Chapter 136
The warmth of the night had barely settled when reality returned to Daniel like a blade drawn across silk. He lay awake, Melgil's breathing steady against his chest, but his mind no longer rested. Too much time had been lost. His plan to draw out the Duchess's hidden enemy was unraveling in slow circles, every lead collapsed into dead ends, every whisper of truth drowned in rumor. Even with his discreet movements through the city, slipping into taverns and archives, piecing together names and patterns, the only solid thread he had uncovered was the Glass Serpents. And that discovery had not come from careful planning, but from Melgil herself being caught in their path.
"It's taking too long," Daniel admitted at last, his voice barely above a murmur.
Melgil stirred, lifting her head, her red eyes catching faint traces of the lamplight. "You mean the those hunters?"
He nodded, his jaw tightening. "I thought I could force them into the open, play the patient game. But patience only bought us silence. The Serpents showed their hand by chance, not by design. And now " His gaze flicked upward toward the ceiling, his tone sharpening. "Now I can feel the noose tightening."
Melgil's expression darkened, though she hid it with calm resolve. "Then we continue as we are. We adapt. "You and I, we've always managed in the shadows."
Her words carried strength, but Daniel's instincts told him otherwise. Something was wrong. His calculations had allowed for pursuit, for spies, and even for ambushes on the road. But this… this weight pressing above them was not imagined. The silence had changed. It was too deep, too still. The air itself felt sharpened, as though blades hovered in it unseen.
He shifted, slipping from the bed and pulling on his coat with measured calm. Melgil, quick to understand, moved beside him without protest. Together, they looked upward. They did not need sight to know. Somewhere just beyond the ceiling beams, figures waited—silent, patient, killers trained to strike only once.
The Eastspire dormitory's top floor was rarely crowded, a privilege reserved for senior students nearing the end of their studies. Only three rooms lined the corridor, each large enough for shared living. Tonight, fortune favored them. Melgil's roommates, Ysil Thorne and Lora Sithe, had already slipped away, arms entwined as they disappeared down the hall toward Ormin Vos Sithe's chamber. Co-ed living was tolerated here, so long as it remained discreet. Among older students, the Academy permitted freedoms denied to the younger ones still bound to their families' rules.
That left Daniel and Melgil alone. Alone, and surrounded.
Daniel's lips curved in a faint, grim smile. His pulse quickened, but not with fear. "My calculations were off," he whispered, his voice a steady thread of steel. "But still within expectation."
He turned, meeting Melgil's gaze. She saw the flicker of fire in his eyes, not born of reckless youth but of a mind already assembling a thousand paths forward. Above them, shadows shifted, silent killers readying to descend. Daniel Rothchester had been patient long enough. Now, the storm would answer.
Daniel stood perfectly still, every nerve sharpened, his mind moving faster than his pulse. He mapped the dormitory in seconds, the distance to the stairwell, the weight of the beams above, and the number of bodies pressing in the silence. Twenty at least, he calculated, high-tier by their precision, veterans who had killed in teams before. They hadn't come to test him. They had come to erase him.
He glanced at Melgil. Even in nothing but her loose sleeping attire, hair unbound, she looked unshaken. Her hand rested lightly at her side, ready to draw steel if needed, though Daniel knew she was just as dangerous barehanded. They shared a single look, a silent understanding: Hold back your true power. Not here, not yet.
Then the ceiling erupted.
The explosion tore through wood and stone, thunder rolling through the entire Eastspire dormitory. Dust and fire filled the hall as the roof collapsed in splinters. Figures rained down through the smoke, blades drawn, eyes cold with mercenary focus. Twenty assassins, moving not like brigands but like soldiers, synchronized, practiced, each strike measured to kill in one blow.
Daniel met the first with bare hands. A dagger thrust aimed for his throat; he stepped into it, twisting, breaking the assassin's wrist with a sharp crack before slamming his elbow into the man's jaw. Blood sprayed, the body crumpling. He pivoted instantly, ducking under a spear sweep, his hand closing on the haft, wrenching it free, and driving the iron tip straight into the attacker's chest. The man gasped once and fell limp.
Two down. Eighteen remained.
