They plunged into the freezing maelstrom outside the Archives. The moment they crossed the threshold, Alaric thrust his hand upward. The ambient mana in the midnight air immediately yielded to his command, coalescing into a shimmering, hemispherical barrier of compressed wind. The torrential rain slammed against the dome, shattering into fine mist before a single drop could touch them.
Protected within the sphere, they moved fast, leaving the elevated grandeur of the seventh sector—the inner-staff domain—and crossing the boundary into the darker, more utilitarian architecture of the sixth sector.
"Should we route through the barracks?" Alaric asked, his voice cutting cleanly through the roar of the deflected storm. "Recruit other combatants to assist in the raid?"
"No," Arthur rejected the idea instantly, his breath pluming in the cold air. "We are entirely out of time. If he finishes the elixir, his Mana output will scale directly to that of a God-rank Mage. If that happens, no one on this island will be strong enough to match him." Arthur paused, his amber eyes narrowing against the dark campus ahead. "Furthermore, there isn't anyone else we can fully trust. We don't know the extent of his influence."
Alaric matched the boy's brisk pace, digesting the tactical assessment. He agreed. Bringing in untested variables against a potential God-rank threat was a fatal risk. He turned his focus inward, calculating his own odds. Instructor Vigo is a King-rank Wind Mage, boasting a higher quotient of proficiency than my own, Alaric thought, the analytical gears of his Judicial training locking into place. But he is a scholar. An academic who spends his nights buried in theory. I have spent my life hunting down zealots in the mud. I have the combat experience. I should be able to handle him.
They rounded the final courtyard, the wind barrier dispersing as they approached the archaic silhouette of the first Headmaster's house. Arthur led them silently down the looming structure, stopping just beside the entrance to the Magic Engineering Night classroom.
They stood before the door to Vigo's private office.
Alaric looked down at Arthur. The boy's pale face was pulled taut, his eyes reflecting a raw, volatile tension. Alaric returned a firm nod, wrapped his calloused hand around the brass knob, and pushed the door open.
They stepped inside with agonizing caution. The air was thick with the scent of dried ink and old leather. It looked terrifyingly ordinary. Neat stacks of parchment rested symmetrically on the mahogany desk. The bookshelves were impeccably organized, entirely devoid of dust. Moving to the center of the room, Alaric scanned the quiet space, his senses extended to detect any hidden tripwires or arcane alarms. Finding nothing, he looked back to Arthur.
Arthur pointed wordlessly to the left, indicating the seemingly solid stretch of masonry between two towering bookshelves.
Alaric walked over and placed his palm flat against the cold stone. Instantly, his sensitivities spiked. The wall was suffocatingly dense with overlapping barrier spells. He felt the unmistakable, labyrinthine architecture of a four-one-zero-six permutation lock embedded in the mortar.
Alaric frowned, pulling his hand away as if the stone were hot. "It is exactly as you said, but the complexity is immense. I cannot discern the exact locations of the arcane nodes within the mortar. The only way for me to get past this is to break it down."
"You can't break it down!" Arthur hissed, his voice a low, urgent hum. "If you force it, the resulting cascade of alarms will alert him immediately. If he knows we are here, and the elixir is truly complete, he will consume it and become unstoppable. We have to breach the room silently and snatch it from him."
"Then how do you propose we bypass a lock of this magnitude?" Alaric asked, his brow furrowing.
"I can do it," Arthur said.
He stepped past the former Vice-Commissioner and approached the stone brick wall. Placing his hand firmly against the masonry, right beside the polished bookshelf, Arthur closed his eyes.
Moments passed in dead silence.
Then, a vibrant emerald light began to bleed through the mortar of the bricks. It pulsed rhythmically, each vein of magic moving at its own distinct pace, spreading like glowing roots until every fissure in the wall was illuminated.
Alaric watched, utterly marveling at the scene unfolding before him. He understood the agonizing theory behind a four-one-zero-six permutation lock. A mage had to precisely control the initial mana input, splitting their consciousness to guide the energy across four separate paths simultaneously. But that was merely the beginning. By the end of the sequence, those four paths fractured exponentially. To open the lock, the user had to successfully direct their mana across one hundred and six distinct paths at once, requiring a truly monstrous mental capacity and a flawless, photographic memory of every arcane node's exact location in the sequence.
Yet Cedric, a magically weak boy operating purely on intellect, was navigating the labyrinth without a single misstep.
The masonry groaned. The massive stones began to shift and retract, the entire wall rising upward like a hidden portcullis.
Beyond the threshold, a narrow flight of stone steps led down into the heavy gloom of Vigo's laboratory.
It was completely empty.
Alaric and Arthur exchanged a glance before stepping cautiously into the subterranean room. The air down here was different—sterile, metallic, and heavy with the scent of ozone.
Suddenly, a violent, concussive shockwave vibrated up through the stone floor, rattling the glass vials on the nearby steel tables.
Alaric immediately dropped his center of gravity, bracing for a collapse. His mind raced. According to what Cedric said, he was brewing a God-rank elixir to feed to a homunculus. That explosion below us... it either means Vigo improperly scaled the dose, or he succeeded and immediately killed the homunculus to harvest the result.
A grinding, mechanical groan echoed from the central shaft, rattling the floorboards. Alaric and Arthur turned as a wrought-iron elevator platform surged upward from the subterranean depths.
Standing dead center on the grating was Sivan Ruarc Vigo.
Ambient light flared across his silver monocle, erasing his eye behind a disc of blinding white. Ash and scorch marks marred his typically immaculate robes. Yet, the true gravity of the room tethered itself to his right hand. His fingers curled around a reinforced glass syringe, its barrel thick with a viscous, pulsating green fluid.
The platform locked into the floor with a skeletal clank.
Vigo lifted his chin. His gaze caught Alaric's.
The suffocating silence ruptured.
Operating on the lethal instinct of veteran combatants, both men raised their hands. Jade light erupted. Green Wind Mana violently coalesced around their palms, ripping the oxygen from the room and plunging the laboratory into a suffocating vacuum. Blinding geometric circles snapped into existence, their rings spinning at terrifying velocities. They discharged their vortexes simultaneously.
The collision shrieked like a sheared mountain—a concussive shockwave of compressed air and raw, unbridled force.