CHAPTER 102: DATE RUINED [5]

Lyrium’s body swayed, his legs finally giving in.

The air still crackled faintly, traces of the entity’s power fading like dying embers.

Darcyroix moved fast, catching him before he hit the ground.

The boy’s body was hot to the touch, feverish from the mana backlash.

Darcyroix’s gaze lingered on Lyrium’s face, pale, sweat-drenched, yet eerily calm even in unconsciousness.

His own expression was unreadable.

"You’ve gone and overstepped again, haven’t you?"

He murmured, his tone caught between irritation and fascination.

"Even on the verge of collapse... you still try to surpass the laws that define you."

He brushed a bit of dust from the boy’s collar.

"Tell me, Lyrium Blackwood... what exactly are you becoming?"

Before the words could fade, a sudden boom split the air.

Water vapor swirled through the ruins, condensing with precision into a humanoid silhouette.

The temperature dropped instantly, not freezing, but sharp, disciplined, the kind of cold that cuts thought before it cuts flesh.

Darcyroix didn’t need to look back.

"You’re late, Shirone."

The figure solidified.

Professor Shirone stood at the edge of the broken arena, his coat wet from the condensation, his eyes carrying that faint glacial stillness.

But beneath that stillness, wrath simmered.

"Darcyroix,"

Shirone’s voice was steady, but his mana wasn’t.

The water around him pulsed with each syllable, trembling with suppressed intent.

"The Council traced the mana distortion here. I didn’t want to believe it was your work again."

Darcyroix finally turned his head slightly, one corner of his mouth lifting.

"Ah... so I’m the convenient villain again. How predictable."

"Predictable?"

Shirone’s tone hardened, his gaze shifting briefly to the unconscious Lyrium.

"A student nearly annihilated, half the district’s barrier fried, and you standing in the middle of it all? You think the Council’s suspicion is unearned?"

The air between them began to tremble.

Mana currents collided invisibly, heat and moisture reacting, creating faint ripples of distortion.

Darcyroix’s smirk faded.

His voice dropped low, quieter but heavier.

"If you think I caused the distortion, then perhaps you’ve already chosen not to see. I didn’t summon that entity, Shirone. I was studying it. Trying to understand the anomaly before it tore your precious Academy in half."

"And it just happened to appear where you were stationed,"

Shirone snapped, his calm cracking.

"Always the same excuse, observation. Always a trail of corpses and chaos wherever your curiosity takes you."

Darcyroix’s eyes narrowed.

The faint shimmer of lightning flickered along his fingertips, a silent warning, nothing more.

"Careful. You’re not talking to one of your subordinates now."

"And you’re not standing before one of your students,"

Shirone replied coldly.

His mana surged, water pooling at his feet, spiraling upward like a living serpent.

"You’re standing before a Sage of the Council."

The tension thickened until the air felt like glass on the verge of shattering.

Every breath, every sound was swallowed by the raw pressure of two top-class beings teetering between logic and violence.

Darcyroix tilted his head, amusement briefly flashing across his face.

"So this is how it is, then? You barge into a battlefield, see one survivor, and draw your conclusions? How... efficiently shallow of the Council’s lapdog."

The veins in Shirone’s temple twitched, his control wavered for the first time.

"Say that again, Darcyroix."

"Why? So you can justify your anger? You’ve always been like this... mistaking certainty for truth."

The mana pressure spiked, droplets froze midair, lightning veins cracked across the ground.

For a moment, the world itself seemed to hold its breath.

Then,

"Professor Shirone..."

The voice was weak.

Both men turned.

Lyrium’s eyes had barely opened, faint, tired, but burning faint blue beneath his lashes.

"He... didn’t cause it..."

Lyrium rasped, voice trembling.

"That entity... was something else. He... saved me."

Lyrium had to lie about it but it was still true that Darcyroix hadn’t cause it. But Lyrium lie about Darcyroix saving him.

A long silence followed.

The tension dissolved just slightly, like fog receding under sunlight.

Shirone’s mana ebbed away, the water around him collapsing to the ground in a quiet splash.

