Sael stepped into Professor Aldric Eryndor's office and stopped.

  The room was larger than he'd expected. The ceiling soared overhead, vaulted and painted with moving constellations that tracked actual celestial positions in real time. He looked up at them for a moment, watching one shift by fractions of a degree. That was nice. Practical for an astronomer, probably, and pleasant to look at even if you weren't.

  Bookshelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling, packed with volumes that looked well-maintained. Some of them were glowing faintly with preservation enchantments, which made sense if they were old or valuable. A few sat in glass cases, though Sael couldn't tell from here if that was because they were fragile or just expensive.

  The desk sat in the center of the room—large and solid, dark wood polished to a shine. Papers were scattered across its surface in what might have been an organizational system or might have been chaos.

  An ornate silver inkwell sat at one corner next to a purple-dyed quill. Behind the desk, a floor-to-ceiling window offered a view of the academy grounds that would have been distracting if you were trying to work, but it was a nice touch anyway.

  There were artifacts everywhere. On shelves, on pedestals, some of them floating in midair with suspension charms. A crystal orb pulsed with soft blue light on one side of the room. A sword hung on the wall, definitely enchanted, though Sael couldn't tell what it did from here.

  The whole setup reminded him of some of the research offices he'd seen over the years. Scholars who accumulated things because they were interesting or useful, and the collection just kept growing until it took over the available space. He'd had a similar problem himself a few centuries back, before he'd figured out how to organize his [Inventory] properly.

  The main issue with the room, though, was that Professor Aldric Eryndor wasn't in it.

  Sael had been hoping the secretary was wrong about that. Or that the professor was in a back room, or hiding somewhere, or doing something that would let Sael have a conversation with him about the assassination attempt and why he'd felt the need to hire assassins.

  No such luck.

  The irritation that had been simmering since the rooftop settled into something colder and more focused. Fine. If the professor wasn't here to answer questions, his belongings would have to do.

  Books, papers, artifacts, correspondence—all of it potentially useful. Some of it might contain evidence of what the man had been up to. Records that would explain his actions, or research that would clarify whether he was involved in something worse than hiring incompetent assassins.

  Or, ideally, something that would prove he hadn't been doing what Sael feared most.

  Corruption.

  If Professor Aldric was connected to that, if he'd somehow found a way to summon Corruption back into this world after four centuries of it being gone, then Sael was going to have a very different conversation with him than the one he'd originally planned.

  But that was speculation. He needed evidence first, one way or another.

  Sael raised his right hand and let the spell matrix form in his mind. Storage magic, dimensional compression, the same principles that powered his [Inventory] but scaled up and applied outward instead of inward.

  "[Mass Retrieval]."

  The air in the office shimmered. Items began to move—not violently, no crashing or pulling, just smooth and efficient displacement. Books slid off shelves and drifted toward his outstretched palm like they were caught in a gentle current. Papers lifted from the desk in neat stacks, and artifacts floated free from their pedestals and cases, each one shrinking as it approached until it was small enough to vanish into his palm like water flowing down a drain.

  The process took maybe thirty seconds. One by one the shelves emptied, the desk cleared, the pedestals stood bare. Small items went first—books, scrolls, the inkwell and quill, then larger things like the crystal orb and the brass instruments and a decorative hourglass that had been sitting on a side table.

  The sword on the wall didn't move. Sael had already checked it with a quick detection spell and found nothing interesting. No hidden compartments, no secondary enchantments, just a sword that looked impressive and did nothing particularly useful. He left it where it was.

  The furniture stayed as well. The desk, the chairs, the bookshelves themselves—too large and mundane to bother with, and he ran quick detection spells over each piece anyway just to make sure there were no concealed drawers or hidden enchantments woven into the wood. Nothing. Just well-made furniture that had probably cost the professor a significant portion of his salary.

  By the time the spell finished, the office looked hollow. Empty shelves, bare walls, a desk with nothing on it but a faint outline of dust where papers had been sitting for months. Sael lowered his hand and pulled up his [Inventory] interface, scanning the list that appeared in his mind's eye.

  Two hundred and ten items.

  Books on defensive theory, historical texts about the Age of Ash, research notes on spatial magic that looked potentially interesting. Correspondence with other professors, a journal that seemed personal, several artifacts of varying grades—mostly B and C rank, nothing extraordinary. A few potions, some alchemical ingredients in preservation jars.

  Nothing immediately damning, but he'd read through it all later when he had time to focus properly. For now he dismissed the interface and turned back toward the door.

  The Cerberus was still there.

  It hadn't moved from where he'd left it. Still pressed against the doorframe with all three heads lowered, tail tucked so far between its legs it was almost invisible. Every muscle in that massive body was taut with fear, and it was trembling slightly, a continuous shudder that ran through its frame like it couldn't stop itself.

