The Villain Professor's Second Chance-Chapter 679: The Elven Demon Hunt (3)

He blinked once.

It was him.

Or rather, one of the clones.

The half‑rotted visage lingered a heartbeat longer before the air itself unstitched around it, threads of illusion curling away like burning parchment. A faint hiss marked the fracture between fake and real, and then the corridor was empty save for dust motes drifting through a single shaft of wan light.

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Sylvanna's pulse hammered. She caught herself squeezing her bowstring so tight her fingertips tingled and forced her hand to relax. "Cheap parlour trick," she muttered, though the quiver in her voice betrayed how close the false Draven had cut.

Draven stepped past the vanishing remnants without a backward glance, cloak whispering at his calves. In the glow‑fungus gloom every line of his posture radiated icy composure, yet the sharp set of his shoulders told Sylvanna he'd catalogued the apparition in all its unsettling detail.

"It's not just watching us," she said, falling into stride beside him. Her tone dropped to a conspiratorial hush, as if the trees themselves might be leaning in to eavesdrop. "It's probing—seeing which memories hurt, which lies we'll swallow."

"For weak spots," Draven agreed, voice low, clipped. "Yes." The single syllable carried both confirmation and an unspoken promise: those weaknesses would be noted—and exploited—by him, not the enemy.

The path narrowed until mirrorbark trunks crowded close, their silver skins catching fragments of their reflections and skewing them. Sylvanna saw herself fractured into a dozen off‑angle shards—eyes too wide, mouth too thin—while Draven's image remained a smear of shadow that the bark seemed unable to anchor. With each step the reflections stretched and jittered, as if the wood were trying to decide what shape he ought to wear. The effect was profoundly unnerving.

Finally, the corridor opened into a glade that looked carved from an artisan's fever dream. Towering mirrorbark guardians formed a natural gate, their intertwined branches arching overhead like the ribs of a colossal serpent. No birdsong, no wind—just the hush of a cathedral that had forgotten worshippers ever existed.

Draven halted inches from the threshold. Sylvanna mirrored him, and together they stared at the living gate. No hinges, no lock. Only polished trunks reflecting the scene before them: two travelers dust‑streaked and wary, their faces painted in eerie silver.

Draven eased one blade from its sheath—the steel whispered free with the sigh of a practiced ritual—and laid it flat on the moss, point aimed back toward himself. The mirrorbark shimmered. Reflections rippled like disturbed pond water, blurring features before coalescing into a single tableau that definitely wasn't the present.

There—within the bark's liquid sheen—Draven knelt in a torch‑lit cavern, his coat ragged, blood matting his temple. Before him loomed a demon of obsidian hide and ember veins. Instead of striking, Draven's reflection touched a hand to the creature's chest, fingers splayed over the furnace glow pulsing beneath its sternum. No fear, no revulsion—only a grim kind of understanding.

Sylvanna's breath caught in her throat. She'd seen Draven trade blades with undead giants, out‑think a sorcerer cabal, and stare down an enraged chimera matriarch, but never had she imagined him kneeling before a demon as if the thing might be… kin.

He studied the image in silence, the steady tick of seconds stretching taut. When he finally spoke, the words were soft enough to brush the moss rather than echo. "Close enough."

The mirrorbark responded with a groan like ice floes grinding together. Branches writhed overhead, leaves flashing sharp facets as they pivoted. Then, with ponderous reluctance, the trees parted, unveiling a crooked avenue of dark loam that curved deeper into the Grove.

Inside, time felt… stalled. Sylvanna couldn't find a better word. Pine‑scented air hung thick and motionless, and every scrap of wilderness appeared locked mid‑gesture: a fox suspended in a leap that never landed; birds hovering mid‑flutter, feathers frozen crisp; a stag poised in an endless bound, hooves inches above ground. Their eyes were glassy, endless tunnels that showed no spark of pain or joy. Alive, heartbeats faintly thrumming—yet absent, as if someone had scooped out their thoughts and set them on a high shelf for later.

"Gods," Sylvanna breathed, stepping closer to a hare caught in permanent coil. She laid two fingers to its fur; warmth radiated, pulse slow but steady. "They're still alive."

Draven didn't respond. He'd already moved to a clear swathe of earth at the glade's center and was unpacking supplies with a precision that might have been soothing if not for the stakes. Shard by shard, coil by coil—every odd component placed just so. Bone‑wire twanged softly as he measured lengths. Tuning crystals chimed when they struck the chalk circle he marked with powdered truth‑rune—each glyph locking into the soil like a key seating into tumblers.

Sylvanna had watched ritualists before. Most painted their magic with grand sweeps, their power noisy, hungry for admiration. Draven was the opposite: every movement an economy of intent, a concerto played pianissimo so the audience had to lean in.

"This isn't about killing it, is it?" she asked, tension sharpening her whisper.

"No." He snapped a final strand of bone‑wire taut, fingers spidering over the lattice until the tone resonated just right. "This is to make it speak."

The circle closed. Sylvanna felt the instant it sealed—air thickened, pressing gently against her eardrums. Light dimmed, colors leeched into grayscale beyond the boundary. She stepped back instinctively, breath caged in lungs, as if exhaling might crack the ritual's fragile shell.

A ripple shuddered across the clearing. One of the deer convulsed. It wasn't violent—more like the tremor of a dreamer jolted awake. Its shadow lifted from the grass, stretching impossibly long until it peeled itself free. The once‑flat darkness became three‑dimensional, limbs forming, torso curving, head tilting in uncanny silhouette. And yet the body remained hollow—no bones, no organs, only that shifting pitch black.

The shadow inhaled. With the breath came sound—Sylvanna's own voice, pitched raw with guilt: "You could've saved me."

Regret lanced through her like a barbed arrow. The timber of that plea mirrored a moment she'd buried years ago—a failure she rarely let herself remember. For a heartbeat, her knees wanted to buckle.

Draven didn't flinch. His stature remained immovable, as if he'd expected the trick. The shadow's edges flickered, shifting into a dozen masks in staccato flashes: a woman with tear‑streaked cheeks, a boy missing half his face, a blank porcelain grin, then—more jarring still—Draven's own profile, though twisted, odd, the eyes wide with manic delight.

The creature spoke again, voice warping through its many mouths. "You didn't learn this from the Tower, little Dravis. You learned this after you broke." The last word cracked like green sap under flame.

Draven's expression stayed marble‑still, but Sylvanna noted the flicker of his pupils—the smallest giveaway that it had struck nearer to truth than any knife ever could. He stepped forward, crossing the chalk line in one soundless stride, steeling the air with iron will.

The ritual's geometry pulsed, tuning crystals flaring in sympathetic resonance. The shadow shrank back, instability rippling along its spine.

Draven's voice cut through the hush, each syllable a scalpel poised above quivering flesh. "Then let's see," he said, cold iron layered over quiet fury, "if you're ready to be dissected."