The academy's medical staff rushed forward with stretchers, their healing incantations already glowing in their hands. But before they could reach the stage, a calm yet unyielding voice halted them.
"Stop."
Headmistress Alina Sunstone had descended from her private balcony. Each step she took was graceful and radiated authority. The entire field held its breath as she knelt beside Nihil's unconscious body, disregarding the dust and grime.
She extended her hand, not to heal, but to sense. Her fingers hovered over Nihil's forehead. Her usually serene face now wore a deep expression of confusion.
"Extraordinary," she whispered to Instructor Zander, now standing beside her. "I can't feel anything. No mana flow, no chi pulse, not even a trace of lifeforce detectable by holy magic. Just… emptiness. Like a hole in reality itself."
She pointed to the dried blood stain beneath Nihil's nose. "Look. This isn't magical exhaustion. It's pure mental fatigue. He did all that… with the power of his mind alone."
Alina stood, her gaze sweeping the crowd, pausing momentarily on Professor Theron, whose face was pale with rage and shame.
"Take him to the Medical Wing," she commanded in a resonant voice. "Place him in Isolation Recovery Ward Three. Double the privacy wards. No one is to visit or examine him without my express permission." She locked eyes with Theron. "No one."
The order was a political statement. The anomaly was now under her direct protection.
As the medics finally lifted Nihil with care, Celia burst through the crowd. "Headmistress!" she called, bowing deeply. "Let me help him! I… I'm his friend. My Life Magic might sense something others can't."
Alina regarded the commoner girl for a moment, then nodded. "You may accompany him, child. Report to me if there's any change."
While Nihil was carried away, the ripples of his actions spread among the students. In one corner, Darius val-Luminar watched the retreating stretcher, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles whitened.
"That wasn't magic," hissed Orion Vex beside him. "It must've been a trick!"
"Don't be foolish," Darius retorted, his eyes gleaming. "A trick can't nullify a Level Five energy explosion. That was something else. Something we don't understand." He turned to his followers. "Find out everything about him. The village he claims as his origin. His parents. Every record, every rumor. I want to know who he truly is."
On the other side of the field, Princess Seraphina and Princess Selene stood together, their conversation low and intense.
"It wasn't a shield," Seraphina said, as if dictating research notes. "Controlled particle vibrations to create kinetic deflection. And his final move… it wasn't absorption like the Paradox Mirror. It was existential negation at the point of impact. Theoretically, impossible."
"Forget how he did it, Seraphina," Selene replied, her sharp eyes not on Nihil but on the reactions of the nobles and professors around them. "Consider what it means. Someone who can nullify magic without using magic. He just made the foundations of the Imperium's power look obsolete."
Selene fell silent for a moment. "Our father must know of this. Not as a threat, but as… a possibility."
Hours later, Nihil awoke.
He was not in his cramped room. He was in a pristine white chamber, with soft sheets and air that felt neutral. The walls emitted a gentle dampening magic light, blocking the suffocating Blessed energy that usually lingered.
Celia slept slumped in a chair beside his bed, her head drooping.
Nihil checked his system. [Capacity: 12 / 25]. He felt like he'd run a week-long marathon. Every joint ached. But he was alive.
The door creaked open. Headmistress Alina Sunstone entered, carrying a tray with water and bread.
"Welcome back to the land of the conscious," she said, placing the tray on the table.
Nihil attempted to sit up. "How long?"
"Eight hours. You've caused quite a stir across the academy," Alina said. She perched on another chair, regarding him with the curiosity of a scientist eager to dissect a mysterious machine. "They're calling you the 'Echo of Nothingness.' The Zero Genius. You've made some very powerful enemies today."
"I merely followed the exam rules," Nihil replied flatly.
"You didn't follow the rules," Alina corrected. "You rewrote them, then used them to exploit the system. I've analyzed the residual energy on the field. No mana traces. None at all."
Silence fell. Alina didn't ask how he'd done it. She knew Nihil wouldn't answer.
"Professor Theron has filed a formal petition for your expulsion, accusing you of using forbidden dark magic," Alina continued. "The petition was denied."
She stood and walked to the window. "This world is built on a balance between Blessed and Mana. You possess neither. You are a third variable. An unknown variable. And that makes the powerful very, very uneasy."
