The Villain Professor's Second Chance

The cold air of the Council's chamber clung to my skin like frost, the enchantments woven into the very stone humming at the edge of my senses. These halls had been built to withstand the weight of time itself, ancient runes etched into marble surfaces that pulsed with barely restrained magic. I walked with measured steps, each footfall echoing against the vast, vaulted ceiling, as if the building itself was watching, listening.

A place of power. A place of control. A place designed to make men feel small.

I had never been one of those men.

Between my fingers, I toyed with the black-sealed letter, rolling its wax imprint between my thumb and forefinger. An idle movement, but my mind was anything but. The Council had played their hand, throwing a mission at my feet under the guise of necessity. A necromancer faction stirring in the ruins of Valen's Reach, they claimed. Dangerous practitioners of forbidden arts rising again. A growing threat that needed to be stamped out before it could fester.

A laughable excuse.

The Council had never cared about the moral consequences of magic. If anything, they were more than willing to accommodate those who twisted the arcane, so long as it benefited their larger schemes. They had sanctioned horrors beyond what the public would ever know, funded research that stripped men of their souls in exchange for knowledge. No, this wasn't about the necromancers. This was about me. Containment, distraction, a leash wrapped in the form of an official task.

Lisanor's eyes had gleamed too sharply with satisfaction, her lips curving just enough to betray the game she thought she was winning. The others had been more subtle, but the intent was the same.

Keep me occupied. Keep me under watch.

Test me.

Let them.

I flicked my wrist, slipping the letter into the folds of my coat, my stride never breaking as I ascended a set of spiraling stairs that led deeper into the tower. The halls grew narrower, quieter, the stone absorbing sound in a way that made the silence feel almost sentient. The Council members thought themselves patient schemers, weaving intricate traps behind closed doors. But patience was only valuable when it yielded results, and their results were unimpressive.

I had seen the fear in their eyes, no matter how they tried to mask it.

Lisanor. The one who played the part of the righteous enforcer, her sense of duty wrapped so tightly around her throat it choked out reason. She wanted me undone more than anyone else at that table. If given the opportunity, she would not hesitate to strike. But righteousness had a habit of blinding those who wielded it like a weapon, making them predictable.

Balthus. Older, more deliberate in his words, never one to act without cause. He did not hate me, not in the way Lisanor did, but he knew I was dangerous. He saw the weight I carried, and it unsettled him. He was a man who understood power, who recognized what kind of destruction I was capable of. That made him wary. Wary men were careful. Careful men were harder to manipulate.

Elysior. The outlier. He watched the way a man watches a sandstorm from a distance—too detached to interfere, but too curious to look away. His chronomancy allowed him glimpses of possible futures. He had not spoken much in that chamber, but I had felt his gaze linger. He saw something. Or maybe he saw nothing, and that was what troubled him.

And that was the issue, wasn't it? Elysior's power gave him insight others did not possess. The things he glimpsed shaped his choices, altered his approach. He was not reactionary like Lisanor, nor methodical like Balthus. He was quiet, observing, waiting for the pieces to align.

What had he seen?

Or more importantly—what had he not seen?

The thought lingered as I turned a corner, my coat brushing against the cold stone walls. The enchantments embedded in the architecture pulsed again, an almost imperceptible ripple. A warning. The Council's magic, watching, tracking. They would be expecting me to follow the course they had laid out, to take the mission without question, to allow them to dictate the pace of the game.

They had always underestimated me.

A group of lesser-ranked mages passed me in the corridor, their voices hushed as they moved aside, careful to avoid impeding my path. Their deference was not born from respect—it was from fear. I saw it in the way their eyes flickered downward, the stiffness in their shoulders. They had heard the whispers. The rumors. They did not need confirmation.

I reached the upper levels, the stonework giving way to darkened wood paneling and corridors lined with doors belonging to the Tower's more prominent members. The Council had their chambers deeper within the fortress, but here was where most of the political maneuvering took place. Behind each door, secrets festered, alliances were struck, and betrayals were written in ink before they were ever carved in blood.

