CHAPTER 1058: MORE REAL

Adrius stood at the edge of the infirmary, his eyes sweeping slowly across the rows of beds.

The air was heavy with the sterile scent of medicine and faint traces of antiseptic. But behind that, he could feel the aura of Magic lingering in the room.

Erend and the others remained silent and let him take his time. They knew that in these moments every flicker of his attention meant he was studying, analyzing, and seeing something more than they could see.

His eyes glowed faintly blue. The subtle light sharpening as his sight extended beyond the normal scene.

He saw the bodies of the young men and women lying on the beds. They were soldiers, as Erend had told him.

Their physics were strong and their spirits just as resilient.

For an experiment of this magnitude they were indeed the right kind of candidates. But even so, their condition shows the marks of burden and injuries.

Through his Magical sight, Adrius could discern bruised threads of Magic energy in their bodies. Some of them were tangled and some others looked frayed.

Minor injuries run through their bodies like cracks in glass, while others have scars that would take time to be healed.

But crucially, there were no fatal breaks. Nothing irreversible.

Adrius exhaled softly, relief easing the tension in his chest.

"They’re fine," he said at last, his voice calm and steady with a small smole. "Nothing to be worried about. They just need time to recover."

The words lifted an unseen weight from the shoulders of Erend, Adrien, Billy, Jessica, Thomas, and Conrad. They let out a breath of relief.

They had already received analyses from the doctors stationed here, but none of them trusted those results entirely.

After all, these conditions were born from Magic injuries that the medical training and equipment in this world could fully understand and treat.

Having Adrius here, an Archmage with years of experience, gave their concerns a much-needed base to be relieved.

But then something happens in Adrius’s vision.

His gaze lingered at the far corner of the room, his eyes narrowing slightly.

For just a heartbeat he felt a flicker, as though the air itself shifted outside of reality’s rhythm. An energy that didn’t belong here blinked into existence and then vanished so quickly that anyone else would have dismissed it as imagination.

But Adrius was not a novice. His senses that were honed through countless years of discipline and danger did not lie.

But, he kept his expression calm for now. He did not speak of it yet. Perhaps it was nothing but a fluctuation of unstable Magic.

Or perhaps... It was something far more troubling.

Until he was certain, he would not spread this information in this room.

He smoothed his face back into its usual calmness and turned toward the group.

"I’ve seen enough," he said evenly. "We can return to the room before to discuss further."

Adrien nodded without hesitation. "Alright. Let’s move back."

Together they left the infirmary.

Adrius walked at Erend’s side, his expression tightening into something more serious now that he wasn’t being watched by the patients.

Erend caught his expression immediately. He knew that look.

"He saw something in that informary," Erend thought, his eyes narrowing slightly. "We need to know what it was."

Back in the meeting room, Erend closed the door firmly and locked it.

The quiet click of the lock seemed to sharpen the atmosphere.

Everyone took their seats, with Adrius settling into one of the chairs with upright and composed posture.

Adrien leaned forward, studying him carefully. "Do you have anything else to say?"

"Yes," Adrius replied. "But I don’t know if it is true or only my suspicion."

That alone was enough to stir anxiety among them.

The others shifted slightly in their chairs. Right now their curiosity was mixing with worry.

"What is it?" Adrien asked.

Adrius swept his gaze across all of them with sharp and measuring eyes.

"During this experiment... Have there ever been strange occurrences? Things you could not predict or events that should not have happened?" Adrius asked.

A heavy silence fell on the room. The six of them exchanged looks. Erend, Adrien, Billy, Jessica, Conrad, Thomas. Their faces carried the same unspoken acknowledgment.

And finally, Adrien exhaled and gave a single nod.

"Yes," he said. "Some strange things had indeed happening."

Adrius sighed, the weight in his chest deepening.

"Then what I saw in that infirmary is not just an illusion," he said.

Billy straightened in his chair and spoke, his tone terse. "What did you see?"

Adrius’s expression darkened.

"I saw a flicker of something beyond the reality of this world. It may have come from the spirit realm and leaking through and brushing against this place. If that’s true, it’s affecting the candidates," Adrius explained with heavy tone.

The room fell still. Erend’s jaw clenched, the knot of dread inside him tightening.

"So it really is true... the entity pulling strings behind the scenes hasn’t gone dormant. It’s still watching us." He thought. This entity really is watching everything all at once.

Adrius leaned forward slightly, his gaze sharp as steel.

"Tell me what strange things have happened? Not the ordinary, but anything truly abnormal," he demanded to all of them.

Erend exchanged a glance with Adrien before answering.

"There’s one candidate... his affinity with Magic was unnaturally high. As if he had already been exposed to it for years, even though this world shouldn’t have that. We accepted him anyway, thinking maybe he was our first true breakthrough and foundation in this experiment. At first, it seemed promising. He stopped showing irregularities and his progress leveled the same as the rest of them. We assumed he was just very talented."

Adrius’s brow furrowed, his mind already threading the pieces together. He nodded slowly.

"No. That cannot be a coincidence. It can’t be explained away so simply." His eyes grew colder. "Could it be... that this unknown entity is working through him?"

The silence that followed was filled with unspoken fear.

Adrius had already deduced what none of them wanted to admit.

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