Solomon looked at them with a wide grin and snapped his fingers forcefully.
CLAK!
Time instantly snapped back into motion, sounds rushed back in all at once, and the chaos in the hall resumed at full throttle. Rapha looked around the dead-silent group. Her sharp, silver gaze swept over the transformed bodies of the Outcasts, while she slowly and gravely shook her head.
"Listen to me, all of you. What happened here last night is by no means a coincidence, nor is it just some simple magical explosion blowing over."
She took a deep, audible breath. Her chest rose and fell heavily, as if uttering the ancient facts required physical effort. Around her, the room seemed to grow even colder.
"Long before mythologies separated from one another, long before gods claimed their own realms, a single primordial plant existed: White Haoma. Its pure sap could pull a lost soul straight out of the underworld and reconnect it with its physical body. But the essence of that plant was simply far too powerful for ordinary, mortal bodies. A complete, undiluted fruit of White Haoma could heal someone in the blink of an eye, horribly deform them, ruthlessly kill them, and then bring them right back to life."
Rapha raised her slender hand. Small, emerald-green light frequencies swirled smoothly through the air between her fingers, pulsing to the cadence of her breathing. The green light cast strange, shifting shadows on the stone walls of the hall.
"A single seed of that White Haoma ended up in the northern realm through the deepest roots and the cracks between worlds. Iðunn found the seed in the frozen earth. But the plant was a stranger in that chilly domain and could not grow on its own. Therefore, Iðunn grafted the seed with divine precision onto a gigantic tree from her own sacred orchard."
The light frequencies around her hand began to spread like fine, creeping threads weaving through the air of the hall.
"Around that divine graft grew a strange, highly mystical organism. It consisted of long, glowing, silver-green fibers that looked like the flowing mane of a mighty witch. In ancient texts, those fibers were called the Witchmane. Witchmane formed a gigantic underground network among all the roots of the orchard. Because of this, the raw life force was not locked inside a single fruit, but the energy could be evenly distributed across multiple connected bodies. From that exact, sacred union arose what we now know as Iðunn’s Haomamane."
Rapha turned sharply toward Nyx and Silarias. Her gaze was piercing and intense.
"A normal, tiny dried piece of that leaf cures exactly one serious patient after a long brew. But Nyx... in your desperation last night, you connected a complete, unfiltered vat to the system. The Witchmane could never have handled that insane, divine amount of life force within Silarias’s body alone. It would have burned and destroyed him down to the bone. Out of pure self-preservation, the plant therefore used him as a living root core."
She took a step closer, while the threads of light began to coil around her arms.
"Then, the abundant, untamed life force rushed like a swirling rapid through all the social, spiritual, blood, and territorial connections that Silarias possesses. That is why not just anyone in the world randomly grows stronger. Only those who are truly connected by soul, spirit, or loyalty to Silarias and his Ward now exhibit green eyes, reinforced veins, and these sweeping physical changes."
Rapha’s voice abruptly dropped low. The sparkling light frequencies around her fingers instantly changed color to a dark, toxic forest green with a grayish edge.
"But Iðunn’s Haomamane has a chilly, dark reverse side. The plant makes absolutely no moral distinction between good and evil. Love, loyal devotion, fierce rivalry, a dangerous obsession, or pure bloodthirsty hatred... to this ancient network, they all form an equally powerful spiritual connection. That is why even Haema reacts from a gigantic distance to this metamorphosis. Apparently, he is much more deeply and strongly connected to Silarias than he dares to admit himself. Last night, Haomamane did not just strengthen your loyal Outcasts... it has potentially also provided your future traitors, your bitterest rivals, and your deadliest enemies outside the walls of this university with divine power."
The heavy words hung in the icy air. The Outcasts looked at each other with wide, uneasy eyes. The shock ran deep.
As the heavy information slowly sank in for the group, Rapha’s searching gaze slid back along the rows of transformed warriors. Suddenly, her breath caught. Her ears perked up and her eyes widened with pure, raw shock as she stopped at Aurelius.
"What... what in the name of the old gods is that?!" Rapha stammered.
The controlled, professional healer was instantly gone. In total panic, she took a few hasty, nearly stumbling steps toward Aurelius. Her hand reached out tremblingly toward his head, while she began to mutter to herself in a bizarre, agitated tone.
"No, no, this can't be... it'll be fine, it just has to be fine... I'll fix this..."
She stopped right in front of him and looked at Aurelius with wide-open, anxious eyes.
"Aurelius... what on earth happened to your eye?!"
