Chapter 7 To Hunt A Commander.

The Krag was a far more intelligent species than anyone at the academy could have anticipated. It knew the school’s layouts and more importantly, it knew the academy anchored the entire pocket dimension together, so instead of mindlessly slaughtering dozens of students, that would draw attention quickly, it began taking specific people.

People who mattered and it started with a magister.

On the fifth day of the training, an announcement was made: a high-ranking Magister had vanished from his quarters overnight.

The administration claimed they were doing their utmost best to get it sorted and find the missing faculty member, urging the students to remain focused on their drills.

But the lie didn’t hold for long because later that afternoon, in the dining area, a loud, blood-curdling scream tore through as students rushed toward the source of the noise.

There, displayed on one of the wooden tables, was a grotesque masterpiece.

Pieces of a human body were laid out with a psychotic neatness. The hands and fingers had been chopped off and kept separately, and sitting right in the center of the mess was the severed, pale head of the magister who had gone missing.

The message was painfully clear: no one was safe, not even the masters of magic.

Distraught and terrified, Lexi found herself walking back to the library later that evening, she arrived to find Chadwick and Clovis huddled over a map.

Ever since that day she had gotten Chadwick punished by the instructor, he had been obviously avoiding her. The guilt eating her alive, especially when she had to face Belle back at the dorm.

Hesitantly, she carried the books she had brought with her in pretence to read and sat quietly in a corner, while the two men across the room didn’t even acknowledge her presence.

The silence became unbearable as she finally walked up to their table.

“What are you two up to?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

Chadwick rolled his eyes hard, letting out a breath of annoyance as he turned directly to Clovis. “We should have just done the mind wipe when we had the chance. Saving ourselves the headache of a liability would’ve been the smarter move.”

Lexi’s mouth hung open in disbelief as she placed hands on her hip. “If you want to say something to me, say it to my face!”

Chadwick spun around in his chair, rising to his feet to glare down at her. “Fine… A Magister was just butchered and displayed in the dining hall, a creature is hunting us one by one, and here you are, stomping around demanding attention. You’re a liability, Lexi.”

The words cut deep, stinging her pride and her conscience. “That’s really what you think?” Lexi got defensive, her voice rising as she threw her hands up.

“I am struggling every single second of the day to keep your damn secret! Do you have any idea what it’s like to hide the identity of the Mage of Ruin while the entire Academy is panicking? It is tearing me apart.”

“Oh, poor Lexi,” Chadwick mocked, his voice dripping with bitter sarcasm, “You’re struggling? Do you have any vanguard of a clue what I suffered in the lower arenas because of your little lie? And the worst part? You didn’t even have the decency to say you’re sorry.”

“How could I possibly apologize to you when you’ve been actively avoiding me all week?!” Lexi screamed back, tears of frustration finally blurring her vision.

Chadwick stepped closer, his face inches from hers, his expression hardening, “I was avoiding you because looking at you reminds me that you’ll betray anyone to save your own skin,” he whispered harshly.

“So let me ask you this—if you were in my shoes, what would you do in my situation?”

The question hung in the air, completely silencing Lexi.

“Cut it out,” Clovis interfered, waving dismissively in the air between them.

“If you children want to scream at each other, take your loud arguments elsewhere. The volume of your squabbling is giving me a migraine.”

Lexi lowered her eyes, her lips parting as she wanted to say something to defend herself, but the words died in her throat.

Chadwick let out a final, irritated huff and sat back down in his chair, immediately pulling a stack of charts toward himself to continue his work with Clovis, completely shutting her out.

The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the scratch of Clovis’s quill. Lexi shifted uncomfortably, her guilt still warring with her anger, before she broke the quiet again.

“Do you… do you know what kind of monster killed the Magister?”

“A Krag,” Clovis said simply. “Part human, part apex predator. It has an acute intellect. It knows exactly what it’s doing, and it’s hunting with a purpose.”

Lexi stared at the old librarian, her eyes tracing his frail look. “I don’t understand, how you are the mage of ruin,”  she murmured, keeping her voice low, carefully avoiding saying out loud what she was actually thinking.

That he looked far too frail, pale, and sickly to be the legendary, terrifying Mage of Ruin who had leveled a continent.

