Chapter 7: The Purge Protocol
The golden light from Corvus's device did not scan. It attacked.
It was not a beam, but a wave—a visible, shimmering wall of pure order that rolled toward Silas, humming with the sound of a thousand bureaucratic seals being stamped at once. Where it passed, the very air became sterile and still. The night sounds of insects vanished. The gentle rustle of leaves ceased. It was anti-chaos, anti-life, and it was coming to erase him.
"Defensive measures are required," Lurk's voice was calm, but the energy coiling in Silas's veins was not. It was a rising tide of cold fury.
Silas did not run. He raised a hand, not to block the light, but to meet it. He did not push back. He focused on the wave itself, on the rigid, perfect structure of its energy. He saw the pattern, the flawless, repetitive matrix that sought to overwrite his existence.
And he introduced a variable.
He did not subtract. He did not unravel. He simply asked a question—a single, silent, cosmic "why?"—and channeled it through his outstretched palm.
The cold power that left him was invisible. It made no sound. But the moment it touched the leading edge of the golden wave, the perfect order shattered.
The wave did not dissipate. It *fractured*. Cracks of impossible blackness spiderwebbed through the golden light, and through those cracks, Silas saw things—glimpses of the void, of swirling nebulae and silent, drifting concepts that had no name in any mortal language. The humming sound twisted into a screech of protesting reality before the entire construct collapsed in on itself with a sound like breaking glass.
Corvus stared, his clinical satisfaction finally broken. His device flickered erratically in his hand. "Impossible," he whispered. "That was a purity field. It cannot be broken. It can only be endured or escaped."
"It seems your files are outdated," Silas said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. It held an echo, a resonance that was not entirely his.
Corvus's eyes narrowed. He was not a man who stayed surprised for long. He recalibrated his device, his fingers moving with swift precision. "A higher setting, then. I will excise this corruption at its root."
He aimed the device again, its light intensifying to a painful, actinic blue. But before he could fire, a new voice cut through the night.
"Agent Corvus! What is the meaning of this?"
Magus Brom stood at the entrance to the training yard, his granite badger familiar at his heels, its stony body tense. He was dressed in a night robe, his face a mask of outrage and confusion. "You are attacking a student on academy grounds!"
Corvus did not lower his device. "This is no longer a student, Magus. This is a Class Three Reality Deviancy. My authority supersedes academy jurisdiction."
"Your authority does not permit you to execute a boy without a tribunal!" Brom shot back, stepping forward. His badger let out a low, grinding growl, the sound of boulders shifting deep underground. "Stand down, Agent. Now."
The standoff stretched for a long, tense moment. Silas stood between them, the cold power still thrumming under his skin, ready to be unleashed again. He saw the calculation in Corvus's eyes. He was outnumbered, and a direct confrontation with a senior Magus would require paperwork he likely wished to avoid.
Finally, Corvus lowered his device. The blue light died. "This is not over, Vale," he said, his voice returning to its detached, pleasant tone, which was more terrifying than any shout. "You have merely been granted a stay of execution. I will be watching. And I will find a context where your... elimination... is beyond academic reproach."
He gave a curt nod to Magus Brom. "Magus. A report will be filed."
With that, he turned and walked away, his white suit disappearing into the shadows from whence he came.
The moment he was gone, the strength fled Silas's legs. He stumbled, catching himself on a nearby post. The cold energy receded, leaving him shivering and drained.
Magus Brom hurried over, his expression grim. "What in the name of the First Flame was that, boy? What did you do to provoke a full Purge Protocol?"
Silas shook his head, his mind racing for a lie. "I don't know. I was just practicing... and he appeared."
Brom looked at the pile of sand that was once a stone block, then at the shattered, fading remnants of Corvus's purity field still flickering in the air. He looked at Silas, truly looked at him, and his eyes widened slightly.
"Your eyes," he murmured.
Silas's blood ran cold. "What about them?"
"In this light... for a moment, they were not brown." Brom leaned closer, his voice dropping. "They were the color of the void between stars. What is happening to you, Vale?"
Silas had no answer. The truth was a death sentence.
Brom studied him for a long moment, then sighed, a sound of deep weariness. "Get back to your dormitory. Do not speak of this to anyone. I will... I will see what I can do. But Corvus is not a man who gives up. You have made a powerful enemy tonight."
As Silas walked back to Spire Quartz on trembling legs, Lurk's presence was a heavy weight in his mind.
"The hunter's tactics will evolve. He will no longer seek direct confrontation in the open. He will use the system itself. He will use your peers. The parameters of our survival have changed."
Silas pushed open the door to his room, the simple space feeling less like a sanctuary and more like a cage. He was a deviancy. A target. The academy was no longer a school; it was a battlefield.
"He will try to turn them against me," Silas whispered, the realization dawning.
"Affirmative. Our greatest vulnerability is no longer our power, but our isolation. The hunter understands this. He will seek to isolate us further."
Silas looked out his window at the glowing spires of the academy, a place that was supposed to be his future. Now, it was a web of potential traps and enemies.
The fight was no longer just about controlling power. It was about survival in a world that had officially declared him a glitch to be corrected. And the next attack would not come with a flash of golden light. It would come with a smile, a whisper, and a stamp of bureaucratic approval.