Episode-966
Chapter : 1931
He didn't look like a student or a teacher. He wore long, dark robes that seemed to swallow the sunlight. The fabric didn't look like cloth; it looked like smoke woven into a shape. His face was hidden beneath a deep hood, but Airin could feel his eyes on her. They felt physical, like a cold hand touching her skin.
He took a step forward. The sound of his boot on the stone path echoed too loudly in the quiet space.
"Scholar Airin," the man said. His voice was smooth and dry, like paper rubbing together. "You are a difficult person to find alone. The Lion guards you very closely."
Airin stood up slowly. Her heart began to race, but her mind—the mind that remembered a war—went cold and sharp. She didn't scream. She didn't run, because there was nowhere to run. She calculated the distance between them. Fifty feet.
"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice didn't tremble. "Students aren't allowed in this section during class hours."
The man laughed. It was a soft, unpleasant sound. He reached up and pulled back his hood.
His face was pale, almost gray, with veins that looked like black spiderwebs running under his skin. His eyes were completely black, with no whites, just deep, endless voids. On his forehead, burned into the skin, was a symbol: a circle with seven jagged lines radiating from it.
"I am a Collector," he said, bowing mockingly. "I serve the Seventh Circle. And I am not here for the plants."
Airin took a step back. The Seventh Circle. The Devil Worshippers. She had heard the rumors, the stories of the shadow war Lloyd was fighting. But those were stories. This was a monster standing ten yards away from her.
"What do you want?" Airin asked, her hand drifting toward a heavy glass beaker sitting on a nearby potting table.
The Collector smiled, revealing teeth that had been filed into sharp points.
"I want the sun," he said softly. "I want the light that you are hiding inside that fragile little body."
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The Collector began to walk toward her. He didn't rush. He moved with the confidence of someone who knew the door was locked and the prey was trapped. As he walked, the plants near him withered. The bright green leaves turned brown and curled up, dying instantly as his corrupt energy touched the air.
Airin gripped the edge of the potting table. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I'm just a student on a scholarship. I have no money. I have no political power."
"Money?" The Collector scoffed. He stopped ten feet away, inspecting a rare orchid before crushing it in his hand. "You think we care about gold? We have kingdoms of gold. You think we care about politics? Politics is a game for humans who think they matter."
He looked at her, his black eyes widening with hunger.
"You, my dear, are a biological miracle. A mistake of nature. A mutation."
He raised a hand and pointed a long, gray finger at her chest.
"You have a Solar Core."
Airin frowned. She knew about Mana Cores. Every mage had one. It was the organ near the heart that processed magical energy. Most people had standard cores—neutral, elemental, or sometimes specialized like Lloyd’s Steel Blood.
"My magic is Light," Airin said defensively. "It's rare, but it's not a mutation."
"It is not just Light magic," the Collector corrected her, his voice rising in excitement. "A normal Light mage pulls energy from the world, shapes it, and releases it. But you? You generate it. Your core doesn't just process mana; it creates a specific frequency of high-density solar energy. It is endless. It is pure. It is exactly what we need."
He took another step. The air grew colder, despite the sunlight streaming through the glass roof.
"We have been trying to open a permanent gate," the Collector explained, sounding like a lecturer explaining a difficult problem. "A door between the Abyss and this world. But the energy required is massive. Batteries burn out. Crystals shatter. We need something living. Something that can renew itself."
The horror of his words sank in. Airin felt a cold knot form in her stomach.
"You want to use me as a battery," she whispered.
Chapter : 1932
"We want to use you as a Key," the Collector said. "A Vessel. We will hook you up to the Gate. We will drain that beautiful, burning light of yours until you are empty, and then we will wait for you to recharge, and do it again. You will serve a purpose greater than studying books or marrying a lord."
He spread his arms. "You should be honored. You are going to bring the darkness by using the light."
Airin felt sick. But beneath the sickness, something else was stirring. A spark. A memory.
Get ready, a voice in her head whispered. It was her voice, but older. Harder.
"I won't go with you," Airin said. She picked up the heavy glass beaker. It wasn't a weapon, but it was something.
The Collector sighed. "They always say that. It’s so tedious."
He waved his hand. The shadows stretching from the plant pots and the tables suddenly detached themselves from the floor. They stood up, peeling away from the ground like stickers.
The shadows twisted and formed into shapes. They looked like wolves, but wrong. Their legs were too long, their jaws too wide. They were made of inky darkness that seemed to smoke. There were three of them.
"Shadow-Stalkers," the Collector introduced them. "They are immune to physical damage. They can walk through walls. And they are very, very hungry."
The three monsters crouched, growling with a sound that vibrated in Airin’s teeth.
"Don't kill her," the Collector commanded the beasts. "But you can break her legs. She doesn't need to walk to be a battery."
The first Shadow-Stalker lunged.
Airin screamed and threw the beaker. It passed harmlessly through the shadow wolf’s head and shattered against the floor. The beast didn't even slow down. It slammed into her, knocking her backward into a rack of gardening tools.
She hit the ground hard. The breath was knocked out of her lungs. The shadow wolf stood over her, its jaws opening to reveal rows of needle-like teeth made of cold mist.
Panic flared in Airin’s chest. This was it. She was going to die here, among the flowers.
No.
The voice in her head was louder now. It wasn't a whisper. It was a shout.
Move, Anastasia. Move your ass!
The memory hit her like a physical blow. She wasn't lying on the floor of a greenhouse. She was lying in the mud under a truck, bullets pinging off the metal above her. She was holding a wrench. She was scared, but she was angry.
Airin’s eyes snapped open. The fear didn't vanish, but it changed. It turned into adrenaline. It turned into focus.
She looked at the shadow wolf. It was made of darkness.
What kills darkness?
Light.
She didn't need a spell. She didn't need a wand. She just needed to let it out.
She felt the "Solar Core" the Collector had talked about. It was a ball of heat in her chest, burning hotter than she had ever realized. She had always tamped it down, tried to hide it, tried to be a polite, quiet girl.
Now, she grabbed that heat and pulled.
The shadow wolf bit down. But before its teeth could touch her skin, Airin threw her hands up.
A flash of blinding white light erupted from her palms. It wasn't a beam; it was an explosion, like a flash-bang grenade.
The shadow wolf shrieked. The light burned it like acid. It dissolved instantly, turning into wisps of harmless grey smoke.
The other two stalkers recoiled, hissing and backing away from the brilliance.
The Collector shielded his eyes, looking shocked. "Oh? The battery has a spark."
Airin scrambled to her feet. She was breathing hard. Her hands were glowing, actual light spilling from her fingertips like water. She looked around the greenhouse. She saw the glass walls. She saw the mirrors used to direct sunlight to the rare plants. She saw the shards of the beaker she had broken on the floor.
Her mind shifted. She stopped seeing the room as a garden. She saw it as a diagram. She saw angles. She saw reflection points. She saw geometry.
On Earth, Anastasia hadn't been a soldier. She had been an engineer. She understood physics. She understood how energy moved.
She looked at the Collector. He was summoning a shield of darkness, preparing to attack her himself.
Airin reached down and picked up a handful of sharp glass shards. She didn't flinch as they dug into her palm.