Chương 46: The Memory Beneath the Capital

The two red lights remained motionless within the darkness beyond the ancient door. Leo stood at the edge of the ruined courtyard, his hand still resting on the hilt of his sword. The pressure that had filled the academy moments earlier had not disappeared completely; it lingered in the air like the weight of an approaching storm, pressing against the skin and making every breath feel slightly heavier than it should have been. The voice had spoken directly to him. I remember you. Leo did not answer.

He had learned long ago that silence was often more useful than a question. Behind him, the instructors continued their struggle against the underground seal. Gareth had ordered the students to retreat toward the western courtyard, while several senior mages reinforced the remaining defensive barriers. The academy had descended into controlled chaos, but the instructors were keeping the students from panicking. Leo's attention remained fixed on the door. Something was looking at him. Not merely observing.

Recognizing. His fingers tightened around the sword's hilt. That should be impossible. He had never encountered this place in his current life. As far as he knew, the academy had never existed during his previous life, and the presence beneath it belonged to an era that even the oldest historians knew little about. Yet the thing behind the door had spoken with certainty. Another tremor passed through the ground. The two red lights moved. Only slightly. But Leo saw it. They were not eyes. They were too large.

Far too high above the ground. Whatever stood behind the door was not standing inside an ordinary chamber. The opening was only a fragment of something much larger. A low sound emerged from the darkness. It was not a roar. It sounded more like a breath. The stone surrounding the doorway cracked.

"Leo!" Alice's voice came from behind him. He turned. She was standing several meters away with Amon and Masha. Their expressions were tense, but none of them had been injured. Alice approached him.

"What are you doing here? Everyone is being evacuated."

"I know."

"Then why are you still standing there?" Leo glanced toward the door.

"Because something is wrong." Alice followed his gaze. For several seconds, neither of them spoke. Then the red lights vanished. The pressure disappeared with them. The door slammed shut. The sound reverberated through the entire underground structure. At the same moment, the crimson light above the academy collapsed inward and disappeared from the sky. The clouds returned to their normal color. The academy became strangely quiet. Gareth lowered his sword.

"Everyone stop!" The instructors froze. The remaining magical formations slowly faded. For several seconds, nobody moved. Then Gareth looked toward the ruined section of the courtyard. The ancient door was completely sealed. Not merely closed. Sealed. A thick layer of pale stone had formed across its surface, covering the cracks and symbols that had been visible moments earlier. Professor Elara stared at it in disbelief.

"That's impossible." Gareth looked at her.

"What?"

"The seal." She slowly walked toward the collapsed section. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"It wasn't repaired by our magic."

"Then what repaired it?"

"I don't know." She placed her hand against the newly formed stone. Her expression changed.

"It sealed itself." Gareth frowned.

"Can you determine what triggered it?" Elara remained silent for several moments. Then she shook her head.

"No." Her gaze shifted toward Leo. He noticed immediately. She was not looking at the door anymore. She was looking at him. Leo said nothing. Gareth noticed the exchange.

"Leo." He walked toward him.

"What happened while you were inside?" Leo considered his answer. The simplest explanation would have been a lie. But a complicated lie was more dangerous than a carefully chosen truth.

"I followed someone." Gareth's expression hardened.

"Who?"

"Someone disguised as an academy worker." The nearby instructors immediately turned toward him. Leo continued.

"He led me toward a storage room. When I confronted him, he revealed himself to be one of the people responsible for opening the underground seal."

"Where is he?"

"He's gone."

"Gone?"

"He used a projection." Gareth's eyes narrowed.

"Did you identify him?"

"No."

"Did he give you a name?"

"No." Gareth studied him carefully.

"Then what did he want?" Leo looked toward the sealed door.

"He wanted to open it." A silence fell over them. Gareth's expression became darker.

"And did he succeed?" Leo did not answer immediately. He remembered the voice. I remember you. Then he remembered the enormous presence behind the door.

"Partially." Elara stepped forward.

"What did you see?" Leo looked at her.

"Something that shouldn't have been able to see me." The professor's expression tightened.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know." It was the truth. For once, Leo genuinely did not have an answer. By late afternoon, the academy had been placed under temporary lockdown. The students were forbidden from entering the eastern section, and several royal guards had arrived from the capital to secure the underground chamber. The instructors spent hours examining the ruins. They found no body. No traces of the disguised intruder. No evidence explaining how the lower seal had been opened. Only one thing remained. The symbol.

The same strange symbol Leo had found inside the storage room was now carved into the stone surrounding the sealed doorway. Professor Elara stood before it with several books spread across a table.

"I have seen this symbol before." Gareth looked up.

"Where?"

