A shiver ran through Aelith’s spine. It was subtle at first, a quiet disturbance at the edges of her awareness. But then, like a drum reverberating across an endless abyss, it struck.

  A pulse.

  Not just any pulse—a wave of primal force, not vast in magical power, but so impossibly dense that it commanded attention. The air around them grew heavier, suffocating in its intensity, yet there was no malice in it. No intent to kill.

  And that made it worse.

  Thorne was the first to react, stepping back instinctively, a hand pressed to his grimoire. His battle-hardened instincts screamed of an entity awakening, something beyond the threshold of natural evolution.

  Caelum’s face darkened, his mind already racing. His mastery over magic allowed him to measure the weight of things unseen, and this—this was not something that belonged to Tangea’s current era.

  “What was that?” Thorne muttered, his voice lower than usual.

  Aelith didn’t answer immediately. Her grip on her staff tightened, her breath steady but controlled. She had felt something before—not the same, but similar. A lingering trace of something lost to time.

  “Something ancient,” she finally said, her voice hushed.

  Frid, standing apart from them, was motionless. The faceless man tilted his head, as if listening to the echoes of the abyss. Then, in a voice devoid of warmth, he mumbled:

  “Another seeker of power?”

  His fingers twitched, an almost reflexive response. The Illusion Grimoire at his side shimmered faintly, an ethereal manifestation of his fractured mind.

  But none of them were concerned with Frid at the moment.

  The pulse had come from below. From something deep beneath the waves.

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  And now, it was awake.

  Aelith was the first to act. She closed her eyes briefly, inhaling through her nose as she attuned herself to the world's natural rhythms. The grimoire at her side flickered, and her senses expanded.

  What she saw—or rather, what she felt—was unsettling.

  The pulse was not an explosion of magic. It did not ripple outward like uncontrolled energy. Instead, it contracted, as if space itself folded inward before returning to normal. It wasn’t just power. It was density, a gravitational force in the fabric of Tangea’s magic.

  She had never encountered such a thing before.

  And yet, something about it felt familiar.

  "Whatever this is, it's not natural," she said, opening her eyes.

  Caelum had already drawn his own conclusions. “It’s concentrated… almost refined,” he muttered. His hands hovered over his own grimoire, its presence flickering between the material and immaterial.

  Frid, still as a statue, spoke once more.

  “There is hunger.”

  The words sent a chill through Aelith.

  Hunger.

  Not a mindless hunger, nor one driven by mere instinct. It was something deeper, something old.

  Caelum’s gaze sharpened. “You make it sound like it’s alive.”

  Frid chuckled—a dry, humorless sound. “Alive? No. But it will be.”

  The way he said it sent a ripple of unease through them all.

  Thorne exhaled sharply. “We need to focus. We don’t know what that was, and I don’t like standing around waiting for an answer to come to us.”

  He turned toward Aelith. “Can you track it?”

  Aelith hesitated. The answer was yes—but not in the way they wanted.

  “This power isn’t something I can just ‘track.’ It’s… like trying to follow a shadow in a pitch-black room.” She exhaled. “But I can feel its pull. It’s somewhere far below.”

  Thorne exchanged glances with Caelum.

  “Then we go down.”

  Navigating the hidden chamber beneath the school was not an easy feat. The path had long since been sealed by time, but Aelith’s knowledge—though she never disclosed how she obtained it—led them unerringly through forgotten corridors.

  Torches lined the walls, their flames flickering in a steady rhythm, though no wind reached this deep underground. The walls were engraved with ancient sigils, many of which had faded beyond recognition.

  They moved with caution. Every step felt heavier, the atmosphere growing denser the deeper they went.

  Frid followed behind them in silence, his presence unnerving as always. Though he said little, the way his head tilted—as if hearing something none of them could—made the others uneasy.

  At last, they reached it.

  A grand archway, lined with symbols older than any recorded history, stood before them. The air beyond it was thick, almost tangible, like stepping into a different realm.

  And there, standing amidst the vast chamber, was a figure.

  Back turned to them. Still.

  Unmoving.

  Yet aware.

  The figure just continue his murmuring.