The eruption of purple energy wasn't hot, but it was violent. To Andre and Lyra, it felt like being hit by a tidal wave of static electricity that scrambled their senses. To Matthew, it felt like a banquet he wasn't ready to eat.
As the geyser of mana hit him, his Null Core reacted instinctively, pulling the raw energy inward to protect his body. The sheer volume of mana was too much; it didn't just negate; it created a localized implosion. The ground, already weakened by the ruptured vein, simply gave way.
The three of them plummeted into the dark.
Matthew hit the bottom first, his body buffered by the fading remnants of the violet aura. A second later, Andre landed on top of him with a muffled yelp, followed by Lyra, who managed to twist in mid-air and land in a crouch, her boots kicking up a cloud of damp, glowing dust.
Silence followed, broken only by the sound of Andre's heavy breathing and the distant, rhythmic thump-thump of the corrupted mana-vein above them.
"Is everyone... whole?" Andrew wheezed, fumbling for his goggles. One of the lenses was cracked, but the brass frame held.
"I'm fine," Lyra said, her voice tight. She snapped her fingers, and a small, steady white flame appeared in her palm, illuminating their surroundings.
They were in a cavern, but it wasn't natural. The walls were lined with ancient, fossilized roots that pulsed with a faint, sickly violet light. The air was thick and tasted of copper.
"Matthew?" Andre asked, crawling off his roommate. "Hey, Matt, talk to me."
Matthew was sitting up, his eyes wide and glowing with a fading purple light. He looked down at his hands; they were vibrating. The raw mana from the geyser was still sloshing around inside him like liquid lead.
"I'm... I'm here," Matthew said, his voice sounding hollow. "But the 'hole'... it's full. I can't breathe right."
Lyra walked over and knelt beside him. She placed a hand on his chest, right over his core. She winced, pulling her hand back as if she'd touched dry ice.
"Your core is overcharged," she observed. "You took the brunt of a ruptured vein. If you were a normal mage, your veins would have crystallized by now. Because you're a Null, you're just... holding it."
"Can he vent it?" Andre asked, pulling a small mechanical diagnostic tool from his belt.
"Nulls don't vent," Lyra said grimly. "They consume. He has to digest it, or it will tear him apart from the inside." She looked up at the hole they had fallen through—it was at least fifty feet up, and the edges were crumbling. "We aren't getting out the way we came. Andre, where are we?"
Andre looked at his bronze plate, then shook it. "The signal is dead. The mana-interference down here is off the charts. But based on the slope... I think we're underneath the Heartwood."
Matthew groaned, clutching his stomach. "We need to move. Something down here is... hungry."
"How do you know?" Lyra asked.
"Because I can feel it pulling back," Matthew whispered.
As they began to navigate the tunnel, the group's dynamic started to shift. Usually, in the Academy, Lyra was the sun around which everyone orbited, and Andre was the brilliant eccentric. But down here, in the dark, their titles meant nothing.
"I'm sorry," Andre muttered as they stepped over a patch of glowing fungus.
"For what?" Lyra asked.
"For being the navigator who walked us into a mana-trap," Andre said, his usual cockiness gone. "Back in the Elite Class, everything is a simulation. The drones always work. The sensors are always calibrated. I... I didn't think the forest would fight back."
Lyra paused, looking at the boy who usually hid behind jokes and gears. "The Academy teaches us how to use power, Andre. It doesn't teach us what to do when we lose it. Don't apologize for being a student. Just keep your eyes on the shadows."
She turned her gaze to Matthew, who was lagging behind, his face pale and sweating. "And you. Stop trying to fight the energy inside you. Stop thinking of it as a poison. It's fuel. Use it to sharpen your senses. If you can't negate the pain, turn it into focus."
The tunnel opened into a vast underground grotto. At the center was a pool of black water, and rising from it was a Grade-C Blight-Walker—a creature made of rotting wood and bone, fused together by the same violet corruption they had seen in the wolves.
It was twice the size of a man, and its "fingers" were long, weeping scythes of obsidian.
"Grade-C," Andre whispered, his voice trembling. "We're supposed to be hunting Grade-Es. We aren't ready for this."
"We don't have a choice," Lyra said, stepping forward. She raised her sword, but the flame that flickered on the blade was small, hampered by the thick, dampening atmosphere of the cavern. "The mana down here is heavy. My fire is being smothered."
"I... I can't use my drones," Andre said, looking at his sparking devices. "But I have one flash-bomb left. It won't kill it, but it'll blind it."
The Blight-Walker let out a screech that sounded like grinding metal. It lunged, moving with a terrifying, jerky speed.
Lyra met it head-on, her iron sword clashing against the obsidian scythes. Sparks flew, but she was being pushed back. The creature was too strong, and the environment was feeding it.
Matthew watched from the periphery, his vision blurring. The "fullness" in his chest was reaching a breaking point. He saw the creature's tail—a barbed root—swinging toward Lyra's blind spot.
"Lyra, move!"
Matthew didn't use a sword. He didn't use a technique from the black book. He simply let go.
He lunged forward and grabbed the Blight-Walker's tail with his bare hands. The violet energy trapped inside him found an exit. A wave of cold, dark pressure surged from his palms and into the monster.
The effect was instantaneous. The violet glow in the creature's "veins" didn't just vanish; it was sucked backward toward Matthew. The Blight-Walker froze, its wooden body turning brittle and grey as its life-force was drained in a single, violent gulp.
Matthew fell to his knees as the monster shattered into a pile of lifeless mulch.
He gasped, the pressure in his chest finally gone, replaced by a cold, sharpened clarity. He looked up to see Lyra and Andre staring at him. Lyra's face was unreadable, but Andre looked genuinely terrified.
"Matthew," Andre whispered. "Your eyes... they're still purple."
Matthew touched his face, feeling the coldness of his skin. He had survived, and he had saved them, but he could feel the gap between him and his friends widening. He wasn't just a student anymore. He was becoming the very thing the world feared.
"Let's just find the way out," Matthew said, his voice low and strange. "Before I get hungry again."