He exhaled, sharp, controlled.

"...You’re lucky the boy woke up,"

He muttered. Then, quieter,

"You always are."

Darcyroix chuckled, brushing his coat sleeve.

"Luck has nothing to do with it, old friend. Only timing."

Shirone gave a sidelong look, his eyes narrowing faintly, suspicion hadn’t left him, but his hostility had cooled.

"The Council will still want answers."

"And they’ll get them,"

Darcyroix said smoothly, glancing down at Lyrium again.

"In due time. But first, this one needs rest. He’s... more important than they realize."

The words lingered like the aftertaste of a storm, heavy, prophetic, and just vague enough to unsettle.

Ting—!

Shirone’s watch flickered as a message, and as he reads it for some seconds.

Then he click his neck back and said,

"I need to get back to the academy, and go to hospital fast!"

*****

The echo of boots and hurried footsteps filled the hall.

Darcyroix’s coat trailed behind him like a dark wave as he strode down the pristine corridor, Lyrium still limp in his arms.

His head tilted slightly to one side, eyes sharp, as though calculating every second that passed between heartbeats.

Mana surged faintly around his fingers, not to heal, but to stabilize, to keep Lyrium’s soul from splitting under its own pressure.

The hospital staff froze the moment they saw him.

Reality warped slightly in his wake, lights flickering in intervals.

He didn’t need to speak, his presence carried enough authority to send the entire emergency division scrambling.

"Emergency ward. Full isolation chamber. Right now,"

He said, his tone quiet, but the air itself obeyed.

Within seconds, the wide hallway transformed into a storm of motion.

Healers rushed forward, medics activated floating sigils, runes glowed faintly on the floor as the barrier sealed behind them.

The mana detectors began to scream.

A shrill, mechanical sound, beep-beep-beep-beep, each one climbing in frequency until the noise was no longer distinct, just one high-pitched shriek that rattled the glass.

Darcyroix placed Lyrium on the medical sigil bed.

His breathing was shallow but steady, his veins faintly illuminated under his skin like threads of lightning that refused to rest.

A doctor wearing enchanted goggles leaned over him.

"What... what in the gods name,"

Another technician interrupted, voice panicked.

"The readings ! It’s, it’s looping! His vitals aren’t stabilizing, they’re accelerating!"

"Accelerating?"

Darcyroix repeated softly, his tone curious.

"How fascinating."

He leaned slightly closer, observing the monitor.

Every symbol representing Lyrium’s mana circulation had broken apart, spiraling into patterns that shouldn’t exist, recursive sigils that generated more sigils.

"It’s not supposed to do that,"

Whispered a nurse.

"His heart, his heart’s trying to synchronize with the mana field."

"At what rate?"

Darcyroix asked.

"We... we can’t calculate. The instrument stopped registering at eight thousand beats per minute before it shorted out."

"Then use another."

"We did!"

The nurse’s hands shook.

"Every reading device burns out before it finishes a single cycle!"

Darcyroix straightened, hands clasped behind his back.

His voice remained calm, but his eyes glimmered with a faint, analytic fascination.

"So... his heart has transcended the speed of its own measurement."

He chuckled softly.

"You always did like breaking the limits, didn’t you, boy?"

The glass of the containment chamber vibrated, faintly at first, then violently.

Blue sparks began to scatter in the air, dancing above Lyrium’s body like living lightning.

The healers stepped back instinctively.

The lead doctor shouted,

"We can’t get close! His body’s emitting... some kind of mana shock! It’s rejecting external healing attempts!"

"Then stop trying,"

Darcyroix said, eyes narrowing.

"You’ll only make it worse. Let the energy settle. It’s not rejection, it’s evolution."

For a moment, silence fell.

Only the soft hum of medical wards remained.

Darcyroix turned his head slowly toward the glass wall separating the treatment room from the observation deck.

Because he could feel it, that dense, overwhelming aura approaching the building.

Each step was deliberate, heavy, and filled with suppressed rage.

"He’s here."

The air grew denser with each heartbeat.

