The Villain Professo Chapter 542: A Name That Shouldn't Exist (2)

Chapter 542: A Na That Shouldn't Exist (2)

A place of power. A place of control. A place designed to make n feel small.

I had never been one of those n.

Between my fingers, I toyed with the black-sealed letter, rolling its wax imprint between my thumb and forefinger. An idle movent, but my mind was anything but. The Council had played their hand, throwing a mission at my feet under the guise of necessity. A necromancer faction stirring in the ruins of Valen's Reach, they claid. Dangerous practitioners of forbidden arts rising again. A growing threat that needed to be stamped out before it could fester.

A laughable excuse.

The Council had never cared about the moral consequences of magic. If anything, they were more than willing to accommodate those who twisted the arcane, so long as it benefited their larger sches. They had sanctioned horrors beyond what the public would ever know, funded research that stripped n of their souls in exchange for knowledge. No, this wasn't about the necromancers. This was about . Containnt, distraction, a leash wrapped in the form of an official task.

Lisanor's eyes had glead too sharply with satisfaction, her lips curving just enough to betray the ga she thought she was winning. The others had been more subtle, but the intent was the sa.

Keep

occupied. Keep

under watch.

Test .

Let them.

I flicked my wrist, slipping the letter into the folds of my coat, my stride never breaking as I ascended a set of spiraling stairs that led deeper into the tower. The halls grew narrower, quieter, the stone absorbing sound in a way that made the silence feel almost sentient. The Council mbers thought themselves patient schers, weaving intricate traps behind closed doors. But patience was only valuable when it yielded results, and their results were unimpressive.

I had seen the fear in their eyes, no matter how they tried to mask it.

Lisanor. The one who played the part of the righteous enforcer, her sense of duty wrapped so tightly around her throat it choked out reason. She wanted

undone more than anyone else at that table. If given the opportunity, she would not hesitate to strike. But righteousness had a habit of blinding those who wielded it like a weapon, making them predictable.

Balthus. Older, more deliberate in his words, never one to act without cause. He did not hate , not in the way Lisanor did, but he knew I was dangerous. He saw the weight I carried, and it unsettled him. He was a man who understood power, who recognized what kind of destruction I was capable of. That made him wary. Wary n were careful. Careful n were harder to manipulate.

Elysior. The outlier. He watched the way a man watches a sandstorm from a distance—too detached to interfere, but too curious to look away. His chronomancy allowed him glimpses of possible futures. He had not spoken much in that chamber, but I had felt his gaze linger. He saw sothing. Or maybe he saw nothing, and that was what troubled him.

And that was the issue, wasn't it? Elysior's power gave him insight others did not possess. The things he glimpsed shaped his choices, altered his approach. He was not reactionary like Lisanor, nor thodical like Balthus. He was quiet, observing, waiting for the pieces to align.

What had he seen?

Or more importantly—what had he not seen?

The thought lingered as I turned a corner, my coat brushing against the cold stone walls. The enchantnts embedded in the architecture pulsed again, an almost imperceptible ripple. A warning. The Council's magic, watching, tracking. They would be expecting

to follow the course they had laid out, to take the mission without question, to allow them to dictate the pace of the ga.

They had always underestimated .

A group of lesser-ranked mages passed

in the corridor, their voices hushed as they moved aside, careful to avoid impeding my path. Their deference was not born from respect—it was from fear. I saw it in the way their eyes flickered downward, the stiffness in their shoulders. They had heard the whispers. The rumors. They did not need confirmation.

I reached the upper levels, the stonework giving way to darkened wood paneling and corridors lined with doors belonging to the Tower's more prominent mbers. The Council had their chambers deeper within the fortress, but here was where most of the political maneuvering took place. Behind each door, secrets festered, alliances were struck, and betrayals were written in ink before they were ever carved in blood.

A single sconce flickered as I passed, casting elongated shadows across the wall. I could feel the weight of the letter against my chest, its presence like a second heartbeat.

