Classroom B-17 was empty after hours.
Technically, it was never full. It belonged to Class F, which meant students showed up on accident, forgot why they were there, and usually left more confused than they arrived.
Tonight, it was silent.
Except for one figure crouched under a desk in the back.
Alaric pressed his fingers against the wooden floor, eyes half-closed, mind focused outward like a spider waiting on its web.
He'd marked the lines hours ago—small cuts in the floor beneath the desk, tracing where the next ritual circle would likely form. The pattern matched the others: part of the Academy's structural grid. This room was a node waiting to wake up.
And now, it was breathing.
Not air.
Something deeper.
The wood pulsed under his fingertips. Slowly. Faintly. Like a heartbeat.
Then—movement.
Not footsteps.
Scratching.
Something was carving from beneath the floor.
Alaric didn't move.
He concentrated.
"Perception Focus."
—Narrows all psychic attention to a single point of motion. Allows Alaric to isolate details through walls or barriers.
He saw it.
A thin black arm. Clawed. Wet. Etching the final curve of a demonic glyph with unnatural precision.
The creature was upside down—crawling in the crawlspace between floors, carving the ritual in reverse, like it had done it a thousand times.
Alaric smiled faintly.
Then snapped his fingers.
"Trap Triggered."
Around the glyph, thin invisible strands snapped into place—psychic tethers linked to his mental pressure field.
The demon stopped.
Too late.
Alaric clenched his fist.
"Compression Field – Snapbind."
—A telekinetic trap that activates when a target completes a movement pattern. Freezes joints, nerves, and spatial momentum in one instant.
The demon didn't scream.
It couldn't.
It hit the invisible wall mid-crawl and froze in place—one leg spasming, glyph half-drawn.
Then it began to boil.
Not physically.
But inside.
Like something was forcing its way out of it.
Alaric stood.
"I wasn't expecting a messenger," he said calmly, "but I'll take the return address."
The creature's body cracked once.
Then, impossibly, it spoke.
Not with a voice.
With a thought.
Not its own.
"You see too much."
Alaric froze.
That voice…
It wasn't demonic.
It was human.
And familiar.
The creature shattered.
Burst like a popped vein—black mist scattering in every direction.
But one piece remained.
A small, coin-shaped token clattered onto the floor.
He picked it up.
No magic.
But it was warm.
Etched with a symbol.
The crest of House Veyron.
But twisted.
Merged with a second mark.
A crown.
Not royalty.
Not honor.
A demon's crown.
And behind it, a single letter burned into the metal.
M.
---
Alaric didn't speak.
Didn't move.
He tucked the token into his coat.
And for the first time that night, he felt something rare.
Anger.
---
Alaric sat in the library an hour past curfew.
A stack of dusty heraldry books floated beside him, flipping pages with mechanical rhythm. He wasn't reading them one by one. He was scanning them all simultaneously.
"Cognition Split."
—Divides active focus into layered mental streams. One page per stream. Seven books. Zero patience.
The token rested on the table in front of him—still faintly warm. The crest was now fully clear in his mind.
House Veyron's spiral sun.
Merged with a twisted crown he didn't recognize.
A demon king's sigil?
A cult mark?
He searched royal seals. Ancient symbols. Forbidden nobility. Fringe heresies.
Then—finally—a match.
Codex of Condemned Houses, Page 341:
> "The Crownborn Mark, used by exiled families who brokered power through non-magical contracts, notably via forbidden methods of 'will-binding,' mental influence, and non-mana-based curses. Purged by the Fivefold Accord."
Alaric leaned closer.
There were hand-scribbled notes in the margin.
> "Only resurfaced once in the last 300 years—near a failed Academy gate experiment. Incident sealed by House Veyron."
He stared at the page.
Then at the token.
> House Veyron didn't just sponsor the demon gates.
> They've been hiding a second family. A buried name. A pact sealed generations ago.
He closed the book quietly.
The page felt heavier than parchment.
---
"Studying late?"
Alaric didn't flinch.
The voice came from behind a tall shelf, light, casual—like someone commenting on the weather.
He turned slightly.
A boy stepped into view—tall, elegant, perfect uniform, charming smile.
Dark crimson hair.
Eyes the color of old blood.
