RISE OF THE SWARM

The ladder did, indeed, shift. As Liam climbed the brass rungs toward the third level of the Antiquities wing, the entire structure gave a soft groan and slid several feet to the left with a sound of grinding gears, settling against a different section of shelves. The air up here was colder, thinner, and carried the scent of dust that had settled for centuries. The books here were different. Their spines were of strange leathers—some scaled, some oddly smooth and poreless—or carved wood, or etched metal. Many were bound with clasps of tarnished silver or bone, and a few hummed with a low, dormant energy.

Following the librarian's vague directions, he found a section marked 'Pre-Cataclysmic Thaumaturgical Anomalies.' His heart beat with a frantic hope. He pulled down several heavy volumes: On the Void and its Properties, A Treatise on Absence, The Unmaking: A Historical Survey. He carried them to a small, isolated carrel tucked under a slanted window that looked out over the academy's glowing twilight grounds.

He opened the first book, On the Void. The script was archaic, the language dense and philosophical. It spoke of the Void as a conceptual opposite to Creation, a cosmic nothingness that was feared and theorized about but never truly engaged with. It was not a source of power; it was the absence of source. Frustration began to prickle at him. He moved to the next, A Treatise on Absence. This one was more scientific, discussing magical 'dead zones' and 'null-fields' that could be created by certain rocks or complex rituals to dampen magic. It described the absence of magic as an environmental condition, not a personal power. It was something that happened to a place, not something that emanated from a person.

The third book, The Unmaking, was the most chilling. It detailed historical instances of powerful magic being unraveled—curses that dissolved enchantments, artifacts that consumed spells. But again, it framed this 'unmaking' as a reactive force, a counter-spell, a specialized application of magic used to negate other magic. It was not a primary, innate energy. It was a tool wielded by mages who already had power.

None of it was him. None of it described a human being as a source of nullity. They spoke of silence, but he was the silence. They described the dark, but he was the thing that made the dark. The books, for all their ancient knowledge, had no framework for what he was.

Hours bled away. The light from the window faded into full night, the glowing orbs above brightening in response. Liam's head throbbed. His eyes were dry and gritty. He had scoured indexes, footnotes, and appendices, chasing any mention of a 'null' as an origin point, not a void. He found nothing. The hope that had fueled his climb up the ladder curdled into a bitter, acidic despair. The elven girl was right. He was an impossibility. A statistical error. There was no precedent, no path to follow. He was trying to learn how to fly from a manual written for fish.

He slammed the last book shut, the thump echoing dully in the silent aisle. He rested his forehead on the cool, carved wood of the desk, squeezing his eyes shut. It was useless. He was useless. A project for a distracted Headmaster and a curious Empress. He was a living exhibit, a null in a menagerie of wonders. The urge to give up, to just walk out of the library, out of the academy, and keep walking until he found a field to tend, was overwhelming.

You seek answers in the words of those who are blind to the truth.

The voice pierced the silence of his mind, clear and sharp as a shard of ice. It was not heard with his ears; it was etched directly onto his consciousness. It was a voice he knew, one that had haunted his dreams since the incident at the village gate. The voice of the silver-haired woman from his vision of the dying world.

Liam's head snapped up. He looked around wildly, but the aisle was empty. The ancient shelves loomed, silent and judging.

"What do you want?" he whispered, the words a dry croak in the quiet.

The same thing you do. Understanding. You waste your time with these… scribblings. The voice held a note of profound disdain. They cannot teach you what you are, because what you are has never existed before. There is no history for you to read. No theory to apply. You are the first sentence of a new chapter, and you are looking for your meaning in the old book.

The words should have been comforting—a confirmation that he wasn't just a mistake. Instead, they were terrifying. Being unique meant being alone. Utterly alone.

"How am I supposed to master it, then?" he asked, the frustration boiling over into his mental projection. "How can I control something no one has ever seen? The Emperor said I have to learn control!"

Control is a consequence of strength, the voice replied, its tone cool and didactic. You cannot leash a dragon with a thread. You must first forge the chain. You must become stronger.

"How?" Liam demanded, his mental shout echoing in the confines of his own skull. He stood up, pacing the small space between the carrels. "How can I get stronger without using it? And I can't use it without control! It's a circle with no beginning!"

Your anger is the spark. But it is wild, undirected. It is a fire that burns the hand that lights it. You must learn to shape it. The voice paused, as if considering. Let me be your teacher.

Liam stopped pacing. This was what she had wanted all along. From the first vision. This was the purpose of the contact. "Why? Why would you help me?"

Our purposes are aligned for now. That is all you need to know. Do you wish to learn, or do you wish to continue your futile reading?

The choice was no choice at all. He had nowhere else to go. "What do I do?"

Sit. Still your mind. Your frustration is a cloud of noise. Push it aside. You are not looking for a spark. You are looking for the silence between the sparks.

