Villainous Instructor at the Academy-Chapter 203: Crimson wager

I left Raina’s quarters with the map clutched tightly in my hand. The academy’s halls felt colder than usual, their once-familiar silence now filled with shadows I hadn’t noticed before. Every student who passed me was a blur—noise and light and breathless energy—but my focus tunneled in on the only sound that mattered: the pulsing of the seal beneath my chest.

The Hollow was waiting.

And I had no choice but to answer.

I didn’t inform the faculty. Not Roderick. Not even Headmaster Yvain.

The fewer eyes watching, the better.

There was a path that wound out of Noctis Ardentis’s northern boundary—a forgotten trail that led through old, skeletal trees and into the ruined vale known as Vel Ruin. Beyond that? The Hollow.

Not marked on any official maps.

Not guarded.

Because no one wanted to go there.

Not even the scavenger crews.

As the academy’s silhouette disappeared behind the ridge, the terrain changed. Grass died away, replaced by jagged stone and warped earth, as though something beneath the ground had clawed its way out centuries ago and left scars in its wake.

The wind grew still. The trees leaned toward me, not away.

I didn’t need the map anymore. The seal guided me.

With every step, I felt the pull.

It was not gentle.

Hours passed—maybe more. The sky turned from grey to a blood-orange dusk, and then finally to night, though the moon was absent.

Or rather... hidden.

When I finally reached the Hollow’s threshold, it was like walking into a corpse.

Massive black stones jutted from the earth like shattered teeth. A broken gate lay half-buried in vines that wept ash instead of dew. The trees were bleached, their branches curling upward like fingers reaching for something long lost.

And at the center of it all, buried beneath layers of rot and ruin...

Was a temple.

Not a grand structure. Nothing like the luminous sanctuaries of Xuntai or the elemental pillars of Dharyaka.

No, this temple was small. Squat. Covered in runes that moved when I blinked.

Symbols from a language I didn’t know—but my body recognized.

The same runes that marked my seal.

I approached slowly. The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the door opened—not with a sound, but with a pressure. Like the temple had inhaled my presence and opened its mouth to speak.

And speak it did.

The world flashed.

I wasn’t in the Hollow anymore.

I stood in a chamber of glass and stars. Dozens of runic constellations orbited me, each one tied to a different emotion. I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t move—but I felt.

Sorrow. Rage. Shame. Betrayal. Love. Fear.

Then... the stars bled.

One by one, the constellations shattered, replaced by a blackened mirror. My reflection stood on the other side, but it wasn’t me.

His hair was white like snow. His eyes, burning with an orange eclipse. His grin—feral.

He raised his hand.

And my body responded.

Pain raced through me. My heart clenched. My legs buckled. The seal flared, and something clawed at the edge of my mind.

"Trial of the Eclipse: Initiated."

The voice came from nowhere, yet it echoed inside my skull.

I collapsed.

My vision dimmed.

And then—

I awoke in the temple’s inner sanctum, lying in the center of a glowing circle. The runes had sunk into my skin. Not like tattoos—more like veins, now part of me.

I wasn’t alone.

A figure stood near the far wall, staring at me with eyes I couldn’t see but felt. She wore a cloak of threads that shimmered like fog in moonlight. Her face was concealed, but I knew her name as if it had always been there in my mind.

"You are late, Lucian Drelmont," she said softly. Her voice was not human.

I stood, ignoring the dizziness, the ache in my spine.

"Who are you?"

She tilted her head. "Your predecessor."

The ground trembled.

And the walls of the sanctum peeled back, revealing others—dozens of shadowy figures, all marked with the same seal, watching me from the edges of time itself.

All once human.

None still alive.

The temple was not a ruin.

It was a vault.

A waiting room.

For the next bearer of the Eclipse.

For me.

The air in the sanctum thickened, oppressive and ancient. The figures surrounding me didn’t speak. They didn’t breathe. They simply waited, as if their very existence was tied to my next choice, my next thought.

The woman—the so-called predecessor—stepped forward.

Her feet didn’t touch the ground.

"You bear the Seal of Severance," she said. "The mark of a world-splitter. The one fated to choose between inheritance... or rebellion."

"Fated?" I echoed, wiping blood from my lip. "I don’t believe in fate."

She laughed.

It was not cruel, but it was not kind either.

"Then you are either arrogant... or unawakened."

The runes along my arms pulsed.

The others around the chamber began to stir, their forms flickering like candle flames in wind. Each wore a different expression—grief, rage, serenity, madness. All of them carried the mark I now bore.

One stepped forward.

A tall man with crimson scars carved across his throat.

"He’s unworthy," the man rasped. "Not yet tested. Not truly broken."

The woman raised her hand and the man’s form splintered—not killed, but silenced.

She looked at me again. "Your soul has not yet reached its limit. That is both your strength and your curse. So I offer you a choice, Lucian Drelmont."

A throne of obsidian rose behind her.

Upon it sat a blade.

Not metal.

Not stone.

But something older.

Living runes pulsed along its length like veins, and the hilt resembled bone carved by hands that no longer existed.

"This is the Blade of Null Accord."

