Internet Mage Professor

Far away from the Silver Blade Academy, beneath the gray-tinted skies and the scent of rust and old war, a town lay in ruins.

Cobblestone paths were broken, streets warped with time and trauma.

Old brick houses stood half-demolished, some scorched, others painted with dark blood long dried into crusted runes on their walls. But today, fresh blood joined the ancient stains.

Bones cracked, split, and splattered onto the blackened stone. Sinew dangled from rooftops like grotesque wind chimes. A crimson mist clung low to the ground.

And through it all, they marched.

The Mana Knight Scouts of Black Vale Territory—towering figures in obsidian-and-steel armor, their gauntlets carved with enchanted runes that glowed with a muted sapphire hue.

Each step they took echoed with brutal confidence.

Behind their blank, expressionless helms, grins widened with every kill.

There were ten of them—elite, Initiate-level knights sent ahead to investigate rumors of the same tentacled creatures stirring deep in a rumored long-abandoned village.

What they found was a playground.

"Cut them down!" barked Rethon, the self-proclaimed vanguard, as his blade sliced clean through a black, slick-skinned creature.