  Sael paused, actually looking at it properly this time instead of just cataloging it as an obstacle he'd bypassed.

  Details registered that hadn't before.

  Like chains. Heavy ones, wrapped around the creature's body like iron serpents. They glowed faintly with enchantments—binding magic, strong enough to suppress the Cerberus's natural strength and keep it from breaking free through brute force alone.

  The chains didn't attach to anything in the office, though. They stretched behind the creature, through empty air, and disappeared into a point of darkness that hung in the doorway like a wound cut into reality itself.

  A portal.

  Sael's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied it. Portals like that were rare, the kind that formed naturally at points where the fabric between realms had worn thin over time. Dimensional anomalies. Most of them closed on their own within days or weeks unless someone was actively maintaining them, but this one looked stable. Old. The edges weren't fraying or flickering the way unstable portals usually did.

  He stepped closer, and the darkness had a quality to it that was immediately familiar. A particular texture to the mana that he recognized—cold and sharp, like broken glass wrapped in winter air.

  Hel. The portal led to the continent of Hel.

  Sael tilted his head slightly, studying it with more interest now. He hadn't known there was a portal to Hel in Orlys, much less one sitting right here in the academy in some professor's office. It was hidden behind detection wards that would have kept most mages from noticing it, layered carefully enough that you'd have to be looking for it specifically or stumble across it the way he just had.

  The chains led through the portal and disappeared into that darkness, which meant the Cerberus wasn't just bound here in the office—it was bound on the other side, in Hel itself, chained in place and only allowed through when the office's defenses were triggered.

  That was clever, in a deeply unpleasant sort of way. Keep the creature imprisoned on its home plane where it couldn't bother anyone or cause problems, let it exist in that frozen hostile landscape unable to move more than a few feet in any direction, then yank it through to the mortal realm when you needed a guard dog and send it back when you were done.

  The Cerberus wasn't a willing guardian. It was a prisoner on a leash.

  Sael looked up at the ceiling where runes were carved into the stone, barely visible unless you knew to look for them. The summoning array—spatial magic woven together with binding enchantments in a configuration that would activate automatically when someone forced their way into the office. Break the locks, shatter the wards, and the array would trigger. The portal would open, the Cerberus would be dragged through whether it wanted to or not, and it would defend its captor's property because it had no choice.

  How long had this creature been chained like that? Years, probably. Maybe decades. Cerberus could live for centuries if left alone, and this one looked like it had been suffering for a significant portion of that lifespan.

  It looked wrong in ways that had nothing to do with physical injury. Its body was intact—three heads each the size of a barrel, massive shoulders, fur that should have been sleek and black but was matted and dull instead. It was drooling heavily, thick ropes of saliva dripping from all three mouths and pooling on the floor. Its eyes—six of them in total—burned with that characteristic fire that all Cerberus had, but the light was unsteady. Flickering. Almost manic.

  Sael had seen that before. Madness from captivity.

  Cerberus were apex predators from one of the most hostile environments in existence, but they were also intelligent. Social, even, in their own way. They formed packs, established territories, hunted in coordinated groups when prey was large enough to require it.

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  Keeping one chained in isolation for years on end would break it the same way it would break most intelligent creatures, and this one was showing all the classic signs. The excessive drooling, the unstable fire in its eyes, the way its heads kept twitching and jerking toward imagined threats, unable to focus on anything for more than a second before snapping to attention at some other phantom danger.

  Sael had owned a Cerberus once—no, that was the wrong word. Owned implied property. He'd befriended one, maybe, though even that didn't quite capture the relationship. His mother had captured a juvenile when he was young, barely half-grown, and she'd tamed it the way she tamed everything. It had followed Sael around like an oversized three-headed puppy for most of his childhood, and he'd learned more about the species from that experience than he ever could have from books.

  They were surprisingly clean creatures. Fastidious, even. They hated being dirty, hated being confined to small spaces, hated sitting in their own filth. This one, chained in place and unable to move more than a few feet in any direction for what had probably been years...

  It would have had to defecate where it slept.

  For years.

  The smell alone would have been torture for a creature with that kind of sensitivity.

  Sael felt something cold and unpleasant settle in his chest, though he kept his expression neutral. Cruel was an inadequate word for what had been done to this creature, but it was the one that came to mind.

  He raised his hand slowly, palm open and non-threatening.

  The Cerberus flinched. All three heads tucked lower and a whimper escaped from the center mouth, high-pitched and pathetic.

  Sael stopped and lowered his hand slightly. Right. The creature thought he was going to hurt it, which made sense given that every interaction it probably had with humans involved pain of some kind. Binding spells, compulsion magic, being yanked through a portal to fight intruders and then dragged back and chained again when it was done.

  He'd need to approach this differently.

