The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 5: The Monster Behind the Door

“Don't open it!”

Professor Elara Veyne's warning came too late to prevent the disaster that followed.

The enormous black door split down the middle with a deafening groan, releasing a wave of freezing air that swept through the underground corridor and extinguished several of the golden lights along the walls. Ancient symbols flickered erratically across the stone surfaces as the two statues guarding the entrance slowly turned their heads toward Awesome, their weathered faces shifting with a strange awareness, as though they had finally recognized the master they had been waiting centuries to see.

Beyond the widening doorway, someone was laughing.

The sound was unmistakable because it carried the exact pitch, rhythm, and mocking undertone of Awesome's own voice.

He stumbled backward, his heart hammering against his ribs as the laughter echoed through the corridor. For sixteen years, he had believed his greatest problem was his inability to cast a proper spell, a weakness that had earned him ridicule from his classmates and disappointment from nearly every instructor at the academy. Now, an ancient system recognized him as its highest authority, his professor claimed that he had once ordered his own execution, and something wearing his voice was waiting behind a door that should never have opened.

Awesome struggled to steady his breathing as he stared into the darkness.

“Tell me that isn't me,” he whispered, desperately hoping that Elara would give him an answer that made sense.

The professor tightened her grip around his arm, but her troubled expression told him everything he needed to know.

“I can't.”

The laughter abruptly stopped, leaving the corridor filled with a suffocating silence that seemed to press against Awesome's ears. For several seconds, nothing moved beyond the doorway, and he began to wonder whether whatever waited inside had changed its mind about revealing itself.

Then a pale hand emerged from the darkness.

Its fingers were unnaturally long, and thin golden cracks ran across its translucent skin like fractures in an ancient glass sculpture. The hand curled around the edge of the doorway, and the moment its fingers touched the black stone, the surface disintegrated into fine particles of dust that scattered across the floor.

A figure slowly stepped into the golden light.

Awesome felt the blood drain from his face as he recognized the stranger's features.

It had his face.

Its hair was longer and fell past its shoulders in tangled strands, while its skin was so pale and translucent that faint golden lines could be seen moving beneath it. Black robes hung loosely from a body that appeared to have survived centuries without food, sleep, or rest, and intricate symbols covered its throat and wrists, pulsing in perfect rhythm with the black mark embedded in Awesome's palm.

Yet the stranger's eyes were the most disturbing feature of all.

They were completely black, without a trace of white or any visible reflection of the surrounding light.

The stranger studied Awesome with an expression of profound disappointment, as though the sight of him had confirmed a suspicion it had desperately hoped would prove false.

“So,” it said, its voice carrying the same unsettling familiarity as its laughter, “they finally allowed you to grow up.”

Awesome tried to speak, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. He had imagined countless explanations for the mysteries surrounding his awakening, yet none had prepared him for the possibility of standing face-to-face with another version of himself.

“Who are you?” he finally demanded.

The stranger tilted its head slightly, appearing almost amused by the question.

“You already know.”

“I've never seen you before!”

“Of course you haven't,” the stranger replied. “You made certain of that.”

Elara immediately stepped between them, raising both hands as blue defensive runes formed around her fingers. The magical symbols spun in tight circles around her palms, creating a shimmering barrier that separated Awesome from the mysterious figure.

“Stay behind me, Awesome,” she instructed, her voice strained but determined.

The stranger released another quiet laugh, showing no concern for the defensive spell gathering around Elara.

“Still pretending you can protect him, Elara? You couldn't protect him the first time, and you certainly won't succeed now.”

The blue runes surrounding Elara's fingers trembled, their light weakening for a brief moment before she forced them to stabilize.

Awesome noticed the change immediately.

“You know him,” he said, looking from Elara to the stranger. “You know exactly what it is.”

“I know what it can do,” Elara answered cautiously, refusing to take her eyes off the figure standing before them.

The stranger's black eyes settled on her, and its expression hardened with quiet contempt.

“Then tell him what happened twenty-five years ago.”

Elara remained silent, and her refusal to answer only deepened Awesome's suspicion.

