The Villain Professor's Second Chance
Chapter 771 - 771: Half a Face, Half a History (3)

Draven's hand shot out and pressed flat to her wrist, palm absorbing the residual static. "Ground it," he ordered, voice low, and twisted his grip so their joined skin made a conduit to the metal flooring. A thread of lightning bled from her to him, then to earth, dissipating in a soft hiss.

He followed immediately with an incant: "Eva'rel lun thar." The syllables of Old Sylvan were as clean as razor cuts, delivered with perfect cadence. A stillness slid through the crackling air as though the language itself were a key twisting in a lock. The stormlight around Sylvanna's hand collapsed inward, sparking once before it winked out.

She inhaled like a diver breaking surface after too long underwater. Her lashes fluttered; clarity returned, tempered by something older than memory. She pushed a stray braid behind her ear, the charm at its tip glowing faint and hot against her neck.

"My name is Syalra-Sylvanna," she said at last, voice a blend of rain-soft wonder and new-forged steel. The name felt different now—less like a puzzle piece forced into place, more like a blade settling proper into a hilt built for it.

Draven inclined his head in acknowledgement. No flourish, no congratulations, just a nod: a contract sealed. But in the shallow lines bracketing his eyes there was the barest abatement of tension, as if the vow he had spoken earlier now sat a fraction lighter on his spine.

**

Metal groaned overhead, a fresh chord in the symphony of distant machinery. The time for reflection ended.

Azra materialised atop a bony arch two spans away, the uneven crystals beneath her boots scattering prismatic shards of light with every step. She looked smaller without the mask—just a woman moulded by purpose and sharpened by loss—but the shard-blade in her hand lengthened her shadow, turned it spear-thin and lethal.

Draven left Sylvanna with a parting glance and dropped from the balustrade to the leviathan's first dorsal ridge. Crystal slats snapped underfoot, tinkling into the lake as he landed in a half-crouch. Azra was already advancing, a dancer on a slackline, her blade cocked back for a killing thrust.

There was no war-cry, no clatter of shields—only their breathing. Azra lunged, thrusting for his sternum. Draven met the attack with a cross-block, both knives forming an X that caught the shard's edges and held. Sparks burst, rainbow-white.

"You think you can overwrite me?" His voice was level, but his wrists strained; the shard burned cold, each rune along the flat trying to bite through his guards.

"You overwrote me," she hissed. Her eyes were wild, unfocused, but grief glimmered at the edges like an eclipse second. She wrenched her blade down, scraping one knife aside, and hammered a knee toward his ribs.

Draven pivoted, letting the knee glance off leather. He twisted, hooking a garrote wire from his cuff. It flicked out, caught her forearm. With a jerk he pulled her balance forward, forcing her onto one foot. "Your house wasn't erased by me," he gritted, sliding to her flank. "It was erased by the king you serve."

The words landed harder than his knee to her back. She gasped, stumbled, blood smearing where the wire scored skin. But she was no fledgling; she rolled across a slanted rib, coming up with a backhand slash that kissed Draven's sleeve, parting fabric and tracing a shallow line on his bicep. Crystals tinked around them like glass rain.

Two metres below, Sylvanna had reached the energy dais ringing the heart-node. Pillars of milky quartz thrust upward, each capped by a metallic collar humming with stored charge. She planted her glaive butt against the floor and flared her lightning. The storm answered in a shriek, spearing down the weapon's runes and discharging at the collars. White-blue arcs spidered across the pillars. Each collar glowed brilliant white, then deepened to searing blue before fading again. Her braid snapped behind her like a live thing.

"Balance," she told herself, the word a metronome. She modulated her breathing. "Balance."

Every time her pulse wavered, the columns flashed uneasily yellow, and the leviathan's heart flickered. She thought about her mother's lullaby—six notes, simple—and matched that beat. White again, blue again, stable.

Korin knelt at the shoreline with the last remaining scout, a grizzled veteran named Daro who sang like a smith shaping sword steel. They chanted the river-hymn in counterpoint: low drones, rising thirds, dissonant sevenths settling into sweet fifths. Their voices poured across the water, coaxing ripples that suppressed the amber. But the hymn was long and winding, and Daro's voice cracked on a difficult trill.

Instantly, echo-leeches burst from fissures in the shore wall, mouths puckered to steal sound. Two latched to Daro's shin, teeth like soft needles piercing leather. He yowled. The hymn faltered again; more leeches slithered forth.

Korin swung the lantern, violet flame brightening to searing indigo. The glass hissed, glare scorching the nearest parasites into steam. He kept singing, though tears tracked down his cheeks. "Stay on line, Daro! I've got rhythm for both of us!"

Draven heard the ruckus, flicked eyes that direction—calculation blitzing behind his calm stare. But Azra pressed, twin daggers now in play. She feinted high, slashed low, forcing him toward a slope slick with condensation. He risked a glance above: stalactites loaded with crystal dew. An idea clicked.

He baited a high thrust and backpedalled, letting her momentum carry. At the last instant he angled a knife, sending the shard-blade skittering across slick bone. She overbalanced, shoulders dipping under hanging stalactites. Draven snapped a throwing blade upward. It struck a thin spar. The stalactite sheared free and smashed onto Azra's guard arm. Crystal exploded; shards clinked down her pauldron, shredding cloth.

