Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 181: A mirror hung in the flesh

Chapter 181: A mirror hung in the flesh

I didn’t sleep. Again.

Sleep had become a liability. Dreams weren’t mine anymore—if they ever were.

When I did close my eyes, I didn’t see the Academy, or Sūyara, or even the ruined clocktower where I once watched the sunset after beating Sword of Radiance’s final boss. No. I saw a reflection.

A mirror that breathed.

It didn’t reflect Lucian.

It didn’t reflect Allen.

It reflected something in-between. Something... unfinished.

That morning, I found myself in front of Headmaster Evercrest’s office before I even realized I’d walked here.

The doors were already open.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Evercrest had a way of knowing things before they happened. Whether it was divination, some absurd domain over fate, or sheer arrogance backed by power, I couldn’t say.

He stood behind his desk, spine straight, hands folded behind his back. Regal. Tired. His coat, trimmed in gold runes, shimmered faintly.

He looked at me.

"Professor Drelmont," he said, voice smooth as dusk over graveyards. "Or... is it Cross?"

I froze.

He smiled. Not cruelly. Not warmly either.

Just knowingly.

"You know," I said, keeping my tone casual. "I’m really starting to hate people with secrets."

"Then you must loathe yourself."

Touché.

I stepped inside, let the door click shut behind me. "You called me by a name I haven’t said aloud in this world. Who else knows?"

He walked past me, hands clasped behind his back as he stared out the window. "Fewer than you think. More than you’d like. The world is... reawakening, Lucian. Or Allen. Or whatever name you wish to cling to."

"That’s not an answer."

"It wasn’t meant to be."

I hated him.

Not because he was mocking me.

But because he wasn’t.

"Headmaster," I said slowly, "what exactly is this Academy built on?"

His eyes flicked to mine. "Not stone."

"Then what?"

"Regret. And a promise."

I stepped closer, breath shallow. "Who did you promise?"

He didn’t answer. Instead, he touched the window, and with a twist of mana, it became a mirror.

No.

Not a mirror.

Another world.

A vision.

And in it—I saw myself.

But not as Lucian. Not as Allen.

As something else.

Wrapped in threads of colorless magic, singing the same runic pattern I’d seen the night before.

The Song of Returning.

"Long ago," Augustus said, "this world tried to forget what it couldn’t defeat. It buried the ancient voices, locked the old knowledge in cursed bloodlines, and renamed the echoes as madness."

I stared at the vision.

The other-me opened his mouth. Light poured out.

"Are you saying I’m one of them?"

"I’m saying you were never supposed to wake up like this."

I turned to him, rage rising. "Then why did I?"

He looked genuinely sorrowful.

"Because someone broke the Pattern."

I left the office in silence.

No answers. Just more threads pulling at me from opposite ends.

Back in my quarters, the Grimoire lay open where I left it.

But now... the page had changed.

A single line was written in red ink, one I hadn’t added.

"The first seal is broken."

Beneath it, new runes coiled like sleeping snakes.

Phantom Pattern: Mirrorborn.

I traced a finger across it—and the room fell away.

I stood in a reflection of the Academy.

Not a dream. Not an illusion.

The floors were glass. The sky was liquid. And every student I passed had no face.

Except one.

Cassandra.

She was already waiting.

"You finally followed it," she said, arms crossed, eyes gleaming. "Good. We’re almost out of time."

I tried to ask what that meant.

But then she turned around and opened a door that wasn’t there a moment ago.

Inside?

A throne made of bone.

And something sitting on it.

Something that looked like me.

But it wasn’t.

And it smiled.

The throne room was dead quiet.

Not the silence of peace—this was the silence of breath caught in the throat of something ancient. Wrong. Waiting.

The thing on the throne leaned forward.

It wore my face. But not my posture.

Lucian Drelmont always carried the weight of contempt. Allen Cross carried the weight of exhaustion.

This thing? It carried nothing. No doubt. No past. Just a flawless, hollow reflection.

It smiled.

"You’re not supposed to be here yet," it said. My voice—clearer. Crisper. Better.

"Yet here I am," I replied, masking the dread building in my lungs. "Story of my second life."

The figure rose, fluid as ink poured underwater.

Every motion was practiced, refined—like it had rehearsed being me for centuries.

I instinctively reached for my Grimoire. It wasn’t there.

"You don’t need that here," it said, head tilting slightly. "This realm is built from Pattern, not will. And you..." its eyes shimmered, glassy and deep, "are still learning to crawl."

"I’ve survived worse."

"No, Lucian. You’ve survived less."

Cassandra stood behind me, silent, arms crossed. Her presence was the only anchor that kept my thoughts from unraveling.

I whispered to her, "What is this place?"

She answered without turning. "A fracture. A memory caught between the weave of the world and the people who forgot it. The Mirrorborn is a splinter. A test. A warning."

"And you brought me here?"

"I opened the door." She looked over her shoulder. "You walked through it."

The Mirrorborn circled me now, like a beast admiring its prey.

"You think you’re here because you glitched out of a game," it said, with amusement. "But what if that game was the echo, and this was always the origin?"

I clenched my fists. "Then why bother with the pretense? Why not just eat my soul or whatever you do for fun?"

The Mirrorborn chuckled. It stopped directly in front of me and leaned in, eyes inches from mine.

"Because the Pattern is watching," it whispered. "And it wants to see what kind of monster you’ll become."

Then the floor shattered beneath me.

I fell—not through space, but through myself. Memories flooded back in a tide.

Not mine.

Not Allen’s.

Not Lucian’s.

But someone who wore the crown of Severance before me. A Drelmont who carved the first rune into the bones of a dying god.

Evanar Drelmont.

I saw his hands, dipped in celestial ichor. I saw his eyes—silver, burning with divine theft.

I felt the grief. The betrayal. The rage at a world that begged for order and punished anyone who delivered it.

When I hit the ground, I was gasping.

I woke in my quarters, face down on the floor.

The Grimoire had closed itself.

Cassandra wasn’t there.

And on the mirror across from my bed, a message had been etched in runic fire:

"SEVERANCE HAS MEMORY."

I stumbled to my feet. My body felt heavier. Not like fatigue—but like inheritance.

Something had been passed to me.

Claimed me.

But the timing couldn’t have been worse.

A knock echoed through my quarters. Firm. Rhythmic. Military.

I opened the door to see Roderick Vaughn, pale and tense.

"You’re needed," he said. "The Headmaster has summoned all department heads. It’s urgent."

"What happened?"

He hesitated.

Then: "The northern wards have failed. Something crossed into the Academy grounds last night."

I froze. "A beast tide?"

"No." Roderick swallowed. "A Drelmont tomb opened. One not on any map."

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