The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 8: The Father Behind the Seal

“Your mother is dead because of them.”

The creature’s words echoed through the underground chamber, rising above the rumble of collapsing stone and the fading screams of the ancient magical system. Awesome stood frozen before the armored giant, struggling to comprehend the revelation. The enormous hand reaching toward him looked capable of crushing his entire body, yet something about the creature’s voice made him hesitate.

“My father?” he asked, his voice barely audible.

The creature lowered its head, allowing golden light to illuminate the scar crossing its monstrous face. Beneath the armor, Awesome recognized the features of the young man from his visions, although this version looked as though it had endured twenty-five years of unimaginable suffering.

“Yes,” the creature answered. “I am the one they separated from you.”

Awesome’s marked palm began to burn, and he instinctively clenched his fist.

“Then why do you look like that?”

For a moment, the creature remained silent as the black tendrils connecting it to the stranger tightened around its body. Golden light flickered beneath its armor, suggesting that something inside it was fighting to maintain control.

“This is not the body I was born with,” it finally explained. “It is the prison they constructed around me after they took everything else.”

Before Awesome could ask another question, the stranger struggled to his feet beside the broken pillar. Blackness crept across half his face, but his eyes remained fixed on the creature.

“Don't believe him,” the stranger warned. “He is telling you just enough truth to make you open the door.”

The creature turned toward him, and a violent wave of dark energy swept across the chamber, hurling the stranger against the pillar. The impact shattered the stone, yet the stranger managed to rise, coughing black liquid onto the floor.

“You are still hiding behind the boy,” the creature growled. “You have always been a coward.”

The stranger laughed bitterly despite the blood running down his chin.

“And you have always mistaken possession for love.”

Enraged, the creature slammed its enormous hand against the floor, shattering the remaining golden chains. The resulting shock wave swept through the chamber and threw Awesome backward. He caught the edge of a broken platform just before he could plunge into the darkness below.

“Grab my hand!” Professor Elara Veyne shouted as she rushed toward him.

Awesome seized her outstretched hand, and she dragged him onto the platform seconds before the stone collapsed beneath his feet. They remained crouched together while fragments of the ancient structure disappeared into the abyss.

When Awesome finally looked up, he noticed that Elara was staring at the armored creature with an expression he had never seen before.

She was not merely afraid.

She was ashamed.

“You knew who he was,” Awesome accused.

Elara stiffened. “This is not the time to discuss it.”

“Then when will be the right time?” Awesome demanded, rising to his feet. “After he takes my body? After I erase my memories by using that command? Or after someone else decides what I am allowed to know about myself?”

Elara attempted to interrupt him, but he continued before she could speak.

“You told me you sealed me to protect me, and you warned me that the things beneath this academy were dangerous. Yet every time I discover something about my past, you already know the answers.”

His voice trembled with anger and confusion.

“Did you know my mother?”

Elara closed her eyes, and that single gesture answered more than any denial could have.

Awesome stepped away from her.

“What was her name?”

After several agonizing seconds, Elara finally answered.

“Lyra.”

The name struck something deep inside Awesome. Although he could not remember his mother, the sound of her name sent a sharp pain through his chest. A fleeting image appeared in his mind: a silver-haired woman holding a small child against her shoulder while golden symbols floated around them.

He stumbled and clutched his chest.

“Who was she?”

“Your mother was one of the original researchers who studied the magical structure beneath this academy,” Elara explained, steadying him by the arm. “She believed the First Authority could be separated from the entity without destroying either of them. She understood the system in ways none of us could explain.”

“Was she a mage?”

“She was far more than that.”

Awesome glanced toward the armored creature.

“And my father?”

Elara's expression tightened.

“He was the being the system had been designed to contain.”

“Liar!” the creature roared.

Its enormous hand tore through the remaining barrier, releasing a flood of darkness. Elara immediately raised both hands, creating a blue protective dome around herself and Awesome. The blast struck the shield with enough force to drive them to their knees.

“You call me a monster,” the creature thundered, “yet you imprisoned me, stole my son, and murdered the woman I loved!”

Elara's shield began to fracture beneath the pressure.

