Chapter 65: The Flesh-Crafter’s Conspiracy

Chapter 65: Chapter 65: The Flesh-Crafter’s Conspiracy

The Inquisition remained at the academy.

Three days had passed since Inquisitor Thomas released Joel, but their black banners still hung from the eastern arches.

Their clerks continued moving from door to door, carrying truth-lamps and questioning everyone.

The academy had become unusually quiet.

Even the professors seemed nervous, forcing smiles during their lectures while carefully watching what they said.

As for Thomas, he was supposedly investigating other leads.

But Joel suspected the man still hadn’t discovered anything useful about him, and that failure was clearly bothering him.

Joel had no intention of sitting around and waiting for Thomas to uncover his secrets.

At midnight, his workshop was dark, with only moonlight and the faint blue glow from the aquarium built into the far wall providing light.

Joel sat with his back to the glowing tanks, slowly stirring a cup of tea that had gone cold long ago.

Then he spoke to the empty room.

"The prisoners brought back from the Deep aren’t talking," Joel said. "Their tongues have been sealed by a geas. Someone made sure they couldn’t reveal anything before the Inquisition reached the docks."

The wall behind him suddenly rippled.

Shhhk!

Nyx emerged from the plaster, her shadowy figure taking shape. Her violet eyes glowed faintly, and a wide grin revealed her unusually sharp teeth.

She settled onto the workbench, looking completely at home.

"And there’s Mercer," Joel continued. "The one they failed to capture. He supposedly fled the academy on the night of the ambush."

Joel frowned.

"But nobody trying to escape would run toward the corpse-houses. Find out where he really went."

"Already did," Nyx replied with a pleased grin.

"There’s a hidden drop-off point behind the embalming annex. Mercer stopped there before escaping. He picked up something wrapped in cloth. It was about the length of an arm and looked heavy."

"Fresh," a second voice suddenly said, soft and smooth like flowing water.

Slosh. Slosh.

Thalassa slowly rose from the aquarium, her dark hair resting against her scales as they reflected the faint blue light.

She placed a folded piece of paper on Joel’s desk. Strangely, the paper was completely dry despite coming from the water.

"I’ve gathered some interesting information," she said. "The laundry maids hear almost everything that happens in the academy."

She glanced at the paper.

"The Deep Dive route for this semester wasn’t the original route approved by the expedition office. Someone changed it."

Joel looked up.

"A member of the faculty moved the dive location two leagues east, directly into the drowned ruins, just one week before the ambush."

Joel slowly placed his cup on the desk.

Click.

"A faculty member," he repeated, his expression growing serious.

He looked at Thalassa.

"Find out who changed the route and why. I want to know everyone involved."

Then he turned toward Nyx.

"Go get Roan and Sybill. Tell them to come here tonight."

[Ding! ]

[Hidden quest advanced: The Ambush’s Architect. The hand behind the rogue students is academy faculty.]

---

Two days later, Joel’s workshop had been turned into a planning room.

Maps, notes, and strange instruments covered almost every available surface.

At the center of the table sat Roan’s latest invention, a brass rune-compass about the size of a dinner plate.

Its needle was made from a special lodestone, adjusted to detect the mana residue Joel had collected from the crossbow bolts used during the ambush.

Bzzt! Bzzt!

The compass hummed softly.

Every few seconds, its needle trembled before pointing in the same direction.

"It’s not pointing toward Victor’s estate," Roan said for the third time, clearly frustrated. "I’ve checked it twice."

He tapped the compass.

"Whoever supplied those idiots with weapons left a strong mana signature on the bolts. They must have prepared them in the same location for quite some time. And that location is..."

"Here," Sybill interrupted.

She pulled a red thread tight.

A large map of the academy was pinned to the wall.

Using her hexes, she had marked six important locations with silver needles. These included Mercer’s secret drop-off point, the corridor where the ambush survivors had collected their payment, and the dock where the corpse-carts were weighed.

Red threads connected all six locations.

And every single thread crossed at the exact same point.

The threads all pointed to the faculty annex.

Third floor. Room 3-11.

Professor Malakor’s office.

Everyone fell silent. Even Nyx stopped grinning.

"Malakor," Thalassa said slowly. "He teaches anatomy and expedition safety. He’s been leading the Deep Dives for nine years. He even cried during the memorial for the students who drowned."

"And he’s also responsible for changing their routes," Joel replied.

He calmly explained what they had discovered.

The money used to fund the ambush could be traced back to Victor Kole’s family. It was an obvious trail, one the Inquisition would eventually discover.

But Joel suspected it had been left there deliberately to draw attention away from the real mastermind.

The plan had started long before the money changed hands.

Malakor had changed the expedition route, sending Joel’s group directly into the drowned ruins.

The surviving attackers had their tongues sealed shortly after being captured, preventing them from revealing anything.

Mercer had collected a mysterious object before fleeing the academy.

And there was something even more disturbing.

For three consecutive semesters, every student who died during a Deep Dive, including those whose bodies were never recovered, had been following a route planned by Professor Malakor.

Joel looked at the threads, then at the compass, connecting the clues.

"He’s collecting the bodies," he said quietly. "The Deep gets blamed for their deaths, while he takes the corpses."

[Ding! ]

[Discovery logged: Professor Malakor, suspected handler of the rogue students.]

[Ding! ]

[Hidden quest advanced: The Ambush’s Architect. New objective: enter Malakor’s private rooms.]

---

They entered on the fourth night, while Malakor was attending a meeting with donors on the other side of the city.

Nyx slipped through the shadow beneath the door of the cadaver vault.

A moment later, the lock opened from inside.

Click.

Behind the vault, where there should have been a stone wall, they found a staircase leading underground.

