The ancient chamber lit up under the soft glow of the magic circle. The Headmaster opened his eyes. Those eyelids seemed to carry the weight of the world, pushing against a slumber of years. Once the man's pupils locked onto Alec, he stepped back in aversion. There was no aggression behind those eyes, but Alec still knelt in respect. The pressure was so high that he couldn't stand up.

"Headmaster?" he asked to confirm. The man didn't move, letting Alec's words echo out.

"Alec Greenwood," he answered. "I am Odiel the Unknowable. You have made it."

Then, silence ensued. Alec and the man looked at each other for a couple of moments. The one to break that was Alec. He got up with hardship. He rubbed the ground with his shoe, looking down.

"It was this thing all along?" he asked. The corners of his mouth lowered. He then stopped and looked up at the man with a questioning gaze

"Depends on what you were asking. But yes, it was," Odiel answered. His enigmatic choice of words caused Alec to click his tongue. "It can be hard to understand what is and what isn't related to each other, Alec Greenwood. Please know that whatever you have experienced in the academy, it was for a reason."

"Really?" Alec asked, tightening his fists so hard, digging his nails into his own flesh so deep that it started bleeding. He felt the need to reach out to The Author's Pen for a moment. To attack Odiel. It felt like he was messing with him. However, he was wiser than that.

"A smart choice," the man said. He lifted his hand with a drawn-out motion and pointed it toward Alec.

Then, Alec forgot everything. Literally. Nothing existed in the world for a split second. He was a brain floating in space, dabbling in the illusions it created for its own entertainment. Everything else than himself? He forgot. And also The Author's Pen. It seemed unaffected. Floating somewhere close by.

Although this was for, maybe one-tenth of a second, Alec found himself on his knees once he was released. Gasping for air.

"That, and much worse. I could've done. But we are not enemies. No one in this academy is your enemy," Odiel the Unknowable added as his hand went back down.

"That's a way to treat your allies..." Alec muttered under his breath, wiping the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "And? Will you explain?"

The man's eyes closed again. Alec worried that he had gone back to his slumber. His worries were unfounded. The man straightened and got up. When he did so, Alec felt an unbelievable amount of mana explode in every direction. As soon as the man got up, the magic circle stopped working. It lost its luster. Alec saw countless floating runes, whispers, and screams filling the air outside the circle. Those dissipated too, but the residue mana gave a faint luster to their surroundings.

"All that... For what..?"

"More than five hundred years ago," the man started. Alec gulped and turned toward Odiel the Unknowable. The man had joined his hands together behind him, looking directly at Alec. "My ancestors united this land. This planet, if you will. A long-lasting war ended, and humankind prospered under the guidance of a man called Uriel of the Flame."

'Oh. So that's who it was. It was a real person after all.'

"He was domineeringly strong. That's what happens. Once someone gets ahead of the curve using the blessed system, it becomes incredibly hard to stop them. The only choice is to bow down," Odiel muttered. However, Alec couldn't spot reminiscence in his eyes. He was merely talking history.

'Maybe he isn't that old...'

He noticed a throne only when Odiel sat on it. How long had it been there?

"In that age of peace, they looked up. The magic of that time was much more developed. Better than what we have. However, the internal strife had caused astronomy to linger behind. They launched the first relatively high-resolution magiscope array into low-orbit."

'Where is this going?' Alec couldn't help but think. He was sort of getting uncomfortable, standing awkwardly. Only then did he feel a chair nudge against the back of his knee. He sat down and went back to listening.

"Once they looked up at the stars, however, they saw something they shouldn't have."

Alec gulped. His mind wandered toward the dead sky but quickly realized that it must have been unrelated. Without the anti-meme, there was no need for any type of magic to notice it. It was very obviously there.

"They saw a galaxy strife with conflict."

"Huh?" a reaction escaped Alec's mouth. He pondered over the words. That seemed to be way beyond the scale that would be related to them. "What do you mean?"

"Hm..." Odiel caressed his beardless chin. He seemed to be pondering something silently. "Tell me, Alec Greenwood. What do you think demons are?"

"Umm..." Alec was stuck. He didn't know how to answer that. The academy lacked answers about the demons. They were strictly blocked out by the anti-meme for the longest time. "They are... Monsters?"

"What makes a monster, a monster then?"

"A large, ugly, thing..?"

"Hm. You can't be perfect in every sense, it seems," the man said without any particular expression. "Well, they might have seemed like that inside the academy, disconnected from the hive. I assure you. They are not."

Alec frowned. 'The Hive' didn't sound like fun times.

