Chapter 833: The Guide
Chapter 833: The Guide
Liam stayed out of Sheila’s business not only because of what he had told Sheila, though that was part of it. He had meant what he said. If Sheila was going to lead, then she needed to face the pressure directly, not have Liam remove every difficulty before it reached her.But his absence was also because he had other things to handle, and because every visible step he took near Sheila’s leadership would risk making people think he was the hidden authority behind her decisions. That would damage more than help.
So he stayed away from the commander talk.
He studied.
He trained.
He watched without appearing to watch.
Mabel had returned from her patrol with no useful answer. She had found no suspicious presence, no hidden assassin, no trace of someone moving through the academy with intent toward Liam, and no magical residue that clearly suggested surveillance. She had searched the outer routes, certain rooftops, nearby corridors, blind corners, and places where someone with skill might observe without being easily seen. Nothing.
After two more days passed without Liam feeling the sensation again, he began to wonder if he had been hypersensitive that day.
The theory was irritating, but not impossible. He had been handling too many problems at once, maintaining links with multiple shadows, dealing with Chris, watching Isolde, and thinking about the Bastion Assessment. His mood had already been poor, and irritation could sharpen perception until harmless things looked threatening.
Still, Liam did not trust that explanation.
He remembered the sensation too vividly. The feeling had not been vague. It had been predatory, focused, and gone the moment he tried to catch it. That was not the same as ordinary paranoia. But with no clue, no trace, no repeated occurrence, and nothing for Mabel to track, there was little he could do without wasting time in empty suspicion.
So he shifted his attention elsewhere.
Theory exams were only days away.
Liam began preparing more deliberately, reviewing Core Myst, Fire Magic theory, Tactical Espionage principles, and the parts of Knight Combat that involved written analysis rather than simply hitting someone until they stopped being a problem. He also read the Bastion Assessment guide whenever he had free time after studying. The more he read, the more Eldervale became less of a vague realm and more of an organized problem.
The guide explained that the hostile creatures within Eldervale could be compared to demons in terms of strength, behavior, and threat classification, but they were not demons in the strict sense. Eldervale’s mystical structure was unusual, dense in some regions and distorted in others, creating conditions where ordinary creatures, old remnants, and realm-born entities had evolved in extreme ways.