Midnight.
Velmora slept beneath starlight and spell-barriers.
But death walked freely.
She moved like wind—no footsteps, no scent, no magic signature. Her name was Sevra, an assassin-mage trained by the Silent Order, one of the council's hidden weapons.
She didn't know Kaelith. Only that he had to die.
Her orders were clear:
> Erase the anomaly before it breaks the balance again.
She slipped through corridors, bypassed detection spells, blinked past wards.
---
Inside his dorm room, Ash was asleep.
Or so it seemed.
When the blade came down, time fractured.
Ash caught the dagger midair with two fingers.
His eyes opened—black, this time. Not red. Not gold.
Black like an eclipse.
"You're not a student," he murmured.
Sevra moved fast—shifting between three positions in a blink, throwing five blades laced with nullfire.
Ash vanished.
He appeared behind her, hand glowing with Crimson Dominion and Soulburn.
She turned to counter—too slow.
> SLAM.
She hit the wall hard, gasping. Bones cracked. Her vision blurred.
But then—
She smiled.
Because she hadn't come to win.
Only to mark him.
A rune lit up beneath her skin—triggered by proximity to Ash's aura.
Ash stepped back.
"What did you do?"
She grinned, blood leaking from her mouth.
> "Now they know exactly where you are."
And then she crushed a shard of soulstone in her hand—
—And disintegrated into dust.
---
The next morning, Velmora was silent.
But in the Headmaster's tower, Veradin watched the sky darken.
In the clouds, a symbol glowed—a circle of twelve swords pointing inward.
The mark of the World Council.
> "They've declared him a Class-S Existential Threat," the Headmaster whispered.
"Ash is now the most hunted being on the continent."
---
Meanwhile, Ash stood atop the spire again.
Arin and Lyssara flanked him. Rhiessa stood a few steps behind, silent.
Ash didn't smile.
"I wanted to live quietly this time," he said. "But they just can't help themselves."
Lyssara's eyes gl
eamed. "Are we going to kill them?"
Ash didn't answer immediately.
Then:
> "We're going to war."