He looked like a noble.
He even spoke like one.
But the pressure rolling off him was wrong.
Alaric didn't sense mana.
Or heat.
Or hostility.
Just silence.
Pure emptiness.
The boy smiled wider.
"I'm Marcus," he said. "New transfer from the Eastern District. Advanced Track."
"Class?"
"A," Marcus said cheerfully. "Top of it, apparently. Though I hear you're causing more of a stir."
Alaric said nothing.
Marcus picked up a nearby book and flipped it open—upside down.
"I saw your duel. Class A didn't take it well. But personally," he said, flipping another page without reading, "I find unpredictability fascinating."
Alaric finally spoke.
"You're not a student."
Marcus blinked.
Then chuckled softly.
"Very good," he said. "I wasn't sure how long it would take."
He stepped closer.
Books gently slid aside as he passed.
No magic.
Just pressure.
"You've seen the sigil," Marcus said. "Touched the coin."
Alaric didn't answer.
"So tell me, Little Mind," Marcus whispered, eyes now gleaming faint red, "how far are you willing to go to finish what your family started?"
Alaric's voice was calm.
"Far enough to erase the last person who called me that."
Marcus smiled.
"Then I'll enjoy watching you try."
He turned. Walked away.
And vanished before reaching the hallway.
No footsteps.
No spell.
No trace.
Just silence.
---
Alaric looked back at the coin.
Now ice cold.
As if it knew who had just been here.
---
Marcus.
The name now sat in Alaric's memory like a dropped dagger—sharp, silent, and far too convenient.
New student. Top-ranked. Charm turned up to ten.
And vanished without magic.
Alaric returned to Class F the next morning, half-listening to Gaelin explain the difference between a conjured sword and "a really angry spoon."
But his mind was already moving.
---
Later that day, Alaric found himself in the Records Wing.
It was a quiet part of the academy no one visited unless they were doing long-forgotten paperwork—or hiding from exam results.
He walked between shelves until he found the enrollment archive.
Thick ledger. Sealed by a magical clasp.
He bypassed it with a tap of his finger.
"Impulse Echo – Bypass."
—Mimics a lock's last recognized magical signature using memory imprinting. The psychic version of a replay button.
The clasp clicked.
He opened the ledger.
Scanned the most recent admissions.
He didn't have to search long.
There it was:
> Marcus Valen
Class A – Transferred from Northfall Arcane Institute
Recommending Noble: Lord Malrik Veyron
Alaric's eye twitched.
> Father brought him in.
> Planted him.
And no one questioned it.
He flipped to the sponsor section.
Two crests were stamped beside Marcus's name.
House Veyron's sun spiral.
And beneath it—barely visible under a smear of wax—
The Crownborn Mark.
---
Back in his room, Alaric sat cross-legged on the floor.
The coin token floated before him.
He wasn't going to fight this war with swords or spells.
He was going to rewrite the battlefield.
He extended his senses across the campus again.
Felt the vibrations.
The circles.
The way they pulsed together.
All part of a design.
A spell net built for summoning.
But if he could intercept that current...
Shape it.
Twist it.
Break the lines from the inside...
He could unravel it all without anyone casting a single spell.
He smiled slightly.
"Time to fight magic," he whispered, "with thought."
---
Far beneath the Academy, Marcus stood before a massive gate etched with living flame.
Demonic voices whispered through the stone.
He smiled.
"Let the boy struggle," he said softly. "It only makes the final offering sweeter."
The flame flared.
And one word echoed in the black:
"Mindborn."
---
Three days passed.
In that time, six ritual marks disappeared from the Academy's summoning net.
Not sealed.
Not dispelled.
Erased.
No mage sensed them vanish. No teachers noticed the faint hum of blood-inked glyphs growing quieter.
But one person noticed.
Marcus.
He stood at the top of the central tower that night, watching the lights of the Academy flicker below like insects.
Behind him, a pair of lesser demons shifted uneasily in half-mortal forms.
"He's unraveling it," one rasped.
"Six links down," the other added. "Two more and the energy chain collapses."
Marcus didn't look at them.
"I want him to keep going."
The demons exchanged confused glances.
"If he breaks the grid," one hissed, "the gate won't open."
