Chapter 42: Two Days Left
The walk back to the male dormitory was dead silent.
Night had fully settled over the Umbrax territory, cooling the thick air and casting long, sharp shadows across the stone walkways.
Asher kept his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, his mind spinning in three different directions at once.
Half of his brain was trying to process the whole Cabal threat from the Sanctum, while the other half was thoroughly stuck on the warm, lingering memory of Remi’s lips, and the way she’d completely frozen up in his arms right after.
"You’re walking strangely."
Asher jumped, snapping his head to the side. "You left me back there!" he blurted out.
Nova Vesta was suddenly drifting right beside him, her translucent form gliding an inch off the cobblestones without making a sound. "It was important," she replied smoothly.
"Lord Malovik’s dismissal was necessary."
"Right. Very heroic," Asher muttered, rolling his eyes as they turned a corner toward the high arched entrance of the dormitories.
"And thanks for the backup in the Sanctum earlier, by the way. Really loved how you just sat on a throne and watched him throw me to the wolves."
They reached his room on the third level. Asher unlocked the heavy dark wood door, stepped inside, and tossed his coat onto the back of his desk chair, letting the door swing shut behind him with a heavy thud.
A second later, Nova drifted seamlessly straight through the solid wood door, her translucent form floating right into the middle of the room.
"Do you ever use a door?" Asher sighed, catching his breath as he turned around.
Before Asher could take a seat on his bed, Nova leaned in close. Her glowing blue eyes narrowed as she scanned his chest and neck with unnerving precision.
"Your heart rate is elevated," Nova noted, her voice completely deadpan.
"Your core temperature is up by one point two degrees, and your blood pressure is spiking. Did the Cabal’s sleeper agents engage you in the courtyard?"
Asher’s cheeks instantly flushed hot.
"What?! No! Nobody attacked me!"
"Then explain the physical anomalies," Nova pressed, tilting her head as floating system metrics flickered briefly in Asher’s line of sight.
"Your elevated heart rate correlates with high adrenaline or thermal overload. Did Kaito attempt to breach his seal while you were walking back?"
"No, Nova, jeez," Asher snapped, throwing his hands up in sheer embarrassment. "I didn’t overheat, and Kaito is fine. I just... I was talking to Remi."
Nova blinked. A long, agonizing three seconds of absolute silence stretched between them in the dim dorm room.
"...Ah," Nova said, a slight, almost imperceptible smirk touching her ghostly lips. "I see. I appear to have missed an unmonitored variable in the female residential spire."
"Drop it," Asher warned, taking a seat on the edge of his mattress and burying his face in his hands. "Just... completely drop it."
"As you wish," Nova said smoothly, though the slight amusement in her tone was obvious. "However, if your emotional state continues to spike your internal temperature, it will interfere with your mana control during the challenge."
Asher dragged his hands down his face, letting out a tired breath that rattled in his chest. He looked up at Nova, his expression turning dead serious as the brief moment of levity evaporated.
"All jokes aside, Nova. What about that alert in the ward? Back in the infirmary, the system threw up a warning saying the Primordial Core Seal Instability spiked by eleven point seven six percent, and you said we needed to talk details later. Malovik mentioned the Cabal targeting Kaito’s output, but what is that seal actually holding back?"
Nova’s glowing blue expression darkened as she pulled up the system matrix, letting ancient records float softly between them in the dim light.
To anyone in this world, the danger of an eroding seal was simple: Sageas were not mere magical pets or summoned familiars. They were immortal, supernatural beings—ancient elemental entities born from the primal forces of creation.
Ages ago, before academies or territorial factions existed, the Sagea World and the Human Realm were split completely.
When a war broke out between the benevolent Sageas and the Rivens—corrupt, ruinous beasts driven purely by devouring power—that cataclysm bled across dimensions into the human realm.
Entire ancient civilizations were flattened, and humanity was nearly driven to extinction before two legendary survivors fought alongside the benevolent Sageas to seal the rift.
They created the Barrier, anchored by the Liminal Gate, and forced the soul-binding pact that tethered Sagea cores directly to human marks.
It kept the world in balance.
"That eleven point seven six percent jump you saw in the Arcane Ward was not just a heat spike, Asher," Nova explained, her voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone.
"Kaito’s origin core is tethered to a suppressed primordial stratum deep within your soul-mark. When your heat spikes out of control, it doesn’t just strain your body—it accelerates the seal’s erosion. The percentage measures how close the containment is to a total breach."
"So if that counter hits one hundred percent... Kaito loses control?" Asher asked, his brow furrowing as he absorbed the gravity of her words.
"It is far worse than simple loss of control," Nova answered carefully, choosing her words to protect the deeper truth hidden in his core.
