Chapter 64: Boss(5)

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Kai paced along the cracked floor of the training sector’s eastern ring, the silence between him and Rose stretching thin. The atmosphere had shifted not violently, but steadily, like something was leaning into the world from just beyond it.

He didn’t like it.

Neither did she.

Rose was the first to speak, arms folded as she leaned against one of the scorched support columns. "Still no sign of Professor Eisen June,Eugene,Marlon Still and Still no fairies. How long are we supposed to wait before find another way we can’t take those Beast’s by ourselves

Kai didn’t answer at first. His gaze stayed locked on the faintly glowing seam near the Guardian Beast’s locked chamber. A ring of sigils surrounded the space half-activated, and worse, half-stale. Like something had touched them, then walked away.

"This isn’t how it’s supposed went," he muttered.

Rose straightened. "What do you mean?"

Kai ignored her too engrossed in his own thoughts

"In the novel," Kai said slowly, "things were cleaner. When the third Prism opened, Professor Mallet went in immediately. The fairies were not around. June was pulled ito the Prism by coincidence. And the Guardian Beasts were—" he hesitated, brow furrowing, "—they were handled. Class A cleared them with Eisen

Rose looked at him warily. "

He didn’t react to her gaze The gap between story and reality was widening fast. Eisen was nowhere. June might be inside the Prism, but he might just be gone Like Eugene Like Marlon.

They’d all disappeared without warning. No signals. No traces. As if the school had swallowed them whole.

Then—

The crown above Kai’s head flickered.

His breath hitched. Rose noticed it too.

"Kai," she said cautiously. "Your head’s doing that glowing thing again."

He didn’t respond.

The light above him pulsed once, then againbrighter. He felt something through it. A tether. A pull. Faint, but insistent. It wasn’t pointing to the Guardian Beast’s lair.

It was pulling toward the vines

Specifically... toward Class B.

The moment he focused on it, the crown shimmered harder, and before Kai could say anything, he felt his body twist—not physically, but spatially. The air bent around him. Rose shouted something, but it was already too late.

The crown activated.

And both of them vanished.

They reappeared in a different part of the building.

Mid-air.

Kai landed in a low crouch, catching himself on the scorched floor. Rose tumbled behind him, cursing as she rolled, then sprang to her feet with a spark of static flaring from her fingers.

"Warning next time!" she snapped.

"Wasn’t me," Kai said quickly, eyes already scanning the space.

The air was thick.

Stagnant.

The Class B training hall was unrecognizable. Vines clung to the walls like veins, pulsing with sick light. Flowers blue, gold, and violet coated the floor in unnatural clusters. Every window was sealed with roots. Benches overturned. Desks half-melted.

And then they heard it.

The chanting.

Soft Raspy Uneven

"She’s dreaming."

"She’s dreaming."

"She’s dreaming."

Rose turned slowly. "What is that?"

They rounded a broken column and froze.

Bodies.

Dozens of students some they recognized stood scattered throughout the hall. Unmoving. Glassy-eyed. Each one whispering the same phrase. Some had mouths barely parted. Others whispered with their eyes rolled back, heads tilted to unnatural angles.

Kai’s stomach sank.

He recognized them.

Not the faces.

The postures. The weightless rigidity. The emptiness behind their eyes.

He’d seen it before. In the Prism.

He stepped forward slowly, the crown glowing brighter with every breath.

Rose grabbed his arm. "Kai."

"I know them," he said. "They were in the trial."

"In the Prism?"

He nodded.

"I thought they were only in the Prism what’s going on?

The whispering intensified.

Some of the students had dropped to their knees. Others twitched as if reacting to the crown’s presence. One girl turned her head toward them—slow, creaking—and opened her mouth.

The chant changed.

"She’s waiting."

"She’s waiting."

"She’s waiting."

Kai’s chest tightened.

Something about the words hit too close to the core of what he feared.

He felt the energy again—the same that resonated from the Prism chamber when Kathlyn had been sealed inside. Faint. Familiar. But layered with something else.

Rose looked around, more unnerved now. "Who’s she?"

Kai didn’t answer right away.

He wasn’t sure.

It could be Kathlyn.

Or—

The woman.

The one from the second trial.

Both of them had been following the same path

Both of them had drawn power from places they shouldn’t have.

