Chapter 573: Chapter 573 - Taming the Fourth Year: Journey - 11

Sirius sat heavily on a nearby rock, his eyes scanning the sky while mentally calculating how many seconds remained before Julius and the others would arrive.

The battle had ended, yes, but he could feel that something had changed fundamentally in Ren during their exchange. The boy’s mana signature had taken on qualities that felt alien, wrong in ways that set his nerves on edge.

As if answering his concern, an energy began growing again from the unconscious form in the ground.

’What? Impossible mana can’t...’

A soft sound interrupted his thoughts, the unmistakable crackle of paper being crumpled.

The black marks had disappeared after his purification, yes, but there was a strange resonance emanating from the boy’s core that hadn’t been there moments before.

It felt deeper somehow, more fundamental than the surface corruption he had cleansed away.

♢♢♢♢

Moments before...

Julius advanced rapidly with both urgency and anxiety that had been growing since they had left the city.

At his side, Selphira’s trusted guards maintained perfect formation, their beasts synchronized in formations that maximized both speed and reaction capacity against threats. Each tamer moved with the precision of veterans who had served together for years.

The memories of the nighttime meeting were still fresh in his mind. The concern had been sizable when they had realized that Ren and his friends weren’t on campus. The discovery had sent ripples of alarm through the academy’s leadership, forcing emergency protocols into action.

City leaders were instantly called...

Selphira had deduced the situation with her characteristic sharpness.

"He went toward where Zhao mentioned in his reports," she had said with absolute certainty. "The boy is predictable when it comes to feeling responsible for problems that shouldn’t concern him."

The assessment had been delivered without malice, but Julius had heard the undertone of frustration. Ren’s tendency to shoulder burdens beyond his years was both one of his strengths and one of his weaknesses.

Zhao had left immediately when the meeting ended, his eyes blazing with that respect and exasperation he lately showed when talking about Ren. Julius had been able to see that the flying soldier and Professor wasn’t completely sure whether his loyalty lay in bringing back the student or protecting him from the consequences of his own decisions.

Selphira had begun preparing to follow them too after consulting more details from Liora’s report about Ren’s prior emotional state, but Sirius had intervened with the quiet influence that he possessed.

"Let me go," he had said, his voice loaded with a decidedness that Julius recognized as dangerous. The tone carried undertones of finality, as if this decision had been building for longer than just this crisis. "People need you here more than ever. I was already decided that I would go to the ruins anyway. I can catch up to Zhao on the way and... help him."

Selphira had considered it for a moment.

"Alright, I’ll stay to maintain order," she had decided finally. "But Sirius..."

Her voice had acquired a tone that Julius had heard only when the Ashenway matriarch was genuinely worried, a quality that transcended her usual calculating composure and revealed the grandmother beneath the warrior and the politician.

"Don’t be too hard on the boy. Remember that, despite everything, he’s still a child who has contributed plenty and is under my protection."

Sirius had maintained his poker face before withdrawing without further comment, but Julius had caught the flicker of something in his eyes... pain, perhaps, or regret.

Julius had stepped forward then, feeling that the situation required his participation. His diplomatic instincts screamed that leaving Sirius alone with an emotionally compromised Ren could lead to exactly the kind of confrontation they were all trying to avoid.

"I think I want to go after Sirius," he had requested, his voice carefully neutral despite the urgency he felt. "To carry all the kids back safely and make sure things don’t get out of control..."

Selphira had nodded despite knowing that without the kingdom’s best noble diplomat present, her workload would double. Political tensions were already complex, and removing Julius from the equation would make every negotiation more difficult.

But she had added a small condition.

"Since we’re at it and I’m going to have a mountain of work anyway... Take some of my trusted guards. And Julius..." Her expression had become intensely serious, the mask of the politician falling away to reveal the steel beneath. "If things look difficult for Sirius, support him. But you must ensure the boy returns safe and sound. Despite everything, he remains a treasure to this city."

Julius had nodded, understanding the unspoken implications. Ren had generated problems lately and lost what they calculated to be half his power for unknown reasons, yes, but his potential value still far exceeded his adolescent outbursts.

They just had to ensure they guided him down the right path...

♢♢♢♢

Now, as he approached what had been the battlefield, Julius could immediately see that he had arrived too late to influence the outcome. The landscape showed signs of intense combat that went beyond normal.

Craters marked where Zhao and some attacks had impacted the earth, each one deep enough to hide a grown man. Areas of scorched earth showed where Ren had used his elemental attacks, the ground glass-smooth where sand had been superheated. Strange patterns in the soil suggested complex manipulation that defied easy explanation.

Sirius had been too fast while traveling, even for someone with Julius’s considerable abilities. The shadow-walker had gotten ahead by more than expected, his mastery of spatial techniques allowing him to cover distances that should take hours in mere minutes.

But as he and the Selphira guards behind him caught up, they all realized there was something strange about the scene before them.

As he approached, Sirius made a gesture for silence and pointed with his eyes toward Ren, who lay apparently unconscious but with clenched fists. The tension in the boy’s body was subtle but unmistakable to trained observers, he was fighting his way back to consciousness.

Now he realized... that strangeness he felt was a small but growing mana signature emanating from the young man.

Something in his posture suggested he was struggling to awaken.

"I was sure I had knocked him out," Sirius whispered when Julius stopped nearby, his voice carrying a note of uncertainty that was deeply unsettling coming from someone usually so confident. "His mana signature had entered complete rest after the purification attack, so there was no doubt... Mana doesn’t lie."