated

Every life he saved or altered—

All of it was feeding into something bigger than he could predict.

Something that was already watching him.

As if reading the direction of his thoughts, Morgana added:

"And whatever follows you—whatever grows around you—recognizes you as the fulcrum."

He turned toward her sharply. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Morgana said, stepping closer, voice dropping to a whisper, "that your presence is dragging something out of the dark."

Merlin’s stomach tightened.

"What is it?"

Morgana smiled without warmth.

"I don’t know," she said. "But I intend to."

Her mana coiled around him—protective, possessive, terrifying.

"And until I understand it... you do not walk alone."

Merlin stared at her, the weight of her words settling like frost on skin.

"You don’t walk alone," she’d said.

It sounded like protection.

It felt like a leash.

He took one deliberate step back. The forest floor cracked softly under his heel, a sound too loud in the hush she’d wrapped them in.

"I’ve been alone since the day I opened my eyes in this world," he said. Voice low, even. "I’m still breathing. I’ll manage."

Morgana didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The violet rings in her irises spun slowly, like wheels inside a lock that had already decided the combination.

"You mistake solitude for immunity," she answered.

"Whatever is tethered to you does not care how clever you are, Merlin. It only cares that you exist."