Chapter 29

Zhao Yu's voice carried a hint of probing.

Wong did not answer.

He turned around and strode away with quick, heavy steps, his robes swinging as though urging Zhao Yu onward.

Zhao Yu paused in surprise, then hurried after him.

The stone slabs beneath his feet were icy cold, and the candle flames lining the corridor swayed in the wake of his robes.

Before long, Wong stopped before a door, pushed it open, and stepped aside.

Zhao Yu looked inside and halted.

There were already people in the room.

Hamir stood against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze calm.

Yacolet sat by the table, lightly tapping his fingers against its surface.

Wong entered and took a position by the window.

There was also someone Zhao Yu did not know—a man in black robes, with a gaunt face and eyes as sharp as blades.

Zhao Yu's gaze swept over that face, and a name surfaced in his mind.

Mordo.

Ancient One's disciple.

Several of Kamar-Taj's masters were all here.

Zhao Yu's fingertips turned faintly cold.

What exactly had happened?

He raised his head and looked over the figures standing around him.

The hems of their robes hung to the floor, the fabric brushing softly against the ground.

There were at least six people—each wore an insignia on their chest marking their status, its metallic surface reflecting candlelight.

"Have a seat."

The person sitting in the middle spoke, his voice rough as though sanded down. "We're only going to talk for a bit. Don't be nervous."

Zhao Yu recognized the voice—it was Wong.

Wong continued, "Zhao Yu has arrived.

"The last person Kaecilius saw before he disappeared was him.

"Ask whatever you want to ask. You can begin now."

Those words landed in Zhao Yu's stomach like a stone.

Kaecilius.

He lowered his eyes, his nails digging into his palms.

The only reason so many masters would gather in one place was because something had happened to that man.

But based on what Zhao Yu knew, it made no sense.

It was true that Kaecilius sought power, but the reason for his betrayal was that he discovered the Sorcerer Supreme was drawing power from the Dark Dimension.

Only when his faith crumbled did he go to such extremes.

But what about now?

He had barely spent any extended time with the Sorcerer Supreme at all.

Zhao Yu lowered his head and stared at the gap between the floor tiles before his shoes.

The room fell silent for several seconds. Someone cleared their throat, but no one pressed him.

"Master Zhao Yu."

Mordo spoke, his tone gentle enough to soothe a child. "Relax.

"This is only a routine inquiry. It won't take much of your time."

"Yes, Master."

Zhao Yu's voice was steadier than he had expected.

"You've probably heard already."

Mordo paused, tapping lightly on the table with his fingers. "Kaecilius betrayed us.

"He hanged the librarian and tore apart several books from the Sorcerer Supreme's collection.

"This is the worst incident in nearly three hundred years.

"His crimes are unforgivable."

"We only want to know whether he showed any strange behavior while he was with you."

Mordo explained first before posing the question.

With his eyes lowered, Zhao Yu answered steadily, "In reply to you, Master, I did not notice anything unusual."

He paused, as though recalling details. "Mr. Kaecilius always taught me the basics of magic step by step, then left after he finished."

"As for why he became like that, I truly don't know."

The masters present exchanged glances and nodded.

No one thought Kaecilius's betrayal could have anything to do with an apprentice—after all, Zhao Yu was merely a newcomer.

"That's strange."

Mordo frowned, seemingly speaking to himself. "What could have driven him this far?"

Within Kamar-Taj, Kaecilius's future had seemed almost assured—he was the most gifted among them, and even the Sorcerer Supreme regarded him differently.

Why would someone like that abandon such a bright future and betray them?

No one present could offer an answer.

"I warned you long ago. His temperament was too extreme.

"Now that something like this has happened, it isn't all that surprising."

Wong snorted coldly, his tone carrying undisguised irritation.

"Wong, watch your words."

A master who rarely showed himself—Yacolet—spoke in a deep voice. "He was personally chosen by the Sorcerer Supreme."

