The first scream came from the northern watch, not a long cry of fear but a sharp, startled sound that cut off too suddenly, and Eira was already moving before it finished echoing, slipping past tents and startled students toward the broken stone ridge where the air felt wrong, where mana pulsed not wildly like a monster's but in a controlled, deliberate way that felt human and intentional, and Lily noticed him moving and followed, and so did Neo, Ryn, and Lara, none of them speaking because they didn't need to, all of them sensing the same unnatural presence drawing them forward.
They reached the ridge just as a silhouette moved between the rocks, a tall, lean figure wrapped in dark cloth, moving too smoothly for a student and too lightly for a knight, and the figure raised a hand, and the air twisted, a blade of compressed force tearing through the stone where Eira had stood a moment earlier.
"Down!"
They scattered, instincts taking over, the mage moving like smoke as quiet, precise spells cut through the space around them, pressure slamming Lara to the ground before Eira dragged her clear, and Eira lunged forward with his sword glowing faintly as his mana flowed into it, steel meeting spell with a sound that felt more like a vibration than a clash, forcing the figure to step back for the first time not in fear but in calculation.
Lily snapped vines from the ground to bind him, only for them to be sliced apart by warped space, and Neo released a burst of blinding light that washed over the ridge, and for a heartbeat the mage was visible — tall, masked, eyes glowing an unnatural blue — before he vanished, not with a flash or a portal but as if the world itself had swallowed him.
"After him!"
But Eira already knew it was useless.
"Don't. That was a probe. He wanted us to react."
Before anyone could respond, the ground shuddered and split, a roar rising from below as monsters surged upward from deeper layers of the dungeon, twisted by unstable mana and driven into a frenzy, not large enough to level cities but enough to overwhelm an unprepared camp, panic spreading as students screamed and scattered while teachers shouted orders and knights rushed into position.
"Protect the students! Formation around the camp!"
The royal knight landed between a charging beast and a group of frozen first-years, cutting it down in a single strike, and the camp shifted into controlled chaos as barriers rose, weapons flashed, and spells ignited the dark, Eira fighting alongside them with calm precision, his blade cutting through corrupted flesh while Lily shielded students with roots and flowers, Neo stunned monsters with light, Lara reinforced defenses and stabilized the injured, and Ryn dragged students to safety while activating traps along the perimeter.
It was fast and brutal but contained, and within minutes the last monster fell, leaving only silence, ragged breathing, soft crying, and the faint crackle of dying mana in the air, no one dead but many shaken and hurt, the night no longer feeling safe.
The royal knight turned toward Eira, his gaze sharp and assessing.
"You saw him."
"Yes."
"Describe."
Eira did, every detail of the movement, the mana, the control, and with each word, the knight's expression darkened.
"That wasn't a student. That wasn't a rogue mage either."
"Then what was he?"
The knight hesitated.
"Someone who shouldn't be able to move inside academy territory at all."
The weight of that settled heavier than the attack itself, and no one slept that night, because they all understood now that this wasn't a coincidence or accident or bad luck — someone had walked into their world, tested its defenses, and walked back out again on purpose.