“You were losing control!” she shouted. “Your power was consuming everything around you, and the entire system was collapsing!”

“Because you were tearing my son away from me!”

The accusation shook Awesome more deeply than the creature's roar. He stared through the fractured shield, struggling to reconcile the image of a father who claimed to love him with the terrifying being that had nearly crushed him moments earlier.

“Stop!” Awesome shouted.

The creature fell silent, and even the stranger stopped struggling against the tendril wrapped around his chest.

Awesome approached the shield despite Elara's attempt to restrain him.

“If you are really my father, prove it. Tell me something nobody else could know.”

The golden light beneath the creature's armor gradually dimmed.

“When you were born, you didn't cry,” it began softly. “The room filled with golden light, but you remained completely still. Lyra thought something was wrong and begged me to save you. I held you in my arms and whispered your name.”

Its enormous body trembled.

“Then you opened your eyes and reached for my face. Every magical structure in that room responded to you. The containment seals opened, the lights awakened, and the system that had remained silent for centuries recognized you as its master.”

Awesome stared at the creature, unable to explain why the description felt familiar.

“What happened afterward?”

“They came for you,” the creature replied. “They claimed your existence threatened the world's balance because your authority could awaken something buried beneath reality itself. Lyra refused to surrender you, and I refused to let them take you.”

Its fingers curled against the broken floor.

“They killed her when she tried to stop the separation.”

“No,” Awesome whispered, shaking his head. “That isn't true.”

The creature held his gaze.

“I wish it weren't.”

Awesome turned toward Elara, desperately searching her face for a denial, but she remained silent.

“Tell me he is lying!” he demanded.

Elara's lips trembled before she finally whispered, “I was there when Lyra died. I was one of the researchers responsible for maintaining the separation chamber. We believed dividing the authority from the entity would prevent the world's destruction.”

“You helped kill her?”

“I tried to stop it.”

“Did you?”

Elara's face crumpled beneath the accusation.

“No,” she admitted. “I failed.”

Awesome felt something inside him break. The professor had protected him, taught him, and helped him survive the academy, yet she had also stood beside the people responsible for his mother's death.

“Did my mother know what I would become?” he asked.

“She knew you possessed an authority unlike anything the world had ever seen,” Elara replied. “But she believed you deserved an ordinary childhood. She wanted your future to belong to you rather than to people who would treat you as a weapon.”

Awesome examined the black symbol on his palm.

“And you took that choice away from me.”

“Yes,” Elara whispered.

Before he could respond, a metallic scream erupted from the stranger.

Black tendrils burst from his chest and wrapped around his neck and limbs as the ancient system's remaining energy surged toward the armored creature. His body rose from the floor, and golden cracks spread across his skin until his face resembled shattered glass.

“It's happening!” he screamed. “He's taking everything!”

Messages flashed before Awesome's eyes.

[HOST TRANSFER: 79%.]

[MEMORY SEAL INTEGRITY: 2%.]

[WARNING: ORIGINAL AUTHORITY COLLISION IMMINENT.]

“Son, you must come to me,” the creature urged. “The separation is failing. When the last seal breaks, the system will force us together.”

Awesome's stomach tightened.

“What happens if we become one?”

For the first time, the creature sounded uncertain.

“I don't know.”

The answer frightened Awesome more than any threat could have.

“Don't listen to him!” the stranger shouted. “If your authority merges with his, there won't be two consciousnesses anymore. There will be only one!”

The creature roared in protest, but the stranger forced out another revelation.

“I know what happened in the first world!”

The chamber fell silent.

Awesome turned toward him. “What first world?”

“The city you saw in your vision wasn't merely a memory. It was the last place where your original body existed before the separation. Your father destroyed it when he lost control!”

The creature recoiled.

“That's not what happened!”

“Then tell him the truth!” the stranger shouted. “Tell him why the sword was in your chest, why you chose to divide yourself, and what happened to Lyra after the first separation failed!”

Awesome faced the creature again.

“You said they killed her. Why does he say the separation failed before?”

