The Villain Professor's Second Chance
Chapter 764 - 764: Lines That Don’t Erase (1)

The ringing in their ears hadn't faded. Even when the shattered pillar let out its final groan and toppled sideways with a splash, the sound arrived as though muffled by cotton. Sulphur clung to every breath, prickling nostrils and burning the back of throats. A briny haze rolled off the river in low curls, meeting the smoke and filling the valley with a taste like rusted coins left too long in seawater. Somewhere overhead a shard of broken glyph-stone still glowed cherry-red; drops of rain hissed to steam before they could cool it.

Sylvanna forced her boots through the slurry of silt and shattered runes until she reached the youngest scout. The boy's knees trembled, more from shock than pain. She pressed two fingers to the pulse at his neck— fast, but strong— then tugged the blood-damp wrap tighter around his arm.

"Easy," she said, pitching her voice soft enough to slip past the ringing. "Stings now, saves you later."

He managed a shaky grin. "Stings like nettles," he answered, repeating the field mantra every recruit learned on day one. Hearing his own voice seemed to steady him.

She squeezed his shoulder, then flicked her gaze toward Korin. The boy stood a few paces off, lantern clutched in both hands. The once-violet flame inside had darkened to indigo, but its heart still pulsed bright, steady as a heartbeat. Satisfied, she rose.

Across the ruin Draven worked alone, framed by a halo of steam rising from hot stone meeting cold water. The obsidian splinter jutting from beneath his rib looked wicked— a jagged tooth broken off in flesh— yet he managed to pull it free with a single jerk. The motion was so precise it felt impersonal, as though he extracted a faulty part from machinery, not a shard from his own body. Blood welled, bright against the smoke grime, but he merely pressed a gloved palm to the cut and moved on.

"Later," he muttered. Not to Sylvanna, not even to himself— just a statement to the universe that pain would have to wait its turn.

A low throb rippled underfoot. Cracked glyph-stones scattered across the floor flickered, then glimmered like dying coals coaxed by a bellows. The shimmer spilled upward, knitting itself into half-formed silhouettes: vague outlines of women juggling baskets, a child reaching for a ball, an old man stooped with fatigue. They hovered only an instant, soft as candle smoke— yet one shape drifted closer, lips parting around a single syllable.

"Dravis…"

The sound was barely louder than wind. Still, Korin recoiled as though slapped. He hugged the lantern to his chest, spine pressed against a toppled crate.

Draven didn't so much as blink. His eyes— those quicksilver slits always scanning— took in the phantoms, filed them under "insufficient threat," and dismissed them. But Sylvanna noticed the faint tightening at the corner of his mouth, the way his shoulders squared a fraction more than necessary. He was absorbing the name, letting it hit a wall inside rather than seep through.

Ash swirled, caught in an invisible current. Draven pivoted toward twin tunnel mouths yawning on the ruin's far side. One curved left into pure blackness; the other slanted down where a faint draft smelled of wet quartz and moss. Without hesitation he drew chalk, knelt, and scratched a spiral over the left arch. A diagonal slash bisected the mark— the sigil his people used for mines condemned and graves that should stay closed.

"Dead," he said, rising. His voice, though quiet, carved an order deeper than any shout. "We take the other. Weapons up. No echoes."

No one argued. The scouts pulled scarves over mouths. Sylvanna tugged her storm-rune glaive loose from its harness, the metal humming faintly like distant thunder behind walls. Korin ducked his chin and followed, boots splashing through puddles of rune sludge that still sizzled where it touched their soles.

They ran, feet drumming quick staccato through the tunnel throat.

Darkness closed like velvet curtains. No moon, no star-gleam, no campfire glow. Only Raëdrithar's body heat radiated from Sylvanna's gauntlet— a heartbeat of lightning that tingled through her bones with every pulse. The air grew damp, laced with the mildew tang of ancient mortar. Water dripped somewhere ahead, slow and hollow.

Halfway along the passage, Raëdrithar's plumage arced static. A finger of blue-white leapt to the wall, crackling across a weather-smoothed rune. Light flared.

Sylvanna barely had time to curse before the sigil answered. A pulse shot through her like ice water. Her knees buckled. Sight spun. Walls stretched and melted into sepia.

She staggered, and suddenly the tunnel was gone.