“Tell him why the world suddenly awakened to magic,” the stranger continued, taking another step into the corridor. “Tell him why the academy was built above a sealed chamber. Most importantly, tell him what you sacrificed to ensure that he would never remember his own name.”

“Enough!” Elara shouted.

Her defensive spell erupted before the stranger could speak again.

Six spears of blue light shot from her hands, their sharpened tips cutting through the freezing air as they converged on the stranger's chest. The combined force of the attack was powerful enough to crack the stone floor beneath its feet, and the resulting shock wave sent dust swirling through the corridor.

For one brief moment, Awesome believed that Elara's attack had succeeded.

Then the spears stopped.

They hung motionless inches from the stranger's body, suspended in the air as though an invisible hand had seized them before they could make contact.

The figure slowly raised one finger, and the six spears rotated until their sharpened tips pointed directly at Elara.

“Elara, move!” Awesome screamed.

The professor threw herself sideways just as the spears shot backward, tearing through the space where she had been standing moments earlier. They struck the wall behind her with tremendous force, shattering several ancient carvings and sending fragments of stone raining across the corridor.

The stranger had not cast a counterspell or raised a defensive barrier.

It had simply taken control of Elara's magic and turned her own attack against her.

Awesome stared at the figure in horror, struggling to understand how anyone could manipulate another person's spell so effortlessly.

“How did you do that?”

The stranger looked at him with something resembling sympathy, although its completely black eyes made the expression feel more threatening than reassuring.

“You're asking the wrong question,” it replied. “The real question is why you have forgotten how.”

Before Awesome could demand an explanation, the stranger extended its hand toward him.

The black symbol beneath his skin flared violently.

Pain tore through his palm, spreading up his wrist as a series of unfamiliar images flashed through his mind. He saw a magnificent city engulfed in golden fire, its towering buildings collapsing beneath a sky split by enormous cracks. Thousands of mages knelt before a colossal structure at the city's centre, their heads bowed as golden energy surged through the ground beneath them.

At the heart of the devastation stood a young man who looked exactly like Awesome.

The young man stood alone beneath the fractured sky, holding a black crystal in one hand and a sword made entirely of light in the other. His clothes were torn, blood stained his chest, and the golden symbols covering his body shone with a brilliance that seemed capable of challenging the burning heavens.

Then the vision changed.

The young man raised the sword and drove it directly into his own chest.

Awesome gasped as the image struck him with the force of a physical blow, and he collapsed to one knee, clutching his burning palm.

“Stop!” Elara shouted as she rushed toward him.

The stranger closed its hand.

The vision disappeared instantly, leaving Awesome kneeling on the cold stone floor as he struggled to draw air into his lungs. His body trembled uncontrollably, and the pain in his palm slowly receded, although the black symbol continued to glow beneath his skin.

“What did you show me?” he demanded, looking up at the stranger with a mixture of anger and fear.

“A memory.”

“Whose memory?”

The stranger's expression darkened, and the faint amusement that had lingered around its mouth disappeared.

“Yours.”

Awesome shook his head violently, refusing to accept an explanation that contradicted everything he knew about himself.

“No. I would remember something like that.”

“Would you?” the stranger asked, stepping closer. “You cannot even remember why you were born without mana.”

The words struck him more deeply than the vision itself.

For years, Awesome had endured humiliation because his mana reading was abnormally low. His teachers had dismissed him as a hopeless student, his classmates had mocked his inability to perform even basic spells, and the academy's examination system had classified him as a defective candidate whose magical potential was barely worth measuring.

He had accepted his weakness because every test had confirmed it, and he had gradually convinced himself that enduring the ridicule was simply the price of being different.

But if his memories had been deliberately sealed, how much of his life had been built upon a lie?

Had his inability to cast spells been a natural limitation, or had someone deliberately prevented him from accessing the power that belonged to him?

Awesome slowly rose to his feet, forcing himself to meet the stranger's black eyes.

“Why was I sealed?” he demanded.

The stranger studied him for several seconds before answering, and the cold certainty in its expression made Awesome's stomach tighten.

“Because the last time you possessed your full authority, you nearly destroyed the world.”

Elara moved closer, positioning herself beside Awesome rather than directly in front of him.

