"Good morning, miss."
"Good morning, Miss Nia."
Professor Nia walked through the academy corridors after her class ended, her footsteps steady but her thoughts far from calm.
A few thick theoretical books related to runes and arrays were held tightly against her chest.
Occasionally, the students who passed by her greeted her with a smile.
Students from almost every race respected her.
She was known for being patient, understanding, and lenient, unlike many professors who believed that overworking students to death was the best way to make them strong.
Because of this, students greeted her warmly whenever they passed by.
She returned the greetings automatically, but her grip around the books tightened slightly as she continued walking.
For the past few weeks, something had been wrong.
She had not seen Steve anywhere.
That alone was enough to make her uneasy.
Aside from her, Steve was the only other high-ranking spy of the Lilith cult placed inside the World Academy.
Both of them had worked together during the trials to sabotage the academy's control over the trial domain and ensured that chaos would erupt at the perfect moment.
After that operation, the instructions from the cult were clear. They were supposed to lie low, avoid attention, and keep contact with each other discreetly.
But from the past week, Steve had completely vanished.
He had not appeared in meetings. He had not sent any coded messages. He had not even been seen casually walking around the academy.
This silence made her stomach churn.
Nia reached the door of her office and paused for a brief moment.
She took a slow breath, trying to calm the faint sense of danger rising inside her chest. Then she pushed the door open.
The moment she stepped inside, her body stiffened.
Someone was sitting on her chair.
Her eyes widened instantly.
"Miss Andrea...?" Nia blurted out, her voice breaking slightly as shock rushed through her.
It felt as if the most unexpected face in the entire academy had appeared before her.
Andrea slowly turned her head and looked at her calmly.
"Why do you look like you just saw a ghost, Miss Nia?" Andrea asked, her tone was light, but her eyes contained something sharp.
Nia's breathing quickened. Her heart started pounding, and her senses screamed danger. She forced herself to stand still, even though every instinct told her to run.
***
William stood outside Seraphine's room.
The corridor was quiet, lit only by dim magical lights embedded in the walls. He glanced once at the surroundings before raising his hand.
tick tick tock tick
He knocked with a steady rhythm.
This was the knock they had decided on. Whenever William came, he used this pattern so Seraphine would know it was him.
tickticktocktick
He knocked again.
There was no response.
William flicked open his pocket watch and checked the time. It was late. He guessed she was already asleep.
Without knocking again, he crouched slightly and slid a folded letter from beneath the door. He did not say anything else and stood up to leave quietly.
Under the moonlit sky, William walked out of the dormitory building and headed toward the main gate of the academy.
The night air felt cool against his skin, but his mind was burning with thoughts.
He had made a deal with Andrea.
In exchange for permission to take a mission, he had given her something extremely valuable. He had given her the method to identify mutated demon spies.
The method itself was not complicated, which only made the situation more frustrating.
For years, the academy and other major factions had relied on checking mana cores to detect demonic traces.
Cultists were identified by the corruption present in their cores. That approach had worked in the past, which was precisely why everyone had continued using it.
But the demonic cults had adapted over time.
Long ago, they had realised that relying on demonic cores made infiltration too risky. Over time, the people of Aris had developed better techniques to inspect cores and expose cultists.
So the cults had changed their method.
Instead of modifying mana cores, they started mutating brains.
By planting special demonic seeds directly into the brain, cultists could be demonised without altering their mana cores at all. This method, known as brain seeding, allowed spies to pass every standard inspection without raising suspicion.
At the beginning, cultists used rituals to turn mana cores into demonic cores. That phase did not last long after brain seeding got introduced; only the cult members who did not do spy missions could possess a demonic core.
Now, brain seeding has become the primary method for members doing infiltration.
In the original novel, the academy did not discover this method to detect brain seeding until much later. Countless lives were lost before a countermeasure was developed.
William had handed that exact method to Andrea far earlier than he was supposed to.
At this point, he could not afford to care about preserving the original flow of the story.
Today, when he had seen more than a hundred missing-person reports in the mission hall, something inside him had snapped.
Lives were being lost at a far faster pace than the novel had ever described.
Earlier, William had not been concerned about saving people. That had been under the assumption that those people were meant to die according to the original plot.
But that assumption was no longer valid.
Many more people had died than he had anticipated.
Students had died during the cult invasion.
Some of them were arrogant and reckless, and he did not feel sympathy for them. But many others had not even been given a chance. They had not even made it to the cave with him.
And what about those who had been disqualified before the arena attack? They had been expelled outside the domain and killed by cultists waiting there.
William clenched his fist.
He did not feel guilt for every death. He knew he could not control everything. However, he also acknowledged a painful truth.
Many more lives could have been preserved if not for his simply existing.
A dry chuckle escaped his lips at this thought.
The system had always told him that fate never deviated from its final destination. Even if the path changed, fate would still move toward the same end.
What the system had not told him was that the speed of fate could change.
Events meant to happen far in the future were happening now.
"I see," William muttered under his breath.
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[I did not tell you that because you needed to learn the significance of cause and effect]
[I wanted you to understand that actions have consequences. I wanted you to figure it out yourself.]
William stopped walking for a moment and looked up at the sky.
"So now that I have learned the lesson, Mr System," he said quietly, "what do you expect me to do? Run away? Lock myself somewhere?"
[No], the system replied.
[I want you to let go of your obsession with keeping the novel's plot intact]
[I want you to base your actions around your end goals rather than trying to maintain balance.]
[You have already been doing that, but you are still holding back.]
[You should stop holding back.]
[The fate of every being and every place in this world has already gone out of control.]
William frowned slightly.
[Do you know why the limitless awakening effect of your lawless adaptation talent did not work even after so many disruptions in fateuntil now?]
At the system's voice, William's brows furrowed as he looked at the effect on his status window, trying to realise what was wrong.
————————
Lawless Awakening:
-Whenever the host interferes with or significantly alters the destined flow of events, there is a chance to awaken a new talent.
-The scale depends on the magnitude of fate disrupted. There is also a small chance to evolve existing talents.