Lyra Ashford stood in the cabbage patch of Solitude Spire. She held a rusty iron trowel like an imperial scepter.
She had spent forty-five uninterrupted minutes preparing the soil.
She had sifted out every stray pebble with her bare fingers. She had smoothed the black dirt into a square.
She dug a three-inch hole and lowered the Five-Star Sun-Lotus Cabbage Seed. She planted it with tearful devotion.
Now, she stood over the fresh dirt with her rapier drawn. Her chin was held high, her sharp violet eyes scanning the empty skies like a dragon.
Behind her on the shaded timber porch, Felix Vance was fast asleep in his rope hammock.
His chest rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic pattern. The cracked obsidian slate rested on his stomach. Its amber screen pulsed faintly with idle rewards.
Above the headboard, Barnaby sat on his cedar perch. The oak bottle cork remained lodged in his brass beak. He glared at the ceiling in silence.
It was peaceful. It was tranquil.
And in the Dominion of Aethelgard, peace was an anomaly that the universe actively despised.
SWOOOOOOOOOSH!
The sky above the Seventh Spire violently split open.
A gust of sharp, pressurized wind swept across the overgrown courtyard, bending the wild pines and flattening the tall dandelions.
A colossal flying sword descended through the cloud bank. It was twenty paces long and forged from polished silver. Its high whine rattled Felix’s windowpanes.
Standing atop the sword were eleven cultivators clad in pristine, starched white-and-gold robes.
At the squadron's head stood a middle-aged man. He had sharp cheekbones, narrow hawkish eyes, and an immaculately trimmed silver goatee.
Arch-Inquisitor Valen of the Fifth Spire had arrived.
* * *
Valen was having the worst morning of his two-hundred-year academic career.
Two hours ago, half the divination orbs in the Astral Observatory had detonated, showering the grand masters in glass shards. Every astrological chart had gone berserk, pointing toward an impossible gravitational collapse in the western catacombs.
The Grand Chancellor had panicked.
The Academy Council panicked during this crisis. Like all committees, they cracked down on minor rules to feel in control.
And at the very top of the council's delinquent list was Solitude Spire.
Thump!
The giant silver sword touched down upon the cracked flagstones of the courtyard. Ten disciples leaped down in synchronized formation.
Their swords rattled in scabbards. They surrounded the dilapidated cottage with cold precision.
Valen stepped down from his flying sword, smoothing the front of his pristine silk robe with two fingers.
His sharp nose wrinkled in instant disgust at the smell of wild grass, rotting pine needles, and cold barley porridge.
"Despicable," Valen sneered under his breath. "An eyesore upon the sacred firmament of our academy. Grandmaster Vivienne abandoned this heap three years ago, yet her squatter disciple still wastes the academy’s spiritual air."
He reached into his sleeve. He pulled out a heavy scroll of yellow vellum stamped with red wax.
He marched toward the porch.
Before he could reach the wooden steps, a flash of cold silver steel barred his path.
Shing!
Lyra Ashford stood between Valen and the porch stairs.
Her torn blue cloak whipped in the wind. Her silver rapier pointed directly at Valen’s throat.
The tip was steady as stone. Her violet eyes blazed with cold conviction.
"Halt," Lyra said, her voice dropping into the terrifyingly calm register of a trained clan assassin. "Take one more step toward the porch, and I will sever your tendons."
Valen blinked.
He stared at the girl in front of him. His sharp eyes caught the crest on her torn cloak. It showed a silver griffin clutching an olive branch.
The Ashford Clan? Valen thought, his eyebrows arching in genuine shock. The runaway third daughter who fled the imperial capital? What in the nine hells is an imperial spellblade prodigy doing on the Seventh Spire with mud on her face and dirt under her fingernails?
Valen cleared his throat, adjusting his spectacles.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"Lady Lyra," Valen said stiffly, folding his hands behind his back. "I am Arch-Inquisitor Valen."
This is an official matter of Academy Law Enforcement. The squatter here—Felix Vance—has three years of unpaid tuition.
He has zero attendance and zero exam scores. By order of the Chancellor, this peak is condemned.
"The occupant is stripped of status and expelled to the mortal rim."
Lyra didn't flinch.
Her blade remained level with his jugular. A cold, disdainful smile curved her lips.
"Eviction?" Lyra murmured, her eyes filled with pity as if looking at a condemned insect.
"Inquisitor... do you truly have no eyes to see Mount Tai? The master resting upon that porch is an ancient sovereign whose footsteps shake the void! If you disturb his slumber with petty vellum, the Fifth Spire will not have enough dirt to bury your bones!"
Valen stared at her, then glanced past her shoulder.
On the porch, lying comfortably in a rope hammock, was Felix Vance.
He had a pillow tucked under his ear. A faded wool blanket was pulled up to his shoulders. He was letting out soft, rhythmic snores that sounded remarkably like a deflating bellows.
Valen’s face flushed a deep, violent crimson.
"Sovereign?!" Valen roared, his spiritual aura erupting in a wave of fourth-tier Adept mana that made the stones rattle.
"That boy is an unranked, meridian-clogged orphan who couldn't light a candle with his spiritual fire! You have been bewitched by a lazy fraud, Lady Lyra! Step aside, or my disciples will detain you for obstruction of academic law!"
"Then step forward," Lyra hissed, her rapier igniting with crackling blue spellblade frost. "Let the ground drink your blood before you touch his porch!"
* * *
On the porch, Felix groaned.
