The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 7: The Body That Was Never His

The stranger's fingers tightened around Awesome's wrist as golden cracks spread across his face, branching beneath his skin like fractures in a pane of glass. The voice that emerged from his mouth grew progressively deeper until it sounded as though two different beings were speaking through the same throat, each struggling to overpower the other.

“It's trying to get back into the body you stole from it.”

Awesome barely had time to process the warning before he drove his free fist into the stranger's jaw.

The impact sent them crashing against a broken pillar, scattering fragments of ancient stone across the chamber. However, the black tendril connecting the stranger to the armored creature stretched without snapping, pulsing with a sinister light that grew brighter with every passing second. A wave of dark energy erupted from the connection, striking Awesome in the chest and hurling him across the chamber.

He hit the stone floor hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, and for several agonizing seconds, he could do nothing but lie there, struggling to draw air into his burning chest.

“Awesome!” Professor Elara Veyne shouted.

She rushed toward him, but the creature raised one enormous hand behind the stranger. Every remaining golden chain tightened simultaneously, sending a violent tremor through the chamber before an invisible force seized Elara and hurled her backward. She slammed into a wall of black stone, and her protective spell shattered around her in a burst of blue fragments that faded before they reached the floor.

Awesome forced himself onto one elbow, his vision swimming as he watched the stranger struggle to his feet.

Half of the stranger's face had turned completely black, while golden light leaked from the cracks surrounding his eyes. His expression kept changing in unsettling flashes, shifting between the familiar cruelty that had tormented Awesome since the door opened and something far colder, something that seemed to look straight through him as though the boy standing before it were merely a transparent shell.

“You need to run,” the stranger whispered.

Awesome stared at him in disbelief, struggling to reconcile the warning with everything the stranger had done to him. “You just threatened to destroy me.”

“I also remember being you.” The stranger pressed both hands against his head as the black tendril began dragging him toward the armored creature. His knees buckled, and he fought desperately to remain upright. “I know what happens when it finishes taking control.”

“Then tell me how to stop it!”

The stranger opened his mouth, but a violent convulsion seized his body before he could answer. Black energy burst from his chest, twisting around his shoulders and throat as though invisible hands were tearing something out of him. The enormous creature leaned closer, its armored face pressing against the invisible barrier that separated it from the chamber.

A series of messages appeared before Awesome's eyes.

[HOST TRANSFER: 38%.]

[MEMORY SEAL INTEGRITY: 7%.]

[WARNING: ORIGINAL BODY SIGNATURE DETECTED.]

Awesome blinked several times, hoping the words would disappear, but they remained suspended in his vision.

Original body signature.

The phrase burned itself into his mind, forcing him to confront the question he had tried to avoid ever since the black crystal first recognized him. Every revelation beneath the academy had brought him closer to an answer, yet each answer had only uncovered something more disturbing.

If the stranger was a fragment of himself, and the creature was trying to return to a body he had supposedly stolen, then who—or what—had he been before his birth?

More importantly, why had everyone who knew the truth been willing to seal it away?

Before Awesome could make sense of the questions flooding his mind, the stranger suddenly dropped to one knee. His fingers dug into the stone floor as he fought against the tendril pulling him toward the creature.

“Your palm!” he gasped, turning his distorted face toward Awesome. “Put your marked hand against the floor!”

Awesome hesitated, uncertain whether the stranger was attempting to save him or draw him into another trap.

“Do it!” the stranger screamed, his voice cracking beneath the pressure of the force consuming him.

A black tendril lashed toward his throat, coiling around his neck with enough force to lift him slightly from the ground. Awesome reacted instinctively, planting his marked palm against the stone before he had time to consider the consequences.

The symbol beneath his skin ignited.

The entire chamber responded as though it had been waiting for his touch.

Golden lines surged through the floor, spreading outward in enormous spirals that illuminated the ancient symbols carved into every pillar. The broken statues surrounding the chamber began to move, their stone heads slowly turning until their hollow faces were directed toward Awesome.

A deep vibration rolled through the underground structure, shaking dust from the ceiling and sending loose fragments of stone tumbling around him.

For the first time since the creature had begun its attempt to escape, the armored giant recoiled.

