The crimson warning lights on Lyra’s security pad bled across the marble floor of the entrance hall.
Outside, the jagged iron gates of Grandcrest Academy groaned, the reinforced metal bowing inward under an immense, invisible pressure.
Ethan didn’t wait for the barriers to shatter.
With a single, fluid motion, he stepped entirely out into the bitter-cold midnight rain, his long enforcer blade unsheathed.
The heavy raindrops hit the polished steel, sizzling slightly against the glacial mana coating the edge.
“Dante,” Ethan called out over his shoulder, his voice completely flat, stripped of all human emotion.
“Secure the perimeter.”
“Already done, Chief Enforcer,” Dante replied from the dry safety of the doorway.
He didn’t follow Ethan into the downpour.
Instead, he simply leaned against the stone pillar, his high-ranking military trench coat damp at the edges.
His sharp, teetar-bheetar grin widened as his amber eyes tracked the dark silhouettes appearing at the edge of the tree line.
Let them test the gates, Dante thought, his fingers lightly tapping the hilt of his vanished daggers.
*The Council thinks they are bringing an audit.
They don’t realize they’ve just walked into a meat grinder.
Julian remained inside, his glasses reflecting a storm of data strings as his fingers flew across the holographic terminal.
“The sound-wave distortion just fried our outer barrier grid.
Ethan, you have exactly four minutes before the secondary grid flatlines.
If you aren’t back inside by then, I’m locking the blast doors.”
“Four minutes,” Ethan muttered.
Ethan had never needed four minutes to kill anyone.
With a sudden, violent boom, the front gates didn’t just open—they tore off their hinges.
Through the pouring rain, twelve elite figures dressed in silver-plated armor marched onto the courtyard.
Their faces were hidden behind dark visors, but every single step cracked the wet stone beneath their boots.
Leading them was Lord Kaelen, the High Executioner.
His silver hair was slicked back by the rain, and the freezing water touching his armor instantly turned into white steam.
A towering executioner blade dragged on the stone behind him, leaving a trail of sparks.
Kaelen halted, his glowing eyes fixing straight onto Ethan through the dark downpour.
“So the Council’s strongest hound still guards this cage,” Kaelen spoke, his voice deep and metallic over the roar of thunder.
Ethan didn’t lift his gaze.
He simply adjusted his grip on his sword.
“And the Council still sends others to die first.”
“We are here to seize the human anomaly.
Stand down, Enforcer.”
Ethan didn’t reply.
He didn’t offer another warning.
He simply lowered his stance, his boots digging into the wet gravel.
In a fraction of a second, he vanished from sight.
Clang!
A violent shockwave of pure physical force rippled through the courtyard, blasting the rainwater away in a perfect, empty circle.
Ethan’s blade had clashed directly against Kaelen’s heavy steel.
The speed was so blinding that it looked like a flash of lightning.
“Arrest the others,” Kaelen commanded through grit teeth, his muscles bulging under his silver armor as he pushed back against Ethan’s lethal speed.
“Search the Onyx Pavilion!”
The eleven silver guards moved instantly, sprinting toward the glass doors.
“Not on my watch,” Lyra hissed inside the hall.
Her royal pride flared as she slammed her palm onto the security pad.
Suddenly, jagged iron spikes shot out from the ground, skewering the front steps and forcing the guards to halt.
But the execution force was trained for war.
Two guards lifted heavy sound-cannon shields, unleashing a localized sonic blast that shattered the pavilion’s stained-glass windows into a million lethal shards.
Upstairs, in the absolute isolation of the presidential suite, the sharp crack of the breaking glass downstairs echoed faintly through the floorboards.
The temperature in the bedroom was still bitter-cold, the violet hue of the crystal lamps casting long, eerie shadows across the bed.
Scarlett lay utterly still on the dark velvet sheets, her chest rising in shallow, painful movements.
Her body felt entirely paralyzed from the flatline block, every nerve ending screaming in agony.
Let them break the doors,Scarlett thought, her fingers twitching against the fabric of the mattress.
Let the whole academy rip itself apart.
The moment Valerius steps out of this room to defend his throne…
I am running.
She hated him.
She hated his freezing touch, his absolute rules, and the way he looked at her like she was an object he had bought with blood.
But as the floorboards shook from the battle downstairs, another thought crept into her mind.
She feared what he would do to the world just to keep her inside this room.
And that terrifying truth frightened her more than any executioner at the gates.*
The shadows near the locked balcony doors suddenly shifted.
Valerius stepped out from the obsidian darkness, his pale, bare chest still marked by her blood.
He didn’t look toward the window where the storm was raging.
His pitch-black eyes were fixed entirely on her.
He had felt the external mana signatures the moment Kaelen breached the gates, but his posture remained completely unmoved, his royal composure absolute.
He walked slowly toward the bed, the frost on the floorboards cracking under his bare feet.
He stopped right beside her, leaning down until his shadow entirely enveloped her fragile frame.
“They are here for you,” Valerius whispered, his breath an icy draft against her cheek.
Scarlett forced her eyes open, her silver-ruby gaze burning through her physical exhaustion.
“Then go,” she rasped, her voice hoarse but dripping with venom.
“Go protect your precious gates, King.
Or are you too scared to leave your toy behind?”
Valerius’s hand shot out, his long fingers locking like an iron cuff around her wrist, pinning her hand flat against the pillow right beside her head.
He leaned down until his face was just inches from hers.
“They can burn the gates.
They can tear down the walls,” Valerius growled, his voice dropping to a low, possessive frequency that made the glass mirrors across the room vibrate.
He tilted his head, his fangs lightly grazing the sensitive skin of her neck, while his thumb pressed deliberately over the faint, **star-shaped scar on the back of her hand**—the same mark that had glitched so violently in the hallway.
“The rest of the world can turn to ash, Scarlett…
but no one touches what belongs to me.”
Outside, a violent crack of thunder split the heavens, illumination flaring through the cracked glass.
Inside, Scarlett felt colder than the storm itself.
Oh my god, the adrenaline is insane!
Kaelen is a literal monster, and that ancient rivalry hint between him and Ethan?
Chills!
Ethan is showing exactly why he is the Chief Enforcer—he doesn’t even need four minutes to handle business.
But Valerius and Scarlett?
The academy is being ripped apart, and his only priority is pinning down that star-shaped scar and claiming her.
Scarlett’s inner conflict really hit hard this time—she doesn’t just hate him; she is terrified of his obsession.
Do you think Ethan can beat Kaelen in time?
Drop your theories below, hit that vote button, and I’ll see you in Chapter 19!