The Villain Professor's Second Chance

"We take him," the woman said, voice cutting through the silence like a razor. "The artifact is ours. The Site is compromised."

She gestured at Lorik, a flash of steel catching the moonlight as though to stake her claim. Her face was pale with exhaustion, yet her stance betrayed no weakness. The Gravekeepers had come too far to surrender now. If Lorik possessed even a fraction of the knowledge they believed, they needed him alive—or at least conscious enough to answer their questions. The Tapestry's partial tear demanded it.

One of the Council enforcers scoffed, wiping blood from his cheek with the back of his gauntlet. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a harsh, angular face that had seen its share of conflict. A jagged scar marred his left brow, and his armor, once polished, was scorched and dented. "That's funny," he growled. "I was just about to say the same thing."

He didn't wait for the Gravekeeper's response. Raising his sword—a weapon etched with the Tower's sigils—he angled the blade in Lorik's direction. Behind him, a small handful of surviving enforcers did the same. Their eyes flicked between the Gravekeepers and Lorik, suspicion and aggression mingling in their expressions. Frustration and disbelief rippled through them; they had set out to capture or kill Draven, yet somehow found themselves in a nightmare that left them battered, uncertain, and with Draven nowhere in sight.

Tension coiled in the air. Three forces, each unwilling to yield. The muffled groans of the wounded echoed off the broken walls, a faint undercurrent of suffering. Bits of rubble still tumbled from the upper stories of House Valemore whenever the ground trembled, a reminder of the cataclysmic rupture that had nearly torn open reality.

Lorik stirred. His eyelashes fluttered, and his fingers twitched around the token. His voice, weak but sharp, cut through the rising aggression. "Touch me," he managed, his tone threaded with exhaustion yet carrying a strange certainty, "and you'll undo everything."

The standoff didn't break, but it hesitated. The Gravekeeper who'd spoken first narrowed her eyes. She tightened her grip on the blade, but something in Lorik's voice gave her pause. The Council enforcer with the scar frowned deeply. A faint spark of confusion ignited behind his gaze.

"Explain," the Gravekeeper demanded. Her posture tensed further, but she made no move to strike. Around her, the other Gravekeepers visibly braced themselves. It was as if they sensed the last vestiges of energy swirling within the rift and recognized that one wrong move could provoke another violent tear in the Tapestry.

Lorik exhaled shakily, his free hand pressing against the ground in a half-hearted attempt to push himself upright. It was a struggle; his limbs felt leaden, his lungs burned with every breath, and the token in his hand felt heavier than any weight he'd borne before. Yet he forced himself to speak. "You saw what happened," he croaked, his voice raw. "That wasn't just an explosion of magic—it was a tear. A tear in reality. If you think you can just take me and fix it later, you're wrong."

His words hung in the air. A tear in reality. The phrase resonated, and even the battered retrieval agents who were in no mood for elaborate theories couldn't deny the truth in his statement. They'd witnessed the rift's creation firsthand, felt the unnatural energy that threatened to rip the courtyard apart. Now it persisted, crackling softly, as though reminding them it was still there, still hungry.

The retrieval unit's leader, a grim-faced man with a jagged scar across his brow, narrowed his eyes. That scar twitched as he fought to contain his disbelief and anger. "Then what do you propose?" he asked, voice low. He didn't lower his blade, though—he kept it pointed at Lorik, as if ready to skewer him should the scholar's explanation prove unsatisfactory.

Lorik swallowed, his throat dry. The dryness had spread throughout his body, the aftereffect of channeling so much raw energy. He could still taste the metallic tang of the rift's magic on his tongue, like sucking on a coin that had been charged with static. Against every instinct telling him to curl up and rest, he forced himself to meet the man's eyes. "You let me walk out of here," he said carefully, each word enunciated with an effort that made sweat bead on his brow. "And maybe, just maybe, I'll tell you how to stop the Tapestry from unraveling further." Discover more content at My Virtual Library Empire

He paused, inhaling as steadily as his ravaged lungs would allow. He saw the flickers of doubt in the enforcer's stance, saw the Gravekeepers behind them exchange wary glances. The swirling magic from the residual breach flickered, casting sporadic shadows across the torn courtyard. Every shift of that light sent an uneasy ripple through the survivors—Council and Gravekeepers alike—as if they feared it might expand again and swallow them whole.

One of the Gravekeepers behind the woman bristled, exhaling a harsh breath. He was young, with a ragged tear in the sleeve of his cloak, revealing a nasty burn that wrapped around his forearm. His eyes gleamed with something like desperation, or perhaps devotion to whatever cause the Gravekeepers truly served. "You think we'll just let you go?" he snarled. "After all this? You think we'll trust you not to vanish into the shadows?"

Lorik's gaze shifted to him briefly, then back to the woman and the scarred enforcer. "You can't afford not to," he said, voice quavering but underpinned by a fierce resolve. "Not if you want to ensure your precious Tapestry doesn't crack wide open. Draven was the only one who knew enough to forcibly manipulate a partial rift. Now he's gone."

A murmur rippled across the scattered onlookers. The Council men eyed each other, uncertain. One took a step back, glancing nervously at the shimmering remains of the breach. The Gravekeepers exchanged narrowed glares, as though silently conferring on the best course of action. The woman in front, the one with the blade still out, clenched her jaw. The tension was palpable, swirling with the dust and soot that filled the air.

As Lorik's words sank in, a sliver of understanding sliced through the hostility. If what he was saying was true—that Draven had caused or stabilized the tear, and that Lorik possessed knowledge on how to prevent it from unraveling further—then they faced a problem bigger than capturing a fugitive. Bigger than petty claims on an artifact. The tear was the real threat. The Tapestry's disruption threatened them all. If it went unchecked, none of these factions—Gravekeepers, Council, or any living soul—could guarantee survival.

Lorik took another shallow breath, his lips pale. He could feel the dryness in his mouth intensify as the adrenaline faded. The effort to speak and maintain composure was pushing him beyond his limits, but he couldn't show weakness now. "This is bigger than your orders," he rasped. "Bigger than your vendettas. You think the Council can just march in here and claim victory? You think the Gravekeepers can salvage a half-torn Tapestry on their own? You're mistaken. You need me."

No one spoke. The hush that fell was heavier than any physical blow. More of the wounded moaned in the background, their voices carrying pain and disorientation, but no one dared to move. Even the flicker of the breach seemed to quiet, as though listening for the final verdict.

The Council enforcer with the scar furrowed his brow, glancing at the woman leading the Gravekeepers, then at his men, and finally back at Lorik. Every part of him bristled at the idea of letting a key conspirator walk away. But he also wasn't blind—he knew something catastrophic had happened here, and the scorched remains of the courtyard were only a fraction of what could be at stake. Still, yielding control went against his every instinct as a soldier for the Tower.

The Gravekeeper woman, on the other hand, took a single step closer to Lorik, her eyes scanning him up and down. She looked as if she weighed the pros and cons of cutting him down on the spot, her blade itching to taste blood again. The shadows under her cowl made it difficult to read her expression, but her voice came out cold and commanding. "What guarantee do we have you won't simply vanish and leave us with a rift we can't seal?"

Lorik, too exhausted to sound indignant, shook his head slowly. "Guarantees?" He gave a humorless huff. "I can give you no such thing. I can only promise that if you kill me, you'll be left with nothing. I suspect none of you want that."