“That is a story for another day,” Clovis replied dryly.

He closed the ledger, picked it up, and set it directly onto the floor. He placed three candles in a perfect triangle around the book, just as he had done during his solo ritual.

But this time, he gestured to the empty space beside him. “Sit, Brook.”

Chadwick complied without hesitation, crossing his legs and sitting in the middle of the candlelit triangle opposite Clovis.

Lexi asked, her brow furrowing, “What are you doing?”

“Finding out the exact reason why the Krag planned its escape,” Clovis muttered. “We need to see its true objective.” He turned his single eye toward the boy. “Are you ready, Chadwick?”

Chadwick took a deep breath and nodded. “Ready.”

They held hands, their fingers locking tightly over the open pages of the book. As they closed their eyes, a swirling mass of dark energy erupted between them.

At first, it pulsed softly, but within seconds, the magic became massive and volatile as the air in the library grew hot. The magical lamps overhead flickered violently, before every single light source died out completely, plunging the grand archive into pitch darkness save for the candles.

Lexi’s heart thumped against her ribs like a trapped bird. “What’s happening?!”

Chadwick’s struggle became evident, his body stiffened, his chest heaving as his left hand started slipping from Clovis’ grip under the pressure.

“Hold on!” Clovis roared, his own voice straining as he gripped the boy’s wrist with crushing force.

A line of blood suddenly streamed down from Chadwick’s first nostril and a second later, blood began leaking from the other.

He let out a choked, agonized gasp as thin trails of red started to seep from the corners of his tightly shut eyes, painting his pale face in horror.

“That’s enough!” Lexi screamed, but they didn’t pull away. “I said it’s enough! Stop, he’s dying!”

But before anyone could break the bind, the ritual boundaries collapsed and the room violently erupted in a blinding explosion of raw, untamed mana.

The shockwave tore through the triangle, throwing all three of them backward into the dark.

Lexi slammed hard against the shelves, books raining down around her. Through the swirling dust and smoke, she looked across the floor.

The impact had thrown Chadwick entirely across the aisle, his body limp, the blast having nearly knocked him unconscious.

Clovis was the first to get up, wiping a fresh smear of blood from his nose with the back of his sleeve. Moving with surprising speed for a man who looked so frail, he reached down, grabbed Lexi by her forearm, and hoisted her to her feet before immediately turning his attention to Chadwick.

Chadwick lay groaning on the floor, his face pale and smeared with blood trails from his nose and eyes. “I’m not certain…” he muttered, his voice a breathless wheeze as Clovis pulled his arm over his shoulder.

“I’m not certain I’ll even be alive for tomorrow’s brutal training.”

Lexi smoothed down her crumpled uniform, her voice trembling but trying to offer some semblance of relief. “Lucky for you, tomorrow is a free day. The High Council cancelled all drills to honor the dead Magister.”

Chadwick let out a painful huff, resting his weight heavily against Clovis, “Good,” he grunted out loud, wincing as he shifted his bruised leg. “I hope more Magisters die.”

He expects Clovis to offer a reprimand or say something, but he was weirdly quiet, his good eye was vacant, staring fixedly at the smoking remains of the ritual book on the floor.

“Mr. Dupond?” Chadwick called out, his brow furrowing as the silence stretched too long. “Did you see anything? Did the link work before it blew?”

Clovis just gave a nod and began walking toward the dark, narrow corridors at the back of the archive.

Chadwick dragged his feet, limping painfully to follow him when Lexi stepped forward, her guilt flaring up again as she reached out a hand. “Let me help—”

“I can do it myself,” Chadwick snapped gently, pulling his shoulder away, keeping his eyes on Clovis.

He called out behind Clovis, “You can’t just give us a nod and walk away! What did you see in the trance?”

Clovis stopped dead in his tracks and slowly, the man turned around.

“My death…” Clovis said, his voice flat, devoid of any emotion.

Chadwick and Lexi both froze.

“Apparently, the Krag is not hunting the faculty to weaken the school,” Clovis continued, “The beast is tracking my signature through the pocket dimension. It isn’t out to simply kill me, Chadwick. It is gathering the blood and lifeforce of the Magisters to activate a reverse-nexus ritual…to completely erase me from existence.”