The subterranean chamber followed an exact, mirrored layout to the utility thoroughfare he had breached beneath Sectors Six and Seven the night before.
Yet the vertical telemetry told a far more staggering tale.
For this to sit so much deeper than the upper network, there must be multiple layers to this foundation. If I can map this subterranean labyrinth, I will never be cornered again.
Beside him, Celeste took two bouncing steps forward across the stone. Her head tilted as she squinted through the gloom, unimpressed by the colossal engineering.
"It's completely boring," Celeste announced, wrinkling her nose at the endless ashlar masonry.
A low chuckle rumbled in Leon's throat.
"Dreadful, isn't it?" Leon agreed breezily, flashing an easy, arrogant grin. "Don't fret, the destination is a modest step up. Hand the pucks back."
Leon extended his long, slender hands. Without hesitating, Arthur and Celeste peeled the composite discs from their chests and passed them back. With a practiced, double-wristed flick, the gold pucks vanished cleanly into the silk lining of Leon's cuffs.
Straightening his posture, Leon lowered his center of gravity slightly and cast a backward glance over his shoulders.
"Hold tight," Leon warned, his velvety drawl tightening with firm, playful intent. "And don't go shifting your grip."
Moving with effortless King-rank ease, Leon hoisted both Arthur and Celeste upward, loading them securely onto his shoulders.
Before Arthur could adjust his grip against the fine velvet of the tailored coat, Leon brought his heel down against the bedrock.
A sharp click echoed off the basalt.
From the sole of his boot, an autonomous, micro-crystalline sheet of ice erupted across the stone, spreading down the length of the tunnel in a frictionless glass highway.
Leaning forward from his perch, Arthur's aperture caught an intense luminescence bleeding through the fine tailoring of Leon's coat.
Directly upon the center of Leon's back, beneath the layers of velvet and silk, a brilliant circle of white light burned through the fabric. At a casual glance, it registered as a solid, diffuse disc of unmetered mana.
Yet as Arthur sharpened his visual resolution to microscopic focus, the illusion shattered.
It was not solid light. It was an intricate, hyper-dense spell array composed of hundreds of compressed geometric runic loops and syntactic vectors, compacted with terrifying precision to a fraction of the span of his back.
Lightning—
The deduction barely grazed Arthur's consciousness before the spell fired.
BOOM.
A blinding cascade of white lightning erupted from the compressed array, roaring out of the tunnel mouth behind them like a concussive thunderclap. Seizing the repulsive kinetic force of the discharge, they rocketed forward across the frozen floor, gliding along the micro-crystalline ice sheets with terrifying speed.
The gale tore at Arthur's hair as the subterranean walls dissolved into a shrieking blur of stone and shadow.
Within the silent depths of his chest, Arthur's Autonomic Merged Processor re-evaluated every assumption it had cataloged since their clash on the gantry.
The effortless freefall deceleration; the horizontal magnetic guidance; the sub-second lightning circles; the autonomous ice locomotion; the hyper-compressed rune matrix burning beneath the coat—none of it was the realm of Emperor-rank sorcery or mythical terrain bending.
Now I see how his power works. He isn't Emperor-rank—he's just an entire league above me in Magic Engineering.
The breathless sprint along the ice corridor eventually unraveled. With practiced balance, Leon carved his heels into the frost, bleeding off their forward momentum as the subterranean thoroughfare transitioned through a succession of sharp, ascending turns.
He set Arthur and Celeste back down upon the bedrock with easy nonchalance.
Straightening his velvet lapels, Leon flicked a lazy glance over the dark wool cloaks swaddling their frames. A faint grimace tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Those cloaks," Leon remarked, waving a limp, dismissive hand toward the coarse fabric. "Ditch them. They look atrocious, and frankly, they're drudging up foul memories of a fever dream from last night."
Celeste immediately balked. Her fingers cinched tighter into the heavy black wool wrapped around her shoulders, her amber eyes narrowing as she shook her head in stubborn defiance, entirely unwilling to leave the fabric behind on the cold bedrock.
Arthur caught her eye before the resistance could escalate. Smoothing his posture into measured calm, he offered her a quiet, steady murmur:
"Leave it, Celeste. I'll find you another one."
Celeste hesitated, searching his gentle gaze before the tension slowly dissolved from her shoulders. Relenting with a small, aggrieved huff, she unfastened the dark cloak and slipped the heavy folds from her frame. Arthur unfastened his own dark wrap in suit, and together they set the cloaks aside upon the stone.
From there, the transit turned vertical. Guiding them through a series of narrow service shafts and spiraling masonry stairwells carved directly through the living basalt, they climbed upward through the silent strata of the floating continent.
At the crest of the final flight, an unadorned iron bulkhead swung back beneath Leon's touch.
They stepped out into Sector Seven.
The sheer scale of the chamber struck Arthur's sensory aperture before the temperature could even register. Spanning the subterranean expanse was a colossal, vaulted amphitheater bathed in the brilliant luminescence of high-order arcane sconces.
More than two hundred people occupied the floor.
While a scattered handful of students were seated among the tiered risers, the overwhelming majority were stern-looking adults—seasoned battle mages and armored swordsmen whose imposing presence saturated the hall. Most wore the vibrant colors, intricate cuts, and heraldic embroidery that clearly represented the distinct continental Magic Tower groups. The ambient atmosphere hung heavy and still, thick with the quiet pressure of concentrated, high-rank mana.
Footsteps echoed sharply off the polished flagstones.
Cutting through the low murmur of the crowd, a figure approached them. He was dressed in formal, immaculate black and white attire, his bearing disciplined and severe.
Arthur recognized him immediately.
Alaric Ordain.
Alaric halted before the trio, his worn, stoic gaze locking squarely onto Leon.
"You're late," Alaric said.
Leon leaned back on his boot heels, entirely unbothered by the cold reprimand. "Barely fifteen minutes. Don't make a public scandal out of it, Alaric."
"A scandal?" Alaric countered, his brow furrowing as a sharp vein tightened along his temple.
Exhaling a weary breath, Alaric shifted his gaze down toward Arthur and Celeste. The stern edge in his posture softened into measured, apologetic deference.
"My apologies, you two," Alaric said smoothly. "A proper escort was scheduled to collect you at quarter to two, but he took it upon himself to intervene."
"Pure slander. I had critical matters to resolve," Leon protested with theatrical petulance, crossing his arms over his fine velvet lapels.
Alaric leveled an unimpressed stare at him. "Like what?"
Leon didn't respond.
His lips merely curled into that faint, infuriating smirk, his heterochromatic eyes gleaming with silent, unrepentant amusement.
Alaric sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in quiet resignation.
"You're both thoroughly confused, no doubt," Alaric said, turning back toward Arthur and Celeste with reassuring calm. "Come. The second-year gallery is quieter. I will explain everything there."
Celeste offered no objection, her golden eyes drifting curiously across the colorful assembly, and Arthur fell into step beside her without hesitation.
As they walked past the threshold, Leon drifted casually toward a massive load-bearing entrance pillar. Leaning his shoulder against the dressed masonry, Leon raised a loose hand and offered Alaric a lazy, languid wave.
Arthur tracked the unceremonious exchange through his peripheral aperture.
They seem close.