Melgil was already moving at his side. She fought like water given form—fluid, merciless. A killer lunged at her with twin blades; she spun beneath his guard, her bare foot snapping upward to break his chin. Before his body had even fallen, she tore the knife from his grasp and drove it into the gut of the second assassin closing behind her. Her nightclothes clung to her frame, torn and singed from the blast, but her eyes burned with golden fire.
The corridor shook under the violence. Ten killers pressed Daniel, their coordination forcing him back step by step. Their blades rang like steel rain, each cut precise, each strike designed to trap him. He moved with ruthless economy, parrying with stolen weapons, breaking arms, shattering knees, his coat flaring around him as if it were armor. Blood marked his path, his enemies falling one by one, but still the circle closed.
Melgil faced her own ten with equal ferocity. She fought with speed that blurred her form, twisting, leaping, her silver hair whipping like a banner in the chaos. Knives clashed against her borrowed steel, sparks raining. She struck throats, temple, ribs, each blow meant to disable quickly, not to linger. Her bare feet slid across blood-slick stone, her breaths sharp, each movement honed by years of survival.
Thunder roared again, not from the sky but from the weight of combat. Windows shattered, shards raining across the courtyard below. Students screamed as they spilled from their rooms, staff rushing to the scene, but none dared step too close. What they saw in the wreckage of the top floor was not students locked in panic but two figures holding ground like seasoned warriors, battling assassins as though the Academy itself had been turned into a battlefield.
Daniel and Melgil never once faltered, but deep inside they knew the truth: this was harder than they expected. Suppressing their true powers shackled them, forcing them to rely only on body and their summoned steel. Every strike cost more effort, and every dodge demanded more speed. And still, they held the line.
Blood sprayed the walls. The clash of steel rang like bells of war. And in the eye of the chaos, Daniel's mind remained cold and calculating. Every move he made carved paths forward; every kill trimmed the odds. He had miscalculated the timing of this strike, but not his will to survive it.
Beside him, Melgil's red eyes flashed as she cut another foe down, and for the briefest moment, their gazes met in the storm. Neither spoke, but both understood: the assassins had come to kill students. Instead, they had awakened wolves.
The clash did not end with the first fall of their enemies. To Daniel's shock, the bodies he and Melgil had already struck down twitched, then lurched upright as though the cut, stab, slash and broken bones meant nothing. The wounds closed with an unnatural slowness, but closed all the same bones cracked back into place, flesh reknit, eyes burning with a lifeless glow. They were not men. They were not even living things anymore. They were undead.
Daniel exchanged a quick glance with Melgil, both realizing at once that steel and strength would not carry them through. Their blades and strikes bought them seconds, but no victories. The creatures advanced again, twenty in total, their movements jerky yet relentless, swarming with the patience of death itself.
Worse still, the clash had drawn attention. More students gathered at the edges of the hall, their faces pale but their eyes alight with something ugly. They whispered, smirked, and even laughed as though Daniel and Melgil were not fighting for survival but performing a spectacle for their amusement. Many of these were nobles the same arrogant elites who had long despised Daniel for his common birth and resented Melgil for her cold distance. To them, this battle was not a tragedy but a cruel form of entertainment.
Daniel could feel their stares, sharp as knives, pressing down on him, feeding the fire of humiliation. It was not only the undead who pressed him it was the silent judgment of those who wanted him to fail. Melgil's face was unreadable, but he could sense the same heat of fury radiating from her. They would not give their enemies, living or dead, the satisfaction of seeing them fall.
Still, the fight was worsening. Each time Daniel or Melgil cut one of the creatures down, it simply rose again, unbroken, uncaring, as if mocking their effort. Steel alone was useless; the answer had to be magic raw force, fire, light, something to scorch away what death had claimed. They understood it now, but the question remained: could they unleash enough power before the horde and the watching eyes crushed them both?
Daniel's chest heaved, his sword arm trembling as the lifeless husks closed in again. He had split skulls, severed limbs, driven steel straight through hearts, but it was useless—their enemies staggered back to their feet as though nothing had happened, jaws clacking, hollow eyes glowing with unnatural hunger. Melgil's lips tightened, her gaze dark as obsidian. "They're not alive," she hissed, flicking her dagger through the air before withdrawing her hand. "Steel won't end them. They are bound to something else something that only true power can sever."