  The [Archmage] class wasn’t just a title the System handed out to anyone who got strong enough or learned enough spells. It required mastery—true mastery—of every major school of magic.

  Evocation, abjuration, alchemy, healing, druidism, conjuration, divination, illusion, enchantment, necromancy. All of them, including the ones most people considered unethical, and the ones no one thought about much at all because they weren’t flashy or suited for combat.

  Druidic magic fell into the latter category. It rarely won battles or topple kingdoms, but it had its uses, particularly when you needed to communicate with something that had never spoken a language in its life and never would.

  Sael extended his hand again with his palm open and channeled mana into the air between them, forming the connection slowly and carefully.

  The spell didn't have a formal name because druids didn't use words for this kind of magic. Words were a civilized concept.

  Trees didn't speak. Neither did animals. Not in words, at least.

  They communicated through sensation, through images and emotions and intent, and so did druids when they wanted to be understood.

  The mana bridge formed gradually, a thread of connection stretching from Sael's mind to the Cerberus's consciousness. He wasn't forcing his way in—that would be invasive and counterproductive. He was just offering, creating a path the creature could choose to follow if it wanted to, leaving the decision entirely up to it.

  For a moment nothing happened and the Cerberus just stared at him with those six burning eyes, confused and wary.

  Then one of the heads—the left one—lifted slightly, and the bridge connected.

  Sensation flooded through the link. Not thoughts in the way humans experienced them, just pure awareness.

  Confusion, fear, pain from the chains digging into fur and skin over months and years of constant pressure. Hunger—God, when was the last time this creature had been fed properly? Exhaustion from never being able to rest comfortably, and underneath it all a desperate aching need to be clean, to move freely, to run, to do anything except stand in the same spot for one more second.

  Sael pushed calm through the connection. The sensation of safety, of open spaces, of chains breaking and falling away.

  The Cerberus's breathing slowed slightly, all three heads focusing on him now with something that might have been cautious hope.

  He sent more through the link. Images this time, pulled from his own memories. His Cerberus from centuries ago, running through the frozen wastes of Hel with its fur sleek and clean, hunting across ice fields, playing in the snow, sleeping curled up in a warm dry cave that smelled like home instead of imprisonment.

  Freedom.

  The creature's six eyes widened and its whole body went still except for the trembling.

  Sael sent one final image through the connection. Himself, approaching. Touching the chains. The enchantments shattering. The chains breaking. The portal opening. The Cerberus going through, unbound and free to run as far and as fast as it wanted.

  Understanding rippled through the link like a wave, followed immediately by something fragile and desperate.

  Hope.

  Sael stepped forward, closing the distance between them. The Cerberus didn't flinch this time, it stayed perfectly still with all three heads watching him, those burning eyes now focused and waiting.

  He reached the chains and examined them up close. The enchantments were strong but not particularly complicated, just standard binding magic reinforced with durability charms to prevent the creature from breaking free through brute force. Effective for their purpose, but nothing that would give him any trouble.

  Sael placed his hand on the nearest chain where the enchantments were concentrated most heavily.

  "[Dispel]."

  The enchantments shattered like glass under pressure. The glow faded, the magical reinforcement collapsed, and suddenly the chains were just steel—normal, mundane steel that was now trying to hold back a creature whose raw physical strength was rated somewhere around Level 700.

  They lasted about half a second.

  The Cerberus surged upward with explosive force, and the chains didn't just break, they detonated, fragments of metal scattering across the office floor like shrapnel. All three heads threw back simultaneously and howled, not in rage or aggression but in pure unfiltered relief, a sound that echoed through the office and probably carried halfway across the campus.

  Then it jumped.

  Straight up, twenty feet into the air without any apparent effort, its massive body twisting mid-leap to orient toward the portal. It hit the opening at full speed and vanished into the darkness without hesitation, all three heads disappearing into that cold void like it was going home.

  The darkness rippled once, then twice.

  Then the triggered aperture collapsed.

  It snapped shut with a sound like air rushing to fill a vacuum, and suddenly the doorway was just a doorway again—empty and normal, no trace of the dimensional anomaly that had been there seconds before.

  Sael stood there for a moment, watching the space where the portal had been. The silence in the office felt almost oppressive after the Cerberus's howl, broken only by the faint sound of settling dust and the distant noise from elsewhere in the building.

  He wondered if the academy administration knew about the dimensional anomaly that had been sitting right here in one of their professor's offices, maintained for years without anyone noticing or caring or asking questions about what kind of magic Aldric Eryndor was practicing in his spare time.

  Portals to Hel weren't common—they formed at weak points in reality where the barriers between realms had worn thin through natural magical erosion or some kind of catastrophic event. They could be closed, and usually should be closed, since leaving dimensional anomalies open was the kind of thing that led to problems. The mana disruption that caused them could be corrected with enough time and effort from someone who knew what they were doing.