"Yacolet, there's no need for that."

Mordo raised a hand to cut him off. "Since it has happened, we need to find out why."

He swept his gaze around the room, his tone growing heavier. "Otherwise, how are we supposed to explain this when the Sorcerer Supreme returns?"

"She isn't at Kamar-Taj right now."

Mordo added, "But when she returns, we must be able to explain the entire matter clearly."

The other masters nodded. Then, right in front of Zhao Yu, they began discussing the matter in low voices.

Zhao Yu stood quietly where he was, motionless as a statue with no edges.

Something churned deep in his memories—the look in Kaecilius's eyes at the moment he left had concealed a blade.

It was not a blade of anger, but something sharper, like a shattered mirror whose fragments had pierced his eyes and could not be pulled out.

That day, everything about that figure had felt wrong.

The curve of his lips had risen half a beat slower than usual when he spoke. His shoulders had been too tense when he turned around, and even the air had grown heavy.

"Could it be..."

A thought rolled through Zhao Yu's throat, but he did not dare finish it.

He had heard too many stories about geniuses.

Those people wore halos over their heads, but their bones were filled with shards of glass. One touch, and they shattered.

Wasn't Kaecilius that kind of person as well? The higher he stood, the less he could bear for anyone to step on his shadow.

Zhao Yu looked at his own palms.

These hands cultivated at a speed like wildfire sweeping across a plain.

And those eyes—Kaecilius's eyes—seemed to gain another layer of mist whenever they looked at him. A mist of jealousy? Or something else?

That expression had appeared again and again over the past two days, rising and receding like the tide, until at some moment, it had completely changed.

"Gasp—"

He sucked in a breath, and the air between his teeth became scorching hot.

He had driven a master mad.

Not an ordinary master, but one at the level of a mentor.

The system operated within him, quiet as a dormant beast, yet at that moment, he felt its true weight—the kind of weight that could crush another person.

Over the following days, Zhao Yu hid himself in the shadows.

Every morning, he crossed the corridors to listen to the masters teach, keeping his footsteps light, like a cat walking on cotton.

In the afternoons, he shut himself in his room with the doors and windows tightly closed, even drawing the curtains shut.

Sunlight squeezed through the gaps and drew thin lines across the floor. He placed his fingers in those beams, then pulled them back.

He did not dare go outside.

It was not because he was afraid, but because he felt guilty—Kaecilius's betrayal was like a thorn lodged in his throat, impossible to swallow and impossible to spit out.

That matter was connected to him. He knew it better than anyone.

What if the Sorcerer Supreme returned? What if she noticed some clue? Those thoughts buzzed through his mind like flies, impossible to drive away.

How would he explain it then?

"Esteemed Master, your disciple Kaecilius—that genius—drove himself mad because he couldn't stand that I seemed even more gifted than him?"

He would not have believed those words himself.

The room was quiet, with only the ticking of the clock on the wall.

He stared at the ceiling, counting its faint cracks.

The Sorcerer Supreme had not returned yet.

There was no figure at the end of the corridor, nor was there that familiar oppressive presence in the air.

For the moment, he was safe.

But that safety was as light as a sheet of paper, ready to shatter at the first gust of wind.

The instant the door closed, the sensation of wood grain still lingering on his fingertips, Zhao Yu's pupils suddenly contracted.

A chill that did not belong to the afternoon floated through the air—it was not wind, but the illusion created when folds in space rubbed against his skin.

He stopped at the edge of the doormat. The instant his boots touched the floor, his toes felt a subtle tremor through the leather.

Someone had tampered with this room.

Not with the crude violence of rummaging through drawers, but with finer craftsmanship, like a spider secretly rewoven the warp and weft in the dark.

His gaze swept over the desk, the bed, and the windowsill.

Everything was in its original place. Even the folds of the curtains curved exactly as they had before he left.

But the paths of the light were wrong—the shadows that should have slanted across the wooden floor bent ever so slightly at a certain angle.

