"Speaking of recruits, Mother mentioned the youngest is currently at the academy. How are his preparations for awakening coming?"
"...."
Terria stared at her brother silently with a momentary hesitation that didn't escape the sharp senses of the Mist Demon standing before her.
Although Terria barely showed any emotion, the years of experience that turned the Principal's authority into something resembling mind reading were not lost.
The next question proved this point.
"Does your visit to the Central district have something to do with the young Cross?" The principal asked, a note of concern in his voice.
"Damn Demon..." Terria sighed helplessly.
She couldn't be bothered to hide it anymore, not even to avoid looking like a slob in Telmear's eyes.
"Actually, it has something to do with Arthur." Terria resigned herself to telling the duo before her.
She had come to the district seeking a transcendent who could help investigate his disappearance. If she could interest the Principal enough to assist, she wouldn't need to look any further—barely a handful of Transcendents could match his surveillance and investigative capabilities.
"He disappeared from my tower a couple of minutes ago," Terria said with a slightly serious expression.
Hearing her words, Telmear frowned, questions bubbling beneath the surface, and the shock reflected in the Principal's mist, which stopped rolling for a second.
Before Telmear could ask anything, Terria raised a hand to stop him, then spoke again.
"Hold your questions for now; you can ask them after you hear the details."
"You can come out and explain what happened." At Terria's words, a young woman—her youthful eyes visible behind a white porcelain mask—emerged silently from the shadow at Terria's feet, hands clasped respectfully in front of her.
"Greetings, my lords," The transcendent greeted before she began explaining the situation behind Arthur's disappearance.
[The challenger has awakened an Edict of Authority]
Vhir stood before a pair of daggers that seemed to swallow the surrounding light. Carved from pure darkness, their surface bore faint runes that revealed themselves only as light caught their angles.
The connection with his Edict intrigued him, but he had no time to appreciate the weapons before taking them in hand. The moment his fingers brushed the grips, they vanished into his mind space.
"The Sixth Summit," Vihr muttered to himself, almost in a trance as he approached the steps leading to the Sixth Summit.
The lingering fear inside him was eclipsed by the motivation he gained from watching the distant figure slumping on the floor of the Seventh Summit. Although he didn't know what Arthur was facing up there, Vhir knew he would rather share that ordeal than watch from behind in regret.
"It's just the Sixth Summit... It's just the Sixth Summit. If a Cross is on the Seventh Summit, I should be able to make it to the Sixth Summit." He steeled his nerves, realizing that every second spent hesitating was time wasted.
The less time he had to spend challenging the Sixth Summit.
Before taking his first step, he paused, catching sight of Arthur hunched over in pain on the floor above one more time. Get faster updates on g.com.
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"Monster!" Vihr muttered to himself with a disbelieving smile at the sight of Arthur, despite the hunched position he took.
His hesitation evaporating, he finally took his first step onto the Sixth challenge.
Unfortunately, he moved too quickly to witness what followed: within seconds, Arthur pushed himself back up, heading straight for the Eighth challenge to reach the final summit.
That sight was lost to Vihr, for he was no longer inside the Tower.
"This place?" Vihr muttered, looking around in confusion. The moment his foot touched the first step, his surroundings had completely transformed.
"The family training hall?"
He was incredibly familiar with this space. A sprawling hall with a single entrance sealed by heavy stone doors. The walls and floor were scarred with deep blade marks and craters, resembling an explosive test site.
"Did the tower transport me out for the challenge?"
Just as he decided to move around a little, he suddenly heard footsteps approaching the entrance of the training room.
His vigilance peaked as he stood in place without moving, waiting a few steps away from the entrance, eager and terrified to see what would happen next.
"This is the Rozan family training hall; as long as it's not a stranger, I should be safe... right?"
Although Vihr barely understood what was happening, he tried to console himself with the fact that nothing should be able to harm him within the Rozan Estate.
Behind the calm exterior he tried to keep up, there was still dread lingering slightly.
There was a reason the Sixth Summit was feared, and he wasn't about to take it too lightly just because he found himself somewhere familiar.
Finally, the steps stopped before the room's entrance, and the door was pushed open slowly.
The visitor was an incredibly familiar face,
With pale blonde hair similar to his in a simple white shirt and black training pants, reflecting gold runes.
This was the Emperor of Light, Isha Rohan.
"Father," Vihr bowed quickly at the sight of his Father without the slightest delay,
Or was it,
"Is it just me, or does his aura feel different... weaker, maybe?" Vihr, still in his bowing posture, couldn't see his father's face, but he didn't dare raise his head without permission.
There was a fine line between dreams and reality. While he viewed his father as an ultimate goal to reach, the man standing before him was not to be trifled with—not even by his biological son.
"Raise your head, my son. It seems like you decided to reach the Sixth Summit," Isha said with a faint, playful smile on his lips.
Vihr raised his head slowly to see his father's face once more. He frowned, but only slightly, and this didn't escape Isha's sight.
"Is something the matter, Vihr?" Isha's voice wasn't demanding, but from Vihr's perspective, it carried an absolute pressure.
Ignoring his true thoughts, Vihr blurted a question that bugged him far more. "Father, is this... no, did I get sent out of the tower?"
Isha smiled once more upon hearing the question and replied with one of his own: "What do you think?"
"I'm not sure.... I mean, does this mean I failed the Sixth challenge or..." Vihr questioned uncertainly while looking around slowly.
"Everything looks identical. It's the same room," Vihr thought to himself, unable to shake the feeling that he was missing something crucial.
Thinking for a brief moment, he returned his attention to the figure standing silently before him, seeing the smile that played on his lips.
"Why can't I shake the feeling that I'm missing something?" Focused on his father for a second, he finally noticed what was bugging him.
"That smile... that smile..." Vihr repeated to himself as he observed. He knew that he barely had enough interaction as Father and son with the man before him, but
There were several habits that he'd known to be constant through the years he'd seen his father, and a smile on his face when he wasn't facing his mother wasn't one of them.
The more he observed, the more he noticed.
"His aura has none of the heavy feeling to it... Usually, even when he tries to conceal his aura, the weight of his presence remains," Vihr pointed out to himself without mentioning any of these things verbally. "I can't feel any of it."
Then, a sudden chill ran down his spine.
As he identified these discrepancies in his mind, changes actively occurred in front of him. The flaws he had just spotted were being corrected right before his eyes—the sharp, piercing quality of his father's aura began intensifying with every passing second.
Resembling the original version of his father more with every passing second, Vihr knew something was terribly wrong. But before he could act—
"Feel what?" Vihr accidentally spoke aloud, prompting the entity to look at him with a genuinely puzzled expression.
Vihr barely had time to react. The slip of his tongue wasn't intentional, but the figure before him immediately dropped its concerned expression.
He heard his father's voice echo, cold and devoid of warmth as the figure took a step closer. "It seems you noticed already. There's no need to keep this ruse up, then... the corruption wasn't deep enough, I guess."
"W-who are you?!" Vihr panicked.
He felt as though he were slowly being encircled by hundreds of invisible blades, a heavy, suffocating pressure washing over him with each step the entity took toward him.