Ethan offered a silent, stiff bow and turned to follow Nyx out of the council chamber. Only after his footsteps had completely faded at the far end of the stone gallery did Cassian slowly walk toward the window, his gaze locking onto the pitch-black lonely tower at the center of the lake.
The Hollow Spire was more than just a tower; it was a gargantuan, all-consuming soul-furnace.
Imprisoned within were countless souls. Some were criminals whose lives had been steeped in evil, possessing destructive power even in death; stripped of the right to reincarnate, they wailed day and night, retaining only fragmented memories and violent capabilities. Others were the hallowed spirits of ancient sages, resting at the tower's highest peak under the eternal protection of Sanctum.
"This is not a place of mercy," Cassian whispered to himself, his voice lost in the mountain wind.
Under the extreme pressure within The Hollow Spire, any soul lacking the protection of specific incantations would, over time, be utterly crushed and smelted. They would be reduced to the purest essence of spiritual energy crystals—Soulstones. These crystals pulsed with a terrifying power. Luca and Iris, those two seemingly innocent puppets, possessed cores made from a single, high-grade Soulstone split in two.
It was this energy harvested from the dead that allowed them to maintain human form and cast spells. Cassian felt no absolute certainty regarding the upcoming fusion. He did not know if Ethan's spirit, once reconnected, would be capable of mastering such a force.
Cassian's thoughts drifted back to years ago.
To save the cursed boy, he had performed the forbidden Ethereal Projection, a ritual designed to cleave a human soul.
During that ceremony, Cassian had to drive his own spirit from his physical vessel.
His body grew as cold as mountain snow, and his soul forcibly surged through Ethan's tiny, fragile frame. Like yanking out a mass of tangled, burning thread, he had forcibly dragged Ethan's soul out of his body. Immediately after, he raised The Soul-Cutter—a weapon forged from Sanctum's unique ores, shimmering with a ghostly, frigid blue light, capable of severing the very essence of a human.
Amidst the terrified, piercing screams of Ethan's soul, Cassian struck, cleaving it in two with a single blow.
In that instant, every imprisoned spirit within the spire felt the immense power hidden within Ethan's soul. The malevolent spirits went mad, battering against their seals in a frenzy, desperate to devour that energy. Enduring the riot of a thousand ghosts, Cassian sealed that half of Ethan's soul into a specially crafted prism of pure crystal.
Now, that crystal still lay silent in the deepest depths of the black tower.
For years, that severed half of Ethan's soul had been soaked in the crushing spiritual pressure of the spire's most vicious inmates. To survive in that suffocating law of the jungle, the soul fragment had become like a dry sponge, manically absorbing every drop of surrounding energy. It was no longer the pure, naive spirit it once was; it had been assimilated by the darkness and the bound souls surrounding it. Its current strength was far more terrifying than the half remaining in Ethan's physical shell—and infinitely more violent and unstable.
Once the fusion began, two forces of the same origin yet utterly foreign to each other would meet in a narrow corridor within Ethan's meridians. It would not be a reunion; it would be a lethal, visceral struggle for dominance.
If Ethan could not establish absolute authority with his will the very microsecond their souls touched, that alienated, powerful spiritual force would act like a bursting dam, instantly crushing his fragile consciousness. At that point, the out-of-control Incineration Hex would no longer just burn from within; it would use that massive spiritual pressure to transform into a devastating firestorm.
At that moment, not only would Ethan be reduced to a wisp of light ash in a heartbeat, but perhaps even this academy atop the mountain would collapse and crumble in the resulting spiritual explosion, sinking forever into the depths of the lake.
Leaving the administrative building—filled with the scent of sandalwood and ancient runes—Ethan experienced a disorienting hallucination of shifting time and space.
The bluestone slabs beneath his feet gradually transitioned into cold-grey synthetic marble. Ancient torches were replaced by recessed, motion-sensing cold lights. He studied the modern, geometric lines as he walked, and Nyx, without looking back, seemed to read his mind.
"In this academy, only the main building where Cassian resides retains the shadows of the old era. He likes living inside history."She pushed open a heavy wooden door and added coldly, "The rest of the academy is much like the world you came from." The moment they entered the dormitory hall, Ethan felt as if he had stepped into a top-tier private prep school in New York, though the atmosphere here was colder and sharper.
The hall was hyper-modern, with massive floor-to-ceiling windows facing the abyss. A few youths in school uniforms were gathered in the lounge area. The uniforms were deep indigo, styled with crossed collars and right-side closures—the hems reached the knees like short robes, yet the cut was tactical and form-fitting. The sleeves were narrow, the waists cinched, and the side slits rose to the hips; defensive dark runes shimmered faintly across the dark fabric.
"That's him?" A tall youth with a buzz cut sneered in a low voice, his fingers mindlessly flipping a small knife. "I heard he carries The Incineration Hex. Who dares to bring a time bomb like that into the dorms? If it blows, does he plan on turning us all to ash?"
"Keep it down," a girl beside him whispered, tugging nervously at his sleeve. "The academy lost a field deacon just to retrieve him."
"So what?" Instead of backing down, the youth raised his volume, his gaze provocatively sweeping over Ethan's pale face. "This is Jianmu Conservatory. How can someone who's a walking bomb—and hasn't even passed the 'Test'—be allowed directly into our branch?"
Ethan abruptly lowered his head, his fists clenching white-knuckled inside his sleeves. He didn't understand the jargon about "deacons" or "tests," but he understood the exclusion etched into their very bones.
"Say one more word, and I'll use a curse to turn you all into stone," Nyx dropped the sentence without even turning her head.
The corridor fell into a deathly silence instantly. Those "prodigies" scattered quickly under Nyx's intimidation, but the tension in the air remained—a deep fissure standing between Ethan and this new world.
Nyx led him to a room on the edge of the cliff, far from the other students' quarters. "Clothes are on the bed. Someone will pick you up for class tomorrow morning." With that, she turned and pulled the wooden door shut.
Ethan did not change. Instead, he walked to the window like a puppet. The biting mountain wind poured into his collar, keeping him in a state of near-masochistic alertness.
From this angle, The Hollow Spire seemed even closer than before.
A thin mist was rising from the lake, and the black, solitary tower loomed in and out of view, looking like a jagged black sword stabbed into the void. Ethan closed his eyes, trying to shut out the unsettling sight, but a bizarre rhythm pierced through the thick stone walls, vibrating directly against his spine.
Thump.
It wasn't a sound, but a resonance.
Thump. Thump.
The tempo quickened, gradually synchronizing with his own heartbeat. Ethan grabbed his chest, feeling a powerful "suction" that threatened to tear him apart.
Deep within that lightless tower, inside the crystal Cassian had sealed, the imprisoned soul felt Ethan's presence. It sent out a signal saturated with fury and agony.
That half of his soul was screaming in the dark.