“Huh. Where did Nino go?”

  That night, Enid started her usual dorm check.

  But for some reason, Nino didn’t show up at the dorm gates on time. He was supposed to meet her there and handle the men’s side like always.

  Enid waited.

  Still nothing.

  She reached out with her elemental senses and felt her stomach tighten. Nino wasn’t in the dorms at all.

  Wolfgang’s presence was gone too.

  That set off a quiet alarm in Enid’s head.

  At this hour, her students were usually in their rooms. Unless she gave permission, nobody was allowed to leave the dorm area after nightfall.

  Enid decided to go find them herself and handed the dorm check over to Selena.

  In a way, Selena’s Anti-Mage nature made her perfect as a gatekeeper. With Selena nearby, ordinary mages couldn’t cast at all, which added a layer of safety.

  Enid began searching every corner around the Nature school.

  On the way she ran into one of the larger night patrol groups. Their captain told her he had seen a male student with dark purple, or maybe black hair, wandering around the plaza near the main building with a drawing board in hand.

  That had to be Nino.

  Enid figured he’d gotten absorbed in sketching and lost track of time.

  The captain hadn’t seen anyone else though, so Enid thanked him and continued toward the main building.

  When she reached the entrance, Enid extended her senses again.

  Night wind, trees, moonlight, and the ground itself became her scouts.

  It didn’t take long.

  She felt something living moving slowly not far ahead.

  The moment she caught the shape of its magic, her heart dropped.

  It was Nino.

  But his magic was in a mess, and his movements were stiff and wrong.

  He was hurt.

  Enid sprinted.

  She reached him in seconds.

  Nino really was injured. Not fatal, but bad enough. Cuts across his abdomen and leg had wrecked his mobility. Blood soaked his uniform, making him look almost frightening in the dark.

  When Nino saw Professor Innis rushing toward him, it was like he’d spotted the last lifeline left in the world.

  The strength keeping him upright vanished all at once. He sank down hard, breathing in ragged, desperate gulps.

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  Enid pulled out emergency treatment potions and gave him quick first aid on the spot.

  After he forced down several bottles that tasted awful but worked fast, color finally returned to his face.

  He grabbed Enid’s sleeve with shaking fingers and rasped out, “Professor… it’s bad… Wolfgang… he’s…”

  Enid patted his shoulder, signaling him to breathe and speak slowly.

  Nino took a hard breath and gave her the short version.

  He’d been sketching in a secluded corner near the Magic school, gathering references, and hadn’t noticed how late it was.

  When he finally stood up to head back, the sun was already down.

  He hurried toward the Nature school, and that was when the attack came.

  A mysterious figure in a black robe.

  Nino was fast on his feet, and the attacker’s spell missed anything vital.

  In the panic, Nino cast a basic first-circle dark spell, a Black Mist, to obscure the attacker’s sight. That was the only reason he wasn’t taken immediately.

  The commotion drew Wolfgang, who had just finished training and was heading back.

  By the time they met up, the black-robed attacker was chasing them, throwing out spells that felt wrong just to look at.

  Wolfgang told Nino to run, find Professor Innis or the nearest patrol, and bring help. Wolfgang would buy him time.

  Before Nino could argue, Wolfgang let out a sharp, wolf-like howl.

  And then, from the shadows, Wolfgang’s hidden bodyguards appeared.

  They intercepted the attacker’s spells and closed in for a brutal, close-quarters fight.

  Nino gritted his teeth and fled to get help.

  And that was when he ran into Enid, already out searching.

  Enid wanted to bring him somewhere safe first, but Nino insisted he could move now and begged her to go support Wolfgang.

  In the end, Enid listened.

  She stood and used wind magic to move quickly in the direction Nino pointed.

  Before long, she sensed three people ahead.

  When she arrived, one of the bodyguards was already down, badly wounded. The other two, and Wolfgang himself, were bleeding from various cuts.

  Seeing Enid, Wolfgang’s grim expression eased, just a little.

  Enid told him she’d found Nino and understood the basics. She told Wolfgang to keep it short.

  Wolfgang nodded.

  The attacker was strong, but his guard were strong too.

  Even with the four of them coordinating tightly, the black-robed attacker still managed to break out and escape.

  The magic the attacker used didn’t match anything Wolfgang recognized. After injuring the guards, the robed figure vanished into the dark.

  “But,” Wolfgang added, voice low, “we messed him up. I’d bet there isn’t a clean inch left on him. I still have some of his flesh and blood under my claws. Want to see?”

  Wolfgang showed Enid his scratched hand.

  From the blood and torn tissue, Enid caught a faint, nauseating trace of something twisted and vile.

  A demon.

  Enid felt the same warped stench clinging to the injured bodyguard too, the unmistakable residue of twisted sorcery.

  Everything pointed to the same truth.

  The black-robed attacker who went after Nino was a real demon, no question.

  Enid handed Wolfgang a few emergency healing potions and told them to notify the nearest deans immediately.

  The closest one right now was Caroline, the Hexcraft dean. She was in the underground lab beneath the main building. Enid could sense her.

  Then Enid turned and started tracking the wounded demon by the blood trail and the lingering twisted aura.

  Human mages couldn’t sense that rancid, warped presence, so as she moved, Enid left marks along the ground to guide anyone trying to follow.

  After a stretch of pursuit, the blood trail reached an open patch of ground and abruptly ended.

  But the demon’s twisted aura didn’t fade at all.

  Enid understood instantly.

  There was a hidden chamber under her feet, one nobody had found yet.

  She didn’t bother with subtlety.

  With earth magic, she ripped the ground open.

  Sure enough, beneath the torn soil was a passage leading underground, and the blood trail snaked down into it like a living thing.

  The moment Enid stepped inside, the air thickened with demonic stench.

  Somewhere in this tunnel, twisted sorcery was maintaining an interference spell. Maybe it was meant to disrupt her specifically, or maybe it was simply to hide their tracks.

  Either way, it was working.

  The deeper she went, the worse it felt.

  From the moment she entered, Enid could no longer use elemental magic to sense the surroundings.

  She drew a slow breath and kept walking.

  If the one threatening students and the academy was hiding down here, Enid wasn’t letting the black-robed demon escape.

  Even if it was a trap, so what.

  In front of absolute power, schemes and tricks were just smoke.

  And tonight, with no divine power nearby to stir her curse, Enid was the one holding that absolute power.