"The primordial force sleeping behind Kaito’s current form is an ancient, dormant power source from the cataclysmic era. If that counter reaches one hundred percent, the uncontained energy will breach your body, collapse the local mana field, and signal the Cabal that a rift-level core has awakened."
She didn’t mention the entity itself—the terrifying, ancient Calamity threat sleeping quietly beneath Kaito’s fiery shell.
Asher wasn’t ready to bear the weight of that name, neither could his soul withstand knowing what truly shared his body.
"If the Cabal forces your core past its threshold," Nova continued, "Kaito’s plasma output will push that percentage straight to maximum.They want to drive the seal to one hundred percent, shatter the Liminal Gate, break the Barrier, and drag both realms back into the age of the Rivens."
Asher sat in silence, looking down at the glowing orange mark etched into the skin of his palm. The lines felt warm beneath his fingers, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic heartbeat that wasn’t his own.
The weight of what he was holding inside his chest felt heavier than ever.
"Then I guess I really can’t afford to lose control," Asher muttered softly, lying back onto his pillow and staring up at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling.
>>>>>><<<<<<
The next morning marked Day 1 of Asher’s mandatory rest period before the Sovereign Challenge.
Driven by an anxious energy that made it impossible to sleep, Asher woke up long before dawn.
His body throbbed with a dull ache from the recent battles, but his mind refused to shut off.
The sun hadn’t even broken over the horizon yet, leaving the massive academy grounds blanketed in a heavy, cool mist that smelled faintly of pine and damp stone.
He threw on a simple dark shirt and trousers, pulling his boots tight before stepping out into the empty, silent corridors of the male spire.
The cafeteria was totally dead when he walked in. The oppressive, dark stone hall was silent, save for the faint crackle of firewood beneath the giant iron cauldrons at the back.
Drafts swept through the high stained-glass windows, carrying the chill of the morning air.
"Well, aren’t you an early bird," a raspy, warm voice called out from behind the serving counter.
Asher looked over to see an elderly female chef wearing a heavy black apron, stirring a giant iron pot of oats over a low flame.
Her silver hair was tied up in a neat, tight bun, and her hands were heavily calloused from decades of hard work in the academy kitchens.
"Morning," Asher said awkwardly, walking up to the wooden counter. "Sorry to bother you. I didn’t think anyone would be up yet."
"Nonsense, lad," she chuckled, scooping a massive, steaming portion of thick porridge into a deep wooden bowl and sliding it toward him, alongside a thick slice of warm dark bread spread with berry jam.
"The kitchen never sleeps in a place like this. You’re the Flynn boy, aren’t you? The one who blew up the Crucible arena during the trials?"
Asher rubbed the back of his neck, cringing slightly at the reminder. "Yeah... that was me."
"Don’t look so miserable," the old chef smiled, leaning her forearms against the wooden counter and watching him with kind, ancient eyes.
"I’ve cooked for four generations of arrogant students in this dark pit. The ones who make the most noise are usually the ones who end up changing things. Eat up. You look like a stiff breeze could knock you over right now."
"Thanks," Asher said, genuinely grateful for the small kindness. He ate quickly, taking in the quiet warmth of the kitchen before the rest of the school woke up to fill the halls with shouting, politics, and endless ranking debates.
Once he finished every bite, he thanked the old chef, stepped back out into the crisp morning air, and headed straight toward the Umbrax training arena.
The path to the arena was shrouded in thick fog, the towering perimeter walls rising like dark shadow monoliths against the violet dawn sky.
The main training arena was completely vacant, the massive dirt floor still showing faint marks and cracked earth, from the previous training sessions. The heavy stone stands stood empty and imposing under the twilight sky.
Asher walked out into the exact center of the desolate battlefield, feeling the cool earth press through the soles of his boots. The quiet gave him room to breathe, away from the watchful eyes of the council and the students.
He took a deep, steadying breath, his hands shoved into his pockets.
"I summon you, Kaito," Asher murmured softly.
With a soft, roaring burst of heat and static, the air warped violently as the massive Chimera materialized before him.
Standing seven feet tall at the shoulder, Kaito took a heavy, deliberate step onto the arena floor, his volcanic basalt scales gleaming under the pale morning light as glowing golden runes pulsed in rhythmic waves along his thick spine.
The sudden thermal output burned away the ground fog for twenty yards in every direction.
Kaito lowered his massive skull, his two sweeping solar-glass horns wavering with intense, localized heat, and let out a low, reptilian rumble of greeting that vibrated straight through Asher’s boots.
The giant beast leaned forward, nudging his warm snout gently against Asher’s shoulder, as if reassuring his master.
Asher rested a palm against the heat of Kaito’s basalt neck, feeling the immense, bound energy churning beneath the scales.
"We’ve got two days to figure out how to take down Lird Malovik," Asher said softly, looking up at the giant beast and then out across the vast, empty stands.
"Because when that dawn comes... everyone is going to be watching us."