New messages appeared in Awesome's vision.

[FIRST AUTHORITY RECOGNIZED.]

[EMERGENCY COMMAND ACCESS RESTORED.]

[AVAILABLE COMMANDS: BIND, SEPARATE, PURGE.]

Three words materialized before him, each surrounded by a different ancient symbol that pulsed with golden light. Although Awesome had never studied the language carved into the chamber, he understood the commands as naturally as he understood his own name.

The first two seemed familiar. He had already used similar commands to dismantle magical structures and sever connections that should have been beyond his reach.

The third command, however, filled him with a dread he could not explain.

Purge.

The system had previously offered that command as a means of eliminating the stranger, but Awesome suspected that its effects would extend far beyond destroying a single fragment. If the stranger was genuinely a part of him, purging that fragment might mean erasing something essential to his own existence.

He had no time to investigate the consequences.

“Bind!” Awesome shouted.

Golden chains erupted from beneath the floor, shooting upward with explosive force before wrapping themselves around the creature's enormous arms. The chains tightened almost immediately, pulling against the armored giant and forcing its head away from the barrier.

The chamber shook violently as the creature resisted. Its armor scraped against the invisible boundary, releasing a shower of black sparks that hissed when they touched the golden chains.

At the same moment, the black tendril connecting the creature to the stranger began to flicker.

The stranger collapsed with a strangled cry, landing on his side as the darkness surrounding his body briefly receded.

For one fragile moment, Awesome believed he had succeeded.

Then a thin crack appeared in the floor directly beneath his marked hand.

The creature slowly turned its armored head toward him.

[COMMAND CONTESTED.]

[AUTHORITY CONFLICT: 51%.]

The golden chains began to darken, their brilliant surfaces gradually turning black as the creature's influence spread through them. One by one, the ancient symbols engraved along their lengths went dark, and the vibrations beneath Awesome's palm grew stronger until the entire floor seemed to be fighting against him.

He tried to withdraw his hand, but the symbol in his palm had fused with the glowing lines beneath the stone. Every attempt to break contact sent a violent shock of pain racing up his arm, forcing him to grit his teeth against a cry of agony.

“Awesome, stop!” Elara shouted from across the chamber. “You're feeding it your authority!”

Awesome lifted his head and saw her struggling to stand against the wall. Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow, staining one side of her face, but she appeared determined to continue fighting. Despite her injuries, she had begun tracing a complicated formation across the black stone with trembling fingers, leaving behind a faint blue pattern that spread around the chamber.

“What am I supposed to do?” Awesome demanded, his voice strained by the pain in his arm.

“Separate the connection!” Elara shouted. “Don't fight the creature directly!”

Awesome turned his attention toward the black tendril stretching between the stranger and the armored giant. Now that his ability had awakened, he could see that the tendril was not a single strand of energy but a complicated network of golden lines woven beneath its dark surface.

Dozens of smaller connections ran through it, intertwining like the threads of an enormous net. Some lines connected the stranger's chest to the creature's core, while others appeared to link their memories, their authority, and something deeper that Awesome could not yet identify.

He reached toward the nearest connection, desperate to sever it before the creature could finish taking control.

“Separate!”

Nothing happened.

The creature's eyes blazed with golden light, and a voice thundered through Awesome's skull with such force that he felt as though the words were being carved directly into his thoughts.

YOU CANNOT COMMAND WHAT ALREADY BELONGS TO YOU.

The pressure overwhelmed him, driving him onto his knees as the golden lines beneath his palm flared brighter. His surroundings began to distort, the pillars stretching into impossible shapes while the creature's voice echoed through his mind.

Then the chamber vanished.

Awesome found himself standing beneath a blood-red sky, surrounded by the ruins of a city he somehow recognized despite never having visited it. Towering buildings leaned at impossible angles, their shattered surfaces covered in the same golden symbols that appeared whenever he used his mysterious ability.

Fires burned across the streets, sending thick columns of smoke into the crimson clouds. The air carried the bitter smell of ash and scorched stone, while thousands of bodies lay scattered among the ruins.

