“Dean Caroline… please… help me… Professor Innis… attacked me…”

  Howard lay on the ground, barely conscious, and croaked those words the moment he saw Caroline arrive with security.

  Caroline didn’t even look at him.

  She grabbed Professor Innis by the arm and hauled her up off Howard, cheeks burning as she scolded her that “a lady shouldn’t sit like that.”

  And the security team was not there to “rescue” Howard.

  They moved in as a unit, shields up, batons leveled, heavy plate armor clanking as they boxed him in.

  Every shield faced Howard.

  Every baton pointed at him.

  If he so much as twitched, they looked ready to beat him into paste.

  Caroline’s two spell hounds locked onto him too, bodies low, muscles tense, ready to lunge.

  Howard stared, confused, his voice thin and trembling.

  “Dean Caroline… what is this supposed to mean? I’m the victim here…”

  “Shut it, you nasty old man.”

  Caroline cut him off and shoved the documents toward his face.

  “The people trying to snatch students had traces of a curse on them,” she said. “After days of analysis and comparison, the mana signature behind that curse matched your mana pattern exactly, down to the last detail.”

  She tilted her chin at the guards.

  “Take him.”

  Caroline’s tone turned razor sharp.

  “You’re under arrest for suspected crimes including, but not limited to, kidnapping and attacking multiple students, illegal cursing, ties to a cult. Honestly, the list is so long I’m not even going to bother.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Bottom line, you’re done.”

  Two guards seized Howard by both arms and yanked him upright.

  Before they dragged him away, Caroline added, “Don’t call this a frame-up. The evidence is solid, and I already cleared it with Antonio. The rest you can explain in an interrogation room.”

  Her voice dropped.

  “You’d better start talking fast and tell us where the students are.”

  Howard’s lips curled.

  A laugh crawled out of him, low and ugly.

  “Heh… heh heh heh…”

  Caroline clicked her tongue. “Don’t push your luck. What are you laughing at?”

  She motioned for the guards to shut him up.

  A guard drove a fist into Howard’s face, hard enough to snap his head sideways.

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  The laughter stopped.

  Howard still didn’t shut up.

  He spat blood, then chuckled again, like the world had finally turned into a joke he couldn’t stop hearing.

  “I’m just… appreciating how unfair the world is, and how nothing ever goes right,” he rasped.

  His eyes flicked up, unfocused but smug.

  “I tried to grab one pathetic student as a sacrifice, and I got jumped by a whole royal guard squad from Sagrave.”

  He sucked in a shaky breath.

  “I barely crawled away, then I ran into Professor Innis, got wrecked before I could even come up with an excuse.”

  Howard’s smile twisted.

  “It’s exactly like that guy said, when things get this absurd, you start laughing without meaning to.”

  The guard beside him raised a fist again, ready to hit him a second time.

  Then everything went sideways.

  The two guards restraining Howard suddenly began to shake.

  They screamed like someone had stuck a knife into their nerves, then collapsed, writhing on the floor.

  Howard went down with them.

  He rolled, then slowly pushed himself back up, and under everyone’s watchful stares, he started pulling off his long robe.

  His thin body was wrapped in something that made the air feel wrong.

  Red-black mana had formed into metal chains.

  Two thick “links” stretched out from Howard, one end stabbed into the guards on the ground, the other coiled around Howard’s torso and plunged into his chest.

  It looked like he was draining their life straight through the chains.

  Caroline’s expression hardened.

  “So you’re finally showing your real face,” she snapped. “Hound, tear his head off.”

  The spell hounds took the order like it was a dinner bell.

  They howled, thrilled, and charged straight at Howard, who was still surrounded by security.

  Howard reacted instantly.

  He exploded into motion, grabbed more guards, and yanked them up as living shields.

  The chains snapped taut like towing cables, and he launched himself toward the exit at a terrifying speed.

  The tunnel was cramped.

  Enid couldn’t safely throw wide-area magic in a space that tight.

  Howard was moving too fast, and he had hostages in his hands.

  Enid didn’t trust herself to stop him in seconds without killing someone.

  “This isn’t a place to fight,” Caroline shouted. “Professor Innis, take him outside. Don’t let him get away!”

  Caroline sprinted after him, and Enid followed.

  The guards Howard used as shields weren’t helpless.

  They swung batons, drove fists into his ribs, did anything they could to break free.

  Howard clearly understood one thing, the moment he let go, Professor Innis and Caroline would hit him with everything they had.

  So he grit his teeth, took the blows, and kept running.

  In a few breaths, Howard reached the tomb entrance.

  He could taste freedom.

  He flung the struggling guards aside and bolted for open ground.

  One step.

  Just one more step and he would have been out.

  As half his body crossed the threshold, Professor Innis’ voice drifted after him, calm and faint.

  “Got you.”

  Howard froze.

  He couldn’t move forward.

  A shadow spike had pierced his foot, pinning him to the floor like a nail through wood.

  Enid had never dispelled Shadow Spike.

  It had been hiding inside Howard’s shadow the whole time, waiting for the exact moment he released the hostages.

  It wasn’t a fatal hit.

  It didn’t need to be.

  It was enough to let Enid and Caroline catch up.

  Caroline ran and whistled sharply, pointing at Howard with her free hand.

  “Go,” she barked. “Legs. Rip the meat. Crack the bones.”

  Her voice was vicious, like she wanted the words to bite too.

  The hounds lunged in and clamped onto Howard’s legs, tearing and worrying at him to kill his mobility.

  At the same time, Enid flicked her hand and sent a blade of ice toward Howard’s body.

  Howard’s eyes flashed.

  Then he did something no one expected.

  Using the chains, he ripped off both of his own legs.

  He yanked himself sideways with the chained links like grappling lines, dodged Enid’s ice blade by a hair, and dragged himself out of the tomb into the open.

  But Caroline’s hounds were not some tame little tricks.

  They crunched through what they’d torn loose, then surged forward with frightening speed, closing the distance in a heartbeat and snapping at Howard again.

  Spell hounds were Caroline’s proudest original work.

  A seventh-circle hexcraft spell.

  She forged them out of “malice mana,” shaping it into a brutal predator.

  They looked like massive hounds built from living shadow.

  They moved on her orders, and once she gave a command, they followed it until they faded.

  Track the target.

  Chase the enemy.

  Strike a specific body part.

  Whatever she told them, they did it.

  And the more hatred and killing intent she poured in, the more “malice mana” she fed the spell, the faster and stronger the hounds became.

  Just like real hunting dogs, they stayed loyal to their master.

  And they hunted the enemy without mercy.