Chapter 60: Bad Health

The cool wood of the desk was the only thing anchoring Atlas to reality.

As the excited chatter of his classmates echoed around him, the sound gradually turned into a muffled, watery sound.

The throbbing behind his eyes deepened into a rhythmic, violent pulse, syncing with the sluggish beat of his heart.

Exhaustion pulled his eyelids down like iron weights, and the classroom faded into pitch darkness.

When Atlas opened his eyes, the world was silent.

The bright morning sunlight had shifted into a harsh, blinding glare streaming through the high windows. The stepped rows of desks were entirely vacant.

No quills scratching against parchment, no hushed whispers, no heavy footfalls of Mr. Crosswell pacing the aisle.

The large slate blackboard at the front still bore the faint, ghost-like smears of white chalk — ATTACK, RETREAT, DEFEND — now blurred and distorted as if viewed through a sheet of thick glass.

He had slept straight through the rest of the period and into the afternoon break.

Atlas tried to lift his head, but a blinding, razor-sharp spike of pain shot from the base of his neck straight to his temples.

He let out a low, ragged groan, his throat feeling as dry as sand.

“Get up…” he muttered to himself, his voice sounding hollow in the empty hall. “Need to… get up.”

He pushed off the desk with trembling arms. His knuckles slipped twice against the smooth wood before he managed to drag himself to his feet.

The moment his boots hit the floorboards, the room tilted violently to the left. The tall stone pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling seemed to warp and split into swaying, overlapping shadows. Double vision stretched every shadow into twin silhouettes.

His body radiated a terrifying, unnatural heat.

Sweat soaked the collar of his uniform, making the fabric stick to his skin like heavy lead. His soul core, battered from Skull’s brutal injury in the Forge, felt cold and hollow — a gaping void in his chest that was actively draining the physical life out of his muscles.

Stumbling past the empty desks, Atlas reached the wide oak doors of the lecture hall. He leaned his shoulder heavily against the frame, using the wall as a crutch as he dragged his feet out into the long arcade.

The stone corridor was a blur of muted colors and passing shapes. Students in sharp academy uniforms hurried past him, their voices sounding like they were coming from the bottom of a deep well.

A few turned to glance at him — gazing at his flushed, sweat-sheened face, his unfocused eyes, and his unsteady, dragging gait — but none stopped.

In an academy driven by fierce competition, a weak student stumbling through the halls was a common sight, easily ignored.

Every step was a battle against gravity. The floor felt soft, bouncing like thin ice under his boots.

His vision swam — the archways doubled, overlapping and twisting until the long hallway looked like a suffocating tunnel.

‘Just reach the medical wing…’ Atlas thought, his fingers scraping along the rough stone wall to keep his balance. ‘Just keep moving.’

By the time he turned the final corner toward the western wing, his knees buckled. He slammed his shoulder against the white-painted frame of the infirmary doors, his weight pushing them open with a loud, wooden clatter.

The sharp, sterile scent of crushed silver-weed, rubbing alcohol, and concentrated healing salves hit his nostrils immediately.

“Help…” Atlas rasped, his voice barely rising above a whisper.

A junior medical assistant — a young woman in a crisp white robe carrying a tray of glass vials — looked up from her desk.

The moment her eyes landed on Atlas, her calm expression shattered.

“Mercy above,” she gasped, setting the tray down with a sharp clatter of glass.

She rushed over, catching Atlas under his arm just as his legs gave out completely. “Cadet! Hold on!”

“His temperature is skyrocketing!” another assistant called out, hurrying over from the medicine cabinet to grab Atlas’s other side.

Together, they supported his dead weight, dragging him past the front reception desk and through a set of heavy double doors into the inpatient ward.

The world was a spinning blur of white walls, rows of iron-framed beds, and the frantic hushed whispers of the medical staff.

“Get him onto Bed 4! Quickly!” a voice ordered. “Check his energy channels — he’s radiating raw heat!”

They lifted Atlas onto a narrow bed lined with cool, fresh sheets. The moment his head hit the firm pillow, the sheer physical strain of standing vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, heavy sinking sensation.

The head assistant pressed two fingers firmly against the side of Atlas’s neck, near his carotid artery. She drew her hand back with a sharp gasp, her face turning pale.

“His pulse is erratic, and his body temperature is well over forty degrees,” she said, her voice laced with urgent panic.

“It’s not an infection. His soul pathways are completely depleted — it’s severe spiritual depletion! Go call Chief Doctor Alex immediately! Tell him it’s a critical fever!”

The younger assistant sprinted out of the room, her boots clicking frantically against the polished tile floor.

Atlas lay flat on his back, staring up at the whitewashed ceiling.

The cool sheets beneath him were already absorbing the searing heat radiating from his skin, turning damp and warm within seconds.

His chest rose and fell in short, shallow gasps. Every breath felt like inhaling liquid fire.

The medical ward grew unnaturally quiet as the staff scattered to fetch supplies and notify the head physician.

The soft, rhythmic ticking of a brass clock on the far wall was the only sound left in the room.

‘Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.’

Then, the air shifted.

The sterile smell of silver-weed and rubbing alcohol evaporated, replaced instantly by the suffocating, familiar stench of wet dirt, and scorched ash.

The temperature in the small room soared.

Atlas blinked his burning, unfocused eyes. The white ceiling above him seemed to melt away, dissolving into a dark, violet-tinged twilight sky.

The iron bedframe beneath his body shifted, feeling like the hard, limestone floor of the ravine.

From the quiet, shadowed corner of the medical room, near a tall linen cabinet, two slitted, burning yellow eyes materialized out of the dark.

A massive, shadowy silhouette slithered forward.

It had no solid form — just a swirling, radiant mass of raw, golden-white fire shaped like the Ember-Scale Chimera.

Liquid heat dripped from its translucent jaws, sizzling against the white floor tiles without leaving a physical mark.

The monster lowered its massive, flaming head, its slitted crimson pupils staring straight down at Atlas.

It opened its jaw wide, the blinding heat of its throat threatening to swallow the room whole.

Atlas’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.

He tried to raise his arm to draw his sword, but his fingers were completely paralyzed. He couldn’t move.

He couldn’t summon a single thread of shadow energy. He was entirely helpless, pinned to the bed by his own failing body.

He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut for three agonizing seconds, and forced a ragged breath into his lungs.

‘It’s not real,’ he told himself frantically, his mind fighting through the heavy fog of the fever. The beast is dead.

‘You killed it in the Forge. It’s just a hallucination.’

When he opened his eyes again, the flaming monster was gone.

There was no Chimera. No liquid fire on the floor.

Just the quiet medical room, the tall wooden linen cabinet standing silently in the corner, and the white ceiling above.

But the burning heat in his chest hadn’t vanished.

The cold, hollow void where his soul core resided was expanding, pulling the remaining strength straight out of his limbs.

His vision began to darken from the edges, a thick, suffocating blackness creeping into his sight.

He could feel his own vitality draining away, leaking like water through a broken vase.

The Soul Forge had demanded a price for pushing beyond his limits, and his physical body was failing to pay it.

Atlas stared up at the blank white ceiling as his breathing grew fainter and fainter, the room growing colder despite the fever burning through his veins.

‘Is this it?’ he thought, the heavy, dark void rising to swallow his mind completely. ‘Did I survive the beast… just to die on a bed? Will I actually survive this?’