Some wore the robes of academy mages. Others were dressed in unfamiliar uniforms, their weapons still clutched in lifeless hands. The destruction stretched as far as Awesome could see, leaving him with the terrible impression that an entire civilization had been wiped out in a single catastrophe.

At the center of the ruined city stood a young man with Awesome's face.

He wore a long black coat that fluttered in the hot wind, and he held a sword made entirely of light. Golden markings glowed faintly along the weapon's edge, illuminating a thin scar that crossed the young man's left cheek.

The young man stared at his reflection in a shattered window, his expression empty and exhausted.

Behind him, an enormous shadow rose slowly from the ground.

Awesome turned toward it, his heart pounding as the shape emerged through the smoke. The towering figure possessed the same armored face as the creature beneath the academy, and its enormous body radiated a darkness that seemed to swallow the light around it.

However, something about the figure was different.

Its eyes remained closed.

The young man turned away from the shattered window and faced a group of terrified mages approaching through the ruins. Their robes were torn, their faces streaked with soot, and several of them struggled to remain standing as they reached him.

“Prepare the division chamber,” the young man ordered.

One of the mages immediately fell to his knees, bowing his head as though he could barely endure the sight of the man before him.

“First Authority, the separation will destroy your memories,” he said desperately. “You may never recover your original identity, and you might lose every connection that makes you human.”

The young man glanced toward the enormous shadow looming behind him. Although its eyes remained closed, Awesome could feel something stirring within its body, as if the creature were only pretending to sleep.

“That is the point,” the young man replied.

The mage lifted his head, visibly horrified by the answer. “And if the entity survives the separation?”

The young man tightened his grip around the sword of light until the weapon's brilliance illuminated his pale knuckles.

“Then I will make sure it never remembers my name.”

The vision shuddered, and the ruined city began to dissolve around Awesome. Before everything disappeared, one final image flashed into his mind.

He saw the young man drive the sword of light into his own chest.

Golden energy exploded outward, engulfing his body as two identical silhouettes separated from one another. One remained standing amid the blinding radiance, while the other was dragged backward into the darkness beneath the ruined city.

For a fraction of a second, Awesome saw both faces clearly.

They were identical.

Then the darker silhouette disappeared, and the vision shattered.

Awesome gasped as he returned to the underground chamber, his marked palm still attached to the glowing floor. Sweat covered his forehead, and his heart hammered against his ribs as he struggled to understand what he had witnessed.

He now understood something the stranger had never told him.

The division had not merely separated his memories from his authority. It had separated him from something far more fundamental, something that had existed before his memories, before the seal, and perhaps even before the life he believed was his own.

The creature might not be an enemy that had invaded his body.

It might be the original owner.

“Professor!” Awesome shouted, lifting his head toward Elara. “What if the creature is telling the truth?”

Elara froze beside the formation she had been drawing.

Her hesitation lasted less than a second, but it was long enough for Awesome to recognize that she had been expecting this question. The fear in her eyes was no longer simply the fear of someone watching an ancient monster escape its prison.

It was the fear of someone watching a secret she had protected for twenty-five years finally come to light.

“You knew,” Awesome whispered.

“I suspected,” Elara replied, her voice barely audible above the rumbling chamber.

“That's not an answer!”

The floor buckled beneath them as the creature pulled against its restraints. One of the golden chains snapped with a deafening crack, sending a shock wave through the chamber that forced Awesome to brace himself against the ground.

Elara lowered her hands, abandoning the unfinished formation as she turned toward him.

“Twenty-five years ago, when magic first appeared in the world, the founders discovered two consciousness signatures inside the ancient structure beneath this academy,” she explained. “They believed one signature belonged to the intelligence controlling the system, while the other belonged to an imprisoned entity that the intelligence had been designed to contain.”

Awesome felt his stomach tighten as he glanced toward the armored creature.

“What did they actually discover?”

Elara met his gaze, and the guilt on her face deepened.

“One was the body,” she said. “The other was the will controlling it.”

The stranger began laughing weakly from where he lay, his laughter breaking into painful coughs as the black tendril continued to pulse against his chest.

“And which one did they give to the child?” he asked.

