Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls-Chapter 174: What’s going on while Kael is away?

The twilight dipped the sky into shades of amber and violet, while the magical dome that protected the Academy slowly pulsed with a faint glow - as if it itself were tired. The enchanted walls that had once inspired security now seemed cold, distant. A heavy foreboding hung over the ancient stone corridors, while shadows moved silently among the students.

At the side of the inner courtyard, under a twisted tree with golden leaves - a gift from the Northern Dryads - three figures gathered. Their student coats fluttered in the cold mountain wind, but none of the three seemed worried about the weather.

Amelia, with her arms crossed and leaning against the tree trunk, watched the sky with half-closed eyes. Her normally firm countenance was filled with unease.

Sylphie paced back and forth with her hands clasped behind her back, her elven ears twitching discreetly - a clear sign of barely contained irritation.

Irelia, sitting cross-legged on a stone step, had an enchanted clipboard floating in front of her, filled with notes that rewrote themselves as she thought. Her eyebrows were furrowed.

"What worries me," said Amelia, finally breaking the silence, "is that no one here knows exactly when they'll be back."

Sylphie stopped and immediately turned around. "Do you think they'd hide it from us for nothing? Two students dead, three injured... and the only one who could control a crisis of this size if something happened to the students, just turns into an errand boy?"

"He didn't disappear," Irelia retorted, without taking her eyes off the clipboard. "He was sent. Summoned. You know that as well as we do."

Sylphie snorted, pulling back her silver hair. "Oh, of course. Summoned by the Witch Queen, your grandmother. Because that's what you do with problem students now? Send them to the Scarlet Tower for... what? A good manners tea with the bloody knight?"

Well... Sylphie is an elf... She remembers exactly what happened to one of the Elven Envoys... Exelia Virell... she hated her.

"...That would be a worse punishment than expulsion," murmured Amelia.

"Exactly," said Irelia, now looking directly at the two of them. "And that's exactly what it looks like. Kael has been punished. Or... evaluated. Perhaps both. Actually, considering the craziness of his life. He's been sent for..."

"Training," Sylphie ventured, in a more somber tone.

The silence returned. The kind of silence that carries fear, doubt and gloomy predictions.

Amelia moved away from the tree, now visibly worried. "What if it happens again? These drugs are no ordinary alchemy. They're distorting the mana lines, creating unpredictable reactions. One of the bodies was... deformed. No trace of control... That worries me."

"Theft of vital essence," said Irelia, pressing her fingers against her temples. "Black magic of a forbidden level. Even the teachers don't have answers. And the artifacts we found with the dead students - none of them withstood the origin tests. It's as if they came out of nowhere."

"Kael was the only one strong enough to intervene if things got out of hand among the students, but after what he's heard, I find it hard to trust the principal and the teachers," said Amelia, staring at Sylphie. "And now he's away. Taking a vacation while he's here, continuing this bloody investigation that's really been taking its toll."

Sylphie kicked a stone, annoyed. "The Academy is on the verge of something it can't control. And they take the only reliable asset out of the equation? Besides, I don't see a decision being made consciously."

"Or maybe... that's exactly why," said Irelia, thoughtfully. "Maybe someone wants us to be vulnerable. Maybe these drugs are just the beginning."

She slid her finger over the magical surface of the clipboard and a projection appeared: the map of the academy, marking with red dots all the places where unusual magical incidents had taken place over the last few days.

There were too many dots.

Too many points.

"If there's another outbreak, if anyone else uses that... without Kael... who's going to stop it? The students here are incompetent, most are just children. We are too, but our backgrounds set us apart."

Amelia clenched her fists. "Then we'd better start acting before then."

Sylphie crossed her arms. "Let's hunt down who's bringing these drugs in. If the teachers don't know where to look, we'll find out."

"What if it's someone on the inside?" asked Irelia. "We already know that some students are involved, but... what if it's a teacher?"

Amelia nodded slowly, her gaze as sharp as a blade. "Then let's nip it in the bud. With or without permission."

The air became thick for a second. The leaves of the golden tree shook, even without the wind.

Then came the explosion.

Not an ordinary spell, not one of those magical glitches that become part of the routine at an academy like Azalith. This one had a low, harsh sound, as if the world had choked on its own energy and spat unstable mana back into reality.

A greenish-red flash tore through the sky above the alchemy sector, and a column of distorted smoke rose, snaking in abnormal spasms. The ground shook slightly, and screams echoed through the courtyard, followed by the immediate ringing of the containment bells - a critical level alert.

