In the shadows of the S Ranked Main character
Chapter 47: No way out(1)

Chapter 47: No way out(1)

Professor Eisen’s heels clicked briskly against the polished stone floors as she moved through the academy’s central corridor.

The late evening light threw long gold beams through the arched windows, casting crisscrossed patterns along the ground. Eisen’s sharp eyes flicked over the notes in her hand, her brow furrowed. She had been called from her chambers to check on something in the Class A sector, something about a sudden magical surge.

She wasn’t pleased.

The academy had its rhythms. Its flow. Surges happened — after all, the institution trained dozens of elite combatants and mages across multiple classes. But this wasn’t the usual training spillover. The message she’d received had been vague:

— strange mana pulses in the Class A sector, rapid expansion of magical flora, possible lockdown of section gates.

Eisen’s lips pressed into a thin line.

She hated vague.

As she passed through the central gate linking the general academy wings to the elite Class A areas, she paused.

The air...

It smelled wrong.

Not burned, not sharp — but dense.

She stepped forward carefully, her long coat whispering at her heels. The path ahead curved upward slightly, lined with old statues of academy founders and golden-tipped arches. But what caught her attention wasn’t the architecture.

It was the flowers.

Blue

Purple

Gold

They covered the stone ground in a pattern she had never seen before, creeping in thick vines and delicate petals across the archways, across the pillars, weaving up the walls. Their glow wasn’t harsh it was faint, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.

Eisen narrowed her eyes sharply.

"What... is this?"

She reached out with her sensing magic, her focus sweeping outward.l

And immediately hit a wall

Her senses rebounded, snapping like a taut wire.

Eisen’s heart skipped once, then sped up.

A barrier.

A powerful one.l

Her boots tapped quickly as she strode forward, one hand raised, her fingers brushing the edge of the faint magical film hovering at the border of the Class A sector. She pressed harder

and winced.

Whatever was laced through the barrier wasn’t standard academy warding.

It was something older.

Stranger.

She stepped back slightly, her brow furrowing deeper.

This wasn’t part of any curriculum or training exercise she knew of.

"Professor Eisen!"

A voice called from behind one of the assistant instructors, face pale, eyes wide.

"What’s happening?" Eisen demanded immediately, her voice clipped. "What’s the situation inside the Class A sector? Are there students accounted for?"

The assistant shook their head rapidly.

"We don’t know. No communication is getting through. None of the magical relays are responding it’s like the whole area is locked off. We can’t raise Class A staff, either."

Eisen’s pulse spiked.

"Class B? Class C?" she pressed quickly.

The assistant hesitated.

"Unclear. We’ve only just noticed the spread, ma’am but the magic seems to have started from the Class C sector before it pushed upward. We think the other classes might be contained."

Eisen’s mouth tightened sharply.

"Contained?"

"Yes, ma’am. The last scouts reported that all access points to the Class A sector are now fully sealed."

Eisen spun sharply, eyes flashing.

"Then we need to confirm their safety, now. Get the head wardens. Mobilize the medical teams. And contact the council this isn’t academy magic. This is a threat seal."

The assistant paled further, nodding and sprinting away.

Eisen turned back to the glowing flowers, her mind racing.

She didn’t know what the hell this was.

She didn’t know where it had come from or why it had activated now.

But if it was powerful enough to cut off the Class A elites, if it was pulsing out from Class C, if it had blanketed the entire upper sector of the academy

then it wasn’t just a training mishap.

This was containment.

Of something dangerous

Eisen exhaled tightly, her fingers flexing once at her side

She would get her answers.

No matter what it took

Because if even one student was trapped behind that barrier

then whatever was waiting inside was going to answer to her.

And she wasn’t going to wait politely.

Professor Eisen moved swiftly down the corridor, her coat snapping behind her as she approached the edge of the Class A boundary.

The magical flowers pulsed faintly, blue and gold vines wrapping the arches and windows, their glow unnervingly calm.

She clenched her jaw.

Something was wrong here.

Without hesitation, Eisen lifted her hand. A shimmering, spear-shaped formation of pure mana bloomed to life in her palm, crackling faintly with silver-blue light.

Her sharp eyes narrowed.

She flicked her wrist

and launched the spear straight at one of the glowing blue fairies floating near the boundary.

The impact was instant.

The fairy shattered into a spray of shimmering dust, its faint bell-like laughter cutting off as its light winked out.

Eisen’s eyes sharpened.

Good.

She raised her hand to form another spell — but froze.

Because before the motes of dust had even finished falling...

Another blue fairy drifted into place.

Same glow.

Same faint laughter.

Same casual, unbothered hover near the barrier.

Eisen’s brow furrowed sharply.

Without a word, she flicked another mana spear into existence and hurled it forward.

Again, the fairy burst into light, scattering in a spiral of sparkling fragments.

And again

before the glow fully faded

another fairy appeared.

And another.

And another.

Tiny purple shapes joined them, weaving in and out of the golden vines, drifting lazily as if the repeated attacks meant nothing.

Eisen gritted her teeth, her fingers curling.

Her eyes flicked quickly over the pattern.

They weren’t defending.

They weren’t retaliating.

They weren’t even acknowledging her.

They were...

replacing.

As fast as she could destroy one, another filled its place like the magic here was set to maintain their presence automatically, endlessly, as long as the barrier existed.

She muttered sharply under her breath, a frustrated, clipped sound, and struck her palm sharply against the transparent wall.

The pulse of magic shivered through her hand, dense and layered

not a simple seal.

Not a typical ward.

It was alive

Her pulse quickened.

If she couldn’t break the barrier from this side and the fairies were an inexhaustible extension of the strange magic then brute force wasn’t the answer.

She needed information.

She needed control.

She needed to know what the hell was happening inside Class A and why Class C, of all sectors, had anything to do with it.

Eisen’s mouth tightened as she turned away from the laughing fairies, her coat sweeping after her as she stalked back toward the gathered staff.

She wasn’t going to waste time swatting glowing pests.

She was going to crack this wide open and when she did, whoever had sealed off her students, her academy, her domain, was going to answer for it.