The doors at the far end of the corridor burst open with a sound that silenced the hospital floor.

And then, Henry Blackwood entered.

He didn’t need to announce himself.

His mana presence did it for him.

Every light flickered; every spell rune dimmed.

He stood tall, easily over six feet, with broad shoulders wrapped in a heavy dark coat.

His eyes, sharp as steel, scanned the corridor once, and the world seemed to fall quiet under the weight of his glare.

Behind him, the late evening wind followed, carrying dust and faint sparks of static.

"Darcyroix,"

He said, voice calm, too calm.

"Step away from my son."

Darcyroix didn’t move.

His eyes glinted with the faintest trace of amusement.

"Ah. I wondered how long it would take before you arrived."

"You knew I would."

"Of course I did."

Darcyroix tilted his head slightly, smirking.

"You’re predictable in your unpredictability, Henry."

Henry’s steps echoed as he approached, the faint hum of suppressed mana resonating in every step.

"Don’t test me. Not here. Not when my son’s on the edge of, whatever this is."

"I’m not testing you."

Darcyroix’s voice was quiet, unreadable.

"I’m observing him."

"Observing?"

Henry’s tone sharpened.

"You call this observing?"

He pointed at the room, the shaking walls, the trembling air.

"You brought him here on the verge of collapse. His body’s rejecting the laws of mana itself, and you stand there like a scientist admiring a fire you caused."

Darcyroix chuckled lowly.

"Caused? No, Henry. The fire was always there. I merely watched it ignite."

Henry’s expression darkened.

For a brief moment, the corridor shivered.

The mana around him coiled like a beast ready to strike.

Nurses froze. Healers stepped back.

Even the lights dimmed.

Darcyroix didn’t flinch.

He raised his head slightly, meeting Henry’s gaze with the calm detachment of someone who’d already calculated every possible outcome.

"You really think I’d harm him?"

Darcyroix said softly.

"After all... I’ve been waiting to see what he becomes."

"You’ve been waiting?"

Henry’s voice was low, dangerous.

"For what? For another experiment gone wrong? For another monster you can study?"

"No."

Darcyroix’s eyes hardened.

His tone lost all amusement, replaced by a rare flicker of sincerity.

"For someone who can surpass both you and me."

The words hung in the air like thunder.

Even Henry froze for half a breath, then exhaled, his jaw tightening.

"Don’t talk about surpassing me when my son’s lying between life and death."

Darcyroix looked past him, toward the room.

Lyrium’s heartbeat was still visible on the cracked monitor, not slowing, not rising, simply existing in a state that should’ve been impossible.

"Life and death..."

Darcyroix murmured.

"You’re still thinking in binaries. That’s your flaw, Henry. Always has been."

"And your flaw,"

Henry shot back,

"is that you think you’re above them."

The air trembled again.

Two top sages, one of the old era, one of the new, facing each other in silence that could tear the world if it broke.

Emily Theodeus arrived just then, her voice sharp and composed.

"Enough."

The tension froze midair, the two men turning slightly.

"The council’s already watching the situation,"

She continued.

"If either of you unleash your egos here, the hospital will collapse before the boy even wakes."

Darcyroix gave a faint, almost polite smile.

"Ah, Headmistress. Always the voice of reason."

Henry didn’t look away from him.

"Reason? If he dies,"

"He won’t,"

Darcyroix interrupted.

Everyone turned to him.

His voice was quiet, steady, absolute.

"He won’t die,"

He repeated.

"He’s rewriting what it means to live."

He turned his gaze toward the room again, where Lyrium’s body pulsed faintly with light.

"You’re witnessing a new threshold, Henry. The boy isn’t dying. He’s evolving beyond the limits you and I spent lifetimes defining."

Henry didn’t reply, but his fists slowly unclenched.

His eyes softened, only slightly.

Through the glass, the light flickered again, brighter now, as if responding to their words.

For a fleeting second, Lyrium’s heartbeat echoed audibly, not through the monitor but through the walls themselves.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

Slower this time.

Calmer.

Darcyroix smiled faintly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"See? The storm listens."