They wanted

to dance to their tune.

They would soon regret that mistake.

I reached the final staircase leading to the private chamber the Council had assigned . The mont my boot touched the first step, I felt it. A presence. Faint, lingering. Not hostile, but deliberate. Soone had been here. Recently.

I slowed, my fingers flexing at my side. The air slled the sa—dust, old parchnt, the faint trace of arcane oils used for preservation. But there was sothing else. A subtle shift, an imbalance in the way the energy moved.

I ascended the steps, my pace unhurried, my breathing controlled. The door to my chamber stood slightly ajar, the latch resting against the fra but not fully engaged.

A mistake.

Or an invitation.

I pushed it open with a single, fluid movent, stepping inside without hesitation.

Nothing appeared out of place. The bookshelves were untouched, the docunts on my desk precisely where I had left them. The enchanted window still flickered with the shifting hues of the skyline outside. But I knew better.

Subtle things. A chair not quite aligned with the desk. A candle wick recently burned but not relit. The scent of a spell—one ant to conceal, to observe.

I closed the door behind

and leaned against it, my fingers pressing lightly against the wood. Soone had wanted to know what I would do. How I would react.

Amateurs.

They would learn soon enough.

I exhaled, allowing the tension in my shoulders to ease, if only slightly. The Council thought themselves my keepers, but they had forgotten one simple truth.

I did not belong to them.

I moved to the desk, my fingers brushing against the sealed letter once more, its wax imprint a silent challenge.

Let them watch. Let them wait.

I would show them just how well I played their ga.

But all of them paled in comparison to what truly held my attention.

The na in the dossier.

I had forced myself to remain impassive when I first saw it, to keep my grip relaxed and my expression unreadable. But beneath that carefully maintained exterior, sothing had gone still. A na that should not exist. A person long since buried, erased from the world by my own hand.

A na that had haunted my past like a specter, one I had ensured would never resurface. And yet, there it was—inked onto the crisp parchnt, staring back at

with a quiet finality.

I had killed them.

I rembered the mont too vividly, the cold steel, the muffled breath of finality, the stillness that followed. I had made sure there was no chance for survival, no lingering trace of them to crawl back into the world. I had not been careless. I had never been careless.

Had they made a mistake? Or was this intentional? A deliberate test to see how I would react? The Council was ruthless, but not careless. If they had included this na, it ant they believed there was truth to it. And that possibility opened doors I had long since closed.

A cold tendril of unease wrapped around my spine, but I forced it away. I was not a man who let emotions dictate my actions. If this na was on the dossier, then I would find out why.

I stepped into my quarters, the heavy wooden door shutting behind

with a quiet finality. The air inside was thick with the scent of old parchnt, candle wax, and the faint trace of tal from the hidden blades I kept within reach. The room was a reflection of my mind—precise, structured, and arranged for efficiency. Every book, every docunt, every artifact had its place. And yet, no matter how ticulously I ordered the world around , sothing beyond my grasp had begun to shift.

A flick of my fingers sent a small ember of magic to the nearest candle, its golden glow casting elongated shadows across the bookshelves lining the walls. The light flickered against the tos filled with knowledge both ancient and new, pages brimming with secrets that many had died to keep hidden. Their spines bore the weight of history, the whispers of forgotten civilizations, the echoes of power that had been sealed away.

Power that I understood far too well.

I loosened the high collar of my coat and moved toward my desk, its surface a battlefield of scattered docunts, unfinished letters, and crumpled notes. Plans that had been carefully laid out, calculations mapped to the finest detail—now disrupted by the appearance of a single na.

The window beside

stood as the only intrusion to the otherwise enclosed space, its enchanted glass revealing the sprawling city below. Velithor's streets pulsed with life even at this hour, torches flickering in the distance, carriages rattling over cobblestone roads. From here, the world seed small, almost manageable. But that was an illusion. There were always forces lurking beyond sight, waiting for an opening.

And I did not like surprises.