The creature's silence deepened Awesome's suspicion. Perhaps his father had been imprisoned unjustly, or perhaps Elara had helped conceal a terrible crime. The stranger might also have been manipulating them, but someone was hiding a truth that could change everything.

Awesome raised his marked palm.

“System, identify the stranger.”

A translucent display appeared before him.

[IDENTIFICATION REQUEST ACCEPTED.]

[SUBJECT: UNRESOLVED.]

[CONSCIOUSNESS SIGNATURE: FIRST AUTHORITY.]

[RELATIONSHIP TO CURRENT HOST: INTERNAL FRAGMENT.]

[WARNING: FRAGMENT CONTAINS SUPPRESSED MEMORY CLUSTER.]

Awesome's heart pounded.

“Show me the memory.”

“Don't!” Elara shouted, lunging toward him.

She was too late.

Golden light erupted from Awesome's palm, spreading across the chamber in a vast circular pattern. The stranger screamed as the tendrils connecting him to the creature stretched to their limit, and a vision unfolded before Awesome's eyes.

He saw a white chamber filled with shattered glass, where Lyra stood bleeding in the center while desperately maintaining a protective barrier. Behind her, a younger version of the armored creature knelt beside a circular machine, pressing both hands against his chest.

A small boy stood beside him.

Awesome recognized his own face.

The child was crying and reaching toward Lyra as the magical structure collapsed around them.

“Please,” Lyra begged the young man. “You promised me you would protect him.”

“I can't stop it anymore,” the young man replied.

“You can!”

“Not without separating the authority.”

Lyra shook her head desperately.

“If you divide yourself, the system will destroy your memories. You'll forget him, and you'll forget me!”

The young man looked at the child as tears streamed down his face.

“I would rather forget everything than allow it to consume him.”

He reached toward the boy, who immediately seized his hand. Golden light flooded the chamber, and a voice whispered a promise that Awesome could not remember making.

I will find you again.

The vision shifted.

The young man drove a sword of light into his chest, releasing an explosion that separated two figures. One disappeared into the darkness beneath the city, while the other remained beside Lyra.

The remaining figure looked at her with an empty expression.

“Who are you?” it asked.

Lyra covered her mouth in horror.

The memory shattered.

Awesome collapsed onto his knees, gasping as the vision disappeared. Blood trickled from his nose, and the mark on his palm burned fiercely.

Elara rushed toward him, but he raised a trembling hand.

“No. Stay away.”

He stared at the armored creature.

“You weren't simply separated from your memories. You chose to forget us.”

The creature lowered its head.

“Yes.”

“And the stranger?”

“A fragment of the First Authority that remained trapped inside the system,” Elara explained. “The separation divided more than anyone anticipated.”

Awesome slowly raised his eyes.

“Then who owns the original body?”

Nobody answered.

The stranger began laughing, tears streaming down his fractured face.

“Now you understand,” he whispered. “The body was never his to begin with.”

For sixteen years, Awesome had believed his greatest weakness was his inability to use mana. He had thought his future depended on learning to cast spells like everyone else.

Now he understood that his body, his memories, and perhaps even his identity had been shaped by a decision made before he could speak. He no longer knew whether he was the child Lyra had loved, the authority recognized by the system, or something created to contain a broken consciousness.

Suddenly, a deafening explosion shook the chamber.

A red warning flashed before his eyes.

[MEMORY SEAL: 0%.]

[HOST TRANSFER: 100%.]

The stranger's body went rigid as the black tendrils snapped and recoiled into the armored creature. For several seconds, the chamber remained motionless.

Then the stranger lifted his head.

The fractures had vanished from his face, and his skin was no longer covered in darkness. He looked exactly like Awesome, except for the cold golden light burning behind his eyes.

The armored creature staggered backward.

“No,” it whispered.

The stranger rose to his feet and examined his hands with a faint smile.

“I remember everything now.”

Awesome struggled to stand.

“Who are you?”

The stranger looked directly at him, smiling with Awesome's own face.

“I am the one who existed before you.”

He stepped forward, and the entire chamber trembled beneath the force of his presence.

“And unlike my father, I have no intention of allowing anyone to imprison me again.”