The Villain Professor's Second Chance
Chapter 763 - 763: Ashfall and Echoes (End)

Frost-brittle air settled over the grove like a vow no one dared break. Each exhale from Draven's small column coiled into small, perfect clouds that fractured in the slanted sunlight before drifting away—ghosts too thin to linger. The departure should have felt momentous, but it carried the hush of a secret instead, as though the western ridge were swallowing every sound the moment boots touched the first slope.

Draven adjusted nothing about his stride or posture when the wind picked up, though the gust tugged at his cloak hard enough to snap the hem against his calves. The braid Sylvanna had offered remained tucked under the first leather strap of his gear harness, a muted sparkle whenever morning light found the storm-threads. He did not glance at it, but he understood it was there—an unfamiliar weight just above the heartbeat he preferred to pretend he no longer noticed.

Sylvanna walked half a pace behind him at first, giving him the illusion of solitude, but after fifty yards she matched him shoulder to shoulder. Her new glaive rode her spine like a slender promise of violence, the runes faintly alive with sky-charge so recent it still hissed across the metal. Every now and then her fingertips brushed the haft, as though grounding a too-bright thought before it leapt to her lips. The movement was unconscious, and that unsettled her far more than any enemy blade.

Korin marched just behind her—lantern clasped with both hands, chin up despite the cold bruising his cheeks. He'd charred the once-white ribbons on the handle so they blended with soot, claiming it was "for quiet." The small boy said little, but his dark eyes catalogued everything: the way snowflake ash swirled, the angle Draven's head tilted when he listened to terrain, how Sylvanna's footfalls differed from the scouts'. Information nested in him like sparrows finding cracks in a ruined wall.

The three scouts fanned slightly once terrain allowed—one on a fallen trunk, one weaving through bramble pockets, the last ghosting the column's rear. None spoke, yet their gestures—brief taps to hilts, a crooked finger toward a track, a silent wave to slow pace—formed a language of vigilance as old as war.

The path west soon narrowed into a corridor lined by charred oaks whose branches extended like fingers blackened to bone. Here, Draven lifted a hand, and the entire group halted in unison. Without looking back, he knelt, pressing bare fingertips to ash-laden soil. When he stood, a single speck of gray clung to his glove—too uniform in shape to be natural. He flicked it away. "Still warm," he murmured.

Sylvanna crouched beside the same patch, feeling the mild heat that pulsed beneath the frost crust. Lightning danced along her knuckles, then receded. "Residual rune-burn. Fresh—maybe twelve hours." She glanced up the ravine wall where frost had melted in a perfect, rune-etched circle. "Someone tested a memory-catcher here."

Draven's eyes narrowed. He tapped Korin's arm, then drew a quick sigil on the boy's lantern glass. "Don't open that shutter unless I say. If the roots whisper too loudly, they'll find our thoughts first." The boy nodded, gripping the handle so tight his knuckles paled. A tiny blue glow flicked behind the shutter panes, then stilled.

The column moved again, pace accelerated. Their boots beat a metronome through sludge that steamed at its edges. When the path fractured into two prongs—one descending into a misty gorge, the other hugging a slope of shattered limestone—Draven paused only long enough to register the faint echo of chanting drifting up from the gorge. He chose the higher trail without comment. The scouts followed, adjusting their spacing to account for jagged footing. Sylvanna waited until they were moving before speaking softly beside him.

"You felt it too," she said, not a question.

"A memory net that size," he answered, "would have ripped impressions from every corpse in the grove if we'd stayed another hour." He scanned the ridgeline, tracing invisible lines of probability. "He wants the battle-scars. Our casualties are fuel for his next iteration."

Sylvanna shivered—not from cold. "He's stitching a tapestry out of the dead."

Draven's jaw set. "And we're following the thread before it knots."

They pressed on. Mid-morning sunlight filtered through broken birches, painting stripes of gold and coal on the snow-gray ground. A hare bolted across the trail, its fur ash-smudged. One scout instinctively reached for his bow, then stopped, realizing the creature's eyes were milk-white—blinded, perhaps by the same rune-flash that scorched the ridge. It crashed into a fallen log and twitched in confusion before vanishing into underbrush. Sylvanna watched it go, lips pressed to disguise a sigh. Even innocents were forgetting themselves.