"Take it, and you inherit the Hollow’s will. You will become its anchor—a guardian of balance, of ruin, of rebirth. But know this: the world will try to erase you."

I stared at the weapon.

And then at her.

"What’s the other choice?"

She smiled, sadly.

"Walk away. Forget this place. Live your borrowed life, Lucian. Let the next bearer bleed for you instead."

Silence.

Then:

"Choose."

I didn’t hesitate.

Not because I was brave.

Not because I was noble.

But because I was furious.

At the world.

At the people who let it rot.

At myself.

At whoever cursed me with this second chance, only to bind me in invisible chains.

"I’ll take the blade," I said coldly. "And if it tries to consume me—"

I grabbed it.

My body convulsed as thousands of memories—lives not my own—rushed into me. A girl who sang storms into being. A prince who murdered gods. A monk who drank poison to seal away a plague. A boy who laughed as he was devoured by his own shadow.

All bearers of the Hollow.

All consumed by the blade.

But I didn’t fall.

I didn’t scream.

I clenched the hilt tighter.

And forced the visions back.

The temple shook.

A sound like cracking bone rippled through the space as the other figures began to kneel—not in reverence, but in surrender.

The woman watched me with something I hadn’t seen before.

Worry.

"So be it," she whispered.

"The Hollow accepts you... and so begins the next Trial."

The floor vanished.

And I plummeted.

But not into darkness.

I landed on stone. Cold, wet stone.

The Hollow was gone.

I stood at the base of an ancient mountain, under a red sky that didn’t belong to any known part of Sūyara.

The blade on my back pulsed like a heartbeat.

And behind me, the veil between this world and the next remained cracked—just enough to whisper.

___

"One bearer awakens.

Seven remain.

Let the Wager begin."

___

I didn’t know how long I’d been walking.

Time here felt... wrong. Too slow in some moments, too fast in others. The red sky never dimmed, nor brightened. It just bled—eternal twilight, as if the sun had forgotten how to rise.

I passed petrified trees. Skeletons of beasts locked mid-roar. Rivers of ash that hissed when I got too close.

And through it all, the blade on my back pulsed like a ticking clock.

Seven remain.

Let the Wager begin.

I didn’t know what that meant yet.

But I would.

Eventually, I found the first marker.

A stone monolith—taller than any tower at Noctis Ardentis—jutting from the cracked earth like a sword plunged through the heart of the world. Runes shimmered along its surface, half-erased, shifting when I looked too long.

And beneath it stood someone.

No.

Not someone.

A reflection.

Of me.

But older. Worn. Dressed in tattered professor’s robes, eyes sunken, face hollow. He turned as I approached, and I stopped cold.

Because I felt it.

The same pulse.

The same blade.

He smiled without warmth.

"So... this time, I’m the first."

I didn’t speak.

Neither did he.

We knew.

This was a trial. A test. One I hadn’t chosen, but one I’d stepped into the moment I accepted the Hollow’s power.

The reflection pointed at the monolith. "Seven bearers will awaken. Only one can claim the Accord. The others must fall. The Wager cannot be delayed."

I scowled. "And what do we win?"

He raised his hand—and I saw the ruined world behind his eyes.

"We don’t win. We decide."

Before I could ask what he meant, he moved.

Not fast.

Not with fury.

But with a precision I recognized. Every step, every twitch of his fingers was the Drelmont form—my form—refined through decades I hadn’t yet lived.

He attacked.

And I met him.

Steel rang out. The Hollow’s edge screamed as it clashed with itself. Sparks danced. Every strike echoed through the air like thunder.

I bled first.

But he staggered next.

This wasn’t just combat.

It was a conversation.

And we were both screaming in every language we knew.

"You still hesitate," he growled, slamming me back with a rune-triggered burst. "Still trying to save everyone. That’s why I broke. That’s why you will."

I spat blood. "Maybe. But that version of me isn’t the one standing here now."

My blade howled. A new rune carved itself into its spine as I twisted mid-air and brought the edge down in a reckless arc.

My reflection caught it—barely.

But his wrist cracked.

He faltered.

And that was all I needed.

I didn’t go for the kill. Not yet.

I stepped forward and drove my fist into his ribs, followed by a rune-pulse that sent him crashing into the monolith.

He laughed.

Not cruelly.

But... gratefully.

"You’ll change. The Wager does that to all of us."

And then his body fractured—shards of glass peeling off into nothing, leaving behind only the blade he carried. It faded into the same one on my back, merging silently.

Two down.

Six to go.

I stood before the monolith, and the runes shifted.

A new line burned across the stone:

___

"One echoes.

One endures.

Six still dream."

___

I didn’t know if I was enduring...

...or simply delaying the inevitable.

But I turned toward the next path.

And walked on.

Back at Noctis Ardentis...

The faculty lounge was in disarray.

Roderick Vaughn slammed a scroll onto the table. "He’s gone. Not just absent—displaced. There’s a tear in the internal wards. That shouldn’t be possible."

Cassandra, still eerily calm, tilted her head. "It wasn’t the work of another faction."

"Then what?" Mira snapped. "You think he just teleported himself to hell for fun?"

Julien crossed his arms. "No... I think he’s hunting something."

Roderick stared out the window.

"Or something’s hunting him."