The wind carried the smell of burnt iron and mana dust.

Kael stood motionless on the edge of a fallen tower, his eyes scanning the streets below.

There were no more screams, no echoes of combat. Only the distant crack of crumbling stone and the muffled roar coming from the mountain.

Power lines ran through the city like incandescent rivers, all converging on the same point: Azalith Academy.

Kael followed the movement with his eyes, observing the irregular dance of the magical currents. They weren't natural. They didn't form this way on their own.

"Magical signatures…" he murmured. "A hundred… no, thousands of them. All heading to the same place."

His jaw tightened.

"What the hell happened to this city?"

Ahri replied inside his mind, soft but charged with tension:

"I feel it too. There's something strange about these flows. They're remnants of spells, fragments of summonings... and lives. As if all the energy had been forcibly ripped away and now redirected upward."

Kael clenched his fists.

The streets burned with a blue-gold glow, the air vibrating as if filled with invisible sparks.

With each pulse of the mountain, a wave of mana coursed through the stones, like blood pushed through a sick heart.

"Corrupted?"

"A little."

Ahri's voice lowered, almost cautious.

"It's a small but constant corruption. Mixed with the greater flow. Too subtle to be natural."

Kael studied silently.

The mana currents cut through buildings, crisscrossed the streets, and consumed even the fragments of bodies scattered on the ground.

What hadn't been burned was dry. Sucked in.

He narrowed his gaze toward the mountain.

"This isn't defense. It's a ritual. And it's alive."

Ahri took a deep breath, as if absorbing the scene he saw.

"A ritual of absurd scale... and unstable. The entire city is serving as a sacrifice."

Kael straightened his torn cloak and began walking along the edge of the tower.

He jumped, landing on the roof of a low building. The impact echoed dryly, cracking the tiles.

He didn't slow down.

The path north was a minefield of unstable energy.

The streets were opened by wide fissures, from which raw mana flowed in liquid form—a shimmering river, blue and gold, bubbling like lava.

The sound was low, deep, echoing through the ruins.

Each pulse made the ground tremble.

Kael approached the edge of one of these fissures and looked down.

The current flowed swiftly, dragging with it glowing fragments—shards of spells, runic markings, shards of crystal.

And among them, shadows of human forms that dissolved into the flow before vanishing completely.

He inhaled slowly, his eyes fixed on the movement.

"The entire city is being drained,"

Ahri replied gravely.

"And everything is going there. To the top of the mountain. If this continues, there will be nothing left but hollow ruins."

Kael rose and leaped to the other side of the crevasse.

The stones creaked beneath his boots, but they held.

Ahead, the main road still stood—the ancient path of white crystals that led to the Academy's gate.

Now, however, it was broken in sections, cracked and burned from within.

Even so, it still glowed faintly, guiding the way like a living scar.

Kael walked in silence.

The wind blew ash against the mantle, and the mountain's glow seemed closer with every step.

Azalith Castle breathed on the horizon, shrouded in golden lightning that tore through the clouds, making the entire sky tremble.

Ahri broke the silence, serious:

"Kael... the corrupted energy is coming from within. Not from the city, not from the streets... but from the center of the ritual. It's weak, almost invisible, but it's there."

Kael kept his gaze fixed on the mountaintop.

"Then let's see what's hidden."

He didn't speed up, but he didn't hesitate either.

Every step was calculated, every ruin observed, every flow of mana measured by instinct.

The entire environment was hostile, as if the city itself had become part of the ritual.

And yet, Kael advanced.

The heart of the mountain beat faster.

The sound echoed through the stones, deep, constant, pushing him forward as if inevitable.

On the horizon, the broken walls of the Academy trembled under the weight of the energy.

And within, at the center of the pulsing glow, something waited.

Kael didn't look away.

"Whatever it is," he muttered softly, "I'll force the truth out of it."

Kael walked slowly down the slope, the wind blowing ash and sparks into his face. The glow coming from the mountain grew with every passing meter, until the ground began to change texture—from burned stone to something polished and jagged, covered in runes that pulsed in a slow, sickly rhythm.

He stopped.

