Respected Apprentice Robb Reyne. This is to inform you: Wizard Reserve Track member Oliver West has been confirmed as a defector and has been removed from the Wizard Reserve Track. The Enforcement Squad is currently tracking his whereabouts. Any relevant information should be reported immediately to the Enforcement Squad or the senior members of the school. Additionally, due to potential instability in the near future, this month's Blood Arena will be postponed. The new date will be announced later. Please remain vigilant and avoid contact with any suspicious individuals.
Reynold Faust, Head of the Enforcement Squad, Black Mist Order
Robb set the notification letter down, his brow furrowing unconsciously.
Oliver had defected.
The news wasn't exactly surprising, but the speed at which it happened caught him off guard.
Just a few days ago at the Wizard Reserve Track Evaluation Meeting, Oliver had sat there, seemingly calm as he accepted the fact that his ranking had dropped.
"Looks like the moderate mental corruption had already degraded his judgment," Robb muttered, pondering what this meant for the school and for himself.
The postponement of the Blood Arena was likely because the school needed to divert more resources to deal with this sudden crisis.
For Robb, this was actually a good thing, it gave him more time to prepare. But it also meant the school's alert level would rise sharply.
"Teacher, is something wrong?"
Layla walked in with a cup of hot tea, her face full of concern.
Lately, she had become unusually sensitive to Robb's emotional shifts.
"Nothing serious." Robb handed her the letter.
"Oliver's defected. The school is launching a full-scale manhunt."
Layla read the letter, her face turning pale. "Is this… because of mental corruption? I read about it in a book…"
"Most likely." Robb nodded, looking out the window as the sky darkened.
"But it doesn't have much to do with us. Just stay focused on your training."
Layla hesitated before speaking softly:
"A few days ago, I heard rumors at the market that a number of corpses with their brains hollowed out were found near the Black Mist Forest… Was that his doing?"
Robb's eyes narrowed slightly. He nodded.
"Very likely. From what I know, Oliver possesses a rare ability called Living Assimilation, he can absorb other people's brains to gain a portion of their abilities."
Layla gasped, clearly horrified by such a power.
"Don't worry, the school will handle it," Robb reassured her.
"It's best for apprentices like us not to get caught in dangerous situations. I've already asked Valenwood to strengthen the workshop's defenses. You and Daera will be safe."
Layla nodded, though worry still clouded her eyes.
"You must be careful too, Teacher."
"I will." Robb gave her a faint smile.
Once Layla left, Robb walked to the window and gazed out toward the distant Black Mist Forest.
In the depths of those gloomy trees, a fugitive's descent into ruin was unfolding.
…
In the forest, Oliver stumbled through the twisted trees, panting heavily.
The right side of his face was grotesquely deformed. Once handsome features were now twisted beyond recognition. Beneath his skin, black liquid pulsed and writhed like something alive.
One of his eyes bulged outward, now entirely black and glowing faintly with an eerie light.
His left arm was unnaturally elongated, his fingernails turned into sharp black claws capable of slicing through solid wood with ease.
His right knee joint had twisted into something more like that of an arthropod, allowing him to move in strange, yet efficient ways.
Behind him, shouts and magic energy surged ever closer.
"Damn it, there's not enough time!"
Oliver cursed, feeling the black energy within him grow increasingly unstable.
"If I wait any longer, the awakening will spiral out of control…"
Suddenly, a beam of light pierced through the canopy and struck his shoulder.
Flesh and muscle vaporized instantly, but black liquid surged from the wound and sealed it almost immediately.
The pain jolted him into partial clarity.
He remembered the decision he made three hours ago.
Back then, in his lab, he had looked at the face in the mirror, barely human anymore, and knew that if he didn't act now, he'd never get another chance.
The school's surveillance had grown tighter by the day. The look in his mentor's eyes, a harvesting gaze, as though watching a ripening fruit, was unbearable.
"Marcus, only you can help me now," he whispered to the half-mutated brother in the cage.
Marcus had long since lost his sanity, driven purely by instinct, and a deep, inexplicable hatred for Robb Reyne.
That hatred had become his last emotional anchor.
Oliver opened the cage and deliberately lowered his mental control over Marcus.
It worked instantly.
The frenzied Marcus broke free, screaming wildly as he charged out of the tower, headed straight for the school's central district.
That disruption drew the attention of most of the Enforcement Squad, buying Oliver a slim window to escape.
"Forgive me, brother," he had murmured as he packed a few essentials and slipped toward Black Mist Forest.
But he had underestimated the Enforcement Squad's reaction speed.
Despite the chaos caused by Marcus, and the fact that no full-fledged wizards had intervened, just as he expected, the patrols reacted much faster than he had anticipated.
Almost immediately after leaving the tower, he was spotted.
