The morning sun broke over the imperial academy like a shattered glass blade, casting long, sharp shadows across the grand marble plaza. Usually, the plaza was a hub of idle gossip and academic posturing, but today the atmosphere was as taut as a drawn bowstring. Over two hundred students sat or stood in fractured clusters, their faces pale, uniforms scorched and torn from the frantic ergency extraction from the Obsidian Jagged Crags.
At the center of the plaza, a periter of heavily armored Vanguard enforcers stood in a rigid, imposing circle, their drawn broadswords gleaming under the early light.
Behind them stood Leo Vance.
He was currently surrounded by a sycophantic crowd of lower-tier nobles, his chest puffed out beneath his pristine silver-plate armorhide. "I'm telling you, the trash didn't make it out," Leo sneered loudly, ensuring his voice carried over the murmuring crowd. "The central automated system manually locked his coordinates to the subterranean throat before the implosion. An unawakened failure with an F-Rank core? He was probably flattened by the first falling pebble. Good riddance."
"Is that so, Heir Vance?"
The clear, crystalline voice cut through the plaza like a localized frost. The murmuring crowd parted instantly as Elena Reinhardt walked into the light. Her white-and-gold ceremonial robes drifted gracefully over the polished marble, her starlight aura humming with an aggressive, protective density that forced the nearest enforcers to lower their gazes.
Leo’s sneer faltered for a fraction of a second before his arrogant mask returned. "Lady Reinhardt. I'm rely stating the structural reality of the rift. The administrative logs show Kai Raven never reached an official extraction node. Unless he magically learned to teleport without a mana core, he’s ash."
"Your concern for my survival is almost touching, Leo."
The voice didn't co from the grand arched entrance of the elite wing, nor did it carry the frantic panic of a survivor. It was entirely flat, dry, and terrifyingly calm, originating from the northern shadow of the administrative colonnade.
Every head in the plaza snapped around simultaneously.
Kai Raven stepped out from the darkness of the stone pillars. He had changed into a fresh, standard black academy uniform, though he hadn't bothered to don the traditional student crest. His violet eyes were entirely neutral, his posture relaxed, his hands resting loosely in his pockets. The Desolation Blade hung disguised at his hip, appearing as nothing more than a baseline wooden training hilt to the passive inspection arrays humming overhead.
[System Notice]
Innate Skill 'Void Shroud' active.
Target Inspection Output: Level 8 Unawakened Entity (F-Rank Baseline).
Leo’s jaw dropped, his face rapidly draining of color until it matched the white marble beneath his boots. "You... you're alive? How? The entire lower sector collapsed into a spatial void! Even my uncle’s—"
Leo bit his tongue violently, cutting himself off before he could utter the words Alpha Team in front of two hundred witnesses.
"Your uncle's what, Leo?" Kai asked smoothly, taking a slow, asured step forward.
With his newly allocated attributes, every single one of Kai's micro-movents carried a terrifying, hidden chanical precision. His effective Agility of sixty-eight and Strength of sixty-nine were tightly coiled beneath the fabric of his uniform, folded inward by his Void Shroud like a compressed hydraulic spring. To the crowd, he looked like a baseline human; to the instincts of the high-tier beasts lurking in the academy cages, he was an invisible apex predator walking into a sheep pen.
Before Leo could stamr out a lie, a violent explosion of golden mana erupted from the main administrative tower.
The air pressure across the plaza skyrocketed instantly as a massive, armored figure materialized from a high-tier flash-step sequence. It was Commander Marcus Vance. His face was a mask of absolute, unadulterated fury, his stormy golden aura snapping violently against the marble tiles, cracking the pavent beneath his greaves.
The three high-tier lifetags of his personal wet-work squad were shattered permanently. His best assets were gone, the dungeon core was erased, and the boy who was supposed to be a corpse was currently standing in his courtyard without a single scratch on his skin.
"Kai Raven!" Marcus roared, his voice carrying the full, suffocating weight of an A-Rank Vanguard. He stepped forward, his massive hand reaching directly for the poml of his broadsword. "You are under imdiate arrest by order of the Vanguard Enforcent Unit. You will submit to a mandatory spiritual core extraction under suspicion of imperial sabotage and high treason."
