The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 729: The Scent of Ash and Sorrow (3)

Mist congealed ahead, margins brightening as though moonlight pooled inside it. Pale shapes bled from the haze—bodies the size of children, limbs stick-thin, heads too large and round. Chains bit slender wrists, manacles glowing a sullen blue where runes smoldered. Their mouths moved in a silent chorus, small tongues flicking like minnows under ice.

He watched with the detached interest of a physician observing pathology. Illusion, certainly. But whose? The glyphwork on the chains shimmered in a sequence he recognized: low-tier Soul-Reaper conjuration, designed to tug empathy and lure rescuers. Sloppy. The spacing between sigil nodes was uneven; the caster lacked fine discipline.

The frontmost child stepped forward, shackles rattling with an oddly hollow ring. Its eyes were vast, liquid pools that reflected the faint starlight. One thin arm extended, pleading in pantomime. Draven counted the heartbeats between the gesture and the expected recoil—illusions rarely tolerated contact. Three, two, one—

He moved. A single stride placed him within the mirage's reach. Steel whispered free. Moonlight caught the blade's edge, flaring once before the cut. He severed the reaching forearm, slicing through chain and phantom flesh alike. The child dissolved in a swirling plume of ash that spiraled upward, scattering embers of pale blue before vanishing.

Chains clattered onto damp leaves—a cold, metallic sound that should have been impossible for mist to produce. They lay there an instant, twitching like beheaded snakes, then leaked into vapor and were gone.

Around him, the remaining figures stuttered. Their mouths stretched wider, eyes doubling in size, as though fear had been dialed too abruptly. He watched them degrade—features blurring, limbs smearing into wisps. Even their runic glow flickered, replaced by thin spider-web cracks of black across the pale outlines.

He stepped through. The specters parted before him, unmade by his indifference. Each time his cloak brushed a wraith, static snapped, converting false skin into drifting soot. He did not bother swinging again. Efficiency favored momentum.

Green motes flickered in the thinning mist—small runic tags hovering where illusion had once anchored. His gaze swept them: eight sigils employed, five destroyed, three retreating, drawn back into darkness like terrified fireflies. He tracked their arc with a single pivot of his eyes. Direction revealed caster.

"Irritating," he murmured, voice cool as frost.

Shadows peeled from the trees—robed figures whose outlines seemed forever unfinished, as if someone had started painting them in smoke and never found the will to finish the strokes. Their hoods were pits, swallowing any hint of a face; only the glint of emerald sigils stitched across their forearms announced something like life. Those sigils pulsed in sync with their chanting, each syllable a serrated hook that snagged at the damp night air and dragged sour magic into shape.

The chant slithered through the mist in overlapping waves, sour and sharp, twisting mana into claws of sickly light. Strange harmonics rippled along the forest floor—notes too low to hear but strong enough to raise gooseflesh on Draven's arms. Sap droplets on nearby leaves quivered, flattening when each pulse crested, as though the vegetation itself tried to hide from the sound.

Draven did not wait. Delay multiplied risk, and risk wasted time. He surged forward, twin blades flashing like silver rain driven sideways by gale winds. Momentum carried him in a tight arc that skimmed the edge of a crooked birch; the bark shed in curls where his cloak brushed it. In the same blurred instant, his nearer sword angled up, kissing the first Reaper's throat with whisper-soft precision. Flesh parted so neatly there was no spurt—only a single red thread unraveling before the head slid free, turning in midair like a lantern blown from its hook. The hood collapsed inward, smoke exhaling through the fabric before body and cowl alike crumbled to charcoal dust.

The second Reaper reacted a heartbeat late. Gloved fingers flexed, weaving emerald filaments into a jagged sigil that resembled an open maw. The construct was half-formed when Draven's off-hand blade punched straight through rune and sternum. He felt the brittle give of breastbone, twisted once to shear spinal cord, and withdrew. Black mist gushed from the cavity, sizzling as it struck his greave. In lieu of blood, motes of corrupted mana scattered like dying fireflies, too weak to cling to him before the night drank them.

A third figure inhaled sharply—at least, the sound might have been a breath. It felt more like the forest itself sucking in surprise. "Ghost-Hunter…" the Reaper rasped. The words vibrated, more vibration than voice, as though the speaker's vocal cords were made of cobweb. "You cannot hunt shadows. The rot has roots deeper than you can fathom."

Draven's boots settled into a natural stance: weight balanced, left heel slightly canted for pivot. "Then I'll prune deeper," he answered, tone level as a plumb line. No inflection of pride, no echo of anger—only statement. His left sword flicked outward with casual finality, removing the whispering face from its cowl. Ash swirled where lips had framed prophecy a heartbeat earlier.

The forest seemed to inhale again—this time in pain.

With the Reapers' frontline broken, their coordination faltered. Two at the back attempted a synchronised sigil, arms crossed to weave a lattice of green. Draven read their tell: shoulders rolled forward, chests expanding to draw the lungful required for a binding incantation. He moved long before sound emerged. One step, second step, leap: a low vault that cleared a snaking root and landed him inside their weave. Before panic could register in their empty hoods, he scissored blades outward. Metal met cloth, then void. The lattice collapsed in a flutter of dying sparks.