“Don't believe everything it tells you,” she warned. “It wants you to question everything you know about yourself because confusion makes you easier to manipulate.”

The stranger smiled, revealing a flash of teeth beneath its pale lips.

“There it is,” it said. “The familiar lie.”

Awesome looked between them, his frustration growing as each seemed determined to undermine the other's credibility without offering enough information to establish the truth.

“One of you is hiding the truth, and the other looks like a monster,” he said. “How am I supposed to know which of you is telling the truth?”

“An excellent question,” the stranger replied. “Perhaps you should stop listening to us and examine the magical structure binding us together.”

Awesome frowned, uncertain whether the suggestion was a genuine offer or another attempt to manipulate him.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at the golden lines.”

He hesitated, remembering how Elara had warned him that every interaction with the ancient authority weakened the seal. However, he could not afford to keep accepting other people's explanations without examining the evidence for himself.

Taking a slow breath, Awesome activated the strange perception that had allowed him to dismantle Corvin's suppression formation.

The corridor changed before his eyes.

Golden threads emerged across the walls, the enormous doorway, and the stranger's body, revealing a hidden network of magical connections that ordinary vision could not detect. Some threads connected the figure to the ancient chamber, while others extended deep beneath the academy, disappearing into places Awesome could neither see nor understand.

Yet one connection immediately captured his attention.

A thick golden thread stretched from the stranger's chest directly to the black symbol in Awesome's palm. Between them, a dark knot pulsed with an eerie rhythm, resembling a second heartbeat suspended within the golden network.

Awesome stared at the connection, gradually realizing that it did not resemble an ordinary magical restraint.

“This isn't a chain,” he whispered.

The stranger nodded, and for the first time, its expression suggested that it was genuinely interested in what Awesome might discover.

“Keep looking.”

Awesome focused on the dark knot, allowing his unusual perception to examine the structure more closely. As he concentrated, unfamiliar symbols emerged around the connection, arranging themselves into a sequence of messages that appeared directly before his eyes.

[DUAL AUTHORITY DETECTED.]

[ORIGINAL SUBJECT: AWESOME.]

[SECONDARY INSTANCE: UNVERIFIED.]

Awesome felt his blood turn cold.

“Secondary instance?”

The stranger's smile vanished, and a flicker of genuine surprise crossed its face before it quickly regained its composure.

“You can read the system?”

Awesome took a cautious step backward, studying the figure with renewed suspicion.

“You're not my original self.”

The stranger's expression hardened, and the golden cracks running across its skin brightened as though his conclusion had touched a nerve.

“I am the part of you that you abandoned.”

“Then why does the system call you unverified?” Awesome demanded. “If you're truly part of me, why doesn't it recognize you as an original authority?”

Before the stranger could answer, the corridor began to tremble.

The golden thread connecting them vibrated violently, sending ripples of light through the surrounding network as fresh cracks appeared across the stranger's skin. The dark knot between them pulsed faster, and Awesome felt a corresponding surge of heat spread through his palm.

Elara seized his shoulders, forcing him to turn away from the magical connection.

“Stop examining it!”

Awesome struggled against her grip, his eyes still fixed on the rapidly changing symbols.

“Why? What is it doing?”

“Because every time you interact with the authority, the seal weakens!” she exclaimed. “You don't understand what you're looking at, and if you keep probing the connection, you could release something that neither of us can control!”

The stranger laughed bitterly, although the sound had lost some of its earlier confidence.

“She is telling the truth about that, at least.”

Its body flickered as though the figure were struggling to maintain its physical form. For a brief instant, the illusion of human skin disappeared, revealing a shifting mass of black energy surrounding a tiny golden core.

Awesome stared at the revelation, finally understanding that the figure standing before him was not entirely human.

It was something created from a fragment of his power, separated from its original source and confined behind the ancient door.

But if the stranger was merely a fragment, what had it been protecting, and why had the system classified it as an unverified presence?

“You're a fragment,” Awesome whispered.

The stranger's black eyes blazed with sudden fury.

“I am what remains of the person you were before they turned you into a child.”

Before Awesome could ask what those words meant, the golden thread connecting them snapped.