The surrounding students gasped, retreating dozens of paces. A spiritual core extraction was a lethal procedure for an unawakened entity—it would permanently rupture their mana pathways, leaving them a physical cripple for life.
Kai didn't blink. He didn't even shift his weight into a defensive stance. He simply looked past Marcus’s shoulder, his violet eyes locking onto a solitary figure standing on the high balcony of the VIP pavilion.
The Grand Duke, Arthur Reinhardt, was watching.
"On what grounds, Commander Vance?" Elena stepped directly into Marcus's path, her rapier flashing into existence, its starlight runes detonating to neutralize the oppressive golden aura before it could touch Kai. "The mid-term trial was a mandatory, automated deploynt. Kai Raven was sent solo into a restricted zone due to an administrative exception you personally signed. If the rift collapsed due to a structural anchor failure, it is the Vanguard Unit's maintenance departnt that answers to the High Council, not an unawakened freshman."
"Silence, Lady Reinhardt!" Marcus bellowed, his eyes bloodshot with rage. He was past the point of diplomatic posturing. The loss of Alpha Team had completely unhinged his political leverage. "I have the administrative right to audit any anomalous entity within this campus! He survived an implosion that wiped out Tier-1 professionals! He is hiding a corrupted curse artifact, or he is an insurgent from the southern factions!"
Marcus took another violent step forward, his massive golden gauntlet extending to seize Kai by the throat through sheer brute force.
Kai’s hand remained loose in his pocket, but beneath the fabric, his fingers were a fraction of a milliter away from the hilt of the Desolation Blade. His system vision had already calculated the precise kinetic vector of Marcus’s reach. If the A-Rank commander crossed the three-foot threshold, Kai wouldn't rely on the Grand Duke; he would drop the Void Shroud and drive sixty-nine points of raw Strength straight through the commander's throat guard before the enforcers could even register his velocity.
THUD.
A single, concussive wave of gray spatial mana descended from the VIP balcony, slamming into the plaza like a physical hamr. The sheer volu of the Tier-4 Sovereign's Domain was so imnse that Marcus Vance’s golden aura was instantly snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. The commander was forced down onto one knee, the marble tiles beneath his joint shattering into dust.
"That is enough, Marcus."
The Grand Duke's voice wasn't loud, but it vibrated through the marrow of everyone present. Arthur Reinhardt floated down from the balcony, his black tunic drifting in the spatial slipstream as he landed between Marcus and Kai. His stormy gray eyes looked down at the kneeling commander with absolute, frigid contempt.
"The Reinhardt private decree is absolute within these walls," the Grand Duke said coldly. "Kai Raven answers exclusively to my house. If you wish to conduct a core extraction on my shadow vanguard, Marcus... you will need to bring an explicit warrant signed by the Emperor himself. Do you have one?"
Marcus Vance clenched his fists so tightly his leather gauntlets creaked, his teeth grinding as blood dripped from his lip. He looked up at the Duke, then turned a look of pure, murderous hatred toward Kai. He knew he had lost. The legal trap he had designed for the boy had beco a noose around his own family's neck.
"No, Grand Duke," Marcus choked out, his voice thick with humiliation.
"Then take your enforcers and clear my plaza," Arthur commanded, turning his back on the Vance family entirely.
Marcus stood up slowly, his posture rigid. He grabbed a trembling Leo by the shoulder, turning on his heel as the enforcers quickly retreated into the shadows of the campus gates. The crowd of students remained frozen, their eyes tracking Kai with a new, profound sense of terror. He wasn't just an F-Rank failure anymore; he was a ghost that could walk through a restricted at grinder and co out under the personal protection of a Grand Duke.
Arthur Reinhardt turned his gray eyes toward Kai, a small, knowing glint flashing in his gaze as he noticed the faint, residual scent of the dead Rift Core clinging to Kai’s skin.
"The southern deploynt to the Great Abyss Rift has been accelerated due to the regional instabilities," the Grand Duke said quietly, his voice ant for Kai and Elena alone. "The transport airship leaves in forty-eight hours. You have exactly two days to finalize your baseline adjustnts, Kai. The monsters down there won't have an administrative board to protect them."
Kai extended his hand, adjusting his collar as a cold, predatory smile finally broke across his face. "Two days is more than enough ti, Grand Duke. Let's see what the Abyss has to offer."
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