Aurelius opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a single sound, Jane stepped resolutely to his side.
Jane immediately filled him in, while her feline tail swished restlessly back and forth.
"In some strange way... that eye is sucking in all the surrounding light. It’s genuinely bizarrely beautiful to see, but... his anting has suddenly ended up right in between..."
Just as Jane uttered the word 'anting', it happened.
Between the thick, tightly wound layers of white bandages around Aurelius’s head, a fierce, magical shimmer ignited. A pulsing, violet spark shot violently through the fabric. The space around his right eye seemed to become a vacuum for a moment; the glow of the torches and Rapha's light frequencies were literally sucked toward his face for a fraction of a second and vanished into the darkness beneath the linen.
Rapha recoiled half a step and rubbed her forehead with a worried, clammy hand.
"I don't like the look of this at all. This is completely unpredictable," she said, her voice regaining some of its professional sternness. "Aurelius, starting from this exact moment, you will take absolute, strict rest. No fights, no training. Early tomorrow morning, you and Silarias will report to me in the infirmary. Both of you need to be thoroughly checked from head to toe. No discussion."
Before anyone could object or ask questions about the infirmary, Solomon took a heavy step forward.
He loudly and deeply cleared his throat. The raw, echoing sound rolled like a thunderclap through the entire hall, so hard that dust drifted down from the wooden beams on the ceiling.
"Uh, ahem... We haven't gathered here for pleasure, GOATs," Solomon spoke, crossing his muscular arms and standing even taller in his imposing stature.
"Silarias... Quite a while ago, we managed to capture three of those sneaky scouts. After quite a bit of persuasion, we finally got them to confess everything. It turns out they aren't ordinary spies. They are Inquisitors... yes. But they are operating there in the name of none other than Thung Zu... And that means one painful thing for us: the corrupted god has apparently corrupted even Thung Zu. I already thought Morta looked so strange and absent from his eyes lately... Even stranger and darker than usual."
Silarias looked straight and unblinkingly at Solomon. The muscles in his jaw tensed so hard that the veins in his neck thickened. The fierce, green shine in his pupils flared brightly for a second.
"So it boils down to us having to lift his curse..." Silarias muttered.
He raised his heavy hand and rubbed his head firmly, feeling the immense weight of the world effortlessly pile back onto his shoulders.
Solomon looked around the hall, his gaze ice-cold and dead serious. There was not a trace of his usual jokes to be seen.
"Well GOATs... unfortunately, that is far from everything. They have been signaled from their cell. One of their communication crystals just went off remarkably, and their superiors expect a coded response... Fast. Very fast. So we don't have time to get used to our new muscles or green eyes. We have to act fast..."
An icy, oppressive, and dead silence fell over the living quarters of the Goated Outcasts. Nobody moved. The clock ticked, and the threat of a frontal confrontation hung like a sharp sword over their heads.
The tense atmosphere in the hall was abruptly cut through when Beat shoved his plate away with a loud clash. He wiped his mouth hastily with his sleeve and sprang to his feet with a wide, hungry grin.
"THE ANSWER IS YES!"
The entire hall froze and let out a collective sigh. Everyone stared at Beat with wide, dazed eyes.
Beat looked confidently around the circle and flexed his muscular forearms.
"I'm fast... Come on, grant me this, guys! I'm really not going to mess it up, just trust me!"
Silarias rubbed his chin thoughtfully, let his gaze glide over the energetic boy, and sighed deeply.
"I, uh... don't know if that's such a very good idea, Beat... But listen carefully: if you get stuck down there, I'll come get you myself. Understood?"
Next to Solomon, Doppo leaned forward slightly and whispered a few quick words with a raspy voice into the giant's ear. Solomon nodded slowly, while a wide grin graced his massive jawline.
"Yeah... no, you actually have a point there," Solomon bellowed. He directed his imposing gaze at the company and pointed with a thick finger. "Beat, come along. Sil... Nyx... come along. The rest stays here. Or no, wait... Nicola and Aurelius, you guys are coming too. The rest of the Outcasts: enjoy your days off!"
Solomon moved with large, heavy steps toward the massive wooden wall at the edge of the living space. He tapped against the stone frame in a lightning-fast, complex rhythm. Tap-tap-tacky-tap. Then he grabbed a hidden bronze knob and turned it three-quarters with a sharp, grinding sound.
CLICK-CLACK!
The heavy wall split in two and opened with a deep resonance. An icy, humid current of air, pregnant with the scent of old iron and damp earth, hit the group straight in the chest.