Elara's face twisted as though the question had struck her harder than any physical blow. For a moment, she seemed unable to speak, and Awesome realized that whatever answer she gave would change the way he understood his entire life.

“Neither,” she finally admitted. “We believed we could create a third existence, someone who possessed the authority without retaining the memories that made it dangerous.”

Awesome stared at her, unable to make sense of the words.

“You made me?”

“No,” Elara whispered, shaking her head. “We tried to protect you.”

The distinction meant nothing to him.

Every person who had called him powerless, every instructor who had dismissed him, and every student who had laughed at his inability to cast even the simplest spell had unknowingly been judging a boy whose identity had been manufactured to contain an ancient disaster.

Yet none of them had known the truth.

Perhaps that was the cruelest part of all. The people who had humiliated him had believed he was ordinary, while the people who knew what he truly was had spent years ensuring that he would never discover it.

Before Awesome could demand another answer, a thunderous impact shook the chamber.

The armored creature had broken through the barrier.

Its enormous hand plunged into the underground chamber, crushing the remaining statues beneath its armored fingers as it reached for Awesome. The golden chains snapped one after another, releasing bursts of light that briefly illuminated the creature's immense form before the darkness swallowed them.

Elara threw up a shield, and a broad wall of blue energy formed between Awesome and the creature's reaching hand. However, the giant swept its arm aside with a single movement, scattering the protective spell into glowing fragments.

Awesome threw himself out of the creature's path just as its fingers smashed into the floor where he had been standing. The impact split the stone, sending jagged pieces flying across the chamber and knocking him off balance.

He rolled across the floor before managing to stop himself against the base of a broken pillar.

Nearby, the stranger dragged himself toward the same pillar, using one trembling arm to pull his damaged body away from the creature's reach.

“Use Purge!” he shouted, his voice echoing desperately through the chamber. “It's the only way to destroy the connection before it takes your body!”

Elara shook her head violently, refusing to accept the command.

“Purge will erase every surviving memory attached to the authority!” she warned. “If you use it, you may lose the truth forever, including the memories that could explain what you really are!”

“And if he doesn't use it,” the stranger roared, “there won't be anyone left to remember!”

Awesome turned toward the three commands still hovering before his eyes.

Bind had failed because the creature could corrupt the authority he used against it. Separate had failed because the connection apparently belonged to him, or at least to something that the system recognized as part of him.

That left only Purge.

He could use it to destroy the connection, but doing so might erase the only surviving evidence of his original identity. He might never learn what had happened before his birth, why the division had been necessary, or whether the creature truly had a claim to his body.

If he refused, however, the creature could complete the transfer and take control of him. Whatever had happened to the ruined city in his vision could happen again, and the Global Academy might become the first casualty of a disaster no one understood.

For sixteen years, Awesome had wished for power. He had endured humiliation, rejection, and countless moments when he wondered whether his life would ever amount to anything because he lacked the one gift everyone around him considered essential.

Now that his power had finally awakened, the first real choice it offered him was whether he deserved to keep it.

The creature lowered its armored head until its enormous eyes were level with his own. Its movements had become strangely deliberate, and for a moment, the violence surrounding them seemed to recede as it studied the boy standing before it.

Awesome stared at the face beneath the armor.

For the first time, he realized that the features were not monstrous at all.

They were his own.

Not the face of the sixteen-year-old boy standing in the chamber, but the face of the young man from his vision, complete with the thin scar crossing his left cheek.

The creature opened its mouth.

“Son.”

Awesome stopped breathing.

Across the chamber, Elara's eyes widened in unmistakable horror, while the stranger went completely still. Even the black tendril connecting the stranger to the creature seemed to pause, its pulsing light fading for a brief and unnatural moment.

The creature extended one enormous hand toward Awesome. Its fingers, which had moments earlier crushed stone as easily as paper, moved with unexpected gentleness as its voice softened into something painfully human.

“You have been asleep for twenty-five years.”

Awesome stared at the scarred face, unable to decide whether he was looking at a father he had never known or another deception designed to make him surrender.

Then the creature spoke the words that shattered everything he thought he understood about himself.

“I am your father, Awesome. And the people who created you killed your mother to make sure I could never find you.”