Chapter 1682: Bruce Wayne and the Secret Chamber (Part Eight)

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After finishing Loki’s class, Harley and Helen originally planned to return to their dorm room for a quick rest, mainly because Harley needed a break. They could take a twenty-minute nap before heading to their next class, giving them ample time at noon to research materials.

Harley yawned as she made her way back to her dorm. Her tired gaze blurred into the dim hallway when suddenly, at the far end, a figure burst out—a girl with disheveled hair who appeared slightly older than Harley. She was gripping a magic wand, her hands emitting a glow of magical energy.

“Harley, watch out!” Helen shouted.

Harley instinctively dodged to the side, and a beam of magic hit the wall behind her.

In an instant, Harley, with her platinum blonde hair, bared her teeth like a wild beast. She revealed sharp fangs, rolled to the ground to evade a second magical attack, and with lightning speed, closed the distance between herself and the attacker.

The next moment, Harley grabbed the girl's wrist, and in her exhaustion-fueled rage, she thrust her pointed magic wand directly into the attacker's eye.

“Ahhhhhhh!!!”

A blood-curdling scream echoed through the hallway. Harley held onto the wand with a death grip, even intending to drive it further into the girl’s brain. Luckily, Helen rushed in and pulled her back just in time. By then, Barry had already reached the top of the staircase.

“Harley! Are you alright?!”

Harley seemed to come back to her senses, slowly releasing her grip. Without even sparing a glance at the girl clutching her injured eye and screaming, she let out a tired sigh and shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

Only then did she turn to look at the attacker, letting out a hiss of disgust from her throat as she muttered, “Pathetic.”

Both Barry and Helen were stunned; they had never seen this side of Harley before. Meanwhile, Jennifer, who had been standing on the first step of the staircase, hesitated, then turned and fled.

Barry glanced back but couldn’t spot Jennifer’s figure. He said, “Quick, help her up. The Professor should be here any moment.”

Sure enough, Loki soon arrived, accompanied by a group of students, hurriedly making his way over. Upon seeing the magic wand still lodged in the girl’s eye socket as she writhed on the floor, he paused and muttered, “Again? Someone’s jammed a wand into their own eye? I heard rumors that another student went mad and tried to attack someone. Where’s the victim?”

Helen swiftly darted forward and tugged on Loki’s sleeve. Leaning in, she whispered something into his ear, causing his brows to furrow deeper with each word.

Loki circled past the students and knelt down to examine the injured girl. Meanwhile, Harley leaned against the window, hugging her arms with no trace of victimhood on her face. Her gaze locked onto the eye of the attacker, who was still thrashing on the ground.

The girl’s eye had been undeniably pierced—it was beyond saving. Perhaps magic could eventually create a new one, but the original was definitely a lost cause. What puzzled Harley, however, was the madness gleaming in the girl’s remaining eye.

She’s definitely insane, Harley concluded. But this insanity didn’t belong to her; she was merely a pitiful puppet manipulated by someone. Someone had driven her to madness, imposing it upon her. It wasn’t the same as Harley’s madness, which was deeply buried, only occasionally revealing a sharp edge.

That edge had just shown itself. Harley lowered her gaze thoughtfully. Every person from Gotham seemed like a monster in human skin; the countless cold rains over countless nights had turned whatever was beneath that skin into something chaotic and unrecognizable, certainly nothing human—more like a collective embodiment of madness.

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The college physician and several archmages soon surrounded Harley, asking about her condition. Harley, with her clever and quick mind, immediately lowered her head and adopted a vulnerable demeanor. She said, “I’m sorry... My parents died when I was young. I grew up among relatives who fought over the inheritance. I’ve always been overly defensive, and sometimes, when provoked, I attack people. I really didn’t mean to.”

Master Song, who led the group, immediately showed a sympathetic expression. She gently patted Harley’s head, pulling her into an embrace. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, child. In this college, we won’t allow anyone to harm others recklessly. We’ll get to the bottom of this soon, and everything will be alright.”

But not everything was alright.

After their final required class of the day, a boy who looked no older than a fourth-grader burst into the Blue Spirit’s classroom, shouting in terror, “The third floor—the third-floor hallway! Someone wrote something on the wall!”

From the somewhat surreal perspective of Little Bruce, everyone in the room immediately rushed out, led by a creature parasitizing a human host. They all hurried toward the scene of the incident.

He was nothing but a parasite. Little Bruce could see it clearly—the disgusting, filthy entities were infesting what was likely an Agent’s body. How could such creatures be allowed to roam the school, much less brazenly serve as professors?

For the first time, Little Bruce felt a wave of disgust and a deep sense of threat. He had never realized before how much malice he harbored for non-human entities.

With Barry dragging him along, Little Bruce was eventually pulled into the crowd. Reaching the third-floor corridor, they found cryptic and chaotic writing scrawled across the walls.

The cryptic message scrawled on the wall wasn't written in any known language, yet somehow, everyone present—regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or education level—could clearly understand it:

"The Chamber’s door has been opened. Those who oppose the Inheritors, beware!"