The loud, screeching argument was cutting straight through his dream about an all-you-can-eat dumpling buffet.
Beep.
The obsidian slate on his chest gave a faint vibration against his ribs:
[AETHERDECK OS: NOISE ALERT]
Ambient Decibel Level: 92 dB [EXCESSIVE SHOUTING]
Source: Aggressive NPC Dialogue Loop
Warning: Extended noise exposure reduces sleep quality by 40%
[Prompt: Press (Y) to Swat Ambient Trash Mobs]
Felix opened one bloodshot eye.
He squinted over the edge of the hammock, staring at the white-and-gold robed cultivators standing in his front yard.
He focused on the man with the silver goatee.
A semi-transparent black bracket snapped into view:
【Target: Arch-Inquisitor Valen】 【Cultivation: Grand Inquisitor Tier 5 (Stiff Meridians / Severe Constipation)】 【Threat Level: Highly Irritating Bureaucratic NPC】 【Background: Head of Academy Discipline. Spends three hours every morning pressing his silk robes with enchanted flatirons.】 【Inspector Note: Currently delivering a grandiose speech about academic ordinances that you can skip with any physical action. Sells for 3 copper coins at the junk vendor.】
Felix let out a heavy, miserable sigh.
"Why do these games always have door-to-door salesmen?" Felix muttered into his pillow.
"First thing in the morning. No manners. No volume slider."
He pushed himself up onto one elbow, his messy hair sticking out in all directions.
He looked at Valen. The man was drawing a glowing talisman from his sash to cast a binding array.
"Hey," Felix called out, his voice flat, hoarse, and dripping with raw morning exhaustion. "Silver goatee guy."
Valen paused mid-incantation. He sneered, looking up at the hammock.
"Ah! So the fraudulent disciple finally shows his face!" Valen barked, unfurling his golden scroll. "Felix Vance, by the authority of the Council of Law—"
"Quiet hours start at two in the afternoon," Felix interrupted, rubbing his eyes with his left hand. "It’s currently ten in the morning, which means it’s my designated pre-lunch nap window. Take your flyer and shove it under the door."
Valen’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.
"Flyer?!" Valen shrieked, his voice cracking.
"This is an Imperial Eviction Writ stamped by the High Firmament! You insolent, lazy cur! Disciples, seize him!"
Ten enforcement disciples lunged forward, their silver swords flashing.
Felix didn't reach for a sword. He didn't draw a rune.
He didn't even get out of the hammock.
He simply raised his right hand. He gave a tired backhand swat toward the courtyard. He looked like a man shooing away a fat horsefly hovering over tea.
"Shoo," Felix mumbled. "Too loud."
* * *
What Felix intended was a lazy wave of dismissal.
What the AetherDeck did was process the physical gesture as an input command: [Execute: Basic Trash Swat (0.0001% Output)].
Deep inside Felix’s chest, the compressed planetary mass of his idle core gave a microscopic, half-degree rotation.
A hair-thin filament of gravitational potential—less than a billionth of an exawatt—bled past his collarbone and poured into his fingertips.
To Felix, it felt like a mild static shock from a dry carpet.
To the physical universe, it was a localized spatial distortion event.
VWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW-WHAM!
The air in the courtyard collapsed inward. Then it exploded outward in a concussive shockwave. The blast moved faster than sound.
The sound was like an artillery shell detonating inside a steel drum.
Valen’s golden eviction scroll was instantly vaporized into yellow confetti.
His runic warding mirror was a priceless dragon-bone treasure. It shattered into three thousand fragments instantly.
The ten enforcement disciples didn't even have time to scream.
The kinetic shockwave scooped all ten of them into the air like dry autumn leaves.
Their silver flying sword bent into a horseshoe. The entire squadron—Inquisitor, disciples, and bent sword—flew backward over the cliff edge at Mach 3.
Psh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-BOOM!
They vanished into the clouds like kicked soccer balls. A straight, smoking tunnel cut through the mist toward the distant horizon.
* * *
Silence fell over Solitude Spire.
Only yellow paper confetti fluttered in the courtyard dirt. The hammock ropes gave a quiet squeak.
Felix lowered his hand, looked at the empty courtyard, and blinked.
"Huh," Felix murmured, scratching his collarbone. "Collision physics are definitely overtuned in this patch. That guy went flying like a ragdoll. The devs really need to dial down the knockback sliders."
He laid his head on the linen pillow. He pulled the blanket over his shoulder and closed his eyes.
"Finally," he whispered, already drifting back toward sleep. "Peace and quiet."
Standing at the edge of the porch, Lyra Ashford remained frozen.
Her rapier hung loosely in her hand. Her mouth was slightly open.
Her gaze was locked onto the ten-mile-long tunnel bored through the sky by the casual flick of Senior Brother’s wrist.
A single flick of the hand... she thought, her sanity disintegrating into glittering starlight.
No mana incantation. No spiritual posture. He didn't even sit up in the hammock!
He erased an Arch-Inquisitor and ten elite disciples from the sky as if brushing away a speck of ash!
She slowly turned around.
She looked at Felix’s sleeping silhouette, listening to the soft, gentle snore escaping his lips.
Tears of profound, terrified adoration spilled down Lyra’s cheeks.
She dropped to her knees right beside the cabbage patch, folding her hands in deep, trembling prayer.
Senior Brother did not merely defend this peak, she thought, her soul weeping in awe.
He taught me the deepest truth, Lyra thought. To an ancient sovereign, the laws of mortal empires are just a buzzing fly.
I will protect his nap with my life.