Dark Dragon: The Summoned Hero Is A Villain

Chapter 335: Busy Days Ahead

The pain was the first thing Noah registered as his eyes fluttered open.

It came from everywhere at once, with no single source distinguishable from the rest. All he could feel was just a uniform pressure that covered him from the back of his skull to the soles of his feet.

He lay there on the ground for a moment, breathing through it, waiting for his body to finish reminding him of everything it had been through.

Then he sat up.

His vision came in pieces. Blurred edges first, then shapes, then detail, the world assembling itself slowly around him like something being built in real time.

He pressed one hand against the ground to steady himself and felt broken stone beneath his palm.

He took stock.

The pain was real and present and considerable. But it was his body that hurt. His muscles and bones arched with the deep cellular exhaustion of someone who had burned through everything they had and then kept going. He turned his attention inwards, reaching for the thing he’d been most afraid to check.

His mana channels were there.

They were intact. The pathways that had been collapsing for weeks sat open and unobstructed, carrying mana the way they were supposed to, without resistance, without the constant drag of something feeding against the current.

The Mana Leech was gone.

He felt the happiness begin to rise and then something drifted into his field of vision and landed on the ground in front of him.

Ash.

He looked up.

Then he looked around.

The surprise hit him before he had words for it. The academy he had walked through every day for months was gone in every direction he turned.

Walls had come down, leaving ragged silhouettes against the sky. Towers stood at wrong angles or didn’t stand at all, their upper halves collapsed into rubble that spread across the grounds in grey drifts. Blue fire still burned across the faces of half a dozen structures, stubborn and cold-looking against the early light. The ash fell continuously, soft and silent, coating everything in a thin grey layer that muffled the world.

He had seen this before.

Every detail of it. In the dream where Lady in Dark had stood across from him in a burning academy and smiled.

He had to admit that he had known this was the cost. And he had chosen it anyway.

"Noah Webb."

He looked up.

High Magus Edric stood over him, looking down with eyes that had gone completely cold.

"You are under arrest for the crime of unauthorized unearthing of a monolith."

In response to his words, the two soldiers nearby moved towards Noah, the mana suppression chains hanging between their hands, clinking as they walked.

The moment those chains encircled his hands, he knew what would happen. He’d never be able to access his magic.

The memory hit him before the sight even fully registered. The sight of familiar stone walls, the cold air, and the particular silence of a place built to make people disappear.

The images of the Investigation Authority’s cells flickered in his mind. And along with it came the feeling of the walls pressing inwards and the helplessness of sitting across a table from people who had already decided what they believed.

He reached for Null Stride.

Nothing answered.

He grasped again, reaching deep for his mana but found nothing.

His mana channels were open, intact, and completely, utterly empty. He’d poured everything he had into the spatial rift. There was nothing left to use at this moment.

The realization made his eyes widened and he immediately shoved himself to his feet, legs shaking beneath him, the pain from every part of his body arriving all at once as he put weight on it. He ignored it.

"No," he said. Then again, lower, almost to himself. "No, no, no."

The nearest soldier reached for his arm.

Noah threw himself backwards, creating distance, landing badly on his left foot and nearly going down before catching himself.

The soldiers moved to flank him and a spell formation formed above their palms in readiness.

"Hold." Edric’s voice filled the air.

The soldiers stopped, then pulled back. Edric stepped forward, his expression unreadable, his eyes on Noah’s face with an attention that felt like something being carefully read.

"Come with us, Noah," he said. "It’s better for you to walk in by yourself and face what you’ve done."

"I’m not going back there." Noah’s voice came out harder than he intended. "I swore I wouldn’t. I’m not going."

Edric froze, the movement almost imperceptible.

His eyes moved across Noah’s face slowly, taking in something that Noah couldn’t identify. Then, quietly, almost to himself, he murmured, "The compulsion is broken."

Then he vanished.

The air where he’d been standing moved outwards in a soft rush. Noah felt it against the back of his neck and dropped immediately, Edric’s hand passing through the space his head had just occupied.

But he wasn’t fast enough to do anything about what came next.

A tree erupted from the ground directly beneath him, the trunk catching him clean under the jaw with a crack that snapped his head back and turned the world white.

He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Edric stood over him, straightening his sleeve.

"Bind him," he said to the soldiers. "Take him in."

He watched the soldiers clamp the chains around Noah’s wrists, the dark metal locking into place with a muffled sound. Then they lifted him without ceremony and carried him away, his head lolling, his feet dragging through the ash.

Edric turned to the nearest unit.

"Check every building still standing. Student bunkers first, then the dormitories. I want a full count of survivors and I want it before the hour is out. Anyone injured gets immediate attention. Move."

They moved.

He turned and knelt beside Cecilia.

She lay where she had fallen, her breathing even, her face relaxed as if she hadn’t rested for a long time. She probably hadn’t. He had to admit that with the expression of peace on her face, she looked extremely beautiful. Just like her mother.

Edric placed his palm gently against her head and let his life energy flow into her once more, spreading through her the same way it had minutes ago when he’d pulled her back from the edge.

It reached her skull and stopped.

He pressed carefully, feeling along the boundary of it. There was a barrier sitting directly around her mind, thin and precisely placed, woven with a control and delicacy that he recognized as the work of someone who had done this many times before.

His energy moved along its edges and found no gap. There was no weakness to exploit, and no point of entry left in place.

He withdrew his hand and sat back on his heels. He exhaled slowly through his nose.

Noah’s compulsion had finally broken. And now Cecilia was unreachable. The two people he needed most in the coming days, and both of them were gone in different ways.

He looked out across the burning ruins of the academy.

The days ahead were going to be very busy indeed.