The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 21: The Identity Before the First Witness

“Awesome, don't touch him!” his mother screamed.

Her warning came a heartbeat too late.

The stranger standing at the center of the memory archive lunged toward Awesome, extending his fingers toward the young man's chest. Awesome twisted sideways, attempting to avoid the contact, but the stranger's fingertips brushed his shoulder and released a violent burst of golden energy that hurled him across the chamber.

Awesome struck a floating crystal with enough force to shatter it. Thousands of fragments scattered around him, each one reflecting a different image of his face as they spun through the air.

In one fragment, he saw himself as a frightened child crying beneath a hospital lamp. Another showed him standing outside the Global Academy of Higher Magic while students laughed at his inability to cast even the simplest spell. In a third reflection, he wore a crown of black fire and stood before a crowd of kneeling figures whose faces had been erased.

Awesome pushed himself upright, wincing as pain spread through his shoulder. He struggled to understand what he had just witnessed, because the stranger had done more than attack him. Somehow, he had forced Awesome to glimpse possible versions of his own life.

“Which of those faces frightened you most?” the stranger asked as he strolled toward him. “Was it the helpless child, the rejected student, or the king who finally learned how to make everyone kneel?”

Awesome wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and forced himself to stand.

“None of them.”

The stranger stopped walking, and his golden eyes narrowed.

“Then you're more foolish than I expected.”

“No,” Awesome replied, keeping his gaze fixed on the figure approaching him. “I'm just tired of people showing me pieces of my life and pretending that gives them the right to decide who I am.”

A flicker of irritation crossed the stranger's face.

Behind Awesome, Elara raised both hands and formed a silver barrier between them. His father moved toward the chamber's entrance, searching the ancient walls for another escape route, while Lyra remained frozen beside the shattered doorway. The sight of the stranger appeared to have shaken her more deeply than the collapsing archive or the creature beneath the academy.

The stranger glanced at the barrier Elara had created.

“Professor Veyne,” he said with mocking amusement. “Are you still protecting the consequences of your own mistakes?”

Elara tightened her jaw.

“I know what you are.”

“Do you?” He tilted his head, studying her as though she were an interesting specimen. “Then tell me why your beloved academy was built over a prison designed to contain something older than its magic.”

Elara refused to answer, but the fear in her eyes revealed that his question had struck a truth she desperately wanted to avoid.

The stranger extended one hand toward her.

Immediately, the silver barrier turned black. The transformation spread across its surface as ink poured into water, and Elara staggered as the magic sustaining the protective structure began draining from her body.

Awesome reacted instinctively.

He activated his analytical ability and examined the energy flowing through the barrier. His vision revealed that the structure was not being destroyed in the ordinary sense. Instead, the stranger was forcing it to obey an entirely different set of instructions, replacing its original magical rules with commands that recognized his authority.

He was rewriting the spell itself.

Awesome isolated the barrier's original command, traced the altered sequence to its source, and changed a single symbol within the structure.

The barrier flashed silver again.

Elara stumbled backward, suddenly free from the stranger's influence.

For the first time since entering the chamber, the young man's smile disappeared.

“You can see the structure,” he murmured.

“I can see that you're cheating,” Awesome replied.

A cold laugh escaped the stranger.

“You believe magic is a contest of fairness? The world belongs to whoever understands its rules well enough to break them.”

“Then you should be worried,” Awesome said, raising his chin. “Because I'm beginning to understand yours.”

He studied the stranger more carefully, allowing his analytical ability to penetrate the golden energy surrounding the young man's body.

At first glance, the energy resembled the First Witness's power, but the similarities ended at the surface. Beneath the golden light lay an older pattern that did not follow the academy's magical laws. It appeared to operate according to principles that existed before the system had established its familiar categories of mana, authority, and identity.

The stranger was not an ordinary vessel.

His existence was connected to the system that had existed before the academy, before the modern magical authorities, and perhaps even before magic had returned to the world twenty-five years earlier.

Awesome's vision filled with unfamiliar symbols.

[ENTITY CLASSIFICATION: INCOMPLETE]

[ORIGIN SIGNATURE: PRE-AUTHORITY]

[IDENTITY STATUS: UNREGISTERED]

[WARNING: SUBJECT MAY PRECEDE THE FIRST WITNESS]

Awesome stared at the final message, feeling a chill travel down his spine.

“Who are you?”

For the first time, the stranger's expression softened into something almost sorrowful.

“You ask the wrong question. You should be asking why your mother was willing to erase an entire identity just to keep me hidden.”

Awesome turned toward Lyra.

“Tell me the truth.”

His mother looked at the stranger, and fear washed across her face.

