Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 186: Dreaming tower

Chapter 186: Dreaming tower

Felix didn’t like the sky that morning.

It was too quiet.

Too still.

The clouds hung overhead like pale graves, unmoving despite the breeze. Even the Academy bells rang softer, as if muffled by some invisible hand.

And Cassandra hadn’t spoken since breakfast.

Not that she was a chatterbox before—but now, even the occasional glance or cryptic comment had vanished. She sat like a statue on the training bench, hands folded, eyes closed, a low tremor in her fingers.

Julien was the first to voice it.

"She humming again?"

Everyone turned.

"She hasn’t said a word," Mira replied. "But I felt something. Like... something’s crawling along my skin."

"That’s probably just the breakfast stew," Wallace muttered, scribbling furiously in his notebook. "They’ve started using condensed mana beans again. Side effects include hallucinations, insomnia, and developing a tongue that speaks only ancient syllables."

Leo made a noise of panic.

"I was kidding."

"Were you?!"

Lucian arrived a few moments later.

And everything stopped.

Because his eyes—usually bright with sardonic wit or looming threat—were shadowed. Focused. The Grimoire in his hand thrummed softly, its glow bleeding into the air like mist off a frozen blade.

"We’re taking a trip," he said without preamble.

"Is it about Felix’s letter?" Mira asked sharply.

He shook his head. "That’s next week. This is different."

Julien leaned back. "Field training?"

"No," Lucian replied. "We’re going east."

"...There’s nothing east," Garrick said.

Lucian looked at him.

"There was nothing."

He unfurled a page from the Grimoire—a map drawn in impossible ink, lines that shifted when unobserved.

At the center of the parchment was a spire.

Dark. Towering. Surrounded by fractured symbols none of them could read.

But they all felt it.

Like a breath held too long.

A dream half-remembered.

And a scream just beneath the silence.

"We’re going to find it," Lucian said. "You’re going to record everything. Observe. Do not touch anything without my say-so."

Wallace raised his hand. "Do we... bring weapons?"

"Yes."

Felix hesitated. "Do we bring... prayers?"

Lucian looked at him for a long, unreadable moment.

Then smiled.

A tired, bleak little thing.

"You should’ve started last night."

They left at dawn.

The path east of Noctis Ardentis was not charted.

Not anymore.

Once, it had been part of an old trade route—before the Reclamation Wars, before the boundary trees swallowed entire provinces whole. Now it was a place of roots and fog, where compasses spun and birds refused to sing.

They rode two enchanted wagons, guided by faceless constructs from the Academy’s vaults. Each carved with wards, bound with faded talismans.

Cassandra did not ride with the others.

She walked.

Always a few paces behind the second wagon, humming under her breath.

The tune changed every hour.

And every time, a different rune etched itself into the fog.

On the third night, they made camp beside a withered statue—half-buried, eroded by time. Mira ran her fingers across the cracked stone, tracing the outline of a forgotten crown.

"Doesn’t feel right," she whispered.

Lucian crouched nearby, watching the runes flicker across the Grimoire’s pages.

"The Tower shouldn’t exist," he said. "But it wants to."

"Like it’s dreaming itself into being?"

He didn’t answer.

Because Cassandra had begun to hum again.

But this time—

—there were words.

Foreign.

Low.

Runic.

Wallace scrambled to copy them down. Felix muttered prayers. Garrick stood guard with his blade unsheathed.

And above them, beyond the trees, a faint light blinked.

Once.

Twice.

A single, sleeping eye.

Watching.

Waiting.

And in the Grimoire, a new page burned into existence.

No ink.

Just four carved words:

Wake the Dreaming Tower.

The forest ended abruptly.

One moment, they were surrounded by whispering trees and vines that slithered like serpents across the roots. The next, they stood at the edge of a barren field—ashen, cracked, and flat as a dry tongue. Nothing lived here. Not the grass. Not the wind.

And in the center of that lifeless plain...

Stood the Tower.

It was not made of stone.

It was woven—threads of silver, obsidian, and bone spiraling skyward, twisting like a cocoon struggling to hatch something not meant for this world. It pulsed, softly, in time with Cassandra’s humming.

Lucian stepped forward, the Grimoire clutched tightly in one hand.

"This place wasn’t in the game," he murmured to himself. "This is something new."

Julien raised an eyebrow. "Game?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything." Lucian’s eyes didn’t leave the Tower.

He didn’t like this.

It didn’t behave like any dungeon or hidden instance from Sword of Radiance. There were no warding glyphs. No loot symbols. No difficulty indicators.

Just hunger.

Cassandra finally stopped walking.

And for the first time since they left, she spoke.

"It’s listening now."

Felix grabbed Lucian’s sleeve. "Professor, maybe this is a bad—"

The ground split.

A line of old runes—burned into the earth—lit up like veins filled with molten blood. The Tower breathed, drawing the mist around it into itself. And then, with a groan like a drowning choir, it opened.

A door. Carved not by hands, but by intention.

Lucian muttered a curse. "No backing out now."

He stepped forward, but Mira caught his arm.

"Let me go first."

Lucian hesitated.

Then nodded.

Mira touched the door.

It didn’t open further.

It devoured her.

One blink, and she was gone—like a candle snuffed in a breath.

Julien swore and ran in after her.

The others followed, one by one, some with blades drawn, others with teeth clenched. Only Cassandra remained behind, gazing at the Tower as if remembering something long buried.

Lucian turned to her. "Are you coming?"

Her voice was soft. "I never left."

She stepped through.

Lucian was the last.

And as the Tower swallowed him, the world twisted.

It was not a dungeon.

It was not even a place.

It was a mind.

Lucian staggered to his feet. The floor beneath him was made of mirrors. The walls reflected memories he didn’t recognize—flickers of lives never lived. A woman crying beneath a red sun. A knight nailed to a tree. A young boy scribbling runes into the sand as his village burned behind him.

Then—his students.

Each of them scattered across their own twisted corridors.

Each trapped.

Each alone.

A test.

A revelation.

A price.

Lucian pulled the Grimoire close, whispering a pattern of clarity.

The runes fought back.

This Tower has no logic.

It doesn’t want to be understood.

It wants to be known.

Suddenly, a figure stepped out from the mirrored wall in front of him.

It wore Lucian’s face.

But not his eyes.

Not Allen’s eyes.

The figure smiled.

"Hello, player. Or should I say—parasite?"

Lucian froze.

Because this wasn’t a memory.

This was something else.

Something that remembered him.

"Did you think you were the only one who slipped through the cracks?"

Lucian’s reflection pulsed.

And the Tower watched.

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