The Villain Professor's Second Chance

The path to House Valemore was lined with broken statues, their faces worn smooth by time until they were little more than vague contours, haunting silhouettes of a past once proud. Some had plinths with carved names or half-faded dates, but most offered no clues as to who they'd once commemorated. The moonlight glistened over them, illuminating cracks in the stone, as if these figures had endured lifetimes of sorrow waiting for someone to remember why they were placed here at all. It was oddly fitting—this road of ghosts leading us toward a place rumored to be at the center of history's distortion.

I kept my pace measured, refusing to let the eerie stillness rattle my composure. The night felt unnaturally quiet, with not even a breeze stirring the overgrown weeds that crept across the cobblestones. It was as though every living thing sensed the imbalance up ahead and had chosen to keep its distance. Lorik walked beside me, face tense and glistening with sweat in the moonlight. He tried to hide the unsteadiness of his steps, but I noticed the slight drag in his left foot, the little wince each time he put weight on his injured side.

"Those statues," he murmured at one point, voice hushed. "Look at their hands."

I glanced at them. Indeed, many of these faceless effigies had hands extended outward, fingers curled as if grasping for something lost. Some hands had been chipped away by time, leaving only stumps of wrists. Others, oddly enough, looked almost pristine, the details of their knuckles and nails eerily preserved. It gave me the unsettling feeling that they were reaching out to warn us, or maybe pleading for release.

A shimmer in the air drew my focus forward. At first, I thought it was a trick of the moonlight. But the more we walked, the more apparent it became: the light was shifting, as though reality itself were swaying like a tapestry in a faint breeze. The path ahead flickered in places—once or twice, I was certain I saw a statue appear to my left when it had been to my right only a moment before.

"It's already started," Lorik muttered, his tone a mix of awe and dread. "We're close."

That was the moment he stumbled, his knees buckling as though a sudden dizziness had gripped him. Without hesitation, I slipped an arm under his shoulders to keep him upright. He sagged against me, breathing in short, rasping gasps. The lines of worry on his face had deepened, and his eyes seemed unfocused, as if he were trying to perceive something just beyond normal sight.

"Lorik," I said, keeping my voice low but firm.

He tried to speak, but it came out as a strangled sound. His fingers clawed at the empty air, groping for something unseen. I felt his body seize in a brief spasm, like a puppet whose strings had been yanked. My free hand braced against his chest to steady him.

"It's… breaking," he managed, words slurring with pain or terror. "The weave is unstable here. I can feel it pressing against my mind."

I understood the implication: the Tapestry's distortion, the very force the Gravekeepers were trying to manipulate, was leaking into our reality. If Lorik, with all his scholarly knowledge, could barely stand under its pressure, how bad would it get when we reached the epicenter of this rift?

I glanced around, making sure we were still alone. The path behind us was empty, just the row of statues and the quiet hush of night. No sign of watchers, no footsteps—yet. The Council's retrieval unit had to be somewhere, though, and the Gravekeepers were never far behind. We didn't have the luxury of resting. So I lifted Lorik onto my shoulder in one practiced motion. He let out a strained protest, but I ignored it, forcing myself onward. The ring of steel I wore under my coat pressed against my ribs, a faint reminder that in a single misstep, we could be overrun by foes from both sides.

As we progressed, the moonlight grew erratic, flickering like a candle trapped in a storm's gust. Shadows lengthened and slid across the ground in ways that defied logic. Once, I swore I heard my own voice echoing behind us, repeating something I'd said minutes earlier. Another time, the faint outline of a tower in the distance appeared, vanished, then reappeared as if weaving in and out of existence.

Lorik's breathing came in ragged spurts. The distortion was intensifying, and with each passing minute, I felt a low reverberation in my chest, a hum that wasn't entirely physical. It was as though we were crossing into a place that wasn't fully anchored in the present. It pricked at the edge of my mind: if reality was unraveling here, how much worse would it be at House Valemore?

We pressed on.

The trees grew dense around us, gnarled branches arching overhead like bony fingers. The flickers of distortion played tricks with the leaves—they rustled without wind, and sometimes they seemed to rustle in reverse, as if time hiccupped and replayed a moment. My every sense stayed alert. I expected an ambush at any second, eyes scanning the gloom for silhouettes or a glint of steel. Yet no one appeared.