Daniel met her eyes, sweat streaking his brow, and in that shared moment they understood: if they continued with blades alone, they would be crushed beneath this endless tide. Around them, more and more students pressed in, their laughter and whispers drifting like poison on the air. The crowd wasn't horrified they were entertained. Nobles leaned against pillars, sipping wine, some smirking openly as though they had paid for this performance. Their delight at Daniel and Melgil's struggle was sharper than the undead's claws.
The twenty attackers advanced again, bones cracking, flesh knitting back where it had been torn. Daniel clenched his fists. If they revealed their true strength here, it would not be forgotten. The nobles who already despised them would only twist it into something darker. Yet, hesitation would mean death or worse, humiliation before those who wanted nothing more than to see them broken.
"Together," Melgil said softly, her voice a vow. She reached for him, her hand threading into his as if drawing not just power, but trust. Daniel felt warmth surge up his arm, her mana pulsing like wildfire, mingling with his own unsteady current. Sparks danced at their joined hands, a resonance that made the air tremble.
The undead lunged and Daniel and Melgil unleashed everything. Flame roared from their palms, coiling with shadows that twisted like serpents. The ground shook under the force of their combined spell, a storm of fire and darkness that devoured the nearest five corpses in an instant, reducing them to ash. The others staggered back, their regeneration failing to keep pace against such overwhelming destruction.
Gasps rippled through the watching crowd. No longer whispers of mockery—now it was awe, shock, even a hint of fear. But the twisted satisfaction lingered in some eyes, a hungry curiosity: how far could Daniel and Melgil truly go? And what would it cost them to keep fighting like this under the weight of so many watching?
Just as Daniel and Melgil's spells tore through the undead line with blazing force, the air itself shifted, heavy, humming with a deeper power. The ground trembled faintly beneath their feet, and the crowd of students, who had been jeering and whispering in twisted delight, suddenly fell silent. A presence unlike any other descended over the courtyard.
Headmaster Elowen Varthelien stepped forward from the archway, her tall frame draped in robes of deep sapphire that seemed to shimmer with threads of starlight. Her silver hair flowed freely, and her eyes piercing, calm, yet dangerous swept across the battlefield like a storm in waiting. At her side walked Professor Finch Larenthanil, the stern and calculating advisor to Class-B Silver. He carried none of the Headmaster's grace, but his aura burned sharp and disciplined, a warning that his magic was not to be underestimated.
Without a word, the two masters raised their hands, and in perfect synchrony chanted an incantation that resonated through the bones of every onlooker. A circle of layered runes ignited above the courtyard, so vast and intricate that even the most arrogant noble students gasped. A high-tier purging spell, the kind whispered about in theory but never seen by common eyes, cascaded down in a flood of radiant energy.
The undead that had been endlessly regenerating—those twenty unyielding horrors that had mocked death itself—screamed with a hollow, distorted chorus as the light struck them. Their twisted forms unraveled in waves, bones cracking, flesh dissolving, and the dark energy binding them ripped apart thread by thread until nothing remained but drifting motes of ash.
Daniel and Melgil staggered back, the heat of the Headmaster's spell brushing against their skin, making their own magic seem almost small in comparison. Yet all eyes weren't on Elowen's brilliance alone. The students' whispers swelled, sharp and venomous, as gazes turned once more to the pair who had fought so fiercely.
They had shown too much, spells no one recognized, magic far beyond what a common-born student and an outsider were expected to wield. And though the Headmaster's intervention ended the battle, it had also cemented one undeniable truth in the minds of their enemies: Daniel and Melgil were dangerous.
The courtyard fell into silence, broken only by Elowen's calm yet cutting voice:
"Enough of this foolishness. The Academy is no stage for bloodsport. Whoever dared to summon such filth will answer to me."
Her gaze lingered on Daniel and Melgil for only a moment but in that moment, the weight of suspicion and curiosity from both allies and rivals grew tenfold.