They stepped through the opening and emerged into the dim, endless corridors of the underground cellars. Silarias and Nicola stared in wonder, completely astonished by the hidden architecture beneath the university. Nyx, fascinated by the smooth magical mechanics, curiously poked her head in and out of the moving wall opening.
"Mm... teach me this sometime too," Nyx mumbled with glistening eyes.
Doppo let out a dry laugh. "Haha, typical of you, Nyx."
Solomon cast a stern, warning look at Doppo and then looked with a serious facial expression at Nyx.
"All in good time, Nyx... But for now: we are here in the deepest Cellar Floors of the University of War."
Silarias looked up at the gigantic, vaulted ceiling. The dark space was sparsely illuminated by floating, mystical torches that drifted randomly through the air without any physical support, casting a fiery, orange-purple glow over the stone cages.
What an immensely large prison...
Silarias thought, as his steps echoed over the damp cobblestones.
How many dangerous idiots must be locked up here?
He looked up at Solomon, who walked ahead with his broad shoulders.
Solomon stopped and half-turned around. "I’ve called you here for a sort of... first official mission for the Order. A bit of a forced Order operation starting right away. My apologies for that... But well, there they are."
Solomon stepped aside at one of the heaviest, magically shielded cellar cells. He pulled a lever, whereupon the heavy iron bars pulled upward with a dull thud.
Inside the cell sat three chained men on the ice-cold floor. They were busy whispering to each other, but the moment they saw Solomon's gigantic silhouette, they froze. Hastily and with rattling chains, they straightened right up.
The Outcasts stepped closer to inspect the prisoners properly. Silarias and Nyx looked from the middle Inquisitor to Beat and then back again. They had to suppress their laughter with all their might; it was simply starting to bubble.
"You... you're family," Silarias blurted out. "Lost brothers or something!"
Nicola theatrically rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, indeed, I see the outward similarities too... But wait a minute, what are we actually here to do?"
Solomon leaned against the stone mass and explained that it was essentially a subtle 'three-man job', and that the rest were purely there as tactical backup.
"That's why..." Solomon pointed at Doppo, who approached with a heavy, copper chest and set it down on the floor with a dull thud.
Doppo flipped the chest open. The glow of the floating torches fell on the contents: the old, dark Inquisitor armor pieces of the three spies, the darkened communication crystal that had been used to signal, and a series of strange tools.
"Because they must under no circumstances see or hear over there that you are not him," Doppo stated firmly.
Doppo whistled sharply through his teeth toward the three prisoners. The middle Inquisitor leaned forward trembling and came to stand right next to Beat. Doppo picked up the crystal from the chest and ignited a fierce, purple-white flash of light from it.
FLASH!
The purple light enveloped Beat like a thin mist. When Beat opened his mouth to ask what was happening, he got the fright of his life from his own voice. It sounded exactly like the raspy, raw voice of the chained Inquisitor next to him.
"My voice... NO!" Beat screamed in the stranger's voice.
Doppo rolled his eyes, annoyed. "Relax, this is merely a camouflage incantation that lasts about thirty hours. To anyone who hasn't been physically present here, you sound exactly like him, smell like him, and look to their senses like his mirror image. All while you simply remain your own physical self and retain your own speed and combat power."
Beat let out a deep sigh of relief and rubbed his throat. Then he looked with raised eyebrows at the prisoner next to him. "Wait a minute... who am I actually now?"
The chained Inquisitor let out a raw, bittersweet laugh. "Zico... Zico Thunderwalker. I once had a unique, electric cap... or well, something similar. But along the way it... uh... um..."
The man suddenly started sobbing heavily. He hastily pulled himself together, swallowing back his tears, acting tough, and continuing with a cracking voice: "Lord Zu probably won't even notice... But listen, kid, there is a lightning-fast prisoner locked up over there. She is very fast... She is his personal guinea pig. And Lady Iron Fan is his ice-cold, personal right hand. Anyway... Thunderwalker, that's what they call me there."
The man explained in an almost legendary, compelling manner that in his younger years he had once run so bizarrely fast that lightning spontaneously shot from the sky and wrapped around his body. However, it had been a one-time, mystical miracle that he had never managed to repeat.
Beat looked at him with a fierce, amused gaze. "That name is going to become the absolute truth again starting today, haha! But wait... so it's just a matter of running in quickly, saying everything is fine, and making sure I get away again?"
Solomon looked at him sternly and slowly shook his head. "There's more in that chest, kid."
