Chapter 196: Inferno

Words : 1719 Updated : Sep 23rd, 2025

Lucas took control immediately, barking orders. "Kelvin, help hold the perimeter! Keep the teachers from trying anything reckless. If we fail, someone else needs to take over!" Kelvin hesitated. "You better not fail." Lucas turned back to Noah. "Two more students inside." Noah nodded once. "We split." They ran. But while Lucas charged directly into the inferno, Noah didn't. The moment he got close enough, he void-blinked. One second he was sprinting toward the flames, the next he was gone, reappearing just inside the collapsing building. The heat was oppressive, the walls creaking under the strain of the fire. But Noah wasn't here to fight it. Outside, students and teachers alike gasped. Now they understood why Headmaster Owen and Commander Albright weren't here. The academy's strongest were spread thin, their forces stretched to the breaking point. The base soldiers wouldn't arrive in time. Even if they did, they weren't trained to handle this kind of disaster. Because this wasn't fire. It was something pretending to be. And Noah had to figure out why. The moment Noah void-blinked into the burning building, he knew he'd made a tactical error. The interior was a hellscape of smoke, flame, and collapsing debris. The heat struck him like a physical blow, forcing him to throw an arm across his face. His eyes watered instantly, vision blurring as smoke filled the corridor. 'Shit,' he thought, squinting through the haze. 'I can't blink to places I can't see.' He'd appeared in what must have been a common area, now transformed into an inferno. The ceiling groaned ominously overhead. Furniture burned, releasing toxic fumes that made his lungs burn with each breath. "Hello?" Noah called out, his voice barely audible over the roar of the flames. "Where are you?" No response came. The fire seemed to intensify around him, curling toward him with that same unnatural movement he'd noticed outside. Noah dropped to his knees, remembering basic fire safety. The air was clearer closer to the floor, though not by much. He crawled forward, eyes scanning for the stairwell. 'Fifth floor,' he reminded himself. 'Need to get to the fifth floor.' The main staircase appeared through the smoke, but it was completely engulfed in flames. No way up that route. Noah turned, searching for an alternative. A crash from above made him roll instinctively to the side as a burning beam crashed down where he'd been seconds before. The building was coming apart fast. Noah spotted an emergency exit sign flickering through the smoke. He moved toward it, finding a secondary stairwell. This one wasn't burning yet, though smoke poured down it like a waterfall. He started climbing, taking the steps two at a time. Each floor was worse than the last, the heat becoming nearly unbearable by the third level. On the fourth floor, he had to stop, doubling over in a coughing fit. His lungs screamed for clean air. Using his shirt as a makeshift filter, Noah forced himself to continue upward. Reaching the fifth floor, he pushed through the door into a smoke-filled hallway. Visibility was near zero. 'Which room?' he thought desperately. He hadn't seen which window the student had been at from outside. "Hello?" he shouted again, moving down the corridor and checking doors. "Is anyone here?" A faint whimpering sound came from his right. Noah turned toward it, finding a door that was hot to the touch but not yet burning. He tried the handle—locked. "Stand back!" he yelled, though he doubted anyone inside could hear him. He kicked near the lock. The door splintered inward, revealing a smoke-filled dorm room. Huddled by the window was a young student, a girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen. She was unconscious, slumped against the wall. Noah rushed to her side, checking for a pulse. Still alive, but barely breathing. He scooped her up, cradling her against his chest, and turned back toward the door. The hallway was now fully engulfed, cutting off their escape route. Noah moved to the window, looking down at the five-story drop. Too far to jump, even with chi enhancement. 'Can't void-blink us both out in plain sight,' he realized. His ability would raise too many questions, draw too much attention. But staying meant death. That's when he saw it—a dark figure moving through the flames in the hallway. Despite the chaos and danger, Noah froze. The silhouette was unmistakably human, walking calmly through fire that should have incinerated anything living. The flames parted around the figure like water around a stone. Their eyes met for a split second—Noah couldn't make out a face, just a dark outline against the red flames—and then the figure was gone, disappearing deeper into the inferno. 