The Villain Professor's Second Chance

Illusions surged forward like a living tide, countless fragmented constructs forming out of the meltdown's raw energy—soldiers, beasts, shifting weapons, all bound to his will. They weren't just ephemeral. They weren't just magic. The meltdown had given them weight, substance. They moved with the conviction of something that believed itself real.

I lunged forward, cutting down the first wave before they could fully solidify. My sword clashed against their distorted forms, the impact sending shockwaves up my arms. Sparks of violet-green energy licked at my blade, trying to coil around it, trying to rewrite it. I forced my will into the steel, shattering their grasp before it could take hold.

Asterion fought at my flank, his movements sharp and efficient, but even he couldn't intercept them all. One construct slipped past us, a blade of pure meltdown energy aimed for my ribs.

I caught the attack with my free hand.

Pain flared up my arm—a burn without fire, a wound that didn't break the skin but tore at reality itself. My body screamed in protest, the meltdown's energy trying to unmake the part of me that had touched it. Gritting my teeth, I twisted my grip, forcing the illusionary blade to shatter in my grasp.

Belisarius's smirk widened. "Ah, there it is," he murmured. "The cost."

I didn't respond. My mind was already calculating the next move.

His battlefield. His rules.

But that meant if I broke his anchor, if I tore apart the leyline that fed him, this entire place would collapse under its own weight.

Asterion must have realized the same thing. "We need to sever his connection," he called over the noise, slicing through another construct. "The leyline's keeping him here."

I exhaled sharply. "Easier said than done."

The chamber trembled as the meltdown shifted again. The floating platforms overhead twisted, pulling further apart. The temple walls groaned, illusions melting and re-forming, reshaping the entire battlefield in real-time. The leyline was adapting to our resistance. It was learning.

Belisarius took a step forward. The movement was slow, measured, but it carried weight. The very fabric of the chamber bent around him, as if space itself wanted to make way for his presence.

"You can feel it, can't you?" His voice was almost casual, as if he were simply commenting on the weather. "The inevitability of it all."

I shattered another construct, stepping into the widening space between us. "You talk too much."

He chuckled, unbothered. "You were never meant to fight against this."

I felt my jaw tighten. My breath was slow, controlled, despite the burning dryness in my throat.

Belisarius lifted a hand again, and the leyline surged in response.

More weapons formed in the air, each one heavier, more real than before.

I raised my sword, bracing myself.

This wasn't just a battle. Continue your journey with My Virtual Library Empire

This was a war of attrition.

And I wasn't going to lose.

I ignored the bait, adjusting my grip. My sword was steady in my hands, each breath measured against the searing dryness in my throat. Another strike—this time, I aimed for his midsection, the core of his still-forming body. If there was any instability left in his manifestation, that was where I needed to break him.

He blocked.

Not with a weapon. Not with an illusion.

With his hand.

Steel met flesh—or something that only resembled it. My blade screamed, grinding against an unnatural resistance, neither wholly real nor entirely ephemeral. The meltdown had reinforced him, making his very body an extension of its will. The force of the block rattled through my arms, jarring my grip. A half-second later, he retaliated.

His fist came at me like a hammer.

I barely twisted in time. The impact brushed past my ribs, the raw force of it sending shockwaves through my body. The sheer power of the strike—augmented by meltdown energy—was enough to crack stone. I rolled with the momentum, letting it push me back instead of shatter me where I stood. My feet hit solid ground, but the platform beneath me groaned in protest.

My muscles burned from the exertion, but the damage was minimal. The fight was far from over.

Belisarius let his arm drop, fingers flexing. His smirk remained, but the amusement had settled into something sharper, something edged with calculation.

"Don't you see, Draven?" His voice was steadier now, no longer flickering between real and unreal. The leyline's energy had nearly solidified him. "You and I were born from the same blood. We were meant to rule, not scurry like insects beneath the Tapestry's whims."