The ground shuddered, subtle at first, like a massive creature flexing deep beneath the roots. Soil popped in narrow seams that traced the alignment of buried ley veins. Draven felt the vibration travel up the soles of his boots, studying its cadence: not a single quake but rhythmic thrusts—heartbeat-slow, heartbeat-heavy.

Thin cracks split open between the moss patches. Black sap surfaced, shining under the starlight in viscous beads that quivered like liquid obsidian. A sour stench rolled out, part mildew, part rusted iron. Draven exhaled once through his nose, recognising the smell of living corruption: mana forced against its nature until it fermented.

Roots burst from the earth, slick with that same black sap, twisting and flailing like blind eels tasting blood. The first volley came straight at his midline. Draven pivoted, letting the tendril whip past. It clipped his cloak; rune-threads snapped and sparked, consuming the sap before fabric could rot. His right blade swung down, severing the root near its base. Sap sprayed in a pressure arc, sizzling when droplets met the air.

Two more tendrils speared toward his ankles, intent on anchoring. He hopped back, planting off a half-rotted log, and cut again—one high, one low. The severed lengths writhed on the ground, curling in on themselves until they stiffened into brittle husks.

He advanced, reading the angles the roots favored: shortest line to his torso, slight bias toward weapon arms. Intelligent? No. Reflex designed by the heart-rot to dismantle threats quickly. Adaptable? Possibly. He tested with a feint—lunging left, then stopping cold. A root overshot, expecting continued motion. Pattern confirmed: predictive strike, not reactive. Good.

Emerald flash at the corner of vision. A surviving Reaper pushed both palms into the soil, sending a ripple along an underground conduit. Draven slid a foot back, anticipating—but the ripple veered, circumventing him entirely. It arced around and targeted the oak behind, the one marked by pitted fungus. A boom like muffled thunder followed. The oak's trunk burst outward, showering splinters, exposing heartwood riddled with black veins. From that wound four fresh tendrils erupted, each as thick as a man's thigh.

Ah. Secondary objective: amplify corruption, create new attack vectors. Draven assessed: if left unchecked, the tree would spawn a small nexus, strengthening root strikes tenfold. Prioritise elimination.

He sprinted. Mid-stride, he swept his right blade through an ankle-high tendril, using recoil to springboard off a half-buried stone. Momentum carried him up the splintered trunk. He ran three steps along the bark's vertical face before physics surrendered to skill. At the apex he planted his left blade into a fissure, anchoring just long enough to twist. Metal screeched. He used the torque to drive the right blade into the exposed sap-core, punching deep.

Corrupted sap gushed, burning hot enough to steam on cool air. He yanked free, flipped backward, landing in a low crouch. Behind him the oak trembled, hollow core whistling as pressure sought exit. It collapsed in on itself with a groan and a belch of fetid vapour, smothering its own spawn.

The surviving Reaper lurched, staggered by feedback. His sigils flickered, phantom lines stuttering. Draven surged forth; two strokes—one horizontal across the torso, one vertical from crown to sternum—reduced the caster to quadrant pieces before thought could catch up. Mist swallowed the remains.

Silence returned, but only for a heartbeat. Then the earth convulsed harder, as if insulted by the loss of its proxy. The tremor rippled outward, toppling a ring of fungal-coated saplings. Soil ruptured where roots too large to belong to any single tree pushed upward, barbed edges gnashing.

Draven's eyes narrowed, reading the deeper signal. This was no local defence—it was a command from the primary infection. A summons, or perhaps an admonishment that its pawns were failing. Either way, the entity beneath understood that a skilled predator had entered its warren.

He exhaled once, slow, letting residual adrenaline bleed off. Cool reason settled in its place. Immediate threat diminished; larger threat escalating. Good. Clarity sharpened.

He scanned the glade. Ash settled in soft drifts where Reapers had stood. The nearest corpse fragments had already begun to sprout tiny grey filaments—prions of decay seeking hosts. He flicked sap from his blades, then wiped steel with a treated cloth drawn from a belt pouch. Better to remove residue before it learned to eat metal.

A low creak sounded behind—as if the forest bent nearer. He turned his head fractionally, noting a walnut sapling leaning, its branches angling toward him despite the absence of wind. He met that mute scrutiny without blinking until the bough relaxed. Message understood: the forest judged actions with brutal clarity. He'd slain its abductors; tonight, that earned tolerance.

Boots whispering, he crossed to the clearing's far side. There he knelt, palm skimming leaf litter until he found the freshest fissure—still warm, steaming faintly. He touched two fingers to its edge; flesh tingled, hairs on his neck rising. Mana here spiralled downward, drawn like water into a drain. A conduit straight to the heart-root.

He straightened, rolling shoulders beneath cloak. Every route his mind plotted converged on one decision: descend.

Mist swirled again, drawn toward the fissure. It trailed across his legs like reluctant hands. He ignored it, pivoted once to ensure no new Reaper stepped from shadow. None did. The enemy was changing tactics—gathering its strength deeper underground.

He sheathed one blade, leaving the other in guard as he slipped between torn roots, dropping into the earth's humid throat. Soil closed overhead, muffling starlight. From above, an owl hooted once, then fell silent as the gap sealed behind his cloak.

The ground swallowed him whole.

The forest trembled. But so did something deeper—something vast and angry, stirring beneath the soil.