Eventually, the trees parted, revealing a sprawling ruin under a sky that seemed unnaturally dark. House Valemore. Or what remained of it. Once, it might have been a grand estate, with wide courtyards and marble colonnades. Now, its front gates had rusted off their hinges, lying in the dirt like broken jaws. The windows were hollow, mere voids in a crumbling facade. Vines had claimed the stone walls, their tendrils creeping over every surface, as though nature was trying to cover the estate's sins.

Even at a distance, I saw the telltale shimmer—the distortion of a rift pulsing just beyond the collapsed entrance. A haze hung above it, as though the air couldn't decide what color to be.

I set Lorik down, carefully letting him lean against a half-fallen pillar. He looked up at me, sweat dampening his brow, eyes glazed but still flickering with a scholar's curiosity. "W-we're… we're here," he managed, forcing each word out as if each syllable weighed a ton.

I nodded. "Stay close. If the Tapestry's truly fracturing, we may have seconds before it tears wide open."

He closed his eyes, mustering the energy to speak. "We might not have even that long."

The rift pulsed again, a faint shimmer like moonlight on a rippling pond. And then I felt it, a presence—dark, watchful. My instincts screamed a warning an instant before the first blade whistled through the air toward my throat. I ducked, pivoting sharply to deflect the strike with the short blade I'd readied the moment I sensed danger.

A Gravekeeper slid into view, face hidden by a black cowl, eyes gleaming with lethal purpose. Their movements were swift and silent, each attack a precise thrust aimed at a vital spot. I responded in kind, letting muscle memory guide me through an efficient parry-and-counter routine. The ring of steel on steel echoed through the ruins, clashing against the ethereal hush of the place.
Your journey continues with My Virtual Library Empire

A second figure emerged from the shadows—another Gravekeeper, this one taller, wearing an emblem stitched into the chest of their robe. My grip tightened on my sword. The last time I'd seen that emblem, it had been in a dust-covered tome describing the Gravekeeper hierarchy. High-ranking, possibly an officer or something akin to a field commander. They recognized me too; in a single tilt of their head, I saw confirmation.

"You," I said, letting the coldness in my voice do the talking for me.

They gave a slight inclination of their chin. "You remember me. Good."

We didn't have time for pleasantries. My blade came up, and they met it with a confident strike of their own. The Gravekeeper operative moved like water, flowing around my attempt to break their balance. I felt a spike of adrenaline—this wasn't the typical assassin I could dispatch in seconds.

Then, from behind, I heard the thud of footsteps. I risked a glance. The retrieval unit. At least five figures emerged from the far side of the ruins, wearing the dark leather and steel gear that identified them as specialized Tower enforcers. In the faint moonlight, their eyes scanned the scene, locking on me first, then darting to the Gravekeepers, then landing on Lorik, who stood off to the side, obviously wounded but still trying to gather magical power around the token in his hands.

I cursed under my breath. A three-way fight in the middle of a collapsing piece of reality was not how I wanted this to go. Steel clashed all around as the retrieval unit engaged the Gravekeepers with a flurry of sparks and incantations. Lorik, meanwhile, was weaving desperate sigils into the air, sweat rolling down his face. I could see him mouthing incantations, trying to activate the token fully, presumably to harness the power of the Resonance Site. The strain was obvious—his eyes were half-lidded, and his shoulders trembled from the effort.

I parried another series of blows, each one faster than the last. The tall Gravekeeper in front of me pressed the assault with unwavering precision, forcing me to back up until I was nearly on top of the shimmering rift. A wave of raw energy radiated from it, making the hair on my arms stand on end. I risked a glance at Lorik. His sigils glowed bright for a heartbeat, then faded again, as if flickering from the distortion in the Tapestry. He swore under his breath and tried again.

Around us, the retrieval unit fought valiantly. I caught glimpses of them out of the corner of my eye—one pinned by a Gravekeeper's blade, another hurling a bolt of compressed mana that detonated near a collapsed column. Dust and debris filled the air. In the swirling chaos, I could barely tell who was winning. I only knew that each faction believed they had the right to control this moment.

