It was not the simple vibration of a heavy spell or the rumble of a passing subterranean train. It felt as though the tectonic plates beneath the Academy of Aeridor had suddenly decided to scream. The heavy stone floor of the amphitheater black granite that had withstood centuries of dark magic groaned. It was a sound like tearing metal, a high-pitched screech that set teeth on edge, as a spiderweb of glowing fractures shot out from the center of the summoning circle.
At the epicenter of this geological seizure stood Valerie de Valois.
Or rather, what used to be Valerie de Valois.
Her boots had left the floor. She was floating three feet in the air, suspended by a column of pressure so dense it distorted the light around her. Her red hair, usually a messy knot of curls, was now undulating wildly around her head. It moved with a hypnotic, fluid grace, as if she were submerged deep underwater, defying gravity and physics alike.
The Codex Umbra, the tome that snapped at students’ fingers, hovered before her. It wasn't biting now. It was trembling. Its pages turned frantically on their own, whipped by a wind that didn't exist in the still air of the dungeon.
And then, she spoke.
"...ET IN CALIGINE LUCET!"
The voice did not belong to an young woman. It was a chorus. It was the sound of a thousand ancient queens and dead warlocks screaming in unison from the bottom of a well. It was deep, resonant, and layered with a harmonics that caused the glass vials on the alchemy shelves to shatter instantly.
Professor Grogar, a veteran of the Abyssal Wars, a Minotaur who had stared down dragons without blinking, felt a sensation he hadn't experienced in decades.
Primal, bowel-loosening terror.
"STOP HER!" Grogar roared, his voice cracking under the strain.
The massive Minotaur lunged. His iron-shod hooves cracked the stone steps as he propelled himself toward the floating girl. He was a creature of immense power, a mountain of muscle and magic. He reached out with a hand the size of a shovel, intending to snatch the book from the air and break the connection physically.
He was inches away. He could feel the cold radiating from her skin.
But he never reached her.
A shockwave of pure, condensed mana exploded from Valerie’s body.
BOOM.
It wasn't wind. It was a physical wall of force.
It hit the class with the violence of a hurricane.
Students Demons, Orcs, Warlocks, beings bred for war were lifted off their feet and thrown like ragdolls. Desks shattered into splinters. Stone benches crumbled. Bodies slammed against the back walls of the amphitheater with sickening thuds.
Demian, the Prince of Nox, was not spared. He saw the wave coming. He tried to raise a shield, a barrier of purple flame, but the force shattered his defense as if it were glass. He was blasted backward, flying through the air until he slammed hard against a stone pillar.
He slid down the rough stone, gasping for air, his vision swimming. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead where his dignity had met the masonry.
Grogar, thanks to his immense weight and low center of gravity, wasn't thrown. But he was stopped. The shockwave hit him like a physical blow to the chest. He dug his hooves into the ground, sliding backward, carving deep gouges in the rock. Sparks flew as his iron shoes ground against the granite. He grabbed onto an iron torch sconce to anchor himself, the metal groaning under his grip.
"RED!" Grogar screamed, his eyes wide with disbelief. "STOP NOW!!!"
But the entity that wore Valerie’s face did not hear him. She couldn't stop. The words were a runaway train, and she was just the passenger strapped to the front.
The cracks in the floor widened. The stone didn't just break; it dissolved.
Light—violet, sickly, and blinding—shot up from the fissure. It was the color of a bruise, the color of old magic.
"BY THE GODS," Grogar gasped. The torch sconce bent in his grip. He looked at the light, and he recognized it. He had seen it only once before, in the history books of the Great War.
"That... that is an Arch Gate!!!"
Panic broke out.
The students who weren't knocked unconscious scrambled over the rubble. The instinct to flee overrode any school rules or pride.
"RUN!" Grogar bellowed, waving his arm toward the shattered remains of the door. "EVERYONE OUT!!!"
They didn't need to be told twice. Warlocks tripped over their robes. Beastkin scrambled on all fours. They fled the room, leaving the monster and the girl alone.
The fissure in the floor widened into a gaping maw. It wasn't just a portal; it was a tear in the fabric of reality. The air in the room grew thin, sucked into the vacuum of the other side.
And something was coming through.
From the abyss beneath the floor, a limb emerged.
It was black. Pure, light-absorbing black fur that seemed to drink the violet light. It was massive—the size of a carriage. It slammed onto the edge of the rift, shaking the foundations of the tower. The claws were long, curved scimitars of glowing purple crystal, each one large enough to impale a man.
This wasn't a pet. This wasn't an Imp. This wasn't even a Greater Demon.
This was a World-Eater. An Arch-Demon of the Seventh Circle.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Grogar stared at the claw. He knew, with absolute certainty, that if that thing pulled itself fully into this dimension, the Academy would fall. Not just the room. The entire school.
He had one chance.
Grogar raised his hand. He channeled every ounce of his mana. A massive ball of orange magma magic formed in his palm, swirling with heat and rock.
He didn't aim at the monster. The monster was immune to such petty magic.
He aimed at the summoner.
He intended to strike Valerie down. To kill her before she could finish the final sentence.
"Forgive me, child," he growled, his heart heavy but his resolve iron.
He prepared to fire.
High above the circle, Valerie slowly turned her head.
Her neon green eyes, devoid of pupils, devoid of humanity, locked onto the Minotaur.
She didn't cast a spell. She didn't weave a sign. She didn't speak a word of counter-magic.
She just looked at him.
And the air around him detonated.
BANG.
Grogar was blasted off his feet as if he had been hit by a cannonball fired at point-blank range. The magma ball in his hand dissipated instantly. He flew backward, smashing through the heavy wooden doors of the classroom, splintering the oak, and tumbling out into the hallway in a heap of bruised muscle and iron.
The room was empty.
Just the possessed girl.
The Monster climbing out of the floor.
And one other.
Demian.
The Prince of Nox was struggling to his feet near the pillar. He wiped the blood from his eyes, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
He looked at the massive black claw gripping the floor, digging furrows into the stone. He felt the overwhelming pressure of the Arch-Demon's aura, a crushing weight that promised madness and death.
Then he looked at Valerie.
She was floating in the center of the storm, her back to him. She was the eye of the hurricane. The anchor.
Demian felt no desire to save her.
There was no romance in his heart, no chivalry. There was only the cold, hard pragmatism of a demon noble.
She is the door, Demian thought, his mind racing. To close the door, you must break the hinge.
He knew he couldn't stop the monster directly. It was too strong. But the girl... the human girl was fragile.
He moved.
He was fast, using the shadows and the chaos to cloak his approach. He didn't run; he stalked. He circled behind her, moving against the wind that tried to push him back.
Valerie was reaching the crescendo. The final word was forming on her lips, a sound that would shatter the final seal.
"CONSUMMATUM..."
Demian was directly behind her now. He was close enough to touch the hem of her floating tunic.
He raised his right hand. He didn't summon a simple stun spell. He didn't summon a binding rope.
His hand ignited with a condensed ball of Hellfire. Purple, black, and destructive.
He didn't aim to incapacitate. He aimed to terminate.
In that moment, Demian didn't see a classmate. He saw a threat. A catastrophic failure of containment that had to be neutralized to ensure his own survival.
"JUST DIE!!!" he screamed, his voice trembling with exertion and rage.
He slammed the fireball directly into the small of her back.
WHAM.
The impact was brutal.
The Hellfire didn't just burn; it impacted with concussive force. It seared through the fabric of her uniform instantly, biting into flesh.
The force broke her concentration.
The spell shattered like a dropped mirror.
Valerie’s head snapped back. Her eyes rolled back into her head. The neon green light vanished instantly, snuffing out like a candle in a gale.
Gravity reclaimed her.
She dropped from the air like a stone.
THUD.
She hit the floor hard, face first, sliding across the cracked stones. She didn't move.
The moment she lost consciousness, the rift destabilized. The anchor was gone.
SCREEEEEECH.
The portal snapped shut with the sound of a cosmic guillotine.
The massive black arm, severed by the closing of reality, was cut clean off. The giant limb flopped onto the stone floor, heavy and dead. It twitched once, spewing purple ichor, before dissolving rapidly into black smoke and ash.
From the other side of the floor, a roar of frustration echoed—distant and muffled—as the stone sealed itself, leaving only a jagged, melted scar in the rock.
Silence returned to the room but the silence didn't last long.
"MEDICAL SQUAD! NOW! SEAL THE PERIMETER!"
The hallway flooded with noise. Other professors, sensing the massive mana spike that had surely registered on every ward in the castle, rushed in.
Demian stood over Valerie’s unconscious body.
He was shaking. His knees felt like water. His hand was still smoking, the residue of the Hellfire clinging to his skin.
He looked down at the girl.
He looked at the spot on her back where the fireball had hit. The grey fabric of her tunic was disintegrated a perfect circle burned away by the intensity of his attack.
He fell to his knees beside her. Not out of concern, but because his mana was completely depleted. The attack had taken everything he had.
He stared at her face, which was turned to the side. It was peaceful now. Pale, freckled, utterly human. Devoid of the terrifying green light.
His mind was reeling. He had attacked with lethal intent. He had struck a human with a spell meant to kill demons.
"Who are you?" Demian whispered, his vision blurring as exhaustion took him.
Then, darkness claimed him too. He collapsed next to her, his head hitting the floor with a soft thud.
"Clear the room!"
Headmaster Solon strode into the ruins of the Demonology classroom. His robes billowed around him, glowing with protective wards. His face was a mask of cold, calculated fury.
The room was a disaster zone. But Solon’s eyes went immediately to the two students lying amidst the rubble.
"Get the students to the infirmary," Solon commanded the team of healers who hovered anxiously in the doorway. "And get them..." he pointed a sharp finger to Valerie and Demian, "...to the Private Ward. Immediately. Level 5 clearance. No visitors."
Professor Grogar limped back into the room. He was holding his bruised ribs, wheezing. The massive Minotaur, usually the embodiment of fear, looked shaken. He looked at the unconscious girl on the stretcher with open, naked fear.
"Solon," Grogar wheezed, wiping dust from his snout. "What happened?"
"You tell me, Grogar," Solon said sharply, inspecting the scar on the floor. "You are the expert on the Abyss. You were the one in charge."
Grogar pointed a trembling finger at the girl being lifted onto the floating stretcher.
"She... she almost summoned an Arch-Demon. Alone. Without a circle. Without a sacrifice. She just... spoke."
Solon looked at the girl. His face remained impassive, but his eyes narrowed. "Impossible. No human has that capacity. Nobody has that capacity without years of preparation."
"It wasn't human magic," Grogar insisted, stepping back as the healers moved Valerie past him. He flinched as she passed. "Get me away from her. That... thing... inside her. It spoke the High Tongue better than I do. It commanded me."
Solon turned on him. "Silence. Do you understand? Not a word of this leaves this room. If the High Council hears that a first-year student opened an Arch Gate on the first day of term, they will shut us down. They will purge this entire faculty."
"Solon," Grogar interrupted, his voice dropping to a hush. He grabbed the Headmaster’s sleeve. "Look."
He pointed to Valerie’s back as the healers turned her onto her side to stabilize her on the stretcher.
The back of her grey tunic was disintegrated. There was a large, circular burn mark where the fabric had been incinerated by Demian’s Hellfire. The edges of the cloth were charred black and still smoking slightly.
But the skin underneath?
Solon leaned in.
The skin was pale. Smooth.
There was a faint shimmer of green light, like a fading echo, dancing across her spine.
In mere seconds, the flesh knit itself together. The redness vanished. The blistered skin smoothed out.
There was no burn. No scar. Not even a mark.
It was as if she had never been touched.
"She is already healed," Grogar whispered, his eyes wide with disbelief. "That was a direct hit from a Prince of Nox. It should have crippled her. It should have killed a human instantly. Why didn't the Gate sensors register this regeneration factor?"
Solon stared at the unblemished skin. He reached out, almost touching her, but pulled his hand back. He touched his own chin, his expression shifting from anger to profound, calculated curiosity.
"I don't know," Solon murmured. "But we are going to find out."
He looked down at Valerie’s sleeping, innocent face.
"What are you, Valerie de Valois?"
The stretcher was carried out, followed by the unconscious Prince.
On the floor, where the Arch Gate had been, a faint residue of green energy still sizzled on the black stone, refusing to fade, a lingering promise that this was only the beginning.
Aeridor: The Red Witch.