Occult Awakening: From Commoner to Archmage

The words slipped out before he realized, but the woman didn't notice him at all.

Blood spread across the bare floor, enough to make anyone faint, yet she remained standing. Luca's heart pounded. Dozens of possibilities rushed through his mind. How had she entered without a key? Where had she come from?

He kept his back to the door, ready to run if things went wrong. First, he needed to make sense of what he was looking at.

Maybe the landlord had grown tired of wasting space on a single tenant and had moved someone else in. But no, that was absurd.

There was no blood in the hallway leading up to his room. None where he stood either. All of it pooled beneath her in a dark, glistening circle, most of it spilling from her head and torso.

Something else caught his eye. It was a faint, scorched mark engraved in the floor. A perfect circle filled with many lines that still glowed faintly.

"That certainly wasn't there earlier," he muttered.

And then there was the woman herself.

She was fair, her long dark hair tangled but still cascading down her back. Blood made it impossible to see her face clearly, but even so, she had the features of a beauty, the kind that nobles paid painters to capture.

Her robes were purple, fine cloth woven far above his means. The hems were singed and burned, but they were still finer than anything Luca had ever worn in his life. He knew that much from a week of hauling errands for Mina the Tailor.

A stranger appeared in his room. A burn mark was carved into the floor, blood pooling beneath her. Fire-singed robes that still screamed wealth.

All of it pointed in one direction.

Luca's breath hitched. "A mage."

He made his decision instantly.

"I need to get the hell out of here before someone comes. I don't want to be burned at the stake."

The words still didn't reach her, but he didn't care.

The Church's Scriptures and the laws of the Kingdom of Astor were simple. Anyone who sheltered a mage was to be executed with them. Even drunks in alleys could recite that law.

And if there was one thing the Divine Solaran Empire lacked, it was mercy. The Church of Sol decided who was guilty, and the Empire carried out the punishment.

And Luca wasn't about to throw away his future over a stranger who appeared in his room.

But life had other plans.

A shriek tore through the air, rattling his skull.

SHRIEEEEEK~!

Luca clutched his ears, grimacing as the sound filled the room. He forced himself to look up at the window. Beyond it, blotting out the sun, was a massive silhouette.

What the—

BOOM!

The ceiling collapsed in an explosion of thatch and dust.

A knight in full regal golden-white armor landed in the wreckage.

His armour was more sophisticated than what you could find on display at any Church. It was nearly fully white, with golden lines crossing all over the body in beautiful patterns. A helmet crowned with a golden feather hid his entire face from view.

Haider, Solar Knight of the Inquisition, had leapt from the back of his Sun Eagle the moment he confirmed the fugitive mage's position.

'A teleportation spell circle,' Haider thought as his visor swept the room. His eyes locked onto her instantly.

The impact seemed to rouse her. Her staff lifted slightly. The gem at the staff's head flared with light, and dust swirled until it gathered beneath her feet in a tornado. She rose shakily into the air, balanced on the cloud of dust.

To the untrained eye, it looked impressive. To Haider, it was pitiful.

She was bluffing. His previous attacks should have done more than enough damage. She probably had no mana left.

His blade, a longsword called Morning Glow, rose high. The blade was made of sleek dark metal, while the hilt was a subtle gold. Multiple symbols and glyphs ran across the surface of the blade.

Golden light bled from the steel until the sword itself seemed made of sunlight.

He launched forward. His body blurred, a golden streak following his strike.

The sword fell.

Light erupted, swallowing the mage whole. A column of searing light struck down, consuming staff, body, and spell.

Thud!

Her head rolled free, blood spilling across the floor. The dust-cloud collapsed, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Most spells could not outlive their caster.

The staff clattered down beside her fallen body.

Luca collapsed where he stood, still in shock.

He could see it all: the mage's corpse, the armored knight sliding his sword back into its sheath, and above them the vast shadow of the Sun Eagle circling in slow, majestic arcs. Platinum feathers glinted in the sunlight, each one broader than Luca's arm.

Two holes marked the ceiling; one for the knight's entrance, and the aftermath of his attack.

'That's going to cost a fortune to fix,' Luca thought faintly. 'There goes all my savings.'

But even that wasn't the most pressing thought crowding his mind.

He had just watched real magic.

The dust cloud, the glowing staff, and the pillar of light from the knight's blade.

Every story he had ever heard suddenly stood before him as fact.

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

All he could do was stare as the knight finally turned his visor toward him.

Haider gave a small nod, his gaze flicking briefly to the decapitated body, then back to Luca.

Seconds later, he finally spoke in a calm deep voice. It was younger than Luca had expected.

"By the Sun Father's grace, the vile mage has been cleansed successfully."

Luca swallowed hard. His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat sharper than the last.

Haider studied him for a long moment. Then his words landed like a hammer.

"By the power vested in me as a member of the Order of the Solar Knights of the Inquisition, you are coming with me for interrogation."