Beneath Blackstone Academy, the buried city no longer slept.
The pulse of its ancient core had grown louder — rhythmic, deliberate, like the slow heartbeat of something older than magic itself. Every rune along the walls shimmered with black-gold light. At the center of it all stood Mark Wilde, the sigils of the Crownless Circle spiraling beneath his feet.
Elira stood beside him, breathing hard. "You just triggered a city-wide mana signal."
"I know," Mark said, eyes locked on the glyphs dancing above his palm. "Let them come."
They came.
Not students. Not teachers.
Circle Keepers.
They descended like a storm through the shattered ward-lines above. Clad in silver-gray robes, their masks carved from mirror-steel, each bore a different insignia — Silence, Chains, Severance. Their magic didn't spark or shimmer. It folded the air around them.
Headmaster Kirian watched from the Observatory tower, arms crossed.
"They're not here to contain him anymore," he muttered.
"No," said a voice behind him. "They're here to judge him."
The voice belonged to Archmagister Virell, cloaked in crimson robes stitched with silver glyphs. Her presence was rare, her appearances calculated. She watched the rising tension with something akin to dread.
"We buried that city for a reason," she whispered.
"He just unearthed it."
Mark didn't move as the first Keepers stepped onto the dais of the forgotten city.
The one with the Severance Mark lowered his hood. Unlike the others, he spoke.
"Mark Wilde. You have activated a sealed ley-foundation. You are now in violation of Accord Lineage Article 7: Forbidden Claim."
Mark met his gaze. "It wasn't forbidden. Just buried. Because you were afraid."
"Correct."
That stopped him.
"You're not even denying it."
"We do not deny survival," the Keeper said. "We ensure it."
Elira raised her staff. "You people erased bloodlines for convenience. Murdered entire magical histories."
The Keeper stared at her coldly. "We refined the world."
"By culling it," Mark said.
He stepped down from the dais slowly, power burning beneath his skin. "But you can't cull me."
"You are a fracture," the Keeper said. "And fractures are sealed."
The Keepers moved as one.
Twelve of them.
Each casting in absolute synchronicity. No chants. No gestures. Just will.
A dome of mirrored magic closed around Mark — designed to invert his mana field, trap him in a loop of collapsing identity.
But the city responded.
The old runes lit with a scream. Lines of golden-black glyphs shot out across the stone, and then—
Boom.
The sealing dome shattered.
Mark stood untouched, breathing hard, his veins lit like smoldering coal.
"You came here thinking I'm a student," he said. "I'm not."
He pointed to the cracked crown symbol beneath his feet. "This city knew me. The moment I bled, it opened."
The glyphs around the Keepers began to flicker — not from damage, but confusion. Misfire. As if the city itself was rejecting them.
Elira blinked. "Mark… they can't fully cast inside this space."
"They're outsiders here," he said. "I'm not."
He walked a slow circle around the dais. The city whispered to him through vibrations in the air, the twitch of runes beneath his steps. He could hear it now—a memory woven into magic.
A time when Circleless mages gathered here. When this place defied the Great Concord.
He closed his eyes.
A thousand names whispered through his mind, voices lost to time.
Then he opened them again. And met the Keepers with the certainty of legacy.
Silas Raen and Vrix arrived then, with over twenty students behind them — outcasts, glyph-smiths, mana-theorists, and a few stunned noble heirs.
"You weren't kidding," Silas muttered. "This place is alive."
Mark turned. "It's a fortress."
One of the Keepers growled. "You're amassing rebels."
Mark raised a brow. "No. I'm founding a Circle."
The Keeper of Severance raised both hands this time. No spell. Just force. Pure pressure rippled outward, enough to flatten normal mages.
Mark stood his ground — feet planted, power roaring up through his bones. He met the force with intent, not brute strength — and redirected it.
The wave split around him, crashing into the walls harmlessly.
The Keeper took a step back. "Impossible," he whispered.
Mark's voice was calm. "You never trained for someone like me. Because you never thought we'd come back."
He clenched his fist. The old glyphs of the city responded, syncing to his mana field.
He reached into the cracked dais — and commanded:
"Activate Guardian Protocol: Crownless Sovereign."
The walls shuddered. Stone cracked.
And from the forgotten halls around them, they emerged.
Figures of obsidian and gold — guardians built from ancient spellsteel. They bore no faces, only runes carved into their chests: OATH. VOW. FIRE. TRUTH.
They stepped into formation behind Mark.
The Circle Keepers finally broke their stoicism.
The Severance Keeper's voice rang out. "He's initiated the Foundry Guard—fall back! Fall back—!"
But the city sealed the exits. The ground rose. Sigils spun. The Keepers were trapped in a place that no longer obeyed them.
And Mark?
He stood at the center, every breath a drumbeat of command.
He turned to the students behind him.
"To the world, you're misfits. Broken bloodlines. Tools."
His voice rose.
"Not anymore."
"You are Circleless. But not powerless."
"You are the future of a world they want to erase."
He looked back at the trapped Keepers.
"Tell your Maw this city remembers who I am."
One of the stone guardians stepped forward and released a blast of null-magic — a deafening pulse that threw the Keepers back into the stone.
They vanished in light — force-teleported out by the last of their emergency glyphs.
Silence fell.
Then Silas let out a low whistle. "Wilde… that was full-blown heresy."
Mark turned to the platform.
"No," he said. "That was a beginning."
Later, as the others slept in the newly restored halls, Elira found Mark sitting alone, staring at an ancient mural half-revealed by the city's magic.
It showed a figure in black-gold robes standing atop a ruined tower, hand raised, with a broken crown above his head.
Mark traced the lines slowly.
"I think this city was more than just a seat of power," he murmured. "It was a choice. A sanctuary for mages who didn't fit into their world."
Elira sat beside him. "Then what happened?"
"They broke it. Buried it. Called it forbidden."
He turned to her.
"But I remember now."
He touched the mural's crown and whispered:
"This place was mine. And I'm taking it back."