It was as though someone had used the air as a canvas and altered the laws of perspective with invisible strokes.

He closed his eyes and let his other senses take over.

His eardrums caught an incredibly low hum, like the lingering resonance of a distant church organ, or a swarm of bees nesting in a crack in the wall.

The sound had no source. It pressed in from every direction at once, seeping through his skin and into his bones.

Zhao Yu slowly inhaled.

The air filling his lungs carried a metallic chill. It was nothing like the usual scent of sandalwood and old scrolls in Kamar-Taj's corridors.

He realized that he was standing inside a carefully designed trap—or rather, at the seam where two worlds had been stitched together.

His thumb pressed into his palm, and he could feel his pulse beneath his fingertip.

He opened his eyes, and an amber gleam flashed deep within his pupils.

When his gaze swept over the room again, the walls that had once been straight began to ripple and distort, like stones on a riverbed seen through flowing water.

The Mirror Dimension.

And it had been folded into the cracks of reality with an extraordinarily refined technique, like folded paper.

An ordinary Mirror Dimension was a mirror, but this one was more like a shattered mirror whose fragments had been embedded into real walls.

Zhao Yu slowed his breathing until it nearly stopped.

He recalled a page from a damaged scroll he had found in the archives yesterday. It depicted an ancient prison structure in faded ink.

That master had compressed the Mirror Dimension until it was only a hair wider than reality, then pasted it into the target's bedroom like gold leaf.

Every day, the trapped person would open the door and walk into the space between two worlds without realizing it.

He took half a step back, his heel striking the edge of the doorframe with a soft sound.

His fingertips touched the inside of the door. The texture of the wood grain was still there, but the temperature beneath his fingers was wrong.

Real wood would be faintly warm after basking in the afternoon sun. What he touched now had the temperature of a stone tomb on an overcast day.

Space rippled like crumpled paper, rings of waves spreading through empty air.

Zhao Yu stared at the distortion without making another sound.

Only one person had come. That was unexpected.

He recognized the figure stepping out from the ripples—Kaecilius.

His eye sockets had completely changed color, black as two dried wells. Both his pupils and the whites of his eyes had vanished.

One glance was enough to make Zhao Yu feel as though something cold was crawling from his line of sight into his mind.

Zhao Yu did not retreat.

He remembered that he was no longer the little apprentice who stood in the corner and watched.

"Master Kaecilius,"

he said, his voice flat as stagnant water, "since you've already come, why hide in the dark and play these tricks? That isn't something a master should do."

The air fell silent for two seconds.

"You truly aren't simple."

The voice emerged from beneath those black eye sockets, low and hoarse, as though it had been squeezed up from a crack in the earth.

Zhao Yu looked into those eyes and knew exactly what was happening.

That power did not belong to Kaecilius. He had borrowed too much, so much that the boundaries of his very being were blurring.

Dormammu's darkness was seeping out from within him, like ink spreading through clear water. Sooner or later, it would stain him through and through.

"Master,"

Zhao Yu said again, his tone devoid of emotion. "It's not too late to stop."

He knew those words would probably be useless.

Kaecilius was no longer merely borrowing power. He was giving himself away—grinding himself to pieces, churning himself into pulp, feeding himself to that thing in the darkness in exchange for a few breaths of false immortality.

That was not immortality at all. It was annihilation after being devoured, leaving not even scraps of bone behind.

But Kaecilius clearly did not see it that way.

"Stop?"

He tilted his head, the voids in his blackened eye sockets seeming to swallow the light. "Why should I stop? Have you ever felt it—the sensation of this power flowing through your veins? Life without end..."

His voice suddenly rose, a faint tremor creeping into its final note. "Ah... it's truly wonderful."

An obsessed expression appeared on his face, as though he were breathing in some invisible fragrance, or gazing upon a magnificent sight visible to him alone.

Zhao Yu stopped trying to persuade him.