Chapter 187: Zane’s Explanation

The warehouse was silent now.

Not the calm kind—

the kind that pressed against the ears after violence, heavy with the smell of blood and burned mana.

Bodies lay scattered across the shattered floor. Masked men and women—broken, torn, erased. The shadows they had crawled from now empty and still.

Grom stood frozen at the center of it all.

His eyes were wide.

The place where Dren had been—

Only Zane was standing tehre.

There is no sign of Dren and

No trace of the Heart of the Deep Forge.

The artifact was missing too.

“W–what the hell…?” Grom whispered hoarsely.

“How could he just—disappear like that…?”

Zane lowered his hand slowly, fingers relaxing as if he had simply let go of nothing.

“Space magic,” he said, voice neutral.

Grom snapped his head toward him.

“That’s Impossible!!”

Mira turned as well, shock written plainly across her face.

“But—Professor Zane,” she said quickly, “if there was any space mage nearby we would’ve have sensed it but I didn’t sense anything. Master Grom didn’t either.”

Grom added,

“And Dren can’t use space magic. And you can count the number of mage in gravundar who can use space magic on fingers .”

Zane nodded once.

“You’re right you would’ve sensed them,” he said calmly.

“Under normal circumstances.”

Both of them stilled.

Zane turned slightly and pointed—not at the warehouse, not at the city—

But east.

“About two hundred meters from here,” he said.

“That’s where the mage was.”

Grom’s breath caught.

“Two hundred…?”

“That’s absurd.”

Mira shook her head slowly.

“No. Even if someone could cast space magic, we would have felt the displacement. The mana distortion alone—”

Zane cut in gently.

“You forgot something.”

They both looked at him.

“The Heart of the Deep forge.”

Zane’s eyes flicked briefly to the shattered floor, where traces of mana still lingered like a haze.

“That thing flooded the area with raw mana,” he continued.

“So dense, so chaotic, that it drowned out every refined signal.”

He glanced at Mira.

“Your senses were overwhelmed.”

Then at Grom.

“Even yours.”

Realization crept into their expressions.

“…So the caster hid their spell ,” Mira murmured.

“Using the Heart’s output as cover…”

Grom clenched his jaw.

“But even then,” he said firmly, “it shouldn’t be possible.”

Zane raised an eyebrow.

Grom continued, anger bleeding into his words.

“Magic of such caliber doesn’t exist, there are magic which mass teleport in an area .”

“But selectively teleporting a single person—

from two hundred meters away—”

He shook his head.

“That kind of magic doesn’t exist.”

Zane was quiet for a moment.

Zane smiled faintly.

“Nothing is impossible,” he said.

Both Grom and Mira focused on him, listening carefully now.

Zane continued, voice calm and steady.

“A magic like that can be done. Selective space transfer from that distance is possible.”

He paused, letting the weight of the words settle.

“But it requires an immense amount of mana. So much that, without a perfectly compatible mage, the caster would die the moment the spell activates.”

His eyes flicked briefly to the lingering mana haze in the warehouse.

“But we didn’t have a problem with mana here… did we?”

Grom’s breath caught.

Mira’s eyes widened slowly as realization struck.

“…The Heart,” she whispered.

Zane nodded.

“Yes. You’re thinking in the right direction.”

He continued,

“Dren was sending some mana to the space mage while he was still here.and by some mana I meant—immense amounts.”

Zane glanced around the ruined warehouse again.

“But because the Heart of the Deep Forge was flooding this entire area with infinite, raw mana, no one noticed the transfer. Every sense was overwhelmed.”

Grom clenched his teeth.

“So that’s how he escaped…”

Zane allowed a small, amused smile.

“Even I’ll admit it,” he said.

“He’s quite smart.”

The silence that followed was heavy—

not with confusion anymore,

but with the understanding that they hadn’t just lost an artifact.

They had let a dangerous mind slip away.

Grom broke the silence, his voice rough.

“But… you knew all this,” he said, turning sharply toward Zane.

“Then why didn’t you tell us about the space mage earlier?”

Zane met his gaze without hesitation.

“Because I noticed them only moments before Dren vanished,” he replied calmly.

“Barely in time to confirm it.”

On his wrist, the technowatch let out a faint murmur.

How easily my boss can lie…

Zane ignored it completely.

“What’s done is done,” he continued. “We can’t change what already happened.”

Mira’s hands clenched at her sides.

“…Then it’s over?” she asked quietly.

Zane shook his head.

“No.”

Both of them looked at him.

“One thing is certain,” Zane said, his tone turning serious.

“Dren will return.”

Grom frowned.

“He has everything he needs to complete the heart like dawnveil crest , liquid metal etc..,” Zane went on.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“Once he completes the Heart of the Deep Forge, he won’t stay hidden. He’ll come back—here.”

Zane looked between Grom and Mira.

“And when he does… with near-infinite mana at his disposal…”

He finished calmly,

“He’ll be nearly unstoppable.”

Grom let out a long, weary sigh.

“…For now, it’s finished,” he said, shoulders slumping just a little.

“We should return to the academy.”

Mira nodded slowly, her earlier shock settling into a quiet determination.

“Yes… we should.”

Zane glanced at the ruined warehouse one last time, then turned away.

“Tomorrow is our guest lecture anyway,” he said casually, as if they hadn’t just faced something that could doom an entire kingdom.

Mira blinked, then gave a small, wry smile and nodded.

“…Right.”

Without another word, the three of them left the destroyed warehouse behind and headed back toward the academy, each carrying very different thoughts about what would come next.

Meanwhile—far away on the grass plains.

The wind swept quietly over the endless green as Dren straightened himself, the strain from moments ago still lingering in his breath. Beside him, the cloaked mage stood motionless, staff planted into the earth like a silent sentinel.

Dren slowly opened the black box.

Soft light spilled out.

The Dawnveil Crest lay within, its crescent form glowing faintly, the milky-white gem pulsing as if alive. Light danced across Dren’s face, reflecting in his eyes as his lips curled into a slow, satisfied smirk.

“So this is you…” he murmured.

He reached out, fingers hovering just above the artifact, feeling the calm, purifying aura it radiated. For a moment, his expression twisted—envy, obsession, triumph all blending together.

Then he laughed quietly.

“With you… and the Heart…”

“…it’s finally possible.”

The cloaked mage spoke at last, voice low and distorted.

“The preparation is complete.”

Dren closed the box with a soft click and stood upright, eyes burning with resolve.

“Yes,” he said, gaze fixed on the horizon.

“Time to make it complete.”

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