The Villain Professor's Second Chance

"The lord will see you."

Inside, the estate was grand, yet suffocating. The architecture was designed to impress, to overwhelm visitors with its wealth, but the atmosphere was not one of power. It was one of weariness. The carpets muffled their footsteps, the chandeliers cast dim light over walls lined with heavy bookshelves and thick drapes. The place was too quiet, the silence holding weight.

A steward led them through a winding hall to a large study. The room smelled of parchment, aged wood, and faintly of burnt wax. Heavy curtains were drawn, allowing only slivers of daylight to creep through, painting jagged shadows across the stone floor.

Lord Alvane sat in a high-backed chair, his fingers drumming against the armrest. He was a man in his late forties, once strong, now worn down by something unseen. His sharp features were lined with sleepless nights, his neatly combed dark hair threaded with silver. He did not look like a man at ease.

His gaze studied them with quiet calculation before he spoke.

"I trust the Guild sent you because they finally take this seriously," he said, his tone edged with something between resentment and exhaustion.

Kael didn't rise to the bait. "We need to know everything."

Alvane exhaled, rubbing his temple. "The creatures that attacked my estate…" He paused, as if weighing his words. "They bore markings. Similar to those in Briarhollow."@@novelbin@@

Kael's stomach tightened. Another connection. Another pattern.

"No bodies?" he asked.

Alvane shook his head. "They dissolved. Vanished like mist."

Kael exchanged a glance with Liora.

This was bigger than they had thought.

Liora leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "And the missing guards?" His tone was casual, but Kael noticed the way his fingers curled slightly at his side.

The noble's jaw tightened. "Two vanished during the attack. One has not been seen since."

Kael frowned. The other had returned.

Where was he now?

His gaze wandered, sweeping across the room. It was lined with shelves filled with leather-bound tomes, maps rolled into neat bundles, and documents stacked in meticulous order. Everything here spoke of control. Of careful, measured precision.

And yet, one thing stood out.

A single door, polished oak with an iron handle, locked.

The briefest flicker of hesitation passed over Alvane's face, barely noticeable, but there. It was in the way his gaze flicked toward it before snapping back, the way his shoulders tensed as if suppressing a reaction.

Liora caught it too.

"Do you have enemies, Lord Alvane?" Liora asked, his voice smooth, unhurried, yet carrying weight.

Alvane's lips curled into something almost resembling amusement. "Who doesn't?"

Not a real answer.

Kael wasn't sure if it was a deflection or an admission.

Before he could press further, a sudden commotion erupted outside.

Raised voices. Heavy boots against stone. A muffled shout.

Liora was the first to move, pushing off the wall with a fluid motion, already heading for the door. Kael followed without hesitation, Alvane rising sharply from his seat behind them.

They stepped into the hall just as a guard burst through the entrance, his breath heavy, sweat beading his brow.

"My lord—" He stopped when he saw the adventurers, hesitation flashing across his face.

"Speak," Alvane ordered.

The guard swallowed, then straightened.

"A body has been found."

The words hung in the air, thick with implication.

Kael's stomach turned.

He already knew.

It was one of the missing guards.

____

The alley smelled of decay and rain. The damp cobblestones gleamed under the faint torchlight carried by the city guard leading them, casting long, twisted shadows against the stone walls. Water dripped from the roofs above, creating small puddles that reflected the grotesque sight before them. The scent of rotting flesh clung thick in the air, mixing with the dampness in a way that made Kael's stomach churn.

The guard leading them stood a few feet away, arms crossed tightly over his chest, as if sheer willpower could protect him from whatever unnatural fate had befallen the corpse at their feet. His eyes darted between Kael, Liora, and the body, wary—like he wasn't sure if he should be more afraid of the dead or the living.

One of the missing guards. Or rather, what was left of him.

Kael took a slow step closer, his boots squelching against the wet ground. His breath came shallow as he took in the sight. The body wasn't just dead—it had been changed.

Twisted.

The limbs were elongated, stretched past what human bone should allow. His hands were curled, fingers longer than they should have been, skin pulled tight over unnaturally sharp knuckles. The veins beneath his skin were blackened, dark lines running up his arms and neck like ink spreading through water. His mouth was open in a frozen scream, lips cracked, eyes bulging as if he had died in agony.

But it was his chest that sent a cold shiver through Kael.

A familiar sigil had been carved into his skin, deep and deliberate. It was the same one they had seen in Briarhollow, etched into the earth like a brand. Here, it was burned into the dead man's flesh, as if the corruption itself had tried to mark him as its own.

Kael's stomach twisted. He forced himself to breathe through his nose, to push past the instinctive horror clawing at his ribs.

