The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 619: Between Fire, Wards, and Steel (2)

"Careful," I whispered.

Kyrion inclined his head in silent acknowledgement. Step by step, we navigated the swirling haze of mana, eyes peeled for any flicker of constructs. Each footfall rang hollow in the corridor, each breath reverberating painfully. The fortress truly felt alive now, like an organism in the midst of a fierce immune response.

At last, we passed the reactor point without incident. My shoulders loosened a fraction, though tension still coiled in my gut. We had a short corridor ahead, then a turn that might lead us toward the maintenance areas. The plan was a gamble at best, but it beat waiting around for an army of mechanical soldiers to tear us apart.

"Let's move," I said, my voice cutting through the gloom.

Kyrion nodded, and we pushed onward.

Even as the fortress groaned behind us, I caught glimpses of swirling black illusions snaking through the hallway—Kyrion's handiwork, ghostly silhouettes that swarmed and hissed, drawing attention away from our real forms. Sure enough, the echo of heavy footsteps and blasts of magic filtered in from behind, suggesting the illusions had indeed lured our pursuers off track. My pulse quickened with a spark of hope. We had a chance. We just needed to maintain the advantage.

Turning the corner, we found ourselves at a set of sealed doors. The architecture here was older, the stone carved with archaic symbols that predated many of the modern wards. I recognized them as partially undone wards—ones that had likely been left in place but never upgraded. If we could get through these doors…

Suddenly, a new alarm flared, more piercing than before. The entire corridor flickered, as if the fortress was reasserting its dominance. In that instant, I felt a surge of dread. The constructs might be misled, but the fortress's core systems were still functioning. The next wave would be upon us soon—enforcers, guardians, or worse.

"Damn it," I hissed, placing my hand against the old carvings. The Pen in my grip thrummed, as though urging me to break the seal. But that might trigger more wards. And yet we had no real choice; the route behind us was compromised, and time was ticking.

Kyrion let out a ragged breath. "I'll handle it—"

I cut him off with a sharp gesture. "No," I said, my voice firm. "You focus on illusions. We can't risk any further necromantic surges here. The wards are already keyed to you. Let me handle this."

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A brief flash of annoyance crossed his face, but he relented. I raised the Fire Pen, channeling not raw flame but a more controlled heat—enough to melt or disrupt the smaller sigils locking the door. Carefully, I traced the lines of the old runes, letting the magic unravel. Each section came apart with a crackling pop.

My senses remained on high alert, anticipating an attack from behind at any moment. Every crunch of rubble or flicker of the lights made my heart pound. I thought I heard the distant clang of metal, possibly constructs pushing through illusions or forcing open sealed doors. Another minute, maybe two, was all we had.

Finally, with a sputter of sparks, the ward gave way. I shoved the door open, revealing a narrow stairwell plunging downward, seemingly swallowed by darkness. It had the stale smell of disuse, like no living being had ventured here in ages.

"This way," I said, slipping inside with Kyrion right behind me. The door groaned as it swung shut, cutting off the corridor's urgent lights. For a few seconds, we stood in nearly complete darkness, the only illumination coming from the faint glow of my Pens.

In that moment, I felt a fleeting sense of accomplishment—one step closer to outrunning the Council's lethal blockade. Still, the fortress was wounded, not dead. A quake rippled through the stone under our feet, and dust rained from above. We had to keep moving.

We started down the steps, each footfall echoing with a hollow ring. The air was cooler here, tinged with the earthy scent of deeper subterranean passages. This was the domain of old maintenance tunnels, rumor said—labyrinthine and half-forgotten. If we could find our way through before the Council sealed them or collapsed them, we might slip into the uncharted corners below Aetherion.

"Tch," I muttered again, the tension still coiling in my lungs. I was tired, but I couldn't show it. Kyrion was already at his limits, and the fortress was still hunting us. If I faltered, that was the end of us both.

I slowed for a moment, listening, verifying we weren't being tracked by anything immediate. My mind couldn't shake one final worry: the Council scriers. Even if they'd lost us temporarily, it was only a matter of time before they deduced our approximate location. We needed to remain unpredictable, keep weaving illusions, sabotage wards, and maintain total vigilance.

Suddenly, Kyrion let out a ragged exhale. "They're not going to stop," he said, voice low. "They'll chase us into the bowels of this place and bury us if they have to."

My lips thinned. "Then we'll just have to be the ones to do the burying."

He gave me a questioning look, but I let the words hang. My threat wasn't idle. If cornered, I would turn these tunnels into a grave for anyone who dared corner me. But for now, we needed to press forward.

At the next bend, faint luminescent crystals lined the wall, providing just enough light to see how the staircase spiraled deeper. The fortress might be screaming overhead, but down here, it felt eerily quiet—like we'd stepped out of one warzone and into another that hadn't yet begun. We descended further, boots scraping stone, hearts pounding. I forced myself to remain laser-focused, sifting through every piece of intel I had about Aetherion's underbelly.

I allowed myself one last deep breath, forcing calm into my voice. My gaze swept over Kyrion. Even haggard as he was, he gave me a tight nod of readiness. Good.

We had no illusions about how bleak this was. But so long as we remained alive and thinking, we still had a chance. We weren't just cornered animals; we were predators in our own right, forced into a desperate gambit by a fortress that believed itself impregnable. And no matter how advanced the wards or unstoppable the constructs, I'd proven time and again that I could outmaneuver an entire world if I had to.

My voice was low, brimming with frigid determination, as I tightened my grip on the Pens. "I don't need ambition," I countered, raising my hand. The pens—my weapons—responded instantly. The Psychokinesis Pen vibrated in my grasp, humming with invisible power. "I just need them to follow my lead."