Doppo reached back into the copper chest and pulled out a small, transparent crystal containing a series of strange, gummy substances.
"Come on, quick, put all of this in your ears," Solomon ordered directly.
The Outcasts looked at each other with large, suspicious glances. Solomon didn't hesitate for a second, though: he grabbed two pieces of the gray substance, pushed them deep into his own auricles, after which the stuff silently vanished into his ear canal and dissolved. Nicola, who was watching closely, couldn't contain his curiosity.
"Wait, what is this stuff called? What does it do exactly on a molecular and magical level?" Nicola asked, gesturing through the air with his fingers.
Doppo named the ancient name of the substance and explained with a firm voice: "This ensures that we can hear each other crystal clear over infinite distances, dimensions, and even through different universes... As long as the main crystal in the chest stays alive, at least. If you want it out later, you rub behind your lobe in a specific way so it detaches from your head."
Solomon added: "And that's where you come in, Nicola. You are going to track him closely from here using the equipment and explain to him step by step what he needs to do or where he needs to go. At the same time, Zico here also has earplugs in, so he can directly update us on what we see through the images."
Solomon grabbed the heavy, dark Inquisitor armor pieces from the chest and shoved them with a dull thud against Beat's chest. Beat put on the armor with agile movements. The dark metal fit seamlessly around his transformed, muscular shoulders.
Just as he fastened the last buckle, Beat looked around confused. "So... how am I actually going to see everything over there?"
Doppo grabbed a tube-like crystal stone and held it over the eye area of Beat's face. The tube filled itself in a fraction of a second with a thick, liquid substance that began to ooze out halfway. Doppo poured it right over Beat's eyes and pulled the tube back.
Beat instantly became hectic and began wildly waving his hands in front of his face. "WHAT THE... ARGH! My eyes!" He rubbed heavily, but stopped abruptly. His pupils glided back and forth. "OH... wait a minute. I see... I see even better?!"
At that exact moment, a grotesque, gigantic crystal screen turned on against the wall of the cell. The screen began to pulse with a purple glow. Everyone in the cellar suddenly looked right through Beat's eyes. They saw on the screen how Beat in the cellar was staring at his own armored gauntlets.
"Woahh, what kind of black magic is this?!" Beat shouted on the screen.
Doppo explained: "That's the CrystalEye. A liquid, magical crystal variant that transmits visual images live. Our guys from the Technology Faculty have refined this."
Nicola's eyes began to twinkle fiercely. He took a deep breath and started rapidly making complex schematic notes and formulas in his head.
In the images on the big screen, Beat's voice suddenly sounded hurried again: "Wait, where exactly do I need to go then? And when does this operation actually start?"
Solomon walked over to the grotesque screen. With a simple hand gesture, he projected a glowing, magical route map directly into the upper right corner of Beat's field of vision.
Beat let out a raw laugh via the screen. "Oh wait, what?! How do you even do that again? I see the route kind of on the right in the corner of my eye, but I can follow it with both eyes at the same time... Bizarre! I see the whole racelap, haha! But when does it actually start?"
Solomon and Doppo looked at each other with a dark, amused look.
"Hahaa! Racelap, that's a good one..." Solomon chuckled. His face instantly turned dead serious. "Oh, when do you start? NOW!"
Before Beat could even react, the stone floor right beneath his feet split open. A dark, swirling magical hole sucked him downward at insane speed.
WOOSH!
The gigantic crystal screen on the wall began to crack and distort heavily due to the sudden acceleration.
Silarias clenched his fists and started shouting angrily at Solomon: "Solomon! You guys really need to discuss these kinds of things better in advance, man!"
Nicola ignored the commotion, stepped right in front of the screen, and touched the communication interface. "Beat! Do you hear us?! Beat, answer!"
The only thing that sounded from the crystal speakers was the loud, static cracking of the magical acceleration.
Everyone in the cellar held their breath and stared fixedly at the unstable screen.
Nyx slowly shook her head and looked at Solomon with a worried gaze. "This is a bit
too
dangerous... Sending him off like that completely on his own..."
Solomon looked at her, while a mysterious, wide grin appeared on his lips. "What do you mean, alone? Haha... Zico had a special cap when he left there... So of course Beat will have one too when he arrives over there."
Everyone directed their gaze back to the big crystal screen in suspense.
The static noise cleared. In a flash, they got their first, sharp glimpse of Beat. His eyes were narrowed into two small, deadly slits. Between his eyelids sparked a lively, electric blue cloud of pure lightning that drifted sentiently around his head and formed into the contours of a menacing cloud.