With a surge of effort, I drove my blade into a crack in the Gravekeeper's defense, forcing them back a step. They countered immediately, slashing at my ribs. I sidestepped, feeling the brush of cold steel graze my coat. Close, but not close enough. A grunt of annoyance escaped them, as though they resented my refusal to die.

Then a sudden pulse erupted from Lorik's direction. The token in his hands glowed white-hot, sending arcs of energy around him. I felt a wave of force slam into me, enough to stagger both the Gravekeeper and me. The retrieval unit members were knocked off their feet, one tumbling against a broken statue with a pained shout.

The ruins groaned, stone shifting as if the entire estate was trying to right itself. For a brief moment, time seemed to slow. In that fraction of a second, the rift in the air thickened, shimmering with a kaleidoscope of colors—impossible shades that no mortal mind should ever witness. A shape flickered there, half-formed. And in that moment, I saw him: Belisarius. His face was as I remembered: regal, commanding, yet twisted in a silent gasp of confusion. His eyes met mine, and even across that uncertain gulf of fractured reality, I felt a subtle recognition pass between us.

A quake rippled through the ground, and the air smelled of ozone. Everything lurched, as though time itself hiccupped. The shape of Belisarius flickered again, edging closer to solidity. My breath caught. The Tapestry was unraveling faster than I'd anticipated. If it fully broke, it could reshape reality in ways no one could predict.

Behind me, the Gravekeeper lunged, determined to capitalize on my momentary distraction. I spun just in time to block, forcing their blade wide. My heart pounded, each beat a reminder that we were seconds away from catastrophic change. The distortion thickened, swirling around the courtyard. Shadows deepened unnaturally, and the retrieval unit, disoriented, scrambled for footing. Lorik cried out, the token's energy swirling around him so intensely that his outline blurred.

Time was breaking.

I could sense it in every breath, every flicker of light. There were no easy paths left. If I stayed, I could try to finish the fight—risk the Tapestry imploding, risk Belisarius's partial return warping the entire region, or even the entire kingdom. Or I could do what came naturally: seize control of the chaos and bend it to my will. Perhaps I could use the distortion to escape, or to gain some advantage. The thought of harnessing that raw cosmic power flickered through my mind like a bolt of lightning. The question was whether I could manage it before everything collapsed.

A blow from the Gravekeeper nearly took off my arm. I gritted my teeth, parrying just in time. Sparks flew. In the corner of my vision, a swirl of dusty air revealed two retrieval unit agents closing in, expressions grim behind their helmets. They shouted something about surrender. As if I'd ever choose that now. No—this was no place for submission. This was a place for decisions that could rewrite the future.

Lorik, eyes wild, locked his gaze onto me across the swirling maelstrom of dust and ethereal light. "Draven!" he shouted, voice barely audible over the roar of energies. "I can't—control—"

I knew. I could see the terror in his eyes. The token had unleashed a force beyond either of us, and if we lingered, the Tapestry would devour us all. Or we'd be flung into some unknown corner of existence. So I did what I had to do.

I made my decision.

In one fluid motion, I disarmed the Gravekeeper by smashing the hilt of my sword against their wrist. They staggered, losing their grip on the blade. Without hesitating, I pivoted toward Lorik, pushing through the wave of magic that threatened to hurl me back. Each step felt like walking underwater, the energy thick and charged. Finally, I reached him, the swirl of runes around him nearly blinding. I grabbed his wrist and added my will to the token's surge, letting my arcane sense snap into alignment with the distortion.

An immense pressure slammed into me, as though the entire Tapestry recognized my intrusion. Colors I'd never seen before, fragments of ghostly images, rushed past in a dizzying spiral—snatches of history, perhaps even possible futures. For an instant, I felt like I was floating at the center of an unthinkably vast ocean of possibilities. Lightning shot through my nerves. My breath hitched.

Then, with a searing flash, the energy intensified, swallowing the courtyard in a blaze of impossible light. I saw the retrieval unit shout in alarm, saw the Gravekeepers recoil, saw Belisarius's face flare up in the rift, his expression equally shocked. The entire world lurched.

The last thing I saw before the light consumed me was the look of shock on their faces.

And then I was gone.