Chapter 16: Helion Core [1]
"Vice-President Seris! Please save us!"
Hands reached from every direction as she walked through the chaos.
Students pressed against broken walls, some bleeding, some pulling others with them, all of them watching the beasts tear through the academy around them.
Seris didn’t slow down.
Her eyes swept the corridor once, took in everything, and returned to the path ahead.
"Chaos everywhere," she said, mostly to herself. "If I stop for every disturbance I’ll never reach the central grounds."
A horned beast lunged from the side.
She tilted her head. Its claws cut through empty air where her face had been.
Another came from behind. She stepped aside and it drove itself into a stone pillar with enough force to crack it through the middle.
The students nearest to her went quiet.
"She didn’t even look at it—"
"She just— how did she—"
More beasts poured in from the far end of the corridor, filling the space wall to wall, packing together until the only route forward was buried under fur and claws.
Seris stopped walking.
She looked at the blockage with visible disappointment.
"How troublesome."
The beasts roared. The sound shook dust from the ceiling.
They charged all at once.
She raised one hand.
Crimson mana rippled outward from her palm in a slow spreading wave. From the particles it left behind, a scythe materialized in black-bladed and its curve catching the orange firelight from burning buildings outside and reflecting it like a crescent moon that had decided to be a weapon.
The beasts in the front of the charge hesitated.
"Disappear." She swung once.
SHHHRRRKKK.
A crimson arc crossed the entire width of the corridor. The charging mass froze for one complete second and then bodies split apart, some cut clean through, others launched sideways into walls with enough force to crater the stone.
Not one beast left standing.
The students stared.
Seris looked at the blood on her scythe blade with mild distaste. She twirled it once. The weapon dissolved back into crimson particles and was gone.
"What a mess."
She kept walking.
Nobody stood in her path again.
_____
The central training grounds.
A handful of Student Council members had already assembled when she arrived.
A young man with short brown hair stepped forward and gave a crisp salute. "Nathan Ashborn, From Student Council Discipline Committee"
He gestured through the group. "Reporting with Secretary Nicholas Ashford and Treasurer Roselle Evercrest."
Seris walked into the gathering. "Vice-President Seris Silverhart."
The atmosphere settled noticeably. People who had been watching the treeline tracking beast movements let their shoulders drop by a fraction.
"Looks like everyone beat me here."
The voice came from across the grounds. A young man in a black royal academy coat walked over, working his neck to one side until it cracked.
"Would’ve been embarrassing if the Student Council President showed up last."
Augustus Solaris. Crown Prince of the Astern Kingdom. Second in academic standing only to Nicholas. The man the academy knew as Seris Silverhart’s future fiancé.
"Augustus Solaris." He looked at the assembled group. "President, reporting."
A figure descended from above.
Darius landed in front of the council, robes settling. The expression on his face was the kind that made people recalibrate how serious a situation was.
"Good. Every second matters now."
Roselle looked across the grounds at the beasts still moving through distant buildings. "Headmaster, what are these creatures? They don’t match anything in the academy’s recorded beast catalog."
"Because they aren’t natural beasts." Darius folded his hands behind him. "They’re Mana Beasts. Born directly from condensed mana rather than through ordinary biological reproduction. No ecosystem, no life cycle. Their existence is inherently unnatural."
Nicholas kept his eyes on the treeline. "Then what produced this many of them simultaneously?"
"Nothing ordinary."
"Whatever caused it," Augustus said, "the answer isn’t standing here working through theories." He looked at the grounds around them. "We clear them. Deal with the source after."
Darius looked at him directly. "That’s the approach won’t solve since there’s no end for those beasts."
Augustus met his eyes without moving.
"I know exactly what I’m dealing with." He kept his voice level but the edge in it was real. "I’m not being reckless, Headmaster. I’m saying that sitting still costs us just as much as moving wrong."
"Sending students at an unknown threat without information costs more."
"And waiting for perfect information while the academy burns isn’t strategy."
The surrounding council members went quiet.
Darius held Augustus’s gaze for a moment.
"You want to move," he said. "Then give me thirty seconds and I’ll give you a target worth moving toward."
A pause.
Augustus gestured forward with one hand. "Then talk."
"Headmaster Thorne!" The shout came from across the training grounds. Everyone turned.
Professor Helena crossed toward them. One hand pressed against her opposite shoulder, blood seeping steadily between her fingers.
Roselle moved to her immediately, both hands steadying her before she could lose balance.
"Professor! you’re hurt. What happened?"
Helena steadied herself. "I was guarding the Underground Artifact Chamber." She looked at Darius. "There was an intruder."
The words landed on the entire group at the same time.
Nathan straightened. "Someone targeted the chamber specifically? In the middle of all of this?"
"They bypassed every security layer and reached the deepest vault." She kept her eyes on Darius. "I tried to stop them. I failed. They escaped with the sealed relic."
Darius closed his eyes for a brief moment.
"The Helion Core."
Helena lowered her head. "Yes. I’m sorry."
’Just as I feared..’ Darius sighed.
The silence hung heavy.
Augustus broke it first. "What’s the Helion Core?"
Darius looked back toward the academy buildings where Mana Beasts were still appearing from gaps in the walls.
"An ancient relic. Sealed here because sealing it was the safest option available. Its function is a single one, it summons Mana Beasts into reality."
Roselle’s grip on Helena’s arm tightened. "So everything happening right now—"
"Was triggered by someone removing it from containment. Yes."
Seris had one arm folded beneath the other, watching him. "Then whoever stole it is directing these beasts?"
"No." Darius shook his head. "That’s the specific problem. The Helion Core cannot be controlled by ordinary means. The moment someone touches it physically, it overwhelms them. They stop being a person with the relic, they simply become the vessel for the artifact’s power. Their will dissolves and they become the source."
Nicholas had gone very still. "Unless..."
"Unless the person holding it is a Spire." Darius looked at him.
Among humanity, a Spire was a title granted only to those who had transcended the limits of ordinary warriors.
He continued "Only someone at that level has any chance of maintaining themselves against what the Core does to its host."
Nathan’s jaw set. "So, we’re either dealing with someone who has lost themselves entirely to the artifact or someone strong enough to stay in control of it."
"Either possibility is dangerous," Darius said. "Which is why our objective is no longer eliminating individual Mana Beasts." He looked across the entire council.
"We locate the person carrying the Core. When the Core is secured, the beasts stop manifesting. The entire outbreak ends the moment we find one person."
Augustus looked at the surrounding grounds.
"One target," he said. "That’s manageable."
"More manageable than what we had thirty seconds ago," Darius said.
Something in Augustus’s expression changed, which wasn’t readable.
Darius’s voice dropped.
"One more thing. What we have discussed in this circle stays in this circle. If it spreads that the academy lost control of an artifact capable of generating an infinite beast outbreak—" his eyes moved across each of them in turn,
"the fallout from the kingdom and the council board will make this situation look simple by comparison." He held the last look a fraction longer. "I trust that everyone here understands the matter."