'What the hell?' A chunk of ceiling crashed down in the hallway, snapping Noah back to the present danger. The unconscious student in his arms gave a weak cough. There was no time to chase mysterious figures. Noah looked around frantically for a solution. The window opened onto a small ledge—too narrow to stand on, but perhaps... He spotted a drainage pipe running down the side of the building, just within reach of the window. It wouldn't hold both their weights, but it might create an opportunity. Setting the girl down momentarily, Noah tore the bedsheets into strips, quickly braiding them into a makeshift rope. He secured one end to the heating radiator beneath the window, testing it to ensure it would hold. With the unconscious student secured against him with the improvised harness, Noah carefully climbed out onto the ledge. The drainage pipe groaned under his weight as he grasped it, using it to stabilize himself as he began lowering them down the side of the building using the sheet-rope. They were three floors down when the pipe gave way with a shriek of tearing metal. Noah and the student plummeted, but by then the drop was survivable. Noah twisted in midair, taking the brunt of the impact on his back and shoulders. Pain lanced through him as they hit the ground, but he'd managed to protect the girl from the worst of it. People rushed forward, taking the unconscious student from his arms. A medical team had arrived and immediately began treating her for smoke inhalation. Before anyone could stop him, Noah sprinted around the corner of the building, out of sight. The moment he was hidden from view, he void-blinked back to the 2nd floor, made his way round this time by just void blinking since he had a safe idea of where he was heading. He reappeared in the smoke-filled hallway. The fire was still raging, but Noah barely noticed it now. His focus was entirely on finding that figure he'd seen walking through the flames. He moved cautiously down the corridor, staying low to avoid the worst of the smoke. "Who are you?" he called out, doubt suddenly creeping in. Had he imagined it? A trick of the smoke and flames? Noah pushed deeper into the building, checking rooms, searching for any sign of the mysterious figure. The fire still behaved strangely, curling toward him with almost conscious intent, but he noticed something else now—it seemed weaker than before, less intense. As he rounded a corner into what had been the worst part of the blaze, Noah stopped short in disbelief. The fire was gone. Not dying, not smoldering—completely gone, as if it had never existed. The walls were charred, furniture reduced to ash, but not a single flame remained. The air was still thick with smoke, but the unnatural fire had simply vanished. "Impossible," Noah muttered, turning in a slow circle. The entire section that had been an inferno minutes ago was now cold, the destruction evident but the threat neutralized. And there was no sign of the dark figure. A groaning sound above reminded Noah that while the fire might be mysteriously gone in this section, the structural damage remained. The building could still collapse at any moment. He made his way back toward the stairwell, mind racing. What had he just witnessed? Who was that figure? And what kind of ability could extinguish such unnatural flames instantaneously? The questions would have to wait. Noah's lungs burned, his eyes stung, and his back throbbed from the fall. He needed to get out. Finding the stairwell partially collapsed, Noah carefully picked his way down, emerged onto the ground floor, and slipped out a side exit. He circled around to join the main crowd, making sure to stumble and cough dramatically as he appeared from around the building. "Noah!" Lucas spotted him, rushing over. His roommate looked worse for wear, soot covering his face, but he was intact. "Did you find anyone?" Noah nodded, coughing—this time genuinely. "One girl... fifth floor... medical team has her." He discreetly disposed of a piece of charred cloth from his sleeve, evidence of how close the flames had come to him. "What about you?" "Got two out from the third floor," Lucas replied. "But the fire... it's dying out on its own." Noah feigned surprise, though after what he'd seen, nothing would shock him now. "Just like that?" Lucas nodded, looking troubled. "Just like that. Like someone flipped a switch." Kelvin joined them, looking equally confused. "The teachers are saying the same thing is happening at the arcade. The fire just... stopped." All three exchanged glances, the unspoken question hanging between them: what the hell was going on? Noah coughed again, playing up his distress while his mind worked furiously. The dark figure walking through flames. The fire's unnatural behavior. The sudden, inexplicable extinguishing. None of it made sense—unless the person he'd seen wasn't fighting the fire. Unless they were controlling it. "Noah, you need medical attention," Lucas said, noticing his friend's distant expression. Noah shook his head. "I'm fine. Just smoke inhalation." But he wasn't fine. Not because of his physical condition, but because of the chilling realization forming in his mind: someone had deliberately set these fires, fires that conventional methods couldn't extinguish. And they had walked away when they were done, leaving destruction in their wake.

Chapter 196: Inferno

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