The Villain Professor's Second Chance

The traveler's breath came in short, frantic bursts, his chest rising and falling as though he were drowning in air far too thin to sustain him. A stiff wind swirled, carrying with it the faint tang of something burnt and arcane, and I could almost taste the fear on him, like metal on my tongue. He was young, though it was hard to tell exactly—hunger and terror had carved lines into his face, deepening his age in a way normal years might not have.

His cloak, tattered and stained with the dust of this land, clung to him as if trying to merge with his trembling frame. His knuckles were white against the fabric, nails raking the threads in a nervous pattern. He looked at me, then at Asterion, then back again, unable to settle on which of us was more real or more dangerous. The heavy hush in the air only amplified the sound of his frantic breathing.

"You don't understand," he rasped, voice raw like a wound left untended. "You step wrong, and the road... the road turns against you." His eyes widened, pupils flicking toward the cracked archway that loomed behind him, as if it might suddenly collapse into illusions. "The walls shift, the ground falls away," he continued, each phrase weighted with the madness that had chased him all the way here. "It isn't just tricks—it's hunger. The city devours those who don't belong."

I flexed my fingers against the hilt of my sword, meeting his stare with the cold resolve I'd honed in countless battles. "And yet," I said quietly, "here you are."

His entire body trembled at that, and a weak laugh tumbled from his lips—neither mirth nor bitterness, more like the desperate sound of a man who can't decide if he's still alive. "Not for long," he whispered, lowering his gaze to the stony ground, as if resigned to an inevitable doom.

Asterion, standing at my flank, exhaled sharply. Though his features often held a wry sort of confidence, now they were etched with a tension that mirrored the traveler's dread. "If the illusions are anchored," Asterion said, "they can be severed. If the layout is shifting, there must be a pattern." He paused, letting the hush sink in, perhaps hoping the traveler would confirm or deny the possibility of a structured method to this chaos.

The traveler only shook his head—violently, as if trying to dislodge the memories. "No patterns," he hissed, voice cracking. "No rules. The Cult has—"

"—spread its influence in layers." My voice came out steadier than I felt, each syllable cutting through his panic like a well-sharpened blade. "Concentric circles, each zone more unstable than the last."

He stared at me as if I'd spoken some unspeakable truth, his silence confirmation enough.

Asterion shot me a sidelong glance, his brow furrowed in half-skeptical admiration. "That's a hell of a gamble," he said, raking a hand through his dust-caked hair. "You actually think it's structured?"

"I think it has to be," I replied. "Power this large, even twisted, follows rules. If the leyline is bleeding into the city, they're using that framework. Whatever illusions they've conjured up, they aren't absolutely freeform. They're tethered." My gaze shifted to the looming silhouette of broken spires in the distance. "And anything tethered can be severed."

The traveler made a sound that hovered between a sob and an unhinged laugh. He looked so gaunt, so hollowed out. I suspected illusions had gnawed at his mind for days. Maybe weeks. "You don't sever it. You don't break it," he insisted, each word trembling with fervor. "You survive it. If you're lucky."

"I don't rely on luck." My tone was plain, unyielding. Dismissing him wasn't my intention, but I wanted him to see that no measure of hysteria would change my course. Turning, I let my gaze fall on the ruins beyond the archway, a labyrinth of half-real walkways and illusions that swirled like restless ghosts. "We're going through. Direct path. We carve our way to the leyline, dismantle their hold one anchor at a time."

Asterion said nothing. I felt his scrutiny on me—perhaps questioning whether stubborn resolve was enough to push through illusions that had devoured more capable men. After a moment, he let out a dry, humorless chuckle that carried both acceptance and exasperation. "Of course," he murmured. "Why take a quiet path when we can walk straight into the lion's mouth?"

