The corridor leading to Floor Four had no name.The academy's founders had never named it. There were no inscriptions. No carvings. No records in three hundred years of archives. All that existed was a forty-meter stone passage connecting the Bone Wastes to the Mirror Labyrinth—a narrow passage with a low ceiling that forced anyone to hunch over slightly, walls covered in dry moss peeling like dead skin, and steps descending at an unnatural slope, as if the passage itself was reluctant to let anyone through.Aster's team walked in a formation no one had planned.In front stood Kaelen. His Cracked Iron Sword was drawn halfway, its blade softly clinking against the scabbard with every step. Behind him was Aster—his Tattered Cloth Mask tied tightly, Used Reading Glasses resting on his nose, woven rattan bag on his back, an open notebook in one hand. Viktor stooped under the weight of seven burlap sacks now filled with lotuses, moss, crystals, and Frost Wyrm bones. Darius trimmed the dry

The battle was still raging when the stairs in the corner of the maze creaked.It was not the creak of old stone. It was not the scraping of dry moss. The creak had a weight to it—the weight of someone who was in no rush. The weight of someone who had waited forty years and decided that five more minutes would not change a thing.Malachar appeared.He had removed his dull brown disguise cloak. Beneath it, a pitch-black robe fluttered without any wind—a robe that absorbed the mirror light around it, creating a moving silhouette like a hole in reality. His wide-brimmed hat was gone. His face was exposed. Old. Dry. His cheekbones stuck out like the architecture of an abandoned cathedral. And his eyes—deep red with vertical pupils—glowed with a light that was not reflected by any mirror.Behind him were two personal followers. Black robes. Drawn hoods. Ritual daggers hidden up their sleeves. He had left his third follower at the maze intersection—a backup pair of eyes, a backup pair of ea

The footsteps could be heard before his figure came into view.Not the footsteps of a troop. Not the footsteps of a formation. The footsteps of one person—heavy, measured, and absolute. Every stair creaked under his steel-reinforced boot soles. Every creak had the exact same rhythm, like a metronome counting down time before an execution.General Kael emerged from the stairs connecting Floor Five to Floor Four.He wore no mask. His face was bare—a square jaw, a scar from his left temple to the corner of his lips, and a pair of eyes that had seen too much death to hold any doubt. His armor was light, without crests, without decorations. Pure functionality. The sword at his waist was not an artifact. Not an heirloom. Just steel cut, forged, and sharpened for a single purpose.Behind him were five personal guards. Not ordinary shadow troops. These were veterans of three border campaigns, each with at least fifteen years of service. They moved in a diamond formation, weapons drawn, eyes s

Ding.The sound was tiny. So tiny. Amidst the clashing of Valdris steel swords against the Cracked Iron Sword, amidst Viktor's roars as he smashed mirrors to pieces, amidst the explosion of light from Helena's holy staff colliding with Malachar's claws of energy—that sound shouldn't have been heard.It shouldn't have.But the Glitch System didn't care about what should have been.[Detecting Commercial Summoning Action.] [Tool: Rusty Shop Bell (Variant: Fate Bond Summoner).] [Intensity: Absolute (User's Financial Need).] [Active Glitch: Concept of Fate Summoning.] [Effect: Pulls every entity with a "fate bond" to the Vale Junk Shop to the user's location. Radius: 1 kilometer. No exceptions.]The wave was invisible. Unheard. Unfelt—at least not at first. All there was was a pull. A pull that didn't come from the outside, but from within. From the place where every decision ever made met every consequence ever received. From the place where fate kept its ledger.And everyone who had ever

The effect of the Rusty Shop Bell pulled everyone to a single point. The effect of the Dusting Broom erased intent from everyone within a ten-meter radius. But not everyone was within that radius. And not all intent could be erased.Kael's five personal guards stood at the edge of the Maze. They felt the pull of the bell. They felt the broom's erasing effect. But they were veterans of three border campaigns—their souls had been forged too hard, too many times, for the outer layer of their intent to be wiped away by a single sweep of a broom.And four of Malachar's followers—four of the twelve who had been brainwashed too deeply, for too long, for the chains on their souls to be loosened by a single wave of cleansing—stood up. Their red eyes glowed. Ritual knives were drawn.Nine figures moved. Not toward the mirror. Not toward the three crying leaders. Toward Aster.Toward the old man crouching on the moss, his back to the world, pressing the buttons of a broken calculator.Kaelen mov