Liora crouched beside the body, his expression unreadable, though his fingers twitched near the hilt of his dagger. He wasn't usually the type to flinch at death, but this… this was something else. His sharp gaze trailed over the corpse, cataloging every unnatural distortion with a calculating precision.

"He's spreading it," Liora murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

Kael swallowed hard. The way Liora said it made the words feel heavier than they should have. He wasn't just stating a fact—he was confirming something he had feared.

Kael forced himself to look away from the body, shifting his focus to the guard who had led them here. "The other one?" His voice was tight, controlled.

The guard hesitated. His fingers tapped anxiously against the hilt of his sword, his discomfort palpable. "He… returned this morning."

Kael's heart rate picked up. "And?"

The guard's jaw tensed. "Something felt wrong about him."

A sharp gust of wind howled through the alley, rattling a loose shutter nearby. The flickering torchlight wavered for a moment, casting eerie shadows across the corpse's twisted form.

Kael and Liora exchanged glances.

There was no hesitation.

They needed to find him. Now.

_____

The locked wing of Alvane's estate was colder than the rest of the manor, the temperature dropping noticeably as Kael and Liora moved through the dim corridor. The thick scent of old parchment and candle wax lingered in the air, mixed with something else—something damp, metallic, and wrong. Shadows stretched unnaturally long under the flickering torchlight, bending along the stone walls as if recoiling from whatever secrets lay beyond.

The steward had signaled them earlier, subtle but deliberate, his gaze lingering for a second too long as he adjusted the noble's papers. It was enough.

Now, deep in the belly of Alvane's estate, beneath the guise of secrecy, the truth lay bare before them.

A chamber stretched before them, lined with bookshelves stuffed with worn tomes, their spines cracked with age. Loose parchments covered a heavy wooden table, ink-stained maps and intricate diagrams of magical sigils scattered in a frenzied mess. Some of the symbols looked familiar—the same jagged runes they had seen in Briarhollow, etched into the corpses, pulsing with unnatural energy.

At the center of the chamber stood a containment cell.

Kael's breath hitched the moment he saw it.

Inside, slumped against the iron bars, was the missing guard.

His chest rose and fell in shallow, labored breaths. His uniform was in tatters, soaked with sweat, his flesh quivering like something writhed beneath his skin. His veins—once hidden beneath layers of muscle—were now thick, blackened like rotting roots spreading through his body. His hands trembled, fingers curled into twitching claws as if they had forgotten what it meant to be human.

Kael felt his pulse quicken. This wasn't just an infection.

This was something else.

Liora let out a slow, deliberate exhale, taking in the sight with a practiced eye. His usual smirk was nowhere to be found. Instead, his jaw tensed, his fingers twitching toward the dagger at his belt, as if instinct told him whatever was in that cell was already lost.

"This isn't just corruption," he muttered. His voice was low, edged with something cold. "This is experimentation."

The words hung heavy in the air, sinking into the cold stone walls like a whispered truth no one wanted to admit.

Kael's grip tightened around the hilt of his sword, his mind racing. The runes, the creatures, the spreading pattern—none of it had been random. Someone was testing the limits of this magic. Refining it.

And that meant there was something bigger at play.

A slow clap broke the silence.

They turned sharply, blades half-drawn as the doorway filled with a tall, broad silhouette.

Lord Alvane. Discover more stories at My Virtual Library Empire

The noble's expression was unreadable, his face caught in the shifting glow of the torchlight. His fingers, adorned with rings of silver and gold, flexed at his sides before he stepped fully into the chamber. He didn't look surprised to see them.

"You don't understand what's coming," he said, his voice devoid of fear, but thick with something else. Something heavier.

Kael's stance shifted. "Then explain it to us."

Alvane's gaze flicked toward the trembling figure in the cell, then back to them. He didn't speak immediately. He didn't reach for a weapon. He only stood there, as if waiting.

For what?

Kael's gut twisted.

Then the guard in the cell gasped—a raw, rattling breath that sounded wrong. Too deep. Too sharp.

Kael's blood ran cold.

The man's body spasmed violently, his limbs jerking against the iron bars with a sickening crack. His mouth opened, a gurgling sound escaping his lips, his eyes rolling back into his skull.

Then he screamed.

It wasn't the scream of a man in pain.

It was something else entirely.

The torches flared wildly, their flames stretching unnaturally tall before flickering and guttering under an unseen force. The walls trembled, dust cascading from the cracks between the stones. The air grew thick—dense with a pressure that clawed at Kael's lungs, making it harder to breathe.

And then, everything went to hell.