A single sconce flickered as I passed, casting elongated shadows across the wall. I could feel the weight of the letter against my chest, its presence like a second heartbeat.

They wanted me to dance to their tune.

They would soon regret that mistake.

I reached the final staircase leading to the private chamber the Council had assigned me. The moment my boot touched the first step, I felt it. A presence. Faint, lingering. Not hostile, but deliberate. Someone had been here. Recently.

I slowed, my fingers flexing at my side. The air smelled the same—dust, old parchment, the faint trace of arcane oils used for preservation. But there was something else. A subtle shift, an imbalance in the way the energy moved.

I ascended the steps, my pace unhurried, my breathing controlled. The door to my chamber stood slightly ajar, the latch resting against the frame but not fully engaged.

A mistake.

Or an invitation.

I pushed it open with a single, fluid movement, stepping inside without hesitation.

Nothing appeared out of place. The bookshelves were untouched, the documents on my desk precisely where I had left them. The enchanted window still flickered with the shifting hues of the skyline outside. But I knew better.

Subtle things. A chair not quite aligned with the desk. A candle wick recently burned but not relit. The scent of a spell—one meant to conceal, to observe.

I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, my fingers pressing lightly against the wood. Someone had wanted to know what I would do. How I would react.

Amateurs.

They would learn soon enough.

I exhaled, allowing the tension in my shoulders to ease, if only slightly. The Council thought themselves my keepers, but they had forgotten one simple truth.

I did not belong to them.

I moved to the desk, my fingers brushing against the sealed letter once more, its wax imprint a silent challenge.

Let them watch. Let them wait.

I would show them just how well I played their game.

But all of them paled in comparison to what truly held my attention.

The name in the dossier.

I had forced myself to remain impassive when I first saw it, to keep my grip relaxed and my expression unreadable. But beneath that carefully maintained exterior, something had gone still. A name that should not exist. A person long since buried, erased from the world by my own hand.

A name that had haunted my past like a specter, one I had ensured would never resurface. And yet, there it was—inked onto the crisp parchment, staring back at me with a quiet finality.

I had killed them.

I remembered the moment too vividly, the cold steel, the muffled breath of finality, the stillness that followed. I had made sure there was no chance for survival, no lingering trace of them to crawl back into the world. I had not been careless. I had never been careless. Experience more content on My Virtual Library Empire

Had they made a mistake? Or was this intentional? A deliberate test to see how I would react? The Council was ruthless, but not careless. If they had included this name, it meant they believed there was truth to it. And that possibility opened doors I had long since closed.

A cold tendril of unease wrapped around my spine, but I forced it away. I was not a man who let emotions dictate my actions. If this name was on the dossier, then I would find out why.

I stepped into my quarters, the heavy wooden door shutting behind me with a quiet finality. The air inside was thick with the scent of old parchment, candle wax, and the faint trace of metal from the hidden blades I kept within reach. The room was a reflection of my mind—precise, structured, and arranged for efficiency. Every book, every document, every artifact had its place. And yet, no matter how meticulously I ordered the world around me, something beyond my grasp had begun to shift.

A flick of my fingers sent a small ember of magic to the nearest candle, its golden glow casting elongated shadows across the bookshelves lining the walls. The light flickered against the tomes filled with knowledge both ancient and new, pages brimming with secrets that many had died to keep hidden. Their spines bore the weight of history, the whispers of forgotten civilizations, the echoes of power that had been sealed away.

Power that I understood far too well.

I loosened the high collar of my coat and moved toward my desk, its surface a battlefield of scattered documents, unfinished letters, and crumpled notes. Plans that had been carefully laid out, calculations mapped to the finest detail—now disrupted by the appearance of a single name.

The window beside me stood as the only intrusion to the otherwise enclosed space, its enchanted glass revealing the sprawling city below. Velithor's streets pulsed with life even at this hour, torches flickering in the distance, carriages rattling over cobblestone roads. From here, the world seemed small, almost manageable. But that was an illusion. There were always forces lurking beyond sight, waiting for an opening.

And I did not like surprises.