By noon, the western sky wore thunderclouds the texture of bruised iron. Lightning stuttered in distant sheets, too far for thunder yet, but closing. Ridges grew steeper, demanding hands as well as feet. Korin, light and nimble, climbed like ivy, but one scout slipped, sending a cascade of shale rattling down the slope. Everyone froze, listening. No answering shout. No bird startled—there had been no birds since the grove. Only the hush of a forest holding its breath.

They stopped at a shelf of rock overlooking a valley where two rivers met: one shallow, choked by stones; the other deep, black with silt, moving like cold oil. Draven motioned for a break. The scouts hunkered by a boulder, chewing dried root and passing a waterskin. Sylvanna perched on the ledge, scanning the valley through the lens of her storm-sight. To her eyes, currents of air glimmered faintly, tracing paths only Raëdrithar could ride. Those lines converged at a clutch of distant ruins—broken pillars half-submerged in the black river. The ruins pulsed dimly, as if drawing breath.

She pointed. "He's directing flow there. See the vortices?" Draven stepped beside her, following her finger. His eyes lacked her storm-sense, but he saw the strategic allure: water routes for transport, limestone caverns for staging, pillars as anchor pylons. He exhaled through his nose. "A funnel," he said. "Everything downstream ends up in his basin."

Korin edged forward. "The stones hum there," he whispered, lantern shutter vibrating ever so slightly. "They sing old songs. Hungry ones."

Draven's attention pivoted to the child. "What else do they say?"

Korin frowned, listening to something no one else could hear. "They remember a man with empty eyes," he said finally. "They say he walks like a borrowed shadow. They say he left pieces of himself behind… so new roots can drink them."

No one spoke for several breaths. Then Draven rose. "We cut toward those pillars before nightfall. If we hear chanting, we flank along the higher bank." He glanced at Sylvanna. "Storm cover?"

She closed her eyes, feeling the weight of the distant thunder. "Three hours, maybe four, before the front breaks. I can mask our approach but lightning will answer if I push too hard."

"Then let's not push." He signaled the scouts. Packs were shouldered, weapons checked. Korin's lantern remained shuttered, though faint whispers bled through the seams.

They descended into the valley single-file, stepping stone to stone over the shallow river. Water licked their boots, leaving black silt that smelled faintly of ink. Halfway across, Sylvanna's glaive channels hummed—skyward mana gathering in thin streaks. She grounded the blade, letting excess bleed into the current. Blue sparks tumbled away downstream, dying in eddies.

On the far bank the path twisted under low arches of fractured marble—remnants of some ancient aqueduct. Here Draven nudged the group against the wall, pausing to study grooves chiseled into stone. "Cart tracks," he judged, brushing debris away to reveal metal scuffs. "Fresh within the day." One scout pointed to flecks of black resin pooled in a rut. Draven crouched, rubbed it between fingertips, sniffed. "Same ichor."

They followed the tracks until the marble columns gave way to earthen ramparts shaped like ribs of a buried beast. Ahead, the broken pillars rose: tall spines encrusted with moss and glyph moss. Low chanting now drifted on the wind, words indistinct but cadenced in triplets—Orvath's signature. The group sank into cover behind a tumble of stone blocks. Draven surveyed through a tiny crack: five robed figures hauling crates toward an archway half-submerged in riverwater. Reaper remnants in chitin armor stood guard, halberds gleaming. On the central pillar pulsed a glyph pattern identical to that found on the bone shard—a seal fueling the ritual.

Draven's mind measured distances: arrow flight paths, blind spots, time for reinforcements from unseen tunnels. Rapid assault risked Korin; waiting risked crates entering the vault. He turned to Sylvanna. "Quiet or loud?"

She felt the glaive's energy hum like a restless heart. "Start quiet," she said, eyes sparking. "But end loud enough they never doubt who's chasing."

Draven's mouth curved—small, feral. He gestured orders: two scouts to arc right along waterline, third to take high ground behind a leaning pillar. Korin remained by Sylvanna. Draven slipped forward, cloak shifting from gray to mottled earth as he merged with shadow. He moved in angles—never straight, always glancing edges—until he crouched behind the rearmost cart.

