CHAPTER 286: EXAM (8)

As they reached a fork, Seraphina paused. "Captain." She pointed to the left passage, where faint scorch marks lined the wall. "This way."

Harlowe nodded. "Lead on."

Merlin followed behind, his senses extended. Something about the air felt wrong. Not dangerous yet, but wrong.

The group walked for several minutes in silence until Clara suddenly froze.

"Wait," she whispered. "I’m getting a reading—"

The air vibrated.

A deep, low hum rolled through the corridor, the kind that wasn’t sound but sensation. The torches flickered, and the faint blue runes on the walls dimmed, as though something were swallowing the light.

"Resonance surge!" Clara shouted, tapping frantically on her scanner. "It’s coming from—"

The floor beneath them pulsed.

Merlin reacted instantly. His body moved before thought, wind affinity swirling at his feet, stabilizing his stance. Nathan followed suit, shadows spreading from his hands, dampening the vibration.

A crack split the ground ahead. A moment later, a figure rose from the shadows, humanoid, but wrong. Its body shimmered like smoke trapped in glass, veins of crimson light pulsing beneath translucent skin.

Clara gasped. "That’s— that’s a conduit golem! But those were discontinued decades ago!"

"Not anymore," Merlin muttered.

The golem screeched, a sound like metal tearing.

Harlowe barked, "Form up! Nonlethal if possible—"

But before he could finish, the creature lunged.

Seraphina’s hands glowed with icy blue light, sharp shards of frost launching forward. Nathan’s dagger flashed, lightning crackling down its edge.

The golem slammed into the ground, scattering debris.

Merlin’s eyes narrowed.

The red veins pulsing in its body, they weren’t natural mana conduits. They were corrupted.

He raised his hand.

Wind surged, fast, silent, precise, slicing into the creature’s torso. The thing shrieked, stumbling back.

But as its arm cracked open, a spray of crimson mist burst out, and that mist began to move.

"Mana parasite!" Clara cried. "Don’t breathe it in!"

Nathan coughed, pulling his cloak over his mouth. "You’ve got to be kidding me!"

Merlin didn’t move. His golden eyes burned faintly as his space affinity pulsed around him, bending the air itself, forming a thin barrier that redirected the mist away.

The parasite mist hissed against the invisible wall, scattering harmlessly.

"Captain," Merlin said sharply, "that thing isn’t self-sustaining. It’s being controlled."

Harlowe’s eyes narrowed. "By who?"

Merlin pointed deeper into the tunnels. "That way."

The golem shrieked again, louder, more desperate. But now that Merlin was watching, he could see it: thin black threads of mana linking its body to something beyond the corridor.

"Found you," Merlin murmured.

He extended his hand.

Wind sharpened, not violent, but surgical. The connection threads snapped like strings under a blade.

The golem froze. Its crimson veins dimmed, then shattered in a burst of ash.

Silence fell.

Harlowe looked at him, really looked. "What the hell was that?"

"Interference," Merlin said simply. "Someone’s guiding these constructs remotely. Probably testing our response time."

Seraphina wiped frost from her fingertips. "You think this is just a test?"

"It’s what I’d do," Merlin said. "If I wanted to see how far I could push the academy before they noticed."

Clara exhaled shakily, clutching her scanner. "The mana reading’s stabilizing again... but it’s definitely artificial. The source is maybe a hundred meters ahead, down that path."

Harlowe nodded. "Then we keep moving. And this time, Everhart—"

"Yes?"

"Don’t get ahead of the team."

Merlin smiled faintly. "No promises."

They moved in silence for another ten minutes before the tunnel opened into a massive chamber.

Ancient machinery lined the walls, relics of an era long past. Rusted pipes, cracked mana crystals, and half-buried conduits that glowed faintly red.

At the center of the room, a single platform pulsed with unstable energy.

And beside it stood two figures in black cloaks.

Merlin recognized the emblem stitched into their sleeves, a jagged circle crossed by a vertical line.

The symbol of the Obsidian Veil.

The taller figure turned. Their voice was calm, almost polite. "The academy sends students to clean up its own mess? How quaint."

Harlowe stepped forward, weapon drawn. "You’re trespassing on academy grounds. Identify yourselves."

The cloaked man chuckled softly. "Names are for the living."

Merlin’s expression didn’t change.

He’d read this scene before, or something like it.

In the novel, this was the Veil’s first real appearance.

A "minor incident" that would foreshadow greater chaos years later.

But that was before he existed in this world.

This time, it wasn’t going to end the same way.

He stepped forward, the wind humming faintly at his back.

Nathan muttered under his breath, "Here we go again..."

Merlin’s golden eyes gleamed. "Yeah."

The air in the underground chamber was cold enough to sting the lungs.

Every sound, every heartbeat, every whisper of mana, echoed off the ancient stone walls. The faint red light pulsing from the damaged conduits made the shadows look alive, stretching and twisting like they were breathing.

The two cloaked figures didn’t flinch under the group’s approach.

Captain Harlowe stepped forward, blade drawn, a weapon forged from compressed crystal alloy, humming faintly with condensed heat. "Last warning," he said, voice low but sharp. "Identify yourselves and state your purpose here."

The taller figure tilted their head. "Purpose?" Their tone was smooth, amused. "Purpose implies permission."

The smaller one laughed, a soft, broken sound. "We don’t need permission. Only conviction."

Merlin’s golden eyes flicked between them.

He could feel it, faint ripples in the mana around them, subtle distortions that didn’t match any known affinity.

Obsidian Veil. That tracks.

In the novel, the organization specialized in mana corruption, the deliberate twisting of affinities to create unstable hybrids. It wasn’t power in its purest form; it was stolen, forced, infected.

He’d read that their first experiments began right under Starpower Academy’s old foundation.

It seemed history hadn’t changed much, but this time, Merlin wasn’t just reading it.

He was in it.

"Captain," Seraphina murmured, "their mana is... fragmented. Unstable."

"I see it." Harlowe’s stance shifted subtly, grounding himself. "Nathan, Alden, defensive formation. Wynn, stay back."

Clara swallowed hard and ducked behind a broken conduit.

Merlin didn’t move.

The taller figure, clearly the leader, looked at him now. "And you," he said softly, almost curious. "You reek of something else. Not academy-trained. Not refined. Raw. Familiar."

Merlin’s eyes narrowed. "...You’ve been watching the academy."

"Watching?" The man chuckled. "You make it sound so distant. No. We’ve been inside your walls for years."