The city was built to be seen.
Wide streets, stone towers, controlled mana flow, everything arranged so people could believe they understood the world they lived in. Even the poorer districts were designed to look finished, as if nothing lay beyond them.
That was the lie.
Sil took me to where the city ended.
The entrance was hidden behind a collapsed grain store near the edge of the lower district. The wood had rotted away years ago, but the stone beneath it was intact, too intact, as if someone kept repairing it quietly. Mana lingered there, heavier than the air around it.
Sil pressed his palm against the wall.
A low vibration passed through the stone. The surface shifted inward, revealing a narrow stairway spiraling down into darkness. Cold air rushed out, carrying the smell of damp earth and something sharper. Old mana.
"You come here often?" I asked.
"Only when I need to remember why control matters," Sil replied.
We descended.
The stairs were uneven, chipped by time and use. The deeper we went, the heavier the air became. Mana was everywhere above ground, thin and easy, drifting like fog. Down here it pressed against my skin like water.
The pressure in my chest responded immediately.
Not violently.
Recognizing.
I slowed my breathing and focused on not absorbing anything. Mana brushed against me, testing, then pulled back as if confused.
Sil glanced over his shoulder. "It feels wrong to you."
"Yes."
"That means you are still human enough to be afraid of it."
The stairway opened into a cavern large enough to swallow a city block. Broken platforms jutted from the walls at sharp angles. Deep fractures split the ground, some glowing faintly where mana had once been forced through unstable circuits.
This place had been used.
Abused.
Fought over.
"Mana behaves badly here," Sil said. "Too much history. Too many mistakes."
I stepped forward cautiously. Each footstep echoed longer than it should have. The pressure in my chest warmed, spreading outward, like something stretching after a long sleep.
Then I felt movement.
Three figures stepped out from behind a collapsed platform. Their clothes were patched and practical. Their auras flickered unevenly, blue mana leaking from cores pushed beyond safe limits.
Not academy fighters.
But not weak.
One of them smiled. "Did not expect academy blood down here."
Sil's voice stayed calm. "Leave."
The man laughed. "This ground belongs to whoever survives it."
He inhaled sharply.
Mana rushed into his body, drawn fast and hard. I watched the process clearly now. Ambient mana entered through breath and skin, surged into his core, then exploded outward along poorly refined circuits. His aura flared bright blue, unstable and violent.
Sil moved instantly.
His Echo matrix activated without sound. A deep vibration tore through the ground. The stone beneath the men's feet hummed violently. One lost his balance and fell hard, his shoulder cracking against stone with a wet sound.
The second attacked Sil directly.
A compressed mana burst tore through the air. Sil twisted, his own vibration bending the strike just enough that it smashed into the cavern wall instead. Stone exploded outward. Shards cut across Sil's arm, drawing blood.
The third charged me.
He reinforced his legs with raw mana, muscles bulging unnaturally as he closed the distance. Too fast. Too strong.
I stepped back and inhaled instinctively.
Mana rushed toward me.
My core rejected it.
Pain ripped through my chest as the pressure surged instead. Deeper. Heavier. Like something massive shifting inside my ribs.
The man swung.
I felt the danger before I saw it.
Intent.
Killing intent.
My body moved without permission.
I reached.
Space twisted violently. The man's momentum folded sideways. His strike bent, force redirected into the stone platform behind him. He slammed into it with bone-breaking impact. Blood sprayed across the rock.
He did not get up.
The cavern shook.
The ground did not settle immediately.
Stone groaned beneath our feet as fractures spread outward in jagged lines. Dust poured from the ceiling, stinging my eyes and filling my mouth with grit. I coughed and tasted blood.
The man I had slammed into the wall twitched once.
Then again.
He pushed himself halfway upright, dragging one leg behind him. Mana leaked from his body in uncontrolled bursts, blue light flashing along his veins like lightning trapped under skin.
He screamed, more in panic than pain.
"I am not done," he snarled, forcing mana into his limbs again.
Sil shouted something, but I barely heard him.
The pressure inside my chest surged sharply, warning me before the man moved. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. Every instinct told me to finish it, to end the threat before it could rise again.
I resisted.
The man lunged anyway.
His strike was sloppy, desperate. A wide swing meant to crush rather than cut. I felt the intent clearly, raw and uncontrolled.
This time, the space around me reacted without my hand moving.
The air thickened suddenly, like pushing against deep water. His momentum slowed, distorted. He screamed again as the force he had gathered turned inward, compressing against his own body.
He collapsed with a wet, final sound.
Sil fell to one knee beside me, breathing hard. Blood ran from a cut along his temple, dripping onto the stone.
"That," he said between breaths, "was too much."
My legs trembled. I dropped to one knee as well, the ache beneath my ribs flaring into sharp pain. For a moment, I thought I might vomit.
"I tried to stop," I said hoarsely.
"I know," Sil replied. "That is what scares me."
The cavern continued to hum faintly, residual vibrations lingering like an echo that refused to fade. Mana around us twisted uneasily, disturbed by what had just happened.
I pressed a hand to the ground to steady myself.
The stone felt warm.
Alive.
Sil staggered as the vibration from my action rippled outward. His breath hitched. He turned toward me, eyes wide.
"Kavien," he said sharply.
The remaining attacker screamed and unleashed everything he had.
Mana flooded his circuits. Blue light tore through the cavern as he forced a crude Ignis-Aero fusion, heat and pressure twisting together. It was unstable. Dangerous.
It rushed toward me like a living thing.
The pressure in my chest roared.
Not rage.
Command.
I planted my feet and stepped forward.
The attack struck an invisible boundary.
The space in front of me bent inward. Heat tore upward, pressure collapsed downward. The unstable fusion tore itself apart, detonating around the attacker.
He was thrown across the cavern, body slamming into stone. He did not move again.
Sil dropped to one knee, coughing as residual vibration battered his body.
Silence followed.
Heavy. Absolute.
I stood shaking, heart hammering, lungs burning. The pressure retreated slowly, reluctantly, leaving behind a deep ache beneath my ribs.
I stared at my hands.
No glow.
No aura.
Just blood and trembling fingers.
Sil forced himself upright and stared at me. "You did not impose will," he said slowly.
"I did not know how," I replied.
"You aligned," he said. "With something older than mana."
We left immediately.
Halfway up the stairs, my vision blurred.
A sensation washed over me.
Heat beneath stone.
A massive presence coiled deep underground, unmoving, patient. White pressure surrounding it, not chains, not bindings.
Protection.
I gasped and grabbed the wall.
Sil steadied me. "What did you feel?"
"Something that remembers," I said.
That night, sleep would not come.
When I closed my eyes, fragments surfaced. Blood on stone corridors. A warm room untouched by war. A woman watching someone leave, knowing more than she said.
And beneath it all, the same truth.
This power was not awakening.
It was waiting.