Before him, the ground opened into a vast magic circle carved directly into the rock. A colossal symbol, traced with almost superhuman precision, covered the entire main plaza of Azalith's ancient entrance.

Five vertices, lines converging at perfect angles, interconnected by concentric layers of runes. A pentagram.

The symbol glowed crimson and gold, breathing like a living organism. From within the fissures, a light gushed that seemed to pulse in sync with the mountain's heartbeat.

Kael stood still for a moment, simply watching. The air there was thick, almost solid. Each breath seemed to carry the metallic taste of blood and ozone.

Ahri spoke first, her voice tense:

"This isn't a circle of protection. It's a containment circle. Or a summoning circle… hard to tell which."

Kael knelt near the edge. He ran his fingers over the burned runes—they vibrated, reacting to his touch, emitting a deep sound, like grinding metal.

The inscriptions were ancient, but the shape... not.

He knew symbols like that. They were the same ones used in the Academy's forbidden experiments, in times he'd rather forget.

Ahri continued, her voice now low, almost as if afraid to be heard:

"Kael... the flow is reversed. It's pulling mana from the outside in. Everything that's left of the city is being drained into this point."

Kael looked up. In the center of the circle, the lines converged into a translucent sphere—floating a few meters above the ground, pulsing with the same vivid light that emanated from the mountain.

"It's as if the ritual has been interrupted," he commented, slowly rising to his feet. "But still, it's active."

Ahri replied, her tone colder now:

"It's not interrupted. It's... on hold. Waiting for a catalyst."

Kael narrowed his eyes, analyzing.

The surrounding lines trembled subtly, reacting to his presence. The air hummed, a low, steady vibration that pierced his bones.

"Too bad, Kael," Ahri murmured seriously. "If you mess with this wrong, you could unleash everything at once."

Kael didn't answer.

He took a step forward.

The ground beneath his boots crackled. The circle's glow intensified, the red lines igniting like liquid fire.

Ahri screamed inside his mind:

"Kael, wait—!"

But he had already made his move.

With a single, firm step, he stepped onto the edge of the circle.

The sound that followed was a dull crash—like the shattering of glass under a thunderclap.

The runes faded one by one, golden lines cracking like old porcelain.

The ground shook. The air buckled.

The light dissipated in a wave that swept across the square, extinguishing the glow of the stones and silencing the pulsing sound of the mountain for a few seconds.

Kael held his ground, his cloak rippling with the impact of the energy.

Nothing happened. No explosion, no magical collapse.

Just silence.

Ahri spoke slowly, her voice hesitant:

"...You broke the circle."

Kael looked down.

The symbol was dead—the lines shattered, the core erased, the air clear again.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment.

"It was easier than it looked."

Ahri didn't answer immediately. When she spoke, she sounded incredulous:

"These circles weren't supposed to... give way like that. It was a complete seal. Made to withstand high-level mages. Even if it was weakened, it wasn't supposed to... break with just one step."

Kael ran a hand through his hair, brushing away the dust and soot.

"So someone wanted it to break."

Ahri fell silent.

The wind blew again, carrying the ash that floated over the now-unlit ground.

Kael stared at the cracked pentagram beneath his feet. The once-vivid lines were now mere burns in the stone, drained of energy.

Still… something was wrong.

The vibration in the air hadn't completely ceased.

He crouched down again, watching the cracks slowly widen, revealing the faint glow of mana beneath.

"Ahri."

"I know. There's still flow."

Kael touched the ground with his fingertips.

The energy responded—faint, but alive.

A remnant of the ritual remained active, hidden beneath the surface layers.

"They tried to hide something here," he said, standing up. "A trigger, perhaps. Or an escape route."

Ahri sighed, her tone now alert.

"So whoever did this... hasn't finished what they started yet."

Kael looked up at the mountaintop. The golden and purple glow was pulsing again, slow, steady, like a heart reborn.

"It seems not."

The ground vibrated slightly beneath his feet again, and from within the cracks, tiny sparks began to rise—remnants of the energy the circle had been trying to contain.

Kael turned and began walking unhurriedly toward the Academy's main gate.

The ruins around him creaked as if the world were breathing with him.

Ahri finally spoke, in a lower tone, almost a whisper:

"That was... strange."