CHAPTER 40
The air in the dungeon thickened with tension. Deep growls echoed through the chambers as Sorayael, Silas, and Marie found themselves surrounded by a horde of summoned beasts-fang-mawed hounds with bristling fur and spectral crows shrieking above them.
With her team perfectly coordinated, Sorayael moved like a storm, her silver hair flashing as golden eyes flicked from enemy to enemy. She chanted a rapid incantation, flames bursting from her palm, sweeping across the hounds. They yelped and scattered as fire bit into their flanks.
It was controlled chaos... until it wasn't.
A shift in the air. There was no sound.
Just a sliver of cold against her nape.
Before Sorayael could react, a shadow loomed behind her-humanoid, cloaked in wisps of black mana, face veiled in darkness. It reached forward in a blink.
But it was too late.
The shadowy figure seized her, a silent ripple tearing the space behind them as they vanished into it like ink spilling into water.
The dungeon fell into eerie silence.
Marie fell to her knees, clutching the scorched ground, trembling.
Silas clenched his fists, panic and fear etched on his face. "We lost her..."
In the observation chamber, the professors shot up from their seats, alarms flashing red as Sorayael's vitals blinked erratically on the screen.
Azi was no longer leaning. He had already bolted from his place, eyes wide, lips parted in disbelief.
The artificial dungeon slowly began to dematerialize around the other students as a booming announcement echoed through the entire training grounds:
"All students, evacuate the dungeon immediately. This is not a drill. A student has gone missing. Repeat, a student has been abducted. Return to the lobby now."
In the dungeon, Zarethian's group stood frozen at the sound of the announcement.
Zarethian's eyes widened. "What..?"
Celene looked pale. "A student's been... abducted?"
Before anyone could speak, Karsen's voice cut through, sharp and urgent. "Let's go. Now."
At the other end of the dungeon, Zacchaeus stumbled a little, glancing between Ravelia and Kieran, both of whom suddenly looked dead serious.
A dread settled in their chests before any answer came.
When they emerged into the lobby, the atmosphere was thick with panic. Professors buzzed around the arcane terminals, spell circles glowing everywhere as they tried to trace the signature of the rift that had taken Sorayael.
Zarethian's feet barely touched the ground as he raced to the front.
One of the professors turned to him gravely. "Sorayael Elaris."
The blood drained from his face.
Zacchaeus stepped up beside him, hands balled into trembling fists. "She was with Silas and Marie... How did no one notice something off before it happened?"
Kieran frowned deeply. "Where the hell were your surveillance spells?!"
Professor Caelum, head of dungeon operations, looked grim. "It bypassed every arcane ward we had. There was no signature, no trace. Whoever did this used something outside our scope."
The doors burst open. A man clad in flowing indigo robes with a blade slung over his back strode in, Headmaster Xiaven.
His gaze swept over the chaos. "Report. Now."
In the corner, hidden among the murmuring upperclassmen, Azi stood silent, eyes shadowed. His fists clenched so tightly his knuckles whitened.
He didn't say a word. But the fire in his chest had already started to burn.
Azi stood just beyond the marble archway, the noise inside now a distant hum behind the rush of blood in his ears.
He didn't speak nor didn't wait.
His eyes, once a calm oceanic blue, now rippled with a storm. A quiet rage swirled beneath them.
He pulled out a sleek, black comm crystal from the folds of his coat. "Activate silent protocol. Locate Sorayael."
There was a brief pause before a crisp, familiar voice answered, "Understood, Your Highness. Coordinates?"
He ended the call.
Azi looked up at the cloudy sky, exhaled quietly, and muttered to himself,
Then he vanished into the shadows of the corridor, his cloak flaring behind him.
............
Somewhere Unknown.
A distant drip echoed in the dark. The air was damp, thick with an old magic that coiled like smoke.
Sorayael stirred. Her head pounded, a dull throb in the back of her skull. She blinked slowly, golden eyes adjusting to the dim purple glow emanating from runes etched along the cold stone walls.
Where am I?
She tried to move, her wrists were bound by enchanted manacles, humming softly with anti-magic runes. Her legs, however, were free. Whoever took her didn't want her casting spells but didn't see her as a physical threat.
'Tsk'
They underestimated her.
Footsteps.
She snapped her head up. A shadow moved past the faint glow of the chamber's opening. A cloaked figure. Not monstrous-human in shape, but laced with something far darker. Older.
Sorayael narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?"
The man didn't answer.
Instead, he knelt just outside the faint circle of light and looked at her through a porcelain half-mask. "You... are quite the anomaly. Tell me, Sorayael Elaris.. do you know what's inside you?"
She stayed silent.
He tilted his head, watching her like one might observe a rare creature in a cage. "No matter. You will, soon enough."
She clenched her jaw. "You went through all this trouble just to say cryptic lines like a cliché villain?"
A low chuckle escaped the mask. "You're more spirited than expected."
The man leaned closer.
And with that, he vanished into the dark, leaving Sorayael alone with the hum of magic and the cold ache of questions she didn't yet know how to ask.
The chamber fell silent once more, save for the low thrum of ancient runes pulsing across the walls.
Sorayael tugged at the cuffs again. No use. The restraints burned against her skin, nullifying her mana every time she even thought of casting.
She closed her eyes and steadied her breath.
'Panic won't help. Think.'
Suddenly, a faint pulse rang in her ears, like a heartbeat that wasn't her own. *Thud. Thud.*
The runes along the floor began to shift.
Her golden eyes shot open just in time to see the markings spiral outward, reconfiguring into a pattern that was unmistakably summoning-based.
The ground beneath her began to glow, violently. Air whipped around her, tearing at her silver hair. A low growl echoed from within the forming sigil, deep, ancient, and wrong.
Something was coming.
Something that wasn't supposed to be here.
And as the shadows gathered once more, the man's voice echoed from the corridor, calm and cruel: