After several hours, San was sitting, leaning his back against an ancient tree, resting against its rough trunk. The pain was pulsing like war drums that do not stop. The blow he had received hours ago almost had been the last. If not for that aura that he had learned to surround himself with, his limbs would have been torn apart under the claws of that curse. But what happened was merely fractures and deep bruises. In this place, this was considered great luck.

  He began to move again. Every few steps he would stop, making sure there was no trace of curses nearby. Then he would look at the window of his ability, activate his ability, only to increase the speed of his movement, so he would move between the rocks and trees like a ghost fleeing from death.

  After you activate your technique, your speed will increase by 25%

  No side effects

  ...

  He was exploiting this to make his slow movement due to pain faster.

  He was lost. Wandering in this land. He did not know if he was approaching the academy or moving further away from it. Everything seemed similar in this wilderness.

  But he knew one thing: staying in one place meant death. Tension was eating him from the inside, and thinking about every small sound brought him to the edge of madness. Even the rustling of leaves in the distance made his heart leap to his throat.

  On his way, he would glimpse a curse here and another there. He would immediately change direction, even if the curse was one he knew for certain he was stronger than. He would not take risks. In this place, taking risks meant death.

  ---

  After hours of crawling and walking, he glimpsed something on the horizon.

  It was a building. Old, abandoned. He approached it with extreme caution, step by step, his eyes scanning every corner, his ears monitoring every sound. Tens of meters away, he began to see its details: it was a large building, one of its walls was completely destroyed, as if a giant monster had torn it out with its hands.

  But what really caught his attention was the books.

  Thousands of books. Scattered everywhere. On the ground, among the rocks, under the rubble. Some were torn, some decomposed, and some seemed strangely intact. They filled the place as autumn fills the forest with its leaves.

  San thought: A library. A very old library.

  He stopped for a moment, listening. Nothing. Only the heavy silence of death.

  He began to approach with extreme caution. His steps were light as a cat's, his eyes never leaving his surroundings. Suddenly, he glimpsed movement among the trees hundreds of meters away. His heartbeats quickened. He lunged silently towards the building, entered through the opening in the destroyed wall, and disappeared inside.

  He went to a dirty window, half of its glass broken, and looked through it cautiously. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was just a group of wild squirrels moving among the trees. But he did not lower his guard. In this place, even squirrels could be dangerous.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  ---

  He began to wander inside the library.

  The place was spacious, filled with fallen bookshelves and scattered papers. The air was heavy with the smell of mold, dust, and ancient death. Everything indicated that the place had been violently attacked long ago. Broken shelves, torn books, traces of fire in some corners.

  But something caught his attention.

  On one of the walls, the books were carefully arranged. Precisely lined up on shelves that seemed completely intact, as if time had bypassed this place. No hand had touched them for many long years. Only dust had visited them, accumulating on the book spines like a layer of grey snow.

  San approached cautiously. Step... then step... his eyes never leaving this strange wall.

  Suddenly, he noticed something else on the ground.

  There was a line carved into the stone. A wide arc, extending for more than a meter, surrounding that wall as if it were a protective circle. The line was deep, clear, intentional. It was not an ordinary crack in the ground.

  San looked at the line, then at the wall, then at the line again. There was something here. Something he did not understand.

  He took a book from the ground. Any book, it didn't matter. He raised it with his trembling hand, and extended it towards the drawn arc.

  The book crossed. Nothing happened. It passed as if nothing was there.

  He placed the book cautiously on one of the nearby shelves. As soon as it touched the wood, the shelf broke with a loud, unexpected noise. The rotten wood splintered, and the books fell to the ground.

  San froze.

  His tension returned like a flood. Did anyone hear this sound? Is there something outside listening? He quickly turned to watch the forest through the broken window. His eyes scanned the shadows, his ears monitored every rustle.

  But suddenly... he heard a sound.

  Not from outside. From inside. From above him.

  The sound of light movement. Rubbing. Something moving in the darkness.

  ---

  San raised his head very slowly. His heart was pounding like hammers in his chest. His eyes rose to the corner of the ceiling, where the darkness was thick as tar, where no light reached.

  And there... he saw them.

  Red eyes.

  Eyes glowing in the darkness like embers of fire, like stars of death, like something that does not belong to this world. They were staring directly at him. Staring into his soul.

  Every hair on San's body stood up. The blood in his veins froze. The only thought in his mind was: It has been here the whole time. And I did not feel it. I never sensed it.

  A black body began to move behind those eyes. It was emerging from the darkness slowly, as if it was the darkness itself. Four fingers on each hand, ending in long, shiny black claws. It was a curse. A curse living here, in this ancient library, waiting.

  Its eyes fell upon him. Or perhaps it had been watching him since he entered.

  With a simple movement, it raised its black hand. It was ordinary, natural, as if it was waving to him. Then it released.

  A black wave shot from its hand. It was massive. The size of San's own body. It lunged towards him with a speed he could not describe, like a freight train, like a rock falling from a mountain, like death itself running to embrace him.

  San cried out inside: Oh my God! What is this attack? It's my size! It will cut me in half!

  He moved. Only a few centimeters. He moved his body slightly away from the direct path of the strike. At the same time, he raised his aura to its maximum degree.

  The strike approached. And at the moment of impact, something strange happened.

  The black wave was shrinking. The closer it got to San, the more its size diminished. From the size of a full body, to half of San's size, to the size of an arm... then it struck.

  The wound was superficial. Shallow. As if the strike had lost its power on its way to him.

  San fell backwards. Suddenly, he found himself inside the arc. Inside that mysterious circle drawn on the ground.

  But... nothing happened.

  He looked at his body. The wound was bleeding. The barrier did not kill him. Quite the opposite.

  The curse on the ceiling released another strike. Faster than the first. San did not move this time. He was exhausted, shocked, not knowing what to do.

  The black wave lunged towards him. Approached. Grew in his eyes. Then... the same thing happened.

  It shrank. It diminished. Then when it reached the edge of the arc, to that line carved in the ground, it evaporated.

  It disappeared as if it had never been.

  Suddenly, something San had never seen before appeared before him. A circle of transparent aura, light as a breeze but solid as steel, appeared clearly at the moment the strike hit it. It surrounded the wall and the entire arc. It was protecting it. It was protecting everything inside it.

  The strike hit the barrier once... twice... three times. And each time, the barrier repelled it as if it was nothing. As if it was mere dust in the wind.

  San looked at the barrier. At the neatly arranged books behind it. At this place that had remained protected for so many long years.

  He thought: Who placed this? How has it remained effective all this time? And what is it protecting?

  Questions cascaded in his mind. The curse was still above him, attacking, trying, failing. And he stood there, inside the circle of safety, looking at all this, trying to understand what had happened.