At least three or four Intermediate Apprentices and a High Apprentice formed a pursuit team and drove him deep into the forest.
"How pathetic."
Oliver chuckled bitterly as he caught his breath behind a massive ancient tree.
He'd always been the obedient, gentle, "perfect" student.
With six-star magic potential, he might've been considered gifted in a regular family.
But in a school full of prodigies, he was nothing more than a pitiful underachiever.
His mentors pretended to encourage him with platitudes like "hard work beats talent," but they had given up on him long ago.
Until he found that ancient book describing the "Brain Extraction Technique."
And saw the term Living Assimilation.
That was when he thought he'd found a way to change his fate.
When he succeeded in extracting memory fragments and abilities from his first test subject, the euphoria was indescribable.
Step by step, he had walked this dark path.
First it was small animals… then discarded non-human slaves…
Now, with his back against the wall, he sought to awaken and claim even more power.
And the school's reaction confirmed his darkest suspicion:
They never truly cared about him.
Not a single full-fledged wizard had bothered to pursue him.
To them, Oliver West was just an expendable experiment. A dog they could abandon at any time.
"So this is what I am to you? Not even worth capturing in person?"
His voice twisted with rage as he touched the Sin Domain Black Crystal hanging from his chest, the key medium for his awakening ritual.
This crystal, acquired through Cynthia and her mysterious organization, was his last trump card.
"They're here."
Oliver suddenly looked up, sensing several energy signatures closing in from different directions.
They'd triangulated his position. A pincer strike was coming.
He decided to stop hiding.
He stood up, his deformed body casting a distorted shadow under the moonlight.
The perfect mask he once wore had shattered, revealing the ugly truth beneath.
"Got you at last, Oliver! The school promised advancement potions and unique spell models for bringing you back!"
An Intermediate Apprentice leaped from the bushes, staff glowing brightly.
His eyes were full of scorn and disgust.
"Look at you, what a freak, West! I thought you were something special."
Oliver didn't respond. He simply stared at him, as if looking at an ant.
"Surrender! You're surrounded!" the apprentice shouted. "By the authority of the Enforcement Squad, you're ordered to cease all attacks and return to face judgment!"
Oliver smirked, revealing jagged, irregular teeth.
"Why should I obey an insect's command?"
His voice had changed completely, metallic and jarring, with overlapping echoes like multiple voices speaking at once.
The apprentice flinched but quickly regained composure.
"This is your last chance, Oliver!"
"No, this is your last chance." Red light flashed in Oliver's black eye.
"Move, or die."
The next moment, his body liquefied and launched forward in an unnatural burst of speed.
The apprentice fired a light spell that struck Oliver's chest, burning a massive hole.
But Oliver showed no pain, he kept moving.
"Impossible!" the apprentice screamed, firing three more powerful light spells.
They pierced through Oliver's vital organs, but black fluid gushed out and sealed the wounds instantly.
As Oliver reached him, his mutated left arm extended, and the sharp claw pierced straight through the man's chest.
"Guh…" The apprentice's eyes widened, staring at the arm that had impaled him.
"Rest in peace, insect."
Oliver said coldly, and his eye bulged into a tendril that shot into the apprentice's eye socket.
The man let out a horrible scream, then went silent, his body stiff as a puppet.
The tendril absorbed something as the victim's face rapidly shriveled, skin tightening, eyes collapsing, as if all fluid had been drained.
When Oliver withdrew the tendril, the apprentice was nothing more than a dried husk, skin stretched over bones.
"Thanks for the contribution," Oliver whispered, red light blazing in his eye.
A wave of new memories and abilities surged into him.
Fragments of the man's memories and his minor affinity for light magic, all became nourishment.
Oliver examined the husk and suddenly felt a twinge of familiarity.
Had he seen this apprentice before? At the market? An Enforcement Squad meeting?
He sifted through the memories but they were too fragmented.
No matter. Just an insect, not worth remembering.
"There he is!"
Shouts came from a distance. Other squad members had spotted the commotion.
Without hesitation, Oliver fled.
He no longer moved like a human, more like a twisted insect, running on the ground, then climbing trees with unnatural agility.
The stolen memories revealed a hidden route, an Enforcement Squad patrol path leading deeper into the woods.
"So you had your uses after all," Oliver muttered, feeling no remorse for the man he had just consumed.
By the time his pursuers reached the corpse, Oliver was already gone.
After running for about half an hour, he arrived at his destination:
A cave entrance hidden beneath a pile of massive rocks.
This was a secret base of the Abyssal Eye hidden in the Black Mist Forest, information he had learned from Cynthia.
To enter, a special signal was required, a unique mental frequency mimicking the rhythm of Abyssal Whispers.
Oliver released the signal according to his memory.
Moments later, the air before the rocks shimmered, revealing a concealed entrance.
Without hesitation, he slipped inside.