The first construct lunged, a blade of crackling force emerging from its wrist. There was a menacing hum to the energy coursing through its metallic frame, a low vibration that reverberated off the stone walls and prickled at my senses. In the moment that blade extended, I felt the temperature around me drop by a subtle degree, as though the corridor itself was holding its breath. A standard-issue arcane weapon, deadly but predictable—but only if you knew what to watch for, and I did. Its strike angle was too linear, too rehearsed for someone with my reflexes and the Pens at my disposal.

I twisted to the side, letting the Psychokinesis Pen do its silent work. It wasn't a matter of brute force; I needed only to nudge the attack a fraction off course. With a concentrated flick of mental energy, I altered the trajectory just enough to send the construct stumbling forward, its blade carving a bright slash of light in the air rather than meeting my flesh. The hiss of raw arcane power dissipated into the gloom, leaving behind a faint electric tang that buzzed along the back of my tongue.

Even as the first construct staggered, my Fire Pen was already moving in my other hand. I swept a line of searing flame across the hallway floor, an incandescent barrier that cut off pursuit from the rear. The heat was immediate and fierce, distorting the air in hazy ripples. The constructs behind the first lurched to a halt, recalculating how best to navigate the abrupt shift in terrain. Their eyes glowed with calm, almost machine-like indifference as they assessed the flames. For a moment, the corridor flickered with an eerie interplay of orange firelight and the cool white-blue glow of the wards overhead.

Meanwhile, Kyrion worked at the edges of my vision. I caught glimpses of shadows coiling around his fingers, like serpents awaiting his command. His whispers formed a dark undertone beneath the chaos—low, urgent words charged with necromantic influence. The fortress's wards strained audibly, a high-pitched hum that rattled my nerves, as if they sensed an infection creeping through their otherwise pristine architecture. I could practically feel the push-and-pull of power in the air: Kyrion's necromancy gnawing at the wards, and the wards trying, frantically, to seal away the threat.

From the corner of my eye, I saw specters forming at Kyrion's behest. They slithered down the corridor in ghostly half-forms, flickering like dying flames. Translucent limbs lashed out, and hollow eyes fixed on the constructs. The illusions were uncanny enough to fool or at least distract the mechanical soldiers, prompting them to waste precious seconds striking at ephemeral shapes. I had no idea how long those illusions would hold, but any reprieve was invaluable.

Two constructs were effectively out of position thanks to Kyrion's illusions, leaving three to deal with me more directly. I adjusted my stance, feet spreading a fraction wider for balance, and took a swift inhale to steady my pounding heart. These constructs learned quickly—they had to, considering the fortress boasted advanced predictive algorithms for its guardians. Yet I knew I was faster. The Psychokinesis Pen was an extension of my will, bridging the gap between intention and physical reality.

The second construct thrust a serrated blade of pure force in my direction, the arc drawn with surgical precision. A single misstep would carve through flesh and bone as effortlessly as a scythe through wheat. But I raised the Psychokinesis Pen, letting an invisible wave of force meet the blow mid-strike. Sparks shot out in a blinding flash, and the impact reverberated through my arm. I fought the urge to clench my teeth. The construct reeled back, momentarily unbalanced.

In that sliver of time, I felt a surge of mana flare off to my left. Kyrion's magic—twisting some of the scryer's nodes to obscure a segment of the fortress's surveillance. One of the overhead crystals blinked out, and the corridor's flickering runes dimmed on that side, almost as if a portion of Aetherion's all-seeing eye had gone blind. It wasn't complete invisibility, but it would buy us time if reinforcements couldn't pinpoint our exact position.

"Two down," I muttered under my breath, though I was acutely aware that "down" was a relative term. They weren't destroyed, merely diverted. I needed to keep them that way, or we'd be overwhelmed in short order.

Then, as though the fortress itself decided we weren't under enough strain, a new presence stirred in the distance. I heard bootsteps echoing in a calculated rhythm—steadier, more purposeful than the mechanical clanking of constructs. A shiver crawled up my spine. The real problem had arrived.

Council enforcers.

I saw them as soon as they stepped into the corridor. They wore robes that bore the insignia of Aetherion's internal security detail, each covered in arcane symbols that shimmered like coiled serpents. Their posture was entirely different from the rigid constructs—there was a lethal grace in the way they moved, a readiness for combat that overshadowed the straightforward programming of mechanical soldiers. Three of them advanced, each exuding a distinct magical aura.

One carried the scorching scent of pyromancy. Tiny flames danced along their fingertips, betraying their eagerness to unleash a blaze. Another projected an almost hallucinatory ripple in the air around them—an enchanter. They could bend perception, twist illusions, or ensnare minds if given the opportunity. The third was a battlemage, a shimmering barrier already forming around their body. The lines of protective magic coalesced in geometric perfection, promising a robust defense against any immediate strikes.

They were fast. Too fast. Sharper reflexes, greater intelligence, and actual cunning. Unlike constructs, they could improvise. They were no mindless drones waiting for instructions; these were skilled practitioners of the arcane arts, trained to fight, interrogate, and subdue. My heart hammered with renewed urgency. This was no longer just about escaping a fortress full of mechanical guards—it was a direct test of my skill, cunning, and resolve against some of the Council's elite.

I recalled countless nights studying the Council's methods, memorizing how their enforcers operated. They specialized in teamwork, synergy between magical disciplines. The pyromancer would force opponents to dodge or conjure defenses, the enchanter would slip illusions or mental attacks past those defenses, and the battlemage would protect them both while peppering the enemy with strategic bursts of power. A trifecta designed to break foes quickly and efficiently.

I didn't wait for them to make the first move.