Little Bruce couldn't understand the conversations around him, spoken in languages foreign to him, which only fueled his growing frustration. Feeling overwhelmed, he wasted no time lingering and pulled Barry along, quickly leaving the corridor.

“What's gotten into you, Bruce? Ever since you woke up earlier, you’ve seemed completely out of it. Are you sure you’re okay?” Barry asked, struggling to keep up with Little Bruce’s hurried pace.

“I’m fine, but I need to get to the library immediately,” Bruce said, his voice tense with determination. “I’ve had enough of not understanding what’s going on. I’m going to spend a whole day and night learning Chinese and Japanese. I’m done with this language barrier.”

Barry was momentarily speechless. He couldn’t decide which was more astonishing—Bruce’s sudden surge of anger or his audacious plan to master two languages in just one day.

Meanwhile, in the dining hall of Kamar-Taj College, Helen was using her chopsticks to idly push around the gleaming grains of rice on her plate, a hint of worry in her eyes. “Like I said, the elephant is in the room, yet no one seems to notice,” she muttered.

“What do you think that message means?” Harley asked, her plate containing a grilled mackerel prepared in a distinctly Japanese style. Between them were several simple Chinese dishes—nothing fancy, just basic stir-fried vegetables with meat, cooked with a light touch.

Though neither Helen nor Harley were fans of light flavors, both of them shared a love for rich, hearty dishes—fried, spicy, and savory. Yet today, they had little appetite, so they’d simply grabbed whatever was available.

“Let’s start with the obvious questions,” Harley said, pausing her chopsticks mid-air. “What exactly is the Chamber? A secret room? Why has it been opened? And what’s inside it? Who are the Inheritors? And who is supposed to be cautious?”

Harley tried to approach it rationally. “The students going mad and attacking others is definitely related to that message on the wall. These are connected incidents.”

“And based on what we know,” she continued, “the real question is whether this is somehow related to that book in the bottom drawer of our dorm room closet.”

“Of course, it is,” Helen replied with confidence. Her budding sense of conspiracy had been developing rapidly, almost as if she were absorbing Harley’s sharp wit. She had grown adept at piecing together clues at an astonishing speed.

“We were just starting to investigate that book, and strange events began happening one after another. There’s no way it’s just a coincidence. But we haven’t even opened the book yet. How did the elephant get loose?”

Harley fell silent at that question. Then, after a moment, she looked up at Helen and asked, “You’re Loki Odinson’s daughter, aren’t you?”

Helen nodded. It was an obvious fact; they looked too alike. Even if she wanted to deny it, her resemblance to Loki was undeniable.

“In this college,” Harley continued, “the only people who could be considered Inheritors would be someone like you. You carry royal blood, don’t you?”

“But I won’t inherit Asgard.”

“Won’t you?”

Helen hesitated, then confessed, “My lineage is... complicated. I do have Asgardian royal blood, and I even possess some of the current God-King’s power. But my other father... he probably wouldn’t want me to become the Queen of Asgard.”

“Does he have the power to stop it?” Harley pressed, hinting at Asgard’s immense strength.

“Of course he does,” Helen answered, implying the might of her other father. But then she hesitated again and asked, “If I am the Inheritor mentioned in that message, then who exactly is my enemy? And why are they causing all this chaos in the school?”

“We’re about to find out.”

As they spoke, a student carrying a tray approached their table but suddenly veered away, choosing not to take the direct route past them. The students following behind did the same, avoiding the girls.

It was clear that Harley wasn’t the only one who thought Helen, with her Asgardian royal blood, might be the Inheritor. After all, she did have a claim to a throne. If she wasn’t the Inheritor, then who could it be?

But there were exceptions. Shirila walked up confidently, sitting across from Helen and beside Harley. She looked directly into Helen’s eyes and said, “Don’t worry too much. Your father and the other Professors will handle everything.”

“I don’t think I’m the heir,” Helen said, shaking her head slightly. “The implication is too obvious. That’s why it might just be a diversion. I used to never think about these things, but now... it’s all so clear.”

“The upcoming school competition will only add fuel to this chaos,” Harley predicted. “More and more students will start responding to the demon gods. Even with the Sorcerer Supreme here, those entities won’t dare to act overtly. But if there’s a mismatch in resonance or a power imbalance, it’s bound to escalate into a mess.”

“Why is all this happening?” Helen asked, her mind drifting back to the ominous text in the Book of the Dead. In her imagination, she opened the book and found a massive elephant standing right there in the room with them.

Do you really need to open the book to see things that others can’t?

The moment that dangerous thought crossed her mind, Helen banished it. She took a deep breath, and together with Harley, returned to their dorm room. Throwing herself onto the soft bed, Helen allowed her chaotic thoughts to drift as she slowly slipped into slumber.

Once Helen was asleep, Harley quietly crouched down, opened the drawer, and took out the large, eerie black book.

Her fingers slipped between the heavy cover and the first page. With a slight flex of her knuckles, she applied pressure.

The book creaked open.

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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Next Chapter =>Chapter 1683: Bruce Wayne and the Hidden Chamber (Part 9)