  But Sael hadn't closed this one.

  He'd left it intact. The enchantments the professor had woven into the portal framework were still there, dormant now but functional. It could be reopened if he needed it, and that might be useful depending on how the next few days went.

  Now that he thought about it, he hadn't visited his parents' graves in over a century. They were buried in Hel, in the frozen wastes where his mother had raised him and taught him magic, to hunt and survive and tame the creatures that everyone else feared. Perhaps he should visit soon, pay his respects properly instead of just thinking about it every few decades and then getting distracted by something else.

  But not today.

  Today he had a professor to find.

  Sael stepped out of the office and found the secretary on her knees.

  She was shaking slightly, both hands pressed flat against the floor like she was trying to steady herself or maybe just making sure the ground was still solid beneath her. Her breathing was quick and shallow, and her hair had fallen loose from whatever arrangement she'd had it in earlier so it hung around her face in disheveled strands. Yet she did not panic.

  The potion had done its job, then.

  He'd been worried about whether she'd been working with the professor, conspiring with him, aware of whatever he'd been planning when he sent those assassins. That was why he'd moved so quickly, and why he hadn't given her time to warn anyone or send a message or do anything except drink the potion and try not to panic.

  But looking at her now, shaken, vulnerable and clearly just an assistant who'd had an extremely unpleasant morning through no fault of her own, Sael felt a small twist of something uncomfortable in his chest.

  Guilt, maybe. Or just acknowledgment that his first assumption about her had been unfair.

  He opened his mouth to apologize—for the disruption, and for thinking she might have been involved in something she clearly had no part of—but footsteps echoed down the hallway before he could get the words out.

  Multiple footsteps. Heavy boots on stone. Moving fast.

  Sael turned his head toward the sound just as they rounded the corner.

  Guards. A dozen of them, maybe more, wearing armor that looked more advanced than what he'd seen from the city watch earlier. The metal gleamed with enchantments he could see even from this distance, protective wards woven into the plating that would deflect or absorb most common attack spells. Their shields had similar enchantments, layered thick enough that they were probably rated to handle mid-circle magic without breaking.

  And they were armed. Rifles and crossbows, both pointed directly at him.

  They spread out as they approached, maintaining careful distance from each other and from him, creating overlapping fields of fire that would make it difficult to dodge if they all shot at once.

  "Freeze!" The shout came from the man at the front, probably the leader based on the extra insignia on his armor and the way the others oriented themselves around his position.

  Sael blinked.

  Freeze?

  He tilted his head slightly, processing the command. Were they telling him to freeze himself? That seemed oddly specific. He supposed he could manage it—[Ice Encasement] or something similar would work, though he wasn't entirely sure why they'd want him to do that.

  It would make him harder to move, certainly, but it would also make him significantly more dangerous if he decided to break free later since the spell would have crystallized defensive properties he could weaponize.

  Or maybe they meant something else. Perhaps it was an idiom he wasn't familiar with? Common speech changed over the centuries and he'd been out of circulation long enough that some phrases had probably shifted meaning without him noticing.

  Actually, now that he thought about it, they probably just meant "don't move." That made more sense given the context—weapons pointed at him, defensive formation, the general posture of people preparing for a fight. It was a demand for stillness, not an instruction to perform cryomancy on himself.

  Still, they could have been a bit more gentle about it. The secretary was right there between them and him, still on her knees and clearly terrified, and waving weapons around near a non-combatant who'd already had a difficult morning seemed unnecessarily aggressive.

  The guard captain didn't budge. His expression stayed hard and focused, no acknowledgment of the secretary's position, no apparent concern for her safety. He raised one hand in a sharp gesture.

  "Prepare to fire!"

  The guards shifted, adjusting their aim fractionally, fingers moving to triggers and releases.

  The secretary made a small broken sound that might have been the start of a scream or just her breath catching in her throat. Tears were streaming down her face now, and she'd pressed herself even flatter against the floor like she was trying to become part of it, to shrink down small enough that the weapons wouldn't notice her when they fired.

  Sael started to raise his hand—slowly, carefully, in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture meant to indicate he was going to speak, not attack.

  They fired.

  All of them at once. A dozen rifles and crossbows releasing simultaneously, mana-charged projectiles screaming through the air in converging trajectories that had clearly been calculated beforehand to create maximum coverage and prevent evasion.

  Hmm.

  That was his fault, probably. He should have been more subtle about the whole thing—breaking into the office, emptying it of contents, freeing the Cerberus. The howl alone would have been audible across half the campus, and someone had clearly decided that warranted an armed response. He could have avoided this if he'd just been more careful, used proper concealment wards, maybe waited until nighttime instead of walking in during business hours like he owned the place.

  Oh well.