Since the last time he had spoken with the great magus, Nilrem hadn't heard as much as a word from him or even caught a single sight of him, he had locked himself away in his tower.
Still, the young mage continued to visit, he was quite worried about the great magus's health, as grand of a mage he might be, he had never seemed so dismayed before and without any sign from him, Nilrem feared the worst.
However, the tower being deeply linked to the magus, it would crumbled if he were to pass, so it was the only indicator that he was stilk alive.
Today too, he was on his way back to the main building after trying to speak with the great magus.
Aeraliun was a land of magic and research, so the version of a royal castle here was simply an enormous complex, on the surface, most of it was designated as an academy of magic, surrounded and linked to various other areas for experimentation.
However, the bulk of it was situated deep underground, far from the eye, where the most dangerous and sometime, more unsightly experiment took place, above ground, was nothing but child's play.
Although, the most extreme of scholars might see the underground experiment as nothing impressive, Aeraliun wasn't much for the darker expertise of magic after all.
Nilrem walked through wide the corridors of the academy, the whole place wasn't very flashy, mages had built all of it and they weren't known to be very keen on adding anything unnecessary, the few decorations had been added afterward since it made the whole place look gloomier than a school should be.
Not that it made the students more enthusiastic about the more boring lessons.
Some of such lessons were taught by Nilrem himself, he was a bit late but his students were used to his tardiness.
Even with the looming threat of the New Undead Empire, everyone did their best to act as if everything was fine, it had been so for a long while now and everything had indeed been fine, surprisingly enough.
Nilrem had ditched the usual mage attire for what looked more like simplified noble's clothing, shoes that made quite some noise when walking on the floorboards, dark blue pants and a vest of similar color with a little bit of decorations with lighter tone of blue on the right of his chest.
He revelled in the unusual silence for a few moments but the more he approached his classroom, which should be filled with young and rowdy students, the more the silence appeared unsettling.
He grasped his wand that was firmly latched to his hips, right next to a dagger.
He carefully opened the sliding door to the classroom, expecting to either find supernaturally silent students waiting for him or to find nothing.
His expectations were blown away however as he found a single student, lying face down on the ground.
Worried, he approached the student and put his hand on his shoulder, only to quickly remove it.
'What is this slimy substance? Saliva?' he wondered as the student twitched.
Suddenly standing up as if pulled by strings from above.
Nilrem felt like something was off and backed off, ready to restrain the student in an instant.
He recognised one of his students as he saw his face clearly but it was distorted, as if all of his facial muscles contracted in contradicting ways, his mouth was wide open, as if his lower jaw was barely holding on, his eyes were wide open and bloodshot.
He grasped his head as he grunted incomprehensible words before turning his attention to Nilrem, saliva drooping from his open maw before he finally closed it with a loud snap.
"I am... So hungry!" he yelled before trying to jump at the young mage, only to be immediately restrained by rope of vines, securing his arms against his body and forcing him with no choice but fall over.
Nilrem didn't panic and approached the student, he didn't notice any spells or charm placed on him, so his strange behavior must be due to something else, a drug or skill most likely, there didn't seem to be any mindpower messing with his mind either.
"Hey, do you understand what I am saying? Do you remember where you are?" he tried to ask him simple questions but it was as if he wasn't hearing anything, only biting the air at Nilrem.
Something else that was strange, the student didn't have an ounce of mana left in his body, someone with no mana at all should in the very least pass out or become incredibly sluggish but this wasn't what worried Nilrem the most.
The biggest issue was that he wasn't regaining it at all, even as Nilrem guided some mana to him, he didn't recover anything, it was as if he had never had any mana at all, despite having a large pool of it before.
He kept on investigating but only found remnants of some strange energy he had never met before, it was incredibly pure but didn't seem to be a pure element either.
"What is happening here?" he wondered aloud as he shook his head, he looked into the halls but saw no one, if something had happened, an alarm should have rung and waves of mana should indicate something as per the protocol but it was as if everyone had left.
Nilrem tried to expand his mana sense to find other people and managed to find someone else in a few classrooms away from his position, locking the maddened student in a closet in case the vine ropes failed, Nilrem quickly but silently made his way for the person he had sensed.
On his way there, he encountered many other people, laying or sitting all over the place, all seemingly in a trance and lacking all of their mana, making them impossible to sense through the method he had used, he was careful to not disturb them as they all seemed to be the same as the student.
He made his way from the classroom and quickly entered it, faced with one of his colleagues missing an arm and rapidly bleeding out.
The floor of the classroom was drenched in a pool of her own blood, it was a wonder how she was still alive.