She snarled, pulled back—bleeding heavier. "You'll die here with me if the altar walks!" she spat.

"Not planning on sharing the road," he answered, lunging. She parried but retreated, leaking blood, steps less sure. He marked the weakness.

**

Atop the dais Sylvanna felt the tide turn. The columns stabilised at white-blue. The leviathan's heart shifted from sick amber to a cautious cool azure. She dared a glance to Draven. He had Azra penned against a rib, wire garrote ready. Good. Now keep the heart steady.

But deep within the heart-node something bucked. A final defence. The pulse super-charged, shot amber veins lashing out like claws of molten gold. Columns screamed as currents spiked. She bit off a curse, ramming her glaive tip against the dais, channelling lightning down into the surge.

Electric fury collided with molten memory. The impact cracked pillars, expelled a shockwave that nearly flung her across the platform. She held her ground by pure will, feet skidding, gauntlets creaking. "Not yet," she growled. "Not again."

Lightning blossomed through her braid-charm, lancing to each collar in rapid succession—one, two, five, eight—re-writing circuits in real time. The amber recoiled like a wounded beast, retreating into the heart-node. Blue seeped after, quenching the heat.

Across the lake, Korin hit the hymn's final line, voice raw but true. Daro rasped harmony through clenched teeth, leeches still gnawing but momentum theirs. The water brightened—mirroring Sylvanna's cerulean.

The leviathan inhaled.

Time paused—every sound sucked inward. Crystals froze mid-drip, Azra's next breath waited in her lungs, Draven's heartbeat skipped. Then the leviathan exhaled, long and slow. The amber vanished completely, replaced by deep sky blue luminescence that filtered through ribs and water alike.

A groan of stone overhead heralded the final collapse: the cavern roof, sapped of energy, shuddered and began to sheer. Sylvanna disengaged, sprinting for the catwalk where Draven fought. "It's coming down!" she shouted, voice sharp through new stillness.

Draven spun the garrote one last time, but Azra had already dived aside, blood slicking the rib. She took the slope in a slide, vanishing down a maintenance ramp toward archive tunnels.

Draven chose the team over the kill. He waved Sylvanna toward a service ladder as slabs the size of wagons ripped free behind her.

"Exit channel—north vent!" he barked at the scouts across the chamber. They pivoted. Korin hauled Daro onto his shoulders despite size difference, trudging ankle-deep through water now glowing soft cerulean.

Falling columns hammered into the lake, sending geysers spraying. Mist soaked everyone, chilling in seconds. Draven led, mapping footholds even as the floor pitched. He guided Korin's trembling steps, shoved pillars aside as though rearranging furniture, never pausing more than a heartbeat to reassess. Sylvanna flanked, scattering lightning to shatter smaller debris before it could pin anyone.

They reached the vent—an oblique shaft climbing ninety feet to a break in the rock face. Draven went last, shearing loose ropes to discourage pursuit. The final echo of collapse boomed below, sending a surge of blue water roaring up the shaft behind them, spraying their backs as they emerged into a moss-ringed lagoon. Morning sun hammered their wet clothes until steam coiled from every cuff.

They sprawled on slick grass, lungs afire. Daro laughed once—hysterical relief—then passed out as Korin lowered him gently. Sylvanna rolled to her knees, eyes scanning the lagoon where the leviathan now rested beneath ripples. Blue glow pulsated steady, peaceful. Not dead. Dreaming.

Draven wiped lake water from his eyes, found Azra on a distant ledge leading to the exposed Archive entrance. She was limping, one arm clutched, but she paused, staring back across shattered terrain. Their gazes met across the distance. No anger now—only agreement that the reckoning was postponed, not abandoned. She slipped into shadow-cloaked corridors.

He exhaled, tension coiling off him in threads. Alive. Team intact. Objective partially achieved. Tactical mind already drafting next steps.

**

Far downriver Vaelira watched grey water blush pale blue as it slid beneath the chain bridge. Ice floes cracked, releasing trapped sap that fizzed then faded. She closed her eyes. "West," she said, voice fierce, hope-hurt. "We march west." Orders rippled through her ranks like fresh wind snapping flags.

Within the capital's high walls, fire crews ignited tar-soaked pyres. Thick black pillars climbed into morning haze. Vostyr oversaw from a balcony, cloak tucked against acrid heat. "If the plague reaches us," he decreed, "burn the blocks. All of them." Courtiers paled but bowed.

In a star-chamber lined with brass sextants, Helyra tipped cerulean ink across parchment depicting constellations. The colour spread like dawn flooding a valley, swirling into patterns the night sky had not shown in generations. Her finger traced the whirl, heart pounding. Same hue as Draven's last raven-feather report. Same hue as prophecy lines etched in her mentor's bones.

She whispered a prayer to nameless fates, folding the chart so quickly the ink ran.

Deep below the salt-stone cliffs, forgotten doors rumbled. Ancient hinges ground against rock, releasing stale air that smelled of brine and dust and the first word a child ever utters. Mechanisms clicked to life, some oiled by tides, some by sheer inevitability. Echoes rolled through tunnels no living torch had graced in centuries.

And something began to listen.