Chapter 78: 65 - Aura
He was watching me with a scholar’s curiosity. As if I were a creature in a lab. Not Selene Eryndell Veylith. Not an Arcanist Mage. Just another sample.
"You know," he said, voice oily, "the fascinating thing about you is not just your bloodline... it’s your restraint. Your discipline. It’s adorable."
I didn’t answer. Silence was my only defense now.
"If I were you," he said as he traced the outer edge of the circle with a silver rod, "I’d be screaming. Crying. Maybe praying. But here you are—glaring at me like I’m the one who’s chained. Bold."
I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t bold. I was terrified.
I just didn’t give him the satisfaction.
"Why do you want Mytheia?" I asked, low.
"Ah, so she speaks." His smirk widened. "What do you think? Because it’s shiny? Because I’m bored?"
"No," I said. "Because you need it to finish something. A ritual? A weapon? Or someone gave you orders you can’t refuse."
He paused for a moment, then clicked his tongue.
"You’re cleverer than they say."He leaned in. "But still... very breakable."
Something in me flickered—anger, maybe. Or just nausea.
"If you wanted me dead, you would’ve done it already," I spat.
He tilted his head. "True. But what if I don’t want you dead, Selene? What if I want you... changed?"
The moment stretched too long. His breath was far too close to my skin.
Control. That’s all this was. Not just about the artifact. Not about torture or sex or information. It was about proving that even someone like me—trained, cold, sharp—could still bleed fear.
I smiled.
"You’re trembling, Arthur," I said flatly.
He blinked. A flicker. Just one.
And in that moment, I saw him—the real him—beneath the carefully-crafted persona of the manipulator.
A man once desperate enough to erase his past, that he cloaked himself in civility. A fraud so deep, he began to believe it.
He stood straight again, brushing off invisible dust from his coat.
"I admire your arrogance," he said.
"It’s not arrogance. It’s a countdown."
He raised a brow. "To what?"
I looked at him dead in the eye.
"To your mistake."
His expression faltered again—this time longer.
Then the smile returned, crooked.
"Did you know?"
"You know a bit too much, Selene..." he thought.
Ironic, considering I had just slipped into his mind without the slightest resistance.
He might currently be working in the Department of Forbidden Artifacts, and I doubted that was mere coincidence. Most likely, he placed himself there on purpose. To monitor. To orchestrate. To lock away what should never be released.
His surname might have changed, but the stench of the Machiavelli bloodline still clung to him. A snake will always be a snake. Only now, better at pretending.
"An Arcanist Mage is required to know everything," I said flatly.
"Oh, how arrogant of you," he hissed with venomous mockery.
"Shouldn’t you be aware of your current position, hmm?"
He raised his hand slowly.
And then, a familiar light shimmered. Wait, is that—
Mytheia?
The crystal I had poured my soul into, my most sacred creation.
Now in the hands of the enemy.
"I’ll release you from this cursed circle... if you agree to cooperate with me."
I raised a brow. My eyes narrowed, scanning his face.
My lips remained flat, denying him even a flicker of emotional victory.
"And then what? We’ll make love, as if this were all some grand romantic climax?"
For a moment, his expression changed. Like something stabbed him from within.
"You should be careful with what you say, Selene." His tone tightened.
"That mouth of yours is poisonous. One word could kill."
Ah. Such a glorious irony.
"A fitting threat coming from the spawn of a serpent, wouldn’t you say?"
TEK.
His teeth clenched audibly.
"Selene, enough of your games or—"
He threw a crumpled bundle of fabric onto the ground.
My... my clothes?
"No! What are you planning to do? Don’t—"
"Oh, I very much can. Unlike you, who rely on magic alone, I need only a whisper... of a serpent."
He glanced into the shadows.
"Echidna, darling. Show yourself."
From the darkness slithered a figure once hidden.
A snake, once unseen, emerged. And in a blink—it shifted form.
A young woman, tall and golden-haired, seductive in the most sickening way.
Echidna Vespera.
Her eyes danced, lips trembled with teasing mischief.
"Yes, darling~" she cooed, instantly leaning into his arms.
As if it happened in a heartbeat. Since when were they this close?
"Ah, one of your cheap little whores?" I shot, razor-sharp.
My words sliced through whatever delusion they called romance.
"Heh, shut it, little girl," Echidna sneered down at me like I was grime on her heel.
"You know nothing about grown-up love! Isn’t that right, da—arling~?"
He simply nodded. Smiling like a doll crafted for someone else’s pleasure.
"Arturo, what should we do with her later? I really want... to grope her again."
That sentence pierced down my spine.
My body stiffened. Goosebumps rose. My throat dried.
It felt like the air itself undressed me. Disgust. Nausea. I wanted to vomit.
Yet my eyes never left theirs. Not even a blink.
"You’re disgusted? Good," Arturo sneered.
"Because that revulsion will be your greatest lesson."
I knew one thing for certain.
Archons don’t use magic.But they wield something else—something far worse.
Aura.
Unlike magic, aura cannot be learned like formulas in a book or spells in an ancient scroll. Aura is power not born of the mind, but of the soul. It is not something practiced—it is something lived. And the most infuriating part? Aura only manifests in those who have crossed the threshold between life and death, between faith and betrayal.
Something Arthur Machiavelli—or whatever snake alias he went by now—understood all too well.
Because he was never a mage. Never needed to be.Yet the aura that surrounded him... was colder than death, stickier than poison.
"Don’t tell me you’re scared?" he whispered, voice sharp as a newly-sharpened blade cutting through the air.
"Scared? No." I rolled my eyes, straightened my back as if I weren’t a half-naked prisoner inside a cursed circle."Just disgusted."
"Don’t play games with curses, Selene. You know what this circle can do."
Oh, I did. Far too well.
The Circle of Inevitability didn’t merely suppress magic. It stripped away magical identity, peeled through every layer of protection I had ever built.
Within minutes, if the ritual continued, my soul would be scraped raw.
Not dead—something worse.
Empty. Colorless. Soundless.
"You don’t have to go through all that, if you would just—"
"Submit? Hand over the Mytheia? Let you access secrets even the Ains Ein Doa King himself doesn’t possess?"
I hissed—not like a snake, but like a wild cat ready to shred flesh from anyone who dared get too close.
"I only want to work together." he said. Then his hand traced the air, as though brushing my cheek—but the aura in his palm warped the air, tightening around me.
The pressure increased.
Not on my body. Not on my magic.
But on my despair.
Not even sure for how long.