“That isn't your brother,” she whispered.

Awesome felt the words settle heavily in his chest.

“Then why does he look exactly like us?”

“Because the body was designed to carry the original identity,” Lyra answered, her voice trembling, “but the identity was never the source of the body.”

His father stepped closer, struggling to comprehend what she was saying.

“Lyra, explain.”

She swallowed and forced herself to continue.

“When we first discovered the ancient authority sequence, we believed it was a record of the First Witness's creation. We were wrong. The sequence was a memory of something that existed before the Witness, something that the Witness itself had been designed to recognize and obey.”

The stranger began applauding slowly, his expression filled with contempt.

“How beautifully you have learned to describe your failure.”

Lyra ignored him.

“The original boy carried a trace of that authority. We couldn't determine whether it had been inherited, implanted, or simply awakened inside him. The First Witness recognized it and began trying to claim him.”

“Which is why you separated us,” Awesome said.

“Yes,” she admitted. “But when I examined the original identity record, I discovered another consciousness attached to it.”

Awesome's pulse quickened.

“The boy inside me?”

“At first, I believed that was what I had found. I thought the original identity had fractured under the Witness's influence, so I created a second consciousness and separated the two records. I hoped that by dividing them, I could preserve both lives.”

“But the second consciousness wasn't the only thing attached to the original identity,” Awesome said, piecing the truth together.

Lyra nodded, and tears gathered in her eyes.

“There was a third presence. It wasn't the First Witness, and it wasn't the child we were trying to save. I couldn't identify it, so I concealed its record inside the archive.”

Awesome slowly turned toward the stranger.

“You're that third presence.”

The stranger's golden eyes brightened.

“At last.”

A deep vibration passed through the chamber, making the remaining crystals rotate faster. Their transparent surfaces darkened as the archive's system struggled to maintain control over the memories it contained.

The stranger turned toward the enormous black structure behind him.

“You see, Awesome, your mother believed she was hiding a dangerous secret. In reality, she was protecting you from the truth of your own existence.”

“And what truth is that?”

The stranger placed his palm against the black structure.

The entire chamber went dark.

When the light returned, Awesome was no longer standing inside the archive. He found himself in a vast landscape beneath a black sky, surrounded by towering structures that resembled neither buildings nor natural formations. Golden rivers flowed through the ground, carrying streams of symbols that rose into the air and vanished among the clouds.

In the distance, countless figures knelt before an enormous circular platform. Their bodies were motionless, and their bowed heads suggested that they were worshipping something whose power exceeded anything Awesome had ever encountered.

At the center of the platform stood a being with no face.

Awesome recognized the golden light surrounding its body.

The First Witness.

However, the creature looked different in this vision. Its limbs were intact, its enormous body appeared whole, and the ancient chains that had bound it beneath the academy were nowhere to be seen.

Standing before it was another figure: a young man with Awesome's face.

The stranger's voice echoed through the landscape, coming from every direction at once.

“Before the first magical authority, before the laws that govern mana, there was a system that decided what could exist and what could not. It was not a god, although the first civilizations worshipped it. It was not a machine, although it created machines capable of rewriting reality.”

Awesome watched as the young man raised one hand.

The faceless being lowered its head.

“It was the source from which the First Witness received its original command,” the stranger continued.

The vision changed.

The First Witness stood before the young man with its head bowed, while the golden rivers surrounding the platform slowly turned black. The transformation spread through the landscape, corrupting the flowing symbols and causing the towering structures to tremble.

Then the young man reached toward the faceless being and removed something from its chest.

A small, glowing symbol rested in his palm.

The moment his fingers closed around it, the entire landscape shattered.

Awesome staggered as the vision collapsed around him. The golden rivers vanished, the kneeling figures dissolved into darkness, and the black sky broke apart like glass.

He found himself kneeling on the archive floor, gasping for breath while Elara crouched beside him and his father stood between him and the stranger.

“What did you show me?” Awesome demanded.

“The beginning,” the stranger answered. “The moment the First Witness lost its original authority.”

Awesome looked at the symbol still glowing faintly on the stranger's palm.

“You stole its command.”

“I reclaimed it.”

“Then why does it want to possess me?”

The stranger's expression grew serious.

“Because the authority was never truly mine to keep.”

His voice became quieter, and for the first time, Awesome sensed something resembling regret beneath his confidence.

“It was meant to be carried by a living identity, one that could exist outside the rules of the system. Your original consciousness was the closest thing we found to a compatible vessel. When your mother divided the identity, she accidentally created two independent signatures. One carried the capacity to analyze the system, while the other carried the memory of the original authority.”