Lavender. Frost. The scent lanced memories she didn't know she carried. Snowflakes drifted in lazy spirals through moonlit branches, settling on shoulders draped in silver silk. The woman's song floated on the still air— ancient minor key notes that made her chest ache with recognition.

White hair, soft as milkweed, swept down slender shoulders. The woman's eyes— pale as morning frost— glimmered with unshed tears. In arms wrapped by heavy sleeves, she cradled a bundle of sea-blue linen. A newborn's sleepy whimper issued from within.

Beyond her, a shadow detached from the tree line. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Face hidden beneath a half-mask carved from dark wood. The figure carried something: a leather scroll-tube sealed with a broken crown crest. He approached the woman silently. She lifted her gaze and managed a smile born of pride and fear.

The bundle passed from shadow to mother. She kissed the child's brow, tears spilling freely.

"Syalra," she whispered, name trembling like chimes in wind. "Storm-child, remember our vow."

The shadow turned, mask briefly catching moonlight— a flash of steel-gray eyes, sharp as flint. Then he melted into darkness, cloak brushing snow without leaving prints.

Sylvanna's breath knotted in her lungs. The scene folded inward— lavender tinted to ash, frost to dripping stone, lullaby to echo. Pain shot through her head. When she blinked, the tunnel returned, torches sputtering in iron brackets the party had lit minutes earlier yet which she could no longer remember seeing.

"Syalra…" She tasted the name— breathy, raw— as though it had been ripped from somewhere behind her heart.

Everyone halted. Draven spun, eyes narrowing. Korin stared at her like she'd sprouted wings. The youngest scout mouthed the unfamiliar syllables, confused.

Her face burned. She straightened, wiping grime from her cheek with the back of her gauntlet. Before she could anchor herself, the question burst free.

"Since when did you realise my true lineage?"

The corridor felt too narrow, too loud with drip and shuffle and heartbeats. Draven's reply came dispassionately, almost bored.

"Coincidences pile up in war."

He turned away, the line of his shoulders an invitation to drop the subject.

Sylvanna's fury slipped in where dizziness had left. She took two sharp steps, boots crunching gravel. "You erased your past," she hissed, voice low enough not to carry to the scouts ahead but hot enough to scald. "Don't erase mine."

Draven stopped but didn't turn. For a heartbeat she thought he might answer— the silence stretched, elastic, trembling— but he simply adjusted the strap across his chest and resumed walking. Boot soles scraped stone in an unhurried rhythm.

Korin hovered between them like an uncertain tether, lantern cradled close. The purple flame cast shadows on his cheeks, making him look older than his years. His gaze darted from Draven's back to Sylvanna's tightened jaw. Whatever thoughts churned behind his dark eyes, he locked them away with an almost adult restraint.

He said nothing. Just kept walking. Korin lingered between them, unreadable.

_____

The corridor widened without warning, sandstone walls falling away into a yawning vault that felt more like the hollowed chest of some long-dead colossus than any place shaped by tools. Heat hit them first—thick, almost sweet, carrying the resin reek of burning sap. Then came the light: a molten amber glow that pulsed in steady intervals, bathing everything in a heartbeat-colored wash. The cadence was so steady Sylvanna's knees twitched in time before she caught herself.

Pylons jutted from the flagstones like half-grown fangs, their facets veined in runes that brightened and dimmed with the same pulse. Between them, metal rails marked a crude conveyor track, and atop the rails rode iron crates packed with jagged chunks of heart-wood. Each time a crate passed a pylon, a ribbon of orange energy licked out—sampling, draining, stealing.

Near the center loomed the altar-furnace. It wasn't a single structure but a cluster of bronze cauldrons bolted around a core that throbbed like a second sun. Thick ropes of liquid sap sluiced down its sides, spitting sparks where they met a bed of white-hot coals. Above it all, lattice gantries formed a webwork of metal spars, catwalks, and chain hoists—perfect terrain for ghosts or blades on silent missions.

Draven studied that ceiling first, eyes flicking as if reading invisible script. Every exposed joint, every slack chain, every rusted rivet was filed away. His head tilted, angle precise enough to determine weight load at a glance. When he spoke his voice never rose above the hum of the furnace.

"Three nexus runes—north, east, west—keep the conveyor alive. Kill those, the heart-wood stops feeding the core. I'll work from above." A short gesture traced his chosen path: up the nearest column, across two beams, down a chain.

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