The lower door was protected by a strange ward made of pale, living muscle. It would only open for a heartbeat it recognized.

Nyx used her own heartbeat to open it.

Joel followed her down the cold staircase, with Thalassa close behind him.

When he reached the bottom, he stopped.

The room below was filled with glass tanks.

Glug. Glug.

Pale green liquid flowed through forty columns, each taller than a man, each holding something altered.

Joel’s eyes moved down the row, and his expression did not change.

That made it worse.

Some bodies had gills sewn onto their necks.

Some had elbows that bent the wrong way.

Some had ribcages split open into bone blades, protecting second hearts that pumped black fluid.

Joel stopped at tank nine.

He knew the face inside.

A second-year student.

"Lost to the Deep" last autumn.

Buried with an empty coffin.

At the center of the room, an open cipher ledger lay on the workbench.

Beside it were letters marked with a black sun surrounded by teeth: the sign of the Eclipse Syndicate, the fanatics who had bombed the lower courts of the Spire two winters ago and swore to bring the tower down.

There were shipping records.

Crates marked UNDERTOW.

Departure in nine days.

And there was a diagram, neat as a classroom note, labeled:

Stage three: delivery of twelve units to the Spire reservoir.

They were weapons, created from the bodies of dead students.

"He isn’t just a professor with a strange hobby," Joel said. "He’s a Flesh-Crafter using his classroom to collect victims."

Suddenly, something moved in the darkest corner of the room.

Squelch.

A massive creature emerged from the shadows. Its body was made of several arms and torsos stitched together, standing twice Joel’s height.

A dirty sack covered its head, but a dozen eyes stared through the openings. Each belonged to a different person.

The creature took a deep breath, and air hissed through the seams of its body.

Hissssss.

"Master’s floor," it gurgled. "Master’s floor. Intruders bleed."

WHUMP!

Its massive fist slammed into the spot where Joel had been standing moments earlier, cracking the floor.

Joel dodged just in time.

The creature immediately attacked again, swinging one of its elbows.

KRRRAK!

A nearby glass tank shattered, spraying green liquid everywhere.

Joel moved through the falling liquid, calmly studying the creature’s body.

Then he spotted it.

A master rune was engraved on its chest, controlling eight souls that had been stitched together to create the monster.

A sharp tendon shot from the creature’s wrist like a harpoon.

Joel tilted his head, letting it fly past his cheek. The attack tore a button from his hood, pulling it away.

"Rude," Nyx commented from the ceiling beams, clearly amused.

"Leave it to me," Joel said calmly.

The shadow beneath the creature suddenly expanded.

Shhlick.

Black tendrils rose from between the floor tiles, wrapped around the soul-strings holding the creature together, and pulled with careful precision.

The monster stumbled, its twelve arms moving in different directions as it struggled to regain control.

Joel calmly approached and placed two fingers against the rune on its chest.

Then he activated Soul Sight.

Eight souls.

Eight people trapped inside one body, screaming in pain.

He had expected to find monsters. Instead, he found students.

Joel clenched his fingers.

KRAK!

The rune shattered.

The creature immediately fell apart, its stitched arms and torsos dropping to the floor around him.

Within seconds, nothing remained standing.

Joel stood unharmed among the scattered remains and calmly adjusted his sleeve.

Glug. Glug.

The liquid inside the tanks slowly settled.

[Ding! ]

[Skill: Soul Sight has advanced to Lv. 4. You can now read soul-stitching and graft-lineage.]

[Hidden objective completed: Uncover the Deep Dive harvests. Experience awarded.]

[Warning: Eclipse Syndicate activity detected inside the academy. New hidden quest unlocked: Undertow.]

---

They took the ledger, three letters, and a vial of black graft-fluid, then carefully returned everything else to its original position.

Nyx altered the living ward’s memory, making it forget their visit. Thalassa removed every trace of salt they had left in the stairwell.

By dawn, the underground laboratory looked exactly as Malakor had left it, except for the destroyed monster.

"We’ll give the Inquisition a hint," Joel said, watching the sunrise over the eastern arches, where the black banners were finally being taken down. "In nine days. Not a day earlier."

"That’s when the shipment leaves," Roan said.

"Exactly."

Joel examined the vial of black fluid.

"Thomas will eventually discover Victor’s money trail. Someone deliberately left it there to mislead the investigation."

He slipped the vial into his pocket.

"But Malakor, the Eclipse Syndicate, and the Undertow project? I’ll handle those myself."

Thalassa studied him with her cold, golden eyes.

"You could report everything to the Spire tonight."

"The Spire will only execute the people it catches," Joel replied. "I want to find the ones giving Malakor his orders. The people who supplied him with enough students to create twelve of those monsters."

[Ding! ]

[Hidden quest updated: Undertow. Decision logged: independent investigation. The Inquisition remains unaware of your activities.]

The next morning, Joel attended Anatomy class for the first time that semester.

Professor Malakor was a large, friendly man with chalk-covered sleeves and a kind, tired face.

He began the lecture by spending five minutes mourning the students who had died in the Deep.

He even mentioned the second-year student whose body Joel had seen floating in tank nine.

Several students became emotional, and Victor, sitting three rows ahead, wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

At the end of the lecture, Joel raised his hand.

"Professor, I have a question about graft rejection."

He smiled politely, looking like an ordinary seventeen-year-old student.

"If tissue is transplanted between two very different people, how long can it continue working before the body realizes the tissue is dead?"

Malakor’s chalk suddenly snapped.

"That’s an interesting question," the professor replied after a pause, studying Joel’s calm expression. "Perhaps we can discuss it after class."

"I look forward to it," Joel said.

And he meant every word.