The crown above him pulsed again.

More students turned toward him.

Their voices warped. Twisted. Unified.

"She sees the crown."

"She sees the crown."

"She sees the crown."

Rose took a step back, magic crackling around her fingers again. "Kai..."

"They’re reacting to me," he said, voice low. "To the crown."

"To what about it?" she hissed. "Why are they even like this?!"

"I don’t know."

But he was starting to understand.

This wasn’t the story he read.

This wasn’t the clean, structured arc he remembered.

Someone had changed the rules.

And whatever was inside Class B nowwhatever was chanting through dead eyes and twisted mouths

It knew who he was.

It knew what the crown was.

And it was waiting.

For her.

Whoever she really was.

The vines parted.

Not naturally like curtains drawn back by invisible hands. The path ahead twisted open, revealing a narrow aisle choked with flowers and warped light. And at the far end, past twitching bodies and melted desks, two figures stood.

Marlon.

Eugene.

Both looked like they’d been dragged through war.

Marlon’s armor was cracked across the chest, one gauntlet gone entirely, his breathing tight and heavy. His sword arm trembled, but he kept it raised, blade humming faintly with residual magic. His eyes were bloodshot. Tired.

Eugene stood beside him, coat burned nearly to the waist on one side, his right arm wrapped in a tight band of scorched cloth. But his posture was still sharp. Alert. Flame-light coiled faintly under his skin, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

They turned when Kai and Rose stepped through the vines.

The reaction was instant.

Eugene’s eyes locked on the crown.

Marlon’s jaw tightened.

Neither moved to greet him.

"You," Eugene said, voice clipped. "What the hell did you do?"

Kai blinked, slowing his steps. "What?"

"so we get attacked everything goes to shit" Marlon said. "And ten minutes later you show up

He gestured around them the flowers, the bodies, the chant that hadn’t stopped whispering from hollow mouths.

Kai opened his mouth to respond, but Eugene cut him off.

"You activated something. We know what backlash magic looks like, and this" he waved at the pulsing crown, "isn’t passive anymore. That thing is glowing like it’s sending signals."

"It brought us here," Rose added, stepping forward. "We didn’t even cast. It just... activated."

"And dropped you into the middle of a psychic plague zone," Eugene said dryly. "Perfect."

Marlon didn’t speak again. He just watched Kai with a guarded stare.

Kai exhaled slowly, forcing himself not to flinch under the weight of it.

"I didn’t trigger anything," he said. "Not intentionally."

"That’s not good enough," Eugene snapped. "Because whatever’s happening here? It knew you were coming. These things" he nodded toward the twitching students "they reacted to you."

"They chanted about the crown," Marlon said. "Before you got here, they were just stuck on ’she’s dreaming.’ The moment you showed up? It changed."

Kai looked between them. "You think I’m the reason they’re like this?"

Eugene didn’t hesitate. "I think something used you to make this happen. I don’t know if that means you’re infected, controlled, or just a convenient tool but I’m not ruling out any of the above."

Rose stepped between them slightly, her voice low. "He’s not lying. He didn’t do this."

"You sure?" Eugene asked, voice cold.

Rose hesitated.

Not long.

But long enough.

And Kai noticed.

"Great," he muttered. "So we’re doing this now."

"Look around, Kai," Marlon said quietly. "Do you think we can afford not to?"

The vines shifted again. A soft moaning noise echoed from deeper in the hall something human, but wrong in pitch. The temperature dropped The flowers seemed to recoil.

"We don’t have time for this," Rose snapped. "We need to get out of here."

"Then start moving," Eugene said, turning toward the broken door they’d sealed with flame earlier. "We’ll talk once we’re in a stable zone."

Marlon moved to follow.

But before he left, he looked back at Kai.

Not angry.

Not scared.

Just tired.

And unsure.

"Whatever’s happening to you," he said quietly, "figure it out before it gets someone killed."

Then he turned away.

Kai stood frozen a moment longer, the crown above his head pulsing steady now. But heavier. Denser. As if it had taken something in Grown.

Rose touched his arm lightly. "Come on."

Kai nodded.

But in the back of his mind, one thought echoed louder than the rest:

They weren’t wrong to suspect me.

And if this kept going

They wouldn’t be the last.

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