"The lion is already watching," I returned, my voice as cold as the dust-laden wind scraping across my cheeks. "Sneaking buys us nothing. We cut through before they have time to react."
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Asterion's mouth tugged into a smirk that was half a grimace. He glanced down at his boots as if checking whether the ground was still stable beneath him, then looked at me with an air of resigned determination. "If you drop from exhaustion in the middle of a battle, I'm not carrying you," he warned, his attempt at humor cloaked in genuine concern. He'd seen the toll illusions took on me, how my mana reserves were dangerously thin since the Ashen Expanse. He had every right to worry.

"Noted," I said, my muscles already coiling with readiness. My body might be fraying at the edges, but my will wasn't. "Let's move."

Those last three words sealed our course. We stepped away from the traveler, who slid to his knees, eyes hollow and watery as he mumbled a prayer or a curse—I couldn't tell which. The archway loomed, half-collapsed, each stone carved with runic lines that flickered in the dim gloom. Ahead, a corridor of swirling mist beckoned like the mouth of a great beast, illusions drifting in and out of sight.

Asterion led, though I stayed close at his side. The first ten steps felt disturbingly mundane—just broken ground, a few scattered chunks of debris, the acrid stench of burnt magic in the air. Then the illusions began to stir. I could sense them more than see them, a ripple of energy cresting at the edges of my perception, as if the city's malevolence had detected fresh prey.

Swirls of color blinked overhead, shapes half-congealing into ephemeral watchers perched on fractured walls. They hissed, a static-laden sound reminiscent of steam escaping from a furnace. I gritted my teeth, forcing my mind to remain sharp, ignoring the dryness in my throat that made every swallow ache. I'd dealt with illusions in the Ashen Expanse. I'd survived them. I could do it again.

They struck. Not in a coordinated rush but as flickering darts, illusions shaped like fanged silhouettes lunging at the corners of our vision. One soared overhead in a swirl of tattered wings, dissolving the moment I slashed my sword through it. A second danced at my flank, darting forward with a hiss that ended in a sputtering whimper as Asterion's short burst of arcane force shredded it. The illusions re-formed, only to flicker out again under relentless assault.

We pressed onward. The illusions tried to corral us—walls sprang up from nowhere, ephemeral bricks piling in midair. But a single furious strike from my blade, or a flick of Asterion's hand, tore them down. Beneath the swirling illusions, I caught glimpses of genuine stone, real architecture that had been battered into ruin. Something about that battered reality steadied me, reaffirmed that we could still carve a path.

We paused at a vantage point no larger than a battered rooftop—its wooden beams snapped by prior battles, the roof tiles half-lost in illusions that drifted away when we tried to step on them. From there, I scanned the immediate sector. I saw shrines—dark lumps of twisted stone inscribed with swirling glyphs, each anchor linking illusions across multiple streets. They were spaced in a deliberate pattern, an arcane web meant to stabilize the illusions, re-forming them whenever we tried to break the city's grip.

Asterion's gaze followed mine. "Those," he said softly, "look like trouble."

I nodded. "We dismantle them, we weaken the illusions. Then we force our way inward."

He let out a slow breath, scanning the flickering cityscape. "All right. Show me the first one you want destroyed."

I picked out the nearest shrine, a large, twisted nexus with a ring of black stones hammered into the ground. Shadows flickered around it, perhaps robed figures chanting or illusions projected by the city itself. "There."

With no further debate, we made our way down the broken roof, creeping across a walkway that threatened to vanish underfoot. A swirl of dust and mist cloaked our approach, the illusions flickering around us but not fully revealing themselves. Good. If they couldn't see us clearly, we had a chance to strike first.

As we neared the shrine, I spotted three silhouettes—cultists standing in measured silence. Their faces hidden by deep hoods, their hands raised in a steady rhythm that cast lines of power across the altar. Each line glowed a faint violet, flowing into runes carved in concentric spirals. In the gloom, it looked like a heart, pumping illusions into the city.

Asterion caught my eye. "Loud or quiet?" he whispered, expression taut.

"They already know we're here. Loud,"