"In a collection of pre-kingdom records." She turned a page.

"The symbol belonged to an organization that existed more than a thousand years ago." Amon, who had been listening nearby, immediately became interested.

"An organization?" Elara nodded.

"They were called the Keepers of the First Gate." Masha frowned.

"What did they keep?" Elara closed the book.

"Nobody knows."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It does if every surviving record was deliberately destroyed." The room became quiet. Leo stood near the window. His attention was not on the conversation. He was thinking about the voice. The words had bothered him more than the creature itself. I remember you. There were only a few possibilities. The first was that the creature had mistaken him for someone else. The second was that it could perceive something about his soul. The third— Leo stopped himself. He did not like the third possibility.

There were memories he had buried beneath years of silence. Memories from another life. Memories that belonged to Park Suho. He had never spoken about them. Not to Alice. Not to Amon. Not to Masha. Nobody in this world knew that Leo had once lived another life. Nobody could know. And he intended to keep it that way. He looked down at his hand. The faint tremor had already disappeared. It couldn't have recognized me. He closed his fingers. It must have recognized something else.

That evening, the academy finally returned to a fragile form of normality. The students were sent back to their dormitories. The damaged eastern courtyard remained sealed. The teachers continued their investigation. And Leo returned to his room. He closed the door behind him. For several seconds, he simply stood there. Then he exhaled. The tension that had remained hidden throughout the day finally left his body. He sat beside the window. The city beyond the academy was still illuminated by thousands of lamps.

Everything looked normal. That was the strange part. The capital had almost been torn apart by something ancient, yet people outside continued walking through the streets as though nothing had happened. Leo leaned back. His eyes closed. He replayed the encounter in his mind. The door. The pressure. The red lights. The voice. And finally— I remember you. Leo opened his eyes.

"Who are you?" There was no answer. He remained silent for a moment before reaching beneath his bed. He pulled out a small wooden box. Inside were several mana stones. Two were medium-grade. One was first-grade. He had taken them during the incident in the forest and had kept them hidden ever since. Leo placed them on the floor. The events of the day had changed something. Not outside him. Inside him.

His internal energy was already stronger than it had been before entering the forest, but it remained incompatible with the mana of this world. That incompatibility had always limited how much power he could draw from mana stones. Today, however, he had sensed something different. When the underground presence had appeared, his internal energy had reacted. Not violently. Naturally. As though something inside his body had recognized the pressure. Leo stared at the stones.

"Let's see what you were trying to tell me." He sat cross-legged. His breathing slowed. The Heavenly Demon Internal Circulation began. His internal energy moved through his meridians in a precise cycle, gradually increasing in density. The nearest mana stone trembled. A thin stream of mana left its surface and entered his body. Leo immediately guided it toward his dantian. Pain spread through his abdomen. He did not stop.

He had already experienced the consequences of forcing two different energies into the same body. This time, however, he wasn't trying to absorb the mana directly. He was refining it. His internal energy wrapped around the foreign mana and slowly compressed it. The process took several minutes. Then— Crack. A thin fracture appeared across the mana stone. Leo opened his eyes. A faint trace of cold sweat had appeared along his forehead. He continued. The mana became thinner. Purified.

The Heavenly Demon Internal Energy absorbed only what it could convert. The rest was expelled through his breath. When the stone finally turned gray, Leo released it. One down. Two remained. He reached for the second medium-grade stone. Before he could touch it, however, he stopped. His expression changed. Something had moved outside. Leo turned toward the window. The moon hung above the capital. Nothing seemed unusual. Then a black bird landed on the roof opposite his room. It remained there for several seconds.

Leo watched it. The bird watched him. Then it flew away. Leo frowned. He had seen birds before. That was not what bothered him. There had been a small piece of silver thread tied around its leg. The same silver color as the markings worn by the man who had escaped beneath the academy. Leo stood. He walked to the window and looked toward the direction in which the bird had disappeared. His eyes became colder.

"So you survived." He looked back at the mana stones. Then toward the sealed eastern section of the academy. The events of the day were not finished. They had only reached their first conclusion. And somewhere beneath the capital, something ancient had opened its eyes. Something that apparently knew his name. Leo closed the curtains. For tonight, he would do nothing. He would recover. He would strengthen himself. And he would wait.

Because if the person behind the incident wanted another confrontation— Leo would be ready. Far beneath the academy, behind layers of stone and ancient magic, the sealed chamber remained completely dark. The door did not move. The symbols did not glow. There was no sound. Then, deep within the darkness, something opened its eyes. This time, there was no voice. Only a single thought. A thought that had waited for more than a thousand years. The Heavenly Demon has returned. End of Chapter 46.