"You seem to understand," Odiel continued. "Demons are some weird form of humans. That's what we know, at least. And they are also the biggest galactic threat currently. At least that's what they were five hundred years ago. I don't know how it is nowadays."

"Galactic threat..?" Alec muttered. He wiped the sweat accumulating in his palms onto his pants. This was supposed to be a magical academy with a slight twist. What the hell was he going to do about something of that scale?

"Indeed. The demons... They had this sort of... Anti-memetic nature to them. They were hard to perceive with humankind's rudimentary magiscopes. But their Hive Arks were pretty easy to see, considering they were bigger than most stars in the galaxy."

Hearing the scale, Alec started feeling like it didn't make much sense. Not that it was nonsensical, it was just beyond his comprehension at the moment. Humans weren’t good with absurdly big numbers and sizes.

"There was, however, another group. A group of sentient beings called The Concord. By the time we looked up, they were already fighting a bitter fight against the demons. We didn't receive any of their signals, but what we did receive was a memetic message that blasted our mages the moment we saw one of their planets," the man recounted. He didn't continue, however. He lifted his hand and pointed it toward Alec. Instead, Alec directly received what was presumably, that original message.

[To the sentient species that is receiving this message. If you are still of planetary grade, this galaxy might be beyond saving by the time you are out of your star's gravity well. The demonkind’s memetic capabilities are peerless. Once you have noticed them, they have noticed you too. The Concord kindly recommends you blow up your planet using tectonic fracturing, lest the demon threat comes to consume you too. Sending our regards...]

A confused chuckle escaped Alec's mouth, however, Odiel didn't seem quite entertained by the message. The rest of the message was a quick explanation about tectonic fracturing.

"I assume your... Ancestors refused to comply," Alec said as the message faded away.

"Yes. They were sure they could weather the storm somehow," Odiel said.

"How?"

"As soon as we got those messages, we dove deep into the research of anti-memetic and memetic magic branches," he said. "They weren't concepts humankind knew at the time."

"And with those..?" Alec urged him to continue. He grabbed the armrests of his chair and leaned against the back of it.

"Humankind made a big mistake. If they had focused on the tectonic fracking, this planet would have turned into an asteroid belt long ago. All of our bodies stardust... Instead?" Odiel muttered, his voice getting lower and lower as he went on. He quickly pulled himself together before continuing. "They tried crafting 'The Veil'. An Immense mega-structure. An anti-memetic shroud that would stop us from looking at the sky ever again. We would forget the demons completely, and they would hopefully never find us."

Alec frowned. A grim frown at that. He knew how that ended for humankind.

"The demons were fast. They came in less than ten years, bearing mere vanguard ships for them. For us? They were doom. Human cities fell one by one. They didn't allocate many resources to our back-water planet. That was the reason we could hold on for two hundred fifty years straight," creases lined Odiel's forehead. He seemed distressed.

"However, it would be over soon. Not much was left. Humans of this planet would die. Transform. So Uriel of the Flame bought us some time."

"By doing what?" Alec asked while reminiscing about that statue.

"I don't understand exactly. I wasn't there. It was a couple of months before I was born, in fact," he said. "He... He detonated himself. That's what the records say. But that kind of detonation? Hmph. If he was that strong, he should have known better."

Suddenly, Odiel raised his hand. Mana particles quickly formed what seemed to be a globe. There were four continents strictly separated by a single ocean. They were more like incredibly big islands, completely disconnected from each other.

"Those landmasses? They are what's left over."

"Leftover? From..? Oh."

"Uriel of the Flame detonated himself in a bitter attempt to push back the demons, cavitating the entire middle section of our supercontinental plate. The people who managed to live were only those of high level or those that lived in protected cities."

As the man kept recounting, a huge fireball engulfed the globe and kicked up horrifying amounts of mass into its atmosphere.

"That's how he bought us time."

Still, Alec couldn't make sense of these stories. They seemed strangely distant. Why was The Headmaster even telling him these?

"That's why Uriel of the Flame is such an important symbol for the people of this world, in case you were curious."

"That makes sense..." Alec muttered under his breath. He grabbed his chin, wanting to think further into the matter. However, he suddenly froze.

'People of this world? In case I was curious?' His eyes rose to meet those of Odiel. The man still didn't betray any emotions. 'He knows? How much?'

"It must have been extremely hard for an otherworlder to adapt, I presume. I wonder what kind of place you have come from," the man mumbled, almost apologetic. Alec took a deep breath, not knowing what to say.

"Uhh..."