Late at night, inside House Geno, Tif sat alone in the living room, facing the main entrance not far away.
She sat with her arms crossed, her eyelids twitching uncontrollably on her cold face.
She was trying her best to suppress her emotions.
A maid stepped forward, trembling with fear.
“Miss, it is already very late. You have to go to the Academy tomorrow. Shouldn’t you get some rest?”
“Late… very late.”
Tif finally began to lose her composure.
“Of course I know it’s late, but someone else doesn’t seem to!”
Her tone was controlled, but it still startled the maid.
Clearly, Tif was angry, and she had never been this angry before.
This was the first time the maids had seen her like this.
“I told you to check at the Academy. What did they say?”
“We went to the Academy to ask around. Young Master Lyr left his office quite early. As for where he went, we don’t know.”
The maids did not dare to neglect Tif’s orders and had quickly checked on the situation.
They had checked more than just the office.
They had gone to many places to inquire, but they still had no specific information regarding Lyr’s whereabouts.
“Fine, great. If he’s really that capable, then he shouldn’t bother coming back!”
Leaving those words behind, Tif didn’t bother waiting any longer.
She turned around and headed upstairs, leaving the maids behind to shiver.
Though they didn’t know exactly what had happened between Lyr and Tif, from those few words, it felt like Lyr was a child who had made a mistake.
Afraid of being lectured by Tif, he had simply chosen not to come home.
As for where Lyr could have gone, they truly didn’t know.
They could only hope he would return soon.
***
As for Lyr, the one involved, he was currently unconscious in Yilu’s room.
His consciousness had inexplicably lost contact with his body, but in the depths of his mind, Lyr felt as if he were sinking into a deep sea.
Before he could understand what was happening, a bizarre black object floated up from the deepest part and confronted him.
The strange object paused for a moment before suddenly shattering, turning into a black aura that enveloped his entire conscious space.
Immediately afterward, countless voices followed.
“You’re truly lucky to be born into a noble family. Otherwise, with your character, you’d be destined for failure.”
“So many people want to join the Knights, yet you want to leave. Do you have any idea how foolish that is?”
“Well, look at you now. You relied on your family at the Frontier but failed to make a name for yourself, and now your Magic Power has vanished. What are you going to do? You’ll probably be expelled from the Geno Clan eventually.”
…
Countless voices intertwined.
Lyr was not unfamiliar with these sounds.
Some even belonged to people he knew.
However, these voices were all filled with malice.
The sounds transformed into countless invisible hands, attempting to tear Lyr’s consciousness apart, even his body.
Just as Lyr was about to reach his limit and go mad, a purple bolt of lightning suddenly cut through the pitch-black space, causing the voices to vanish into thin air.
Beneath that purple lightning seemed to be a creature, its entire body exuding an awe-inspiring majesty that made it impossible to look at directly.
Once all the black aura dissipated, the Purple Thunder Creature also vanished, leaving no trace.’
***
In an instant, Lyr suddenly opened his eyes.
The sensation was so real it felt as if he had just been pulled out of the water.
He was drenched from head to toe, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was his own cold sweat.
‘What were those things?’
Lyr sat up, panting heavily, the hair on his body standing on end.
Those voices, that malice—if not for the appearance of that creature, they would have been endless.
Lyr felt a lingering fear.
‘If it had continued, would his mind have become twisted?’
He lowered the hand he had pressed against his forehead and stared blankly at his palm for a long time, unable to regain his composure.
Ever since he had slain the girl known as the Witch, Lyr had felt that his body must have undergone some kind of change.
The recurring dreams were a reminder.
But even he didn’t know exactly what that change was.
Thinking back to those endless voices filled with malice made him shiver.
While he was lost in thought, a sound came from beside him, making his entire body jump.
He looked over to see Yilu rubbing her eyes as she got up from the floor.
The thin blanket covering her slid off her shoulder.
Compared to Lyr’s terror, Yilu looked thoroughly annoyed.
Before Yilu could speak, Lyr cut in, “Don’t you know you could scare someone to death?”
Yilu tilted her head, looking at Lyr with a confused, skeptical expression.
Her face was full of questions.
‘What is wrong with this guy?’
Lyr calmed down and took a deep breath, finally taking a proper look at the room.
“Wait, where is this?”
It didn’t look like the room he remembered.
“No kidding.”
Yilu yawned as she stood up, her body aching.
“This is my room. Where else did you think it was?”
Though it was partly due to her own activities the previous night, sleeping on the floor was truly uncomfortable.
“Huh? …Oh.”
Lyr thought about it and finally remembered what had happened.
He had jumped onto the windowsill earlier, planning to leave, and then… nothing.
The more Yilu looked at him, the angrier she got.
She casually tossed the blanket she had used at Lyr.
“You really are a strange person. You just passed out out of nowhere. I worked so hard to move you to the bed, and then you talked in your sleep all night.”
She was starting to doubt if Lyr was actually there to help her or just to mess with her.
However, Yilu softened her tone slightly, as she couldn’t rule out the possibility that his condition was a result of the struggle they had gone through the night before.
“I did…?”
Lyr’s head throbbed as he tried to think.
He didn’t think he had a habit of talking in his sleep.
‘Could it have been because of those voices?’
Seeing that Lyr was still not in a good state, Yilu hesitated before asking, “Are you actually okay?”
In the end, Lyr only shook his head.
“I think so.”
He couldn’t figure out what was happening either.
“Since you’re fine, shouldn’t you leave my room? I need to change. Class is starting soon.”
The clothes Yilu was wearing were still the ones from the night before.
She couldn’t go to class like this, or someone would surely find a way to use it against her.
More importantly, she couldn’t change in front of him.
“Alright then.”
Lyr still felt dizzy.
He stood up and walked to the door, only then realizing he was in the girls’ Academy Dormitory.
It was impossible to enter through the front door at night, let alone leave through it during the day.
“I can’t go out this way,” he muttered to himself as he turned back.
He grabbed the bag of Magic Cores, not forgetting what he had intended to do before he left the night before, and then leaped toward the window, landing on the grass below.