She turned and offered Nihil a black data crystal. "As a gift for showing me something new, and as payment for the trouble you'll face, I grant you this. Access to the Level One Forbidden Archives in the Grand Library."
Nihil's eyes widened slightly.
"I'm curious," Alina said, a thin smile playing on her lips. "What can a mind capable of warping reality's rules uncover in the place where those rules were first written?"
She paused at the doorway. "But beware, Nihil. The brighter an anomaly like you shines, the darker and more numerous the shadows drawn to it."
After two days of recovery in the medical wing, Nihil was finally discharged. His new status was immediately apparent. As he walked down the hallway, students parted like waves. Whispers followed him wherever he went. Gone were the open jeers; in their place was a mix of fear, awe, and suspicion. He was no longer the Kitchen Boy. He was the Echo of Nothingness.
He ignored it all. He had one goal.
The entrance to the Forbidden Archives was at the back of the Grand Library, hidden behind an illusionary bookshelf. Master Scrivanus awaited him there. The elderly librarian regarded Nihil with a wholly new expression, then pressed his palm to the rune-sealed stone door.
"The Headmistress has granted you permission," he said. "But this place holds knowledge that can drive weak minds to madness. Do not get lost within it."
The door opened silently, revealing a spiral staircase descending into darkness.
The archives were unlike the library above. The air was cold, reeking of ozone from preservation magic. No books lined the shelves. Instead, memory crystals floated, parchments were suspended in stasis fields, and stone tablets were etched with dead languages.
Nihil began his search immediately. He queried keywords: Void, Shackles of Nihility, Nullity, Zarthus Nocturne.
The results were startling. Most information about his lineage and the cult was sealed at higher levels. But he found something else: a damaged personal journal, not written by a noble, but by a low-ranking Inquisitor named Vorin who lived three centuries ago.
The journal detailed his secret investigation into the Cult of Nullity at the time.
"…they do not worship emptiness," Vorin wrote in trembling script. "They worship 'Consumption.' They believe the Void is not the end goal, but a tool. A process to empty a vessel so it may be filled with something new."
Nihil's heart pounded as he read on.
"…their rituals are not sacrifices to appease deities. They are transfer rituals. They do not wish to serve the Avatar. They want to become the Avatar. Their leader, the previous generation's Ravenna, believed that by sacrificing the Vessel-Bearer at the peak of its power, the pure essence of the Void could be extracted and implanted into a newly prepared vessel. They intend to steal the power of the gods…"
The truth hit him like a hammer. Ravenna's plan was not to detonate him. Her plan was to steal his power, to become a new, controlled Void vessel. This was far more terrifying.
As he processed this revelation, he sensed a presence. He turned. A younger theory student stood there, trembling, clutching a book.
"S-sorry, Mr. Nihil," the student stammered. "I just… wanted to ask… how you reduced the formula for the Seventh Arcanum Paradox? I've studied it for months…"
Nihil regarded the child. Another side effect of his newfound fame: admirers. "It's merely a matter of perspective," he replied coldly, then turned away.
He exited the archives, his mind swirling. As he walked through the main corridor, he crossed paths with the Vex twins. Orion deliberately bumped into his shoulder.
"Move aside, anomaly," he hissed.
Nihil didn't stop. He merely glanced back, his crimson eyes piercing Orion. He did nothing, but Orion suddenly flinched and stepped back, his face pale. He had just felt the cold touch of absence—a wordless warning.
Nihil continued walking. He needed to return to his dorm. He needed to digest this new information.
But as he turned toward his residence, his path was blocked.
A man in a perfectly tailored Imperial Guard uniform stood there. Not a regular academy guard. The emblem on his chest was the Golden Eagle of the Imperial Personal Guard.
The man bowed stiffly. "Special Research Student Nihil," he intoned, his voice formal and emotionless. "By direct order, you are summoned to present yourself before Princess Selene Solaris. Immediately."
Nihil froze. The political gears he had long tried to avoid were finally turning, drawing him in. He had survived the mages' trials. Now, he would face the trial of a princess who viewed the world as a chessboard, and he was the most enigmatic piece upon it.