Reincarnated as an Apocalyptic Catalyst-Chapter 65: The Hood, The Bad, and The Ugly

The note sat between us on the table, relentlessly mocking me with its existence. .

"You are not the only one watching."

It wasn’t a threat, no not really. If it were, whoever wrote it would have been more direct. There were no demands, no ultimatums, just a statement that someone else had their eyes on me. I hated being watched, it was kind of my entire thing to not be seen, hence the shadows and deception. Cloak and dagger and whathaveyou.

Mara, sitting across from me, read the note over for the third time, her fingers drumming against the wood. She had that look—the one that meant she was either about to come up with a brilliant plan or tell me how much of an idiot I was. Statistically speaking, it was usually both.

"Well?" I asked, leaning back in my chair. "I assume you’re done memorizing it by now unless you’re planning to eat it for extra knowledge absorption."

She didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she placed the note down and looked me dead in the eye. "Someone got into your room."

"Yes."

"And they left this instead of slitting your throat in your sleep."

"Well, I mean, I wasn’t here when they dropped it off."

"Okay, but they could do this, they could slit your throat in your sleep.."

I blinked. "No, they definitely couldn’t. Besides, I feel like you skipped a few things."

Mara exhaled sharply, standing up and starting to pace. "No, think about it. If this was just some ominous warning, why not just slip it under your door? Why go inside? Why risk being caught unless they wanted you to know they could do it?"

Huh. That was actually a good point. I squinted at the note like it had personally betrayed me. "I’d love to say that makes me feel better, but shockingly, it doesn’t."

She ignored me, her mind already working at full speed. "Alright, let’s assume this is connected to the summoning incident. Someone was watching us then, and now they’re watching you specifically. Which means either we’re on the right track, or they want us to follow it."

"Option A means we’re onto something important." I tapped my fingers on the table. "Option B means we’re walking into a trap."

"Exactly."

"Great. Love both of those."

Mara shot me a look. "We don’t have time for your hilarious wit, Caidan."

"We always have time for my hilarious wit."

She sat back down, ignoring that entirely. "We need to retrace the hooded figure’s movements from before the summoning attack. Find out where they were before it all went down."

I nodded. "Already ahead of you. Talked to a few students this morning, but most were too busy running for their lives to notice anything useful. Except one."

Her brows lifted slightly. "Oh?"

I grinned. "His name’s Tris. First-year has all the social courage of a dying sloth, and he said he saw someone sneaking into the abandoned wing before the attack."

Mara immediately frowned. "That part of the Academy is off-limits."

"Yeah. Which is exactly why someone did go there." I leaned forward. "I say we check it out."

She hesitated, clearly weighing the risk. Then, with a frustrated sigh, she stood. "Fine. But we do this quietly."

I smirked. "Mara, have you met me?"

"Barely, but yes. That’s why I said it."

Fair enough...

We left the library without drawing attention, slipping through the halls toward the older section of the Academy. The abandoned wing wasn’t technically forbidden, but the professors had deemed it unstable decades ago, which, translated from academic nonsense, meant we don’t feel like fixing it, so stay out.

As we reached the outer corridors, Mara whispered, "What exactly are we looking for?"

"Anything out of place," I said. "Spell remnants, footprints, ominous glowing symbols that say definitely don’t touch this—you know, standard suspicious activity."

Mara muttered something about how I was exhausting to deal with, but I chose to believe she meant that in an affectionate way.

We reached the old hallway entrance. Dust coated the floor in thick layers, disturbed only by what looked like faint bootprints leading inside. I exchanged a look with Mara. She nodded. We followed the tracks.

The air inside was stagnant, like the Academy itself had forgotten this place existed. Broken furniture lay scattered, the walls lined with faded banners from another era. Magic still lingered faintly—old enchantments, weak but stubborn.

Mara stepped ahead, her eyes scanning the area like a trained investigator. She pointed at the ground. "Look. Someone carved something here."

I crouched beside her, tracing a gloved finger over the markings in the stone. A ritual circle—unfinished. Lines cut too short, runes half-etched. Either someone had been interrupted, or they didn’t want this spell to work properly.

Mara’s expression darkened. "Someone botched this on purpose."

Before I could respond, I spotted something else—tucked behind a pile of crates, half-buried under dust. I reached over and pulled it free. It appeared to be a robe.

Black, identical to the ones we had seen during the attack. But this one had something stitched inside—an old sigil, half-faded but still recognizable.

Mara leaned in. "That’s... not a modern emblem."

