Chapter 189: The Survivor
[Royal Capital - Academy of the Awakened]
A solemn atmosphere hung over the entire academy, one that, unlike some time ago, no longer allowed its students to take it easy with lessons or training.
No, the situation now was far more serious, serious enough to demand something far beyond a simple advanced training program like before.
Now everything was focused on training and preparing every single student to face the current reality of the situation in the Solren Kingdom, as well as what was happening across the rest of human territory.
A situation that only their predecessors had ever faced, one that had cost them dearly, and that only after great sacrifice had they managed to reach a point of peace. A peace that lasted for a long while before finally breaking, with the resurgence of that calamity which had slowly begun creeping back into this world.
That resurgence had been marked by the incident from some time ago, when that strange spatial phenomenon struck the entire continent, sweeping away countless people who never returned.
Or at least, that’s what everyone believed.
In the monitoring chamber of the magic tower.
The floating sphere at the center of the room, once calm, its surface almost entirely devoid of any signs of void energy, was now full, packed with countless scattered points across the entire map of the kingdom and beyond. Some small and faint, others far more concentrated and glaring.
Chaos reigned in this room too. Magical devices chimed endlessly all around, some carrying reports on various ongoing situations, others marking the end of certain crises, while many more signaled the start of new ones.
Everyone was hard at work, some fifty people who, despite their numbers, found themselves running back and forth without rest, making it painfully clear that the current staff wasn’t enough to handle the enormous volume of information that needed processing, cataloguing by severity, and redirecting to the appropriate parties for every situation.
The Dean of the academy stood in the middle of it all, arms crossed, watching everything while processing it with an almost absurd level of focus, making decisions and issuing orders every few seconds, coordinating everything so the entire magic tower system wouldn’t collapse into total chaos.
He’d been like this for quite a while now, something that would have exhausted even an Overlord like him, if not for the fact that after a year of continuous days like these, he had finally grown used to it.
It was in the middle of all this that one of the staff members, tasked with receiving communications, heard the latest urgent report and bolted toward him with an expression that was different from the usual panic.
He wasn’t worried. Surprised, maybe?
That was the Dean’s first thought as he watched the man rush toward him.
"What’s going on?" he asked directly, not waiting for the man to arrive and catch his breath first.
"We just received an urgent communication from one of the academy’s students," the staff member began, his expression still agitated, as though he didn’t quite believe what he’d just heard.
Hearing this, the Dean couldn’t help but frown.
An urgent communication from one of the students?
That had become fairly common lately, especially since so many third-year students had been sent on missions to various cities to help out, receiving reports or requests for aid had practically become routine by now. So he didn’t understand why the man was giving this particular communication so much weight.
He was about to ask what it was about when the staff member continued, seeming to rush the words out:
"It’s from one of the missing students," he said, words that immediately snapped the heads of everyone nearby toward him, finally, successfully, capturing the Dean’s full attention.
"What did you say?" the Dean asked, thinking he must have misheard, but the man confirmed it again.
"It’s from Lirien Dravenmoon, member of Squad 5, one of the two squads that went missing near Ravenhold after last year’s incident," the staff member said, getting it all out in one breath.
The moment those words landed, the eyes of everyone present widened, as though they’d just heard something impossible.
A communication from one of the students who disappeared in that incident? How was that possible?
Thousands of people had vanished that day.
And yet, among those thousands, not a single person had ever returned.
As if they had simply been erased from existence itself.
Naturally, this led many to believe that they had most likely dead.
Lirien had been classified as one of the victims of that incident. And now they were being told the girl was alive, and had actually managed to contact the academy?
Right at that moment, as the Dean was still processing what he’d just heard, another staff member spoke up.
"Sir, we’ve detected a faint spatial phenomenon near Ravenhold," he said, noticing a shift in the floating sphere of light suspended in the middle of the room.
The Dean immediately focused on the location and noticed something.
The fluctuations of this phenomenon...
They were extremely similar to the incident from a year ago.
Combined with what the other man had just told him, it didn’t take him long to understand what was happening.
He didn’t hesitate any longer. He didn’t waste time confirming further details or giving instructions, he simply vanished from where he stood.
Under normal circumstances, he would have dispatched the academy’s standard rescue team. But this situation was anything but normal. It was unique enough to justify making the trip himself.
He shot off at high speed toward Ravenhold, his expression grim.
The news that the girl was alive was good news, not because of her status, but because if she was alive, they might finally be able to find out what had actually happened. That, in turn, could help determine whether the others were alive or not.
So he wasted no time and went himself directly. The longer he delayed, the more he felt that something terrible could happen.
After all, the situation across the entire continent had changed. No place was as safe as it used to be.
According to the information from the communication, the girl was in the forest near Ravenhold, a place already classified as a level-B danger zone.
If he delayed, there was a real chance the girl could get hurt, or worse, die.
He couldn’t allow that to happen, and so he didn’t hold back as he traveled at full speed toward Ravenhold.
The spatial phenomenon that appeared near Ravenhold was not detected only by the Solren Kingdom.
Another territory nearby noticed it as well.
The territory of the Beast race.