"It will," Marcus said. "Just not for what they expect."
---
Meanwhile, in a dusty storage chamber behind the old alchemy lab, Alaric finished dismantling the seventh circle.
He sat cross-legged, rubbing chalk dust off his gloves.
The glyph had been more complex this time—layered with secondary stabilizers, protective wards, even a fake decoy trap.
Too bad none of it worked against telepathic threading.
"Microthread Pull."
—Traces every curve of a magical symbol down to the memory of the caster's hand. Rebuilds the intention behind it. Then unravels it backwards.
It was slow work.
But perfect.
No alarms.
No flashy light.
Just silence.
He stood up and stared at the spot where the circle had been.
Then whispered, "One more, and the grid folds in on itself."
---
That night, it rained.
Hard.
And under the noise of water striking the stone rooftops, something slipped through.
A shadow.
A whisper.
A student.
Her name was Lira. First-year. Magecraft specialty: light shaping.
She wandered into the west hallway, barefoot, in her sleeping gown, eyes glassy.
She walked with calm steps, even as her hands traced symbols on the wall.
Blood symbols.
She didn't notice the floating chalk piece behind her.
She didn't see the boy trailing ten meters back—calm, slow, hands in pockets.
Alaric followed her to the stairwell leading toward the undercroft.
Where the gate was meant to open.
He waited until she reached the final step.
Then said quietly:
"Stop."
She didn't.
He blinked.
Then his eyes flared.
"Mental Snap – Isolation Thread."
—Cuts external control signals from a possessed or linked target, locking their awareness in place until it's safe to reboot.
Lira froze.
One breath.
Then collapsed gently onto the floor, unconscious but unharmed.
Alaric stepped down the stairs past her.
And found the last circle glowing.
Alive.
Waiting.
He whispered under his breath:
"You almost made it."
---
Far above, Marcus turned toward the storm.
And smiled.
---
The chamber beneath the Academy was not supposed to exist.
Official maps didn't show a door here.
Maintenance logs had no entries.
And yet, here it was—a stone vault carved from blackened rock, humming with slow, ancient breath.
Alaric stepped into it alone.
Behind him, the final summoning circle flickered and died the moment he passed.
In front of him, glowing lines webbed across the chamber floor, walls, and ceiling—like veins feeding one central altar.
The altar pulsed.
A heartbeat that wasn't his.
And standing beside it—hands clasped, eyes glowing softly—was Marcus.
"Welcome," he said, as if they'd agreed to meet for tea. "You made good time."
Alaric's voice was calm. "You've lost seven relay circles."
"I only needed five," Marcus said. "The rest were decoration."
He stepped aside.
Alaric saw it then.
At the center of the altar was a name.
Not a creature.
Not a sigil.
A name written in infernal script.
Zeyrthmal.
It pulsed once, and the room grew darker.
Alaric didn't flinch.
"What are you summoning?"
Marcus chuckled. "You still think this is about summoning."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a second token—identical to the one Alaric carried.
Then tossed it into the air.
It hung there, suspended—not by magic, but sheer presence.
Mental pressure.
Alaric's eyes narrowed.
"You're not supposed to be able to do that."
"I'm not," Marcus said.
The air rippled.
Then cracked.
From the token, black fire licked upward—and for a split second, something spoke.
Not with words.
Not with sound.
With intention.
"Give me the mind."
Alaric's body didn't move.
But his thoughts slammed inward, fortifying every layer.
"Full Lockdown – Thought Chamber."
—Encases Alaric's conscious and subconscious mind in layered psychic walls. Nothing in. Nothing out.
The fire recoiled.
Marcus laughed.
"You really are the key."
He stepped toward Alaric, slowly.
"You don't know what you are, do you? You're not just a mistake. You're a relic. A leftover design. A seed planted by something far older than this world's gods."
Alaric's fists clenched.
"I'm a student who's about to ruin your day."
Marcus spread his arms wide.
The altar blazed.
The infernal name lifted off the surface and burned across the air above them.
And with it, the entire chamber shuddered.
Marcus's eyes went black.
Voice layered.
"Then ruin it, Mindborn. But know this—when you do, the Crown remembers."
The flames surged.
The name twisted.
And the gate—once sealed—began to tear sideways through reality.