Hesitantly, Liam sat back down. He closed his eyes, trying to quell the storm of his thoughts—the humiliation, the fear, the desperate hope. It was like trying to hold water in his fists.

Feel not for energy, but for its absence, the voice instructed, its cadence becoming rhythmic, hypnotic. Within you is not an empty core, but a core of a different substance. It is not passive. It is a vortex, a hunger. Do not fear it. Acknowledge it. Feel its edges.

Liam reached inward, past the frantic beating of his heart. He let go of the desire to find the light, the heat, the energy everyone else had. Instead, he focused on the… nothingness. The void that had swallowed the testing quartz. At first, it felt like just that: nothing. An emptiness. But as he focused, as he pushed his awareness into that void with the woman's guidance, he began to sense something else. A potential. A profound, gravitational pull. It wasn't cold or dead. It was waiting. Dormant.

Good. You perceive it. Now, you must wake it. Do not command it. Invite it. Imagine this nullity not as a static hole, but as a liquid, a river of anti-energy. You must will it to move. Circulate it. Not through the mana channels the others use—those are closed to you, built for a different kind of current. You must forge its own path. Through your core, through your limbs, through the very marrow of your bones. Cycle it.

The instruction was terrifyingly abstract. How did one circulate nothing? How did one direct absence? He tried, gritting his teeth, straining with a effort that was purely mental. Nothing happened.

You are trying to push it. You cannot push silence. You must… allow it to flow. You are not the source of a river; you are its bed. Guide its course.

He tried again, relaxing his mental grip. Instead of pushing the void, he imagined a channel, a pathway through his body. He envisioned the nullity as a dark, smooth oil, and he gently tilted himself, willing it to seep through the new conduit he was imagining. For a long moment, there was nothing. Then, a sensation, so faint he thought he imagined it: a cool, smooth flow deep within his chest, followed by a slight, almost imperceptible draining feeling in his fingertips. It was the opposite of the warm, buzzing flow of mana Leo had described. It was a chill, quiet siphon.

A jolt of exhilaration shot through him. He'd done it. He'd moved it.

Adequate for a first attempt, the voice commented, a sliver of what might have been approval in its tone. Now, you have felt its nature. It is consumption. It is the end of energy. To wield it, you must learn to direct that hunger. To focus it.

All magic is energy given form and purpose. Your… gift… unmakes that form and devours that purpose. To snuff out a flame is not to blow on it; it is to convince the air around it that fire was never meant to be. Feel the mana around you. Not as light or heat, but as a vibration, a song. Your nullity is the silence that ends the song.

Liam opened his eyes. On the desk next to him, a small Mage-light lamp, a crystal sphere on a silver stand, glowed with a soft, steady white light.

Focus on the lamp. Feel the hum of its energy. The simple, ordered vibration of light mana. Now, extend your will. Not to command, but to un-command. Do not try to break it. Introduce your silence to its song. Let your nullity flow down your arm and from your fingertips, not as a force, but as an absence of force. Offer the hunger.

Liam raised his hand, pointing a single finger at the lamp. He reached for that cool, smooth flow inside him, the river of void. He guided it down his arm, a sensation like cool water flowing through a new pipe. He focused on the lamp's gentle glow, not as light, but as the energy sustaining the light. He felt its hum, a tiny, bright note in the air.

Then, he let the silence flow.

It was not a blast or a wave. It was a subtle, precise leak. A tiny point of absolute nothingness traveled from his core, down his arm, and leapt the space to the lamp. There was no sound. No flash.

The Mage-light simply… went out.

Not like a snuffed candle. There was no smoke, no fading. One moment it was a source of light. The next, it was a inert, dead crystal. The sphere didn't even dim; it just ceased to be magical. The light was gone, and the space it had occupied felt colder, emptier.

Liam stared, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had done that. He had used his… his power. Not by accident in a burst of panic, but with deliberate, focused intent.

The most basic of exercises, the voice said, though the words seemed fainter, stretched. A child's trick. But it is a beginning. You have taken the first step onto a path no other has walked. Remember the feeling. The flow. The focus.

The presence in his mind began to recede, like a tide pulling away from the shore.

"Wait!" Liam called out mentally. "What next? How do I—?"

The lesson is over. I have… expended what I can for now. Practice the circulation. Practice the silencing. Do not be tempted to do more. To draw too deeply, too soon, would be to become a void that consumes itself. Until next time.

The connection severed. The presence vanished, leaving behind only the echo of her words and the profound, chilling silence of the extinguished lamp.

Liam sat in the dark carrel, his body thrumming with a mixture of terror and exultation. He looked at his hand, then at the dead lamp. He had done it. He had truly done it. He wasn't just a null.

He was something else entirely. And he had a teacher.