I wiped the sweat from my brow, breathing through the rasp in my throat. The dryness clawed at me, making each inhale feel like dragging air through cracked glass. I ignored it. "You're still clinging to that?"

Belisarius chuckled, low and knowing. "It isn't about clinging. It's about returning to what should have always been."

The battlefield shifted.

The meltdown's hold on the temple was failing. The leyline twisted in violent spasms, no longer pulsing in steady waves but writhing, raging. The temple's structure couldn't withstand the raw chaos any longer. Platforms buckled, pillars crumbled, and entire sections of the battlefield simply vanished, sucked into the leyline's thrashing currents. The runes that once anchored the illusions into something stable flickered out of existence, one by one.

A massive crack tore through the ground beneath us.

I leapt back just as a section of the dais collapsed into the swirling abyss below. It was no longer just about winning the fight. The very stage we fought on was disintegrating, breaking apart with each passing second.

Belisarius remained unshaken. His form was nearly whole now. Every fiber of his body pulsed with meltdown energy, strengthened by the leyline's turmoil rather than hindered by it. He was no longer just feeding from its power—he was becoming part of it.

Asterion cursed under his breath somewhere to my right. A collapsing arch had forced him onto a lower platform, the jagged remains of stone barely holding underfoot. He adjusted, rolling into a landing that would've broken lesser men, but there was no time for breath. More cultists still clung to the meltdown's power, still fought for it, even as the temple itself was being torn apart. He didn't hesitate.

Steel met flesh.

Blood painted the platform below.

I barely had time to track him before Belisarius moved again. This time, he didn't just attack—he advanced.

A single step, and the air shook.

The leyline surged beneath him, responding to his presence like a living thing. The force of it sent cracks racing through the remaining structures around us. The unstable platforms groaned, shifting, floating, realigning themselves in an erratic dance of destruction.

Then came the weapon.

The meltdown responded to him. Raw energy coalesced in his hands, fractal patterns twisting and spiraling until they formed into something tangible—a scythe, jagged and unstable, its blade flickering between real and illusion, caught in the endless flux of meltdown magic.

No hesitation. No flourish.

He swung.

I ducked just as the scythe tore through the space where my head had been. The air itself screamed, the sheer pressure of the strike carving through reality. Where the blade passed, the very fabric of the battlefield came undone, dissolving into flickering remnants of what had once been.

I drove forward.

My sword met his scythe in a brutal clash, steel grinding against meltdown-forged energy. The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, shaking what little ground we still had left. I didn't give him room to recover—I struck again, twisting my blade to break the momentum of his swings.

Belisarius was faster than before. More precise.

This wasn't a mindless onslaught. He had retained his skill, his experience. He fought with the same brutal efficiency that had made him feared in his past life. Every motion was refined, deliberate.

And worst of all—he was only getting stronger.

Every second he remained in this realm, the meltdown stabilized him further. The leyline reinforced him, made his body more solid, made his power more real.

This had to end. Now.

Another strike. Another parry. We moved faster than the battlefield could keep up. The platforms beneath us crumbled and reformed in real-time, the leyline rewriting reality around us with every exchanged blow.

Somewhere below, I caught a glimpse of Asterion, still fighting, his movements beginning to slow. He had taken down three more cultists, but there were still too many. He wouldn't last.

I gritted my teeth, twisting my blade to force Belisarius's scythe off-course. The movement gave me an opening—a small one, barely a breath. But it was enough.

I turned my momentum into a kick.

My boot connected with his midsection, sending him skidding back. His heels dug into the unstable surface, leyline energy sparking beneath his feet. His form wavered, flickering—not from weakness, but from the sheer density of the meltdown's energy struggling to contain him.

Belisarius exhaled, steadying himself. He tilted his head, his expression unreadable for a moment.

Then, softly, almost mockingly—he smiled.

"You feel it, don't you?"

His voice was quieter now, but it carried weight. Not just through the battlefield, but through the leyline itself. The very meltdown pulsed in response to his words, as if acknowledging him.

"The inevitability of it all."