A deafening explosion tore through the corridor, releasing a wave of black energy that swept across the chamber with enough force to shatter the ancient statues. Elara threw herself over Awesome, shielding his body as the enormous door slammed against the surrounding walls and disintegrated into thousands of fragments.

The shock wave hurled dust and broken stone through the air, and the ancient symbols along the corridor flickered wildly before disappearing beneath spreading darkness.

When the debris finally began to settle, Elara slowly lifted her head.

The stranger remained standing in the centre of the chamber, but its appearance had changed dramatically.

The golden cracks covering its skin had widened, exposing a blazing light beneath the surface, while black tendrils spread from its feet across the floor and climbed the surrounding walls. One by one, the tendrils swallowed the ancient symbols, extinguishing their light and leaving expanding patches of darkness in their wake.

Awesome pushed himself upright, wincing as pain spread through his ribs.

“What's happening to it?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.

Elara stared at the creature with undisguised horror, and the expression on her face suggested that she had witnessed something similar before.

“The seal was holding something inside it,” she whispered.

The stranger slowly raised its head, and a terrible understanding seemed to settle over its features.

“No,” it replied, its voice now carrying a deep, distorted resonance. “The seal was holding something inside you.”

Awesome's heart seemed to stop as the black symbol on his palm spread across his wrist, branching into thin markings that climbed beneath his sleeve.

A series of messages appeared before his eyes, each one pulsing with increasing urgency.

[MEMORY SEAL INTEGRITY: 12%.]

[WARNING: ORIGINAL AUTHORITY REACTIVATING.]

Awesome stared at the warnings, barely able to process the implications before another message appeared beneath them.

[HOSTILE INSTANCE DETECTED.]

[PURGE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.]

He read the final line several times, hoping that he had misunderstood its meaning.

For the first time since the ancient system had recognized him, it was not asking him to release a command, examine a magical structure, or accept the restoration of his memories.

It was asking him to destroy the very creature standing before him.

The stranger noticed the change in his expression, and a knowing smile slowly returned to its face.

“Go on,” it said, spreading its arms as the black tendrils continued consuming the chamber. “You know what happens if you refuse.”

Awesome clenched his burning fist, trying to suppress the fear tightening around his chest.

“What happens?”

The creature leaned forward, and its black eyes seemed to draw every trace of light into their depths.

“The thing that destroyed the world the first time will finally remember how to finish the job.”

A thunderous impact shook the chamber, sending another shower of dust from the ceiling. Far above them, the academy's alarm changed pitch, and the warning spread through every magical display in the building, interrupting lessons, examinations, and security operations throughout the campus.

GLOBAL ACADEMY EMERGENCY: ALL STUDENTS MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.

The announcement echoed through the ancient corridor, but Awesome barely registered it as another message appeared across the black stone walls.

FIRST AUTHORITY RESTORATION HAS BEGUN.

He looked down at his burning palm, watching the black symbol spread farther across his skin as golden light pulsed beneath it.

For his entire life, he had wished for the ability to cast a single proper spell. He had dreamed of proving that he was not a failure, of silencing the classmates who mocked him, and of discovering a place where his existence mattered.

Now the oldest magical system in existence was offering him the power to erase something that looked exactly like him.

The worst part was that the creature standing before him seemed to understand his fear better than anyone else ever could. It knew how desperately he wanted answers, how terrified he was of discovering that his entire life had been a lie, and how little he understood about the power awakening inside him.

Most frightening of all, it knew what would happen if he chose incorrectly.

The stranger extended its pale hand toward him, and the golden cracks beneath its skin blazed brighter as the darkness spread behind it.

“Come here, Awesome.”

Awesome remained where he stood, unable to decide whether reaching for the creature would save him or condemn him.

Then something enormous shifted in the darkness beyond the ruined doorway.

Two colossal eyes opened behind the stranger, illuminating the chamber with a light that was neither golden nor black, but something far older and more terrifying than either.

The stranger turned slightly, as though acknowledging the awakening presence behind it, before looking back at Awesome with a smile that carried the weight of an ancient promise.

“It's time you met the real you.”