Chapter 115: His Ink and Iron

Raziel wiped the sweat from his forehead and focused on the stone slate in front of him.

It was the second week of preparation for the Ascension Tournament.

He trained with Zorya for exactly four hours every single morning before the first bell woke the rest of the academy.

His progress advanced at a terrifying speed because the Umbral Paragon core adapted the ancient language.

Standard runes took normal novices months to understand and hours to draw while Raziel’s Umbral variant flowed from his fingertips.

He mastered three specific types of seals during the brutal training sessions in the East Basement.

The first was the Seal of Silence.

It muffled all sound within a fixed two-meter radius and provided a massive tactical advantage for stealth operations.

The second was the Anchor Seal and it locked any physical object perfectly still in space for exactly thirty seconds.

This made it a effective combat tool for stopping blades or trapping enemy limbs mid-swing.

The third was the Pulse Seal.

This basic kinetic trap emitted a concussive wave of invisible force the moment someone stepped on the geometric lines.

He drew all three seals on the stone slate in less than two minutes and they worked.

The ambient noise in the workshop vanished completely.

A heavy iron paperweight locked into the air three feet above the table and refused to fall.

The stone slate cracked under the contained pressure of the pulse trap.

He had a massive and lethal problem.

The Umbral Runes were visible.

The gold and black energy pulsed and the tiny biological eyes formed in the center of every single geometric pattern.

If Raziel drew those specific seals in the middle of a public tournament arena every Exarch and Inquisitor in the audience would immediately recognize the heretical corruption and execute him.

Zorya stood next to the table holding a small glass vial filled with blue runic ink and watched his glowing seals pulse on the stone.

“You have to mask them,” Zorya whispered in her raspy voice.

“You build the structure with your anomalous energy to maintain the power output and then you coat the exterior geometric lines with standard ink to hide the visual signature.”

Raziel looked at the glass vial and took it from her hands.

“It requires double the mental concentration because you are writing two different languages in the exact same physical space,”

Zorya added while stepping back to give him room.

Raziel dipped his bare index finger into the blue ink, channeled his Umbral energy first and drew the horizontal lines onto the wooden table.

He dragged the mundane blue ink over the exact same lines before the dark energy could fully stabilize and form the central biological eye.

He suppressed the aggressive intent of the Umbral core and visualized the structured theory of standard ecclesiastical magic.

Raziel clamped down on the mana flow with pure willpower and forced the energies to merge without exploding.

It looked exactly identical to a mediocre textbook Anchor Seal drawn by a second-year novice.

Zorya leaned over the table to inspect the work.

She pulled a magnifying glass from her canvas satchel and examined the Rune closely.

She pulled her hand back and nodded slowly.

“It is perfect,” Zorya admitted.

“From the outside it registers as a standard mid-grade rune and no anomalies are detected.”

She pulled a small iron needle from her pocket.

“But on the inside.”

She scratched the surface of the blue ink, the mask cracked open immediately and the standard blue mana dissolved into sparks.

This exposed the raw Umbral Rune pulsing underneath.

“On the inside it is something completely different,” Zorya finished.

“How many layers do you have?” Zorya asked quietly. “How many masks do you wear?”

Raziel channeled another drop of blue ink and quickly covered the exposed Umbral Rune again to hide the black eye from view.

“Enough to survive”

Zorya nodded and accepted the answer without pushing for more dangerous details.

She grabbed her notebook and clutched it against her chest.

“Teach me how to make masks,” Zorya said. “I need them.”

“For what?” Raziel asked.

Zorya ignored the question and looked away from him.

Raziel didn’t press her for the truth and just nodded.

“Tomorrow at five we practice layering,”

***

The rest of the team prepared for the tournament with the same frantic urgency across the academy.

Lucian spent his afternoons in the secluded eastern courtyard training in physical combat with Paladin Odessa.

She visited the academy weekly under the official guise of a Crown Inspection and used her authority to bypass the standard instructors.

She drilled Lucian in advanced military swordplay and pushed him relentlessly to his physical limits.

CLANG!

Odessa parried Lucian’s downward strike and kicked him in the chest.

Lucian stumbled backward into the dirt but recovered quickly.

She forced him to integrate his newly awakened Stealth Gift into his footwork and taught him how to drop his mana signature completely right before striking a lethal blow.

Lucian learned to erase his presence for split seconds during the clashes to create fatal openings in Odessa’s defense.

Lara spent her evenings in the infirmary wing practicing emotional control with Brother Thomas.

The healer had taken her under his informal protection after noticing her overwhelming empathic sensitivity during the classes.

He taught her how to build thick mental walls to block out external feelings.

She sat next to a novice with a broken leg and focused entirely on restricting her empathy to a one-inch radius around her own body.

She learned to compartmentalize the ambient pain of the patients so she could function in a crowded tournament arena without suffering a psychic breakdown.

The team grew stronger every single day by reinforcing their individual skills.

Raziel finished his final practice session for the week and returned to his room just before curfew.

He felt physically exhausted but his mind remained focused on the tactical requirements of the tournament.

TAP. TAP.

Raziel turned his head toward the narrow window.

Arawn Rivers crouched on the outer stone sill and balanced perfectly on the narrow ledge.

He wore his dark Exorcist combat gear and tapped the glass with his knuckles.

Raziel walked over and unlocked the latch and pulled the window open.

Arawn stepped into the room without making a single sound.

He brushed some dust off his shoulder and looked at Raziel with a grim expression.

“You have a major problem,” Arawn said.

“What happened?”

“Elector Mordecai sent a gift to Father Marius for the tournament and it arrived in the capital this morning under heavy guard,” Arawn explained while leaning against the stone wall.

“What is it?”

“An artifact called the Eye of Judgment,” Arawn said.

“It is a high-grade perception crystal that strips away any magical illusion or physical disguise or mana mask. The Inquisition uses it to interrogate high-level heretics and see their true cores.”

“Where is it right now?”

“It is sitting inside Marius’s personal safe in his office,” Arawn replied. “He locked it behind seven overlapping Paladin containment seals.”

Raziel looked at the Exorcist. “Can you steal it?”

Arawn crossed his arms and stared at the floor to calculate the variables.

“I can try,” Arawn said slowly. “But if I fail.”

“If you fail?” Raziel repeated.

“I never fail,” Arawn said. “But if this becomes my first time Marius will kill me.”

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