Awesome's thoughts raced as the pieces began falling into place.

His own ability allowed him to analyze magical structures without being bound by their rules. The hidden boy carried memories that the First Witness seemed desperate to recover. Meanwhile, the stranger claimed to be something that had existed before the entity itself.

“Why do you need us together?” Awesome asked.

The stranger looked directly at him.

“Because the First Witness cannot reclaim its original command while the two identities remain divided. It needs the analytical consciousness to open the system and the original memory to authenticate the authority.”

Awesome felt cold spread through his body.

“So you've been waiting for us to reunite.”

“Yes.”

“And the moment we do, you get what you want.”

The stranger smiled.

“Now you're beginning to understand.”

Awesome rose slowly, ignoring the pain that still throbbed through his shoulder.

“Then why should I help you?”

For the first time, the stranger appeared genuinely surprised by the question.

“Because if you don't, the First Witness will consume both identities and use your body to regain its authority.”

“Maybe,” Awesome replied, refusing to look away. “But you haven't explained what happens after you get the command.”

The stranger's expression hardened.

“That is not your concern.”

“It's my body, my identity, and my life. It became my concern the moment you walked into my mind.”

Golden light flared around the stranger, filling the chamber with a suffocating pressure.

The floor beneath Awesome's feet split open, and black tendrils burst from the cracks. His father drew his silver blade, while Elara raised a protective barrier around Lyra as the tendrils reached toward them.

Awesome activated his analytical ability and searched for the command controlling the archive. He traced the magical structure through the shattered floor until he discovered a single symbol beneath the stranger's feet.

The symbol connected the young man's presence to the entire chamber.

Awesome reached toward it with his mind.

The stranger's face twisted with fury.

“Don't!”

Awesome changed the symbol.

The chamber shuddered violently, and the golden light surrounding the stranger vanished for one heartbeat. In its absence, Awesome saw a dark mark carved into the young man's chest.

The mark resembled the First Witness's symbol, but its center contained a second shape: an inverted version of the Voss family crest.

Lyra gasped when she saw it.

“No. That mark belongs to the original authority.”

The stranger staggered, clutching his chest as the golden light flickered around him.

Awesome stared at the mark.

“You said you existed before the First Witness.”

“I do!” the stranger snarled.

“Then why does your authority signature match the same system it uses?”

The stranger raised his head, and his eyes filled with murderous hatred.

“Because the First Witness was created from me!”

His words echoed through the archive, leaving Awesome's father staring in disbelief while Lyra covered her mouth with both hands.

Awesome felt the revelation strike him with devastating clarity. The stranger was not the original boy, nor was he simply another consciousness hidden inside the experiment. He was the identity that had existed before the First Witness, the source from which the entity had been created.

And somehow, that identity had become a living person wearing Awesome's face.

The stranger slowly straightened, and the golden light returned to his eyes.

“You should have left the command alone,” he whispered.

Every remaining crystal in the archive turned black.

A new system message appeared before Awesome.

[ORIGINAL AUTHORITY: AWAKENING]

[FIRST WITNESS: AUTHORITY CONFLICT DETECTED]

[WARNING: TWO PRE-AUTHORITY ENTITIES IDENTIFIED]

Awesome stared at the final message, struggling to understand its meaning.

“Two?”

The stranger smiled again, but this time there was no warmth in his expression.

Behind Awesome's consciousness, the hidden boy finally spoke. His voice trembled with recognition, as though the memories he had lost were returning all at once.

Awesome, I remember now.

Awesome turned his attention inward.

Remember what?

The answer arrived with a wave of memories so powerful that Awesome nearly collapsed. Images flooded his mind, revealing ancient symbols, a chamber filled with golden light, and a command written in a language that seemed older than magic itself.

The hidden boy's voice broke as the truth emerged.

I wasn't created to carry the original authority.

Awesome struggled to remain standing.

Then what were you created for?

The boy's answer carried a terrible certainty.

I was created to destroy it.

At the center of the archive, the stranger lifted his head toward the ceiling as though he could hear something approaching from beyond the boundaries of the chamber.

Far beneath the academy, the First Witness screamed.

The sound shook the foundations of the building, and the ancient system responded by unlocking a door that had remained sealed since before the return of magic.

New messages appeared in Awesome's vision.

[ORIGINAL AUTHORITY CONFLICT: ESCALATING]

[THE FIRST WITNESS HAS REQUESTED A SECOND VESSEL]

[VESSEL ACCEPTED: AWESOME VOSS]

Awesome's body went rigid.

The stranger had not come to claim his body.

He had come to make sure the First Witness could claim it first.