A reaper guard turned, sensing motion. Draven's blade was already at his throat. A single jerk—silent, surgical. The body eased down without splash. He caught the halberd mid-fall and propped it against the crate to mislead casual glance. One robed figure stepped near; Draven's left dagger opened the man's spine in a diagonal line, then guided him into the shadows. Soft gurgle lost in chant.

High above, the third scout's bow twanged—arrow throated the second guard. Before panic spread, Sylvanna rose from cover, drawing a half-circle in air with her free hand. The storm front answered—first a hush, then a low moan rolling along the valley floor. Dust spiraled, cloaking the team as they surged forward. Her arrow sang, embedding in the pillar glyph. The rune flared, then sputtered. The chants faltered.

Then came loud.

Sylvanna snapped her glaive open with a metallic shriek. Skyward mana poured down the channels, igniting runes in a chain reaction. The blade crackled white-blue; each swing shredded air, leaving ozone scars. She carved through two reapers before they raised halberds, the weapon's roar masking their death cries. Lightning leapt from the blade into nearby glyph stones, overloading them in bursts of sparks.

Korin, lantern now unshuttered, lifted the flame toward the archway. The whisper in his ears became a wail only he registered. He whispered back—one soft phrase—and the lantern light deepened to violet, washing over the crates. Protective wards fizzled and went dark.

Draven used the moment. He sprinted across open ground, vaulting a splintered railing. Two more robed figures spun, hands weaving attack sigils. Too slow. Draven's right blade cut down one, left dagger buried under the other's ribs. As the bodies hit water, he saw what the crates carried: more heartwood fragments, each bound in iron netting etched with assimilation runes.

"Charges," he ordered the nearest scout, who jogged up with flint-fused explosives. They rigged the crates as Sylvanna held the front line, her body spinning in arcs of sparks and stormlight, each kill punctuated by thunder rolled small in her throat.

Draven re-checked perimeter—no fresh guards, but chanting resumed deeper inside tunnels. They had minutes.

He signaled retreat. Sylvanna backpedaled, glaive folding mid-step to stow. She slung an arm around Korin, drawing the boy behind a block. Draven gave the scout a nod; the man touched steel to fuse. Sizzling hiss, orange flare, then the scout sprinted.

They cleared the rampart. Blast followed—deep boom muffled by river's weight, then a geyser of water and shattered wood. The pillar glyphs flickered once, twice, then guttered like candles in a downpour. Silence crashed down into the valley, broken only by debris raining onto water.

Breathing hard, Sylvanna leaned against a stone, lightning still crawling her skin. Draven passed her, eyes sweeping for survivors. None. He allowed one slow exhale.

She caught his sleeve. "Quiet enough, you think?"

Draven's small, grim smile showed teeth. "They hear us now."

_____

Miles east, Vaelira's force reached the river pass at twilight. She stood upon the broken parapet of an old watch-tower, watching ice floes form where once lilies floated. A scout delivered news of faint thunder echoing from the west—too distant to be natural. She closed her eyes, imagining a storm-tailed arrow and a blade of silence.

"Hold the line," she said, tightening her gauntlet. "Our ghosts are busy."

Below, soldiers raised fresh barriers of ironwood logs while priests strung prayer-seals that fluttered like startled birds. The river's current roared, uncaring of mortal plans—but Vaelira planted her staff, and for a moment the river seemed to bow.

_____

Deep beneath cathedral roots, glyph-fire blazed higher with every heartbeat. Orvath's masked companion watched the altar pulse, eyes bright with anticipation. "Look how it breathes," they whispered, breath fogging their mask. "As if it can't wait to be born."

Orvath's fingers trembled inches above the ichor's surface. "It hungers for what he took," he breathed. "And when it feeds, it will remember its maker."

The wall of inscriptions behind them rumbled, old stone flexing like lungs dredging first air in centuries. Roots above writhed, dislodging soil that fell like hourglass sand. Azure sparks skittered across the altar, tracing patterns that shimmered between language and music.

And the altar began to pulse.