Amelia was already on the move before the echo faded. "Alchemy sector!"

"That was no accident," growled Sylphie, raising her hands and conjuring a barrier around the three of them.

"Let's go." Irelia said, the two nodded and propelled themselves at speed through the corridors. Students ran in panic in the opposite direction, and chaos began to spread.

"Something's wrong with the mana around here," said Irelia with her eyes glazed over on her floating clipboard, which was now showing distortions in the local magic mesh. "It's as if... something is eating into the natural flow." freёweɓnovel.com

As they turned the last bend before the alchemy courtyard, the scene before them was a living nightmare.

Part of the outer laboratory had collapsed. The walls were marked with black branches of corrupted mana, like pulsating veins that radiated a sickly light. In the center of the area, a student - or what was left of him - was on his knees, arms outstretched, eyes completely white, mana coming out in spasms through his nose, mouth and skin, like steam escaping from a broken kettle.

Around him, three instructors were trying to contain the magic with seals and restriction circles, but it all seemed useless. The containment spell collapsed as soon as it was finished.

"Reverse condensation alchemy," muttered Irelia, astonished. "That's impossible. That was done on purpose."

Amelia stepped forward without hesitation. She raised her hands and with her icy magic began to seal the room around her, preventing the flames from spreading, the corrption from spreading. The room turned into a large ice cube.

The ice barrier created by Amelia enveloped the area like a crystalline prison. The air immediately became denser, the temperature plummeting, causing the embers left over from the explosions to crackle and go out with a sharp hiss.

But the corrupted mana was still pulsing - vibrating inside the boy's body, like an energy heart about to burst.

"It's not working," said Irelia, her eyes fixed on the kneeling student, whose flesh was trembling unnaturally. "The condensation is reaching critical point. It's going to explode."

Amelia gritted her teeth. Her ice control was holding back the atmosphere, but the source of the magical collapse was still active.

The boy screamed.

Or rather, the mana screamed for him, reverberating like a voice that was neither human nor alive. Veins of black energy ran up his spine and spread across the ground, cracking the ice beneath. His mouth opened wider than should have been anatomically possible, and the light inside began to leak out.

"Everyone, back off!" shouted Irelia. "It's going to happen now!"

But the instructors hesitated. One of them tried another seal, another conjured a defensive barrier - too late.

It was then that Sylphie acted.

She raised her arms, and a razor-sharp gust of wind launched itself through the air, enveloping the instructors like loops of force. In one coordinated movement, she pulled them back like rag dolls, throwing them away from the impact zone.

The explosion began - but not like before.

Amelia stepped forward and slammed her palm against the floor, her voice coming out low but charged with strength:

"Fractal Prison: Grave of Frost."

From the surrounding ice, crystalline thorns emerged, growing like an inverted flower around the boy. Each freezing blade closed with surgical precision around the epicenter of the magic, trapping the deformed body in a transparent cocoon. In the next instant, light exploded inside the ice.

The impact was trapped there.

The entire sector shook, and the ice cracked from the inside, lines of red light dancing beneath the translucent surface - but the containment worked.

The explosion was muffled, smothered before devouring the entire wing.

Silence.

Only the clicks of the ice melting around them and Sylphie's heavy breathing echoed.

Amelia fell to her knees, panting. Her left arm was bleeding - a reflection of the energy she had absorbed while holding back the collapse.

"You held back a blast of condensed soul," said Irelia, kneeling beside her. "That's... insane. Even for you."

"I didn't have much choice." Amelia replied, with a tired half-smile.

One of the instructors, the one who seemed least shaken, stood up slowly and approached. But Sylphie intercepted him, her eyes narrowed.

"No. Not now. You had time to contain it before. Now, let us take care of what you couldn't."

The man hesitated, but stepped back.

Irelia approached the ice cocoon, observing what remained. The body was completely immobile, but still in one piece. Preserved. Inside the frozen chest, the arcane symbol continued to glow - slowly unraveling into strands of mana that rose and disappeared into thin air.

"It looks like mutation forced by mana." One of the instructors commented as they watched.

Sylphie raised her hand and the boy's body began to levitate in the flow of the wind. "Let's take him. Without touching his body." She said as the instructors nodded. "We'll look for the cause of this." He said and she nodded.

"Come on, we need to sort this out before Kael comes back."