Rise Of The Mirror King

Chapter 22: The Unknown

"You're not planning on sitting here, are you?" Ace reached out and pinched my palm when I didn't move.

My heart was racing. I tried asking Grey to stabilize my core, but she didn't answer.

"Symon Wardreth," Vance repeated. He glanced toward my seat, likely to make sure I was still in the room.

Lucifero was looking at me. It was the first time I had seen him smirk, like he knew I'd flop. I inhaled sharply and rose in one motion. Zeldryl walked in then, and our eyes met. He took the last seat by the door and crossed one leg over the other.

The walk down to the dais was the longest I have ever made. I could feel everyone's eyes burning into my skin.

[Lord Symon,]

"Grey, where the hell have you been?" I thought frantically.

[Your mana core shut me down,]

"What?"

[I cannot sense any mana in you; it's disappeared.]

Grey was joking, right? She had to be. My body suddenly felt weightless when I reached the dais. I looked from the birdcage to Vance. His expression was completely unreadable.

I gulped hard.

[The orb isn't reacting to you.]

I aimed my open palm at the cage. "Clear your mind. Quiet the noise in your head." Vance's instructions replayed in my mind. I inhaled slowly and shut my eyes. Nothing. Instead, a memory flashed—I could see myself back on the hospital bed, my mom beside me, saying something I couldn't hear.

"Why isn't it working?" I whispered to Grey.

[Something is blocking your mana, someone]

"Who?"

[You,]

That information caused my heart to skip a beat. Then, I heard that familiar, echoey voice in my head.

[Don't summon,]

"Symon, is that you?"

There was no answer. Either my own soul was asking me not to summon, or I was finally going insane.

"Lord Symon." It was Vance. He looked troubled, likely because I was sweating profusely. "You can summon another time."

"No," I yelled. I needed this. My powers were draining my lifespan. I had to figure out what killed those girls. I had to figure out a way back home. To do that, I needed a way to use my powers without them killing me, and this familiar was the answer.

"C'mon, Symon, you can do this," I mumbled.

"Now, stop looking with your eyes and start looking inward. Feel your mana. It isn't a weapon right now; it is a warm, steady pulse right beneath your sternum. It feels like a second heartbeat."

"Feel your mana. It isn't a weapon right now," I repeated the words. That was it. I was terrified of what my own mana would do.

I shut my eyes again and calmed my breathing. Somewhere in the distance of my mind, I heard Vance call out the next name, then I heard a voice—alien and rough, like a mountain speaking. It said, "I am Nimbus."

The students gasped. My eyes snapped open.

My palm glowed a deep, volatile red, and a sudden gust of wind rushed in from the window, tearing the thick curtains to shreds. The candles extinguished all at once. Vance stepped back from the dais. Outside, the sky went pitch-dark grey, and lightning flashed violently across the horizon.

[Mana core instability, new presence detected.]

The cage began to rattle violently, like something inside desperately wanted to claw its way out. I looked back, and only then did I realize the chaos. All the front rows were empty; everyone had fled to the center of the room. The gale was too much.

Someone from the crowd pointed, screaming, "Why is he opening a Janus gate?!"

I shrieked and looked at the cage. A Janus gate was fully open behind it, a swirling vortex of cosmic void, and the birdcage got sucked right into it. Then, everything seized. The wind stopped abruptly. My palm no longer glowed with mana.

It must have been a minute or two of pure, dead silence. I heard someone chuckle from the crowd. "Is that it?"

Then I heard Mazikeen scream, "Symon, get away from there!"

"Huh?" I managed to say before a blinding light erupted.

It was followed by an explosion that hurled me meters across the room. My back hit the stone wall hard, and I landed heavily onto the wooden seats below.

I wasn't back on my feet yet, but I could hear the loud whispers and frantic chatter echoing through the hall. When the light finally vanished, the creature that emerged was small—barely the size of a housecat—and for one absurd second, laughter nearly escaped me instead of fear.

Then it moved, and the laughter died in my throat.

Its body was lean and simian, covered in fine, dark fur that caught the light strangely, as if it wasn't reflecting it so much as bending it around its frame.

Two thin, membranous wings unfurled from its shoulder blades—dragon wings, translucent at the edges and veined faintly with a deep violet glow that pulsed in sync with a rapid heartbeat.

A ridge of golden scales ran along its spine. They were small and overlapping, gleaming a dull gold even in the dim classroom light, looking more like old, weathered coin than polished metal.

A long, sinewy tail whipped out from behind it, ending in a tuft of coarse lion's fur, twitching with obvious, restless intelligence.

Its face was the worst part—not monstrous, not grotesque, but almost human in its expressiveness. Small, dark eyes, far too knowing for something that size, fixed directly on me the moment it landed on all fours atop the shattered table.

It tilted its head.

"You," it said. Its voice was thin, dry, and almost amused—nothing like the growls or shrieks from anything else summoned that day. "Finally."

"Did it just speak?" a student asked, their voice trembling.

Then, something started happening with the testing orb. The air itself began to keen—a high, thin shriek that built and built like metal bending past its absolute limit, until the sound stopped being something I heard and became a vibration I felt deep in my bones.

The orb glowed a deep violet, then turned a bright red. It flashed gold shortly after, and finally shattered into a thousand pieces, showering the floor with crystal shards.

[Warning, anomaly detected.]

Grey's voice echoed in my head, and the translucent window flickered violently.

[Species: Unknown. Tier: Unknown. Core Stability: 100%. Compatibility: 100%]

When I looked back, everyone wore a confused, bewildered expression—everyone but Mazikeen and Zeldryl.

The look in their eyes wasn't confusion or surprise. It was absolute fear and dread. Because they knew exactly what it was that I had summoned.