I turned it over, my mind working through my own fragmented research. "No, it’s not. It belongs to an old group. A very old group."

I looked at Mara, feeling a rare chill crawl up my spine.

"The Duskwatch Covenant. I’ve found shit like this–I’ve just seen it around." I couldn’t give away a fraction of what I’ve seen the last few weeks.

She sucked in a breath. "That’s impossible. They were disbanded over a century ago."

"Apparently not."

We stared at the robe in silence. If these hooded figures were using the emblem of a long-dead faction, it meant one of two things.

Either someone was reviving the Duskwatch Covenant...

Or they wanted people to think they were.

Mara stared at the robe in my hands. "If this really is the Duskwatch Covenant, then someone is playing a dangerous game."

I turned the fabric over in my grip. "Yeah, well, considering someone just tried to summon a walking abomination into the Academy, I’d say we’re past the point of ’dangerous’ and comfortably into ’apocalyptic bad idea’ territory."

Mara ignored me, taking the robe and holding it up to the dim light filtering through the cracked ceiling. Her fingers traced the faded sigil. "This is old, Caidan. Older than either of us. Even if someone was trying to revive the Duskwatch, they wouldn’t be using relics like this. They’d make something new. There are only a handful of these known to exist, most of which are in some dusty museum, or owned by a wealthy private collector."

I frowned. "So you’re saying this isn’t just a fake attempt at revival—someone literally dug up their old laundry and decided to start a cult?"

"Possibly." Mara folded the robe carefully. "Or, the person wearing this wasn’t part of the attack at all."

Interesting...

Before I could respond, something shifted in the air. A ripple of energy, faint but unmistakable. It was magic.

Mara sensed it too. She turned sharply, eyes narrowing. "We’re not alone."

I kept my movements casual, but my fingers brushed against my daggers. "Any idea how many?"

She shook her head. "No. But it’s not ambient magic—this is recent. Someone was, or is here."

Fantastic. As if breaking into the abandoned wing of the Academy to investigate a secret summoning cult wasn’t already enough, now we had company.

I exhaled through my nose. "Alright. We play this smart. If someone is nearby, they probably know we’re here too. No sudden moves, no loud noises. Just act like we belong here."

Mara gave me a look. "You realize we very much do not belong here, right?"

"Confidence, Mara. The key to pretending you own any place is confidence."

She sighed, muttering something about how I was going to get us killed, but I was already moving forward. We stepped carefully around the broken stone and forgotten relics, following the lingering traces of magic deeper into the abandoned halls.

I exchanged a glance with Mara. She nodded.

We moved as one, stepping toward the source of the sound. I palmed one of my daggers, keeping it loose in my grip. If this went south, I wanted to be ready.

A figure from the shadows stepped forward. They were draped in black—not the same robe as the one we found, but something newer. The hood obscured most of their face, but the moment I saw them, I knew this wasn’t some lost student.

Mara stiffened beside me, her hands twitching like she was ready to cast at a moment’s notice.

The figure tilted their head slightly, their gaze shifting between the two of us. Then they spoke, their voice utterly composed.

"You shouldn’t be here."

I let out a slow breath. "Funny. I was about to say the same thing."

The hooded figure said nothing, it didn’t respond in any way, it merely watched us.

Mara, to her credit, didn’t immediately try to set them on fire. She took a half step forward. "Who are you?"

The figure ignored the question. "You are interfering with something beyond your understanding."

I raised a brow. "Well, if you’re offering to explain, I’m all ears."

Mara frowned. "You’re one of them, aren’t you? The ones behind the failed summoning?"

A pause before a quiet chuckle. "Failed?"

Mara’s eyes narrowed. "Yes, you failed, how else do you explain that mess of a summoning ritual?"

The figure exhaled slowly, as if debating whether or not to bother answering. Then, in that same unnervingly calm tone, they said, "That was only a test."

"I knew it!" I blurted out before calming myself down, "So that means you’re planning something bigger?"

The figure shifted, taking a slow step back into the darkness. "If you value your lives, stay out of this. The next one won’t be so easy to stop."

I moved instantly, surging forward to grab them, magic already flooding my system and enhancing my body, but the moment my hand shot out, the air twisted—magic flared, and in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

I cursed under my breath, scanning the room for any trace of them, but there was nothing left behind. No lingering energy, no footsteps, no proof they had even been there at all.

Mara let out a shaky breath. "That was..."

"Bad," I finished for her.

We stood there for a long moment, the weight of what we just heard settling over us.

That summoning attack wasn’t a failure. It was a trial run.

And whatever they were planning next, it was going to be worse.

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