“You lied to me, little ghost,” Valerius’s voice dropped into a dark velvet.
His hand snapped the edge of her mahogany desk, his posture locking her against the high row bench.
“You don’t even know what you are.
You don’t know whose blood is running through your veins.”
Scarlett didn’t move, her back pressed flat against the wood.
Her hood had fallen back just enough to expose her neck.
The freezing scent of his rain-soaked cologne filled the narrow space between them, mixed with the faint smell of ozone from the star-shaped brand smoking on his pale palm.
Valerius did not pull back.
Even with his flesh burning from the mysterious crimson glow, his expression remained perfectly calm.
There was no pain in his eyes—only a quiet, dangerous fascination.
Scarlett met his gaze, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.
“You only know my name, Lord Thorne,” she countered, her lips twisting into a faint, cold smile.
“But you don’t have the slightest idea of what I am capable of.
Don’t mistake my silence for your control.”
Before he could answer, the world tore apart.
BOOM!
The western wall of the amphitheater exploded inward.
A shockwave of pulverized stone and shattered neon glass blasted across the upper tiers, bringing the structural ceiling down straight toward their row.
Scarlett launched herself to dodge, but the collapsing roof was faster.
Suddenly, an iron grip caught the back of her waist.
Valerius hauled her flush against him, twisting his shoulder upward to take the hit.
CRASH!
A massive block of reinforced concrete slammed directly into his back, pulverizing into grey dust against his spine.
He didn’t even blink.
He simply stared down at her through the falling debris, his grip anchoring her tight.
“I told you,” he murmured over the sirens.
“You are mine to hunt.
A mindless beast doesn’t get to touch my prize.”
Through the dust stood the nightmare from the central vault.
The Beast was a towering, nine-foot silhouette of thick, obsidian fur pulsing with corrupted crimson energy.
It completely ignored the screaming students scrambling for the exits.
Its heavy claws shredded the mahogany desks as its snout lifted, sniffing the air.
Its head snapped straight toward the highest tier.
Its yellow eyes locked onto Scarlett.
The creature let out a deafening, metallic screech that shattered the remaining light fixtures.
The frequency made the human guards at the doors collapse, their ears bleeding.
The students trapped near the exits froze.
‘It’s looking at the scholarship girl!’
‘Why is it ignoring Lord Thorne?!’
The Beast launched itself up the tiers, covering thirty feet in a single bound, its talons aimed for Scarlett’s throat.
Valerius stepped forward, his fangs extending as his eyes turned a blinding red.
But Scarlett didn’t wait.
Slipping out of his grip like a shadow, she dropped low and raised her left arm, locking her elbow to absorb the weapon’s recoil.
Thwip!
The pressurized launcher beneath her sleeve hissed.
The neurotoxin bullet streaked through the air, piercing cleanly through the beast’s open, roaring maw and embedding into the soft tissue of its palate.
The effect was instantaneous.
The Beast froze mid-air, its massive momentum crashing heavily onto the stairs just three feet away from her.
It tumbled down two steps, its limbs twitching violently as the compound hijacked its nervous system.
Within four seconds, the entire creature turned as rigid as stone.
A dead, shocked silence fell over the room.
The remaining elite students stared at Scarlett in pure terror.
A human girl, with no magic, had just dropped a vault-class titan with a single, silent shot.
Down at the shattered podium, Professor Vance stood frozen behind his cracked glass desk.
His sharp eyes shifted from the paralyzed monster back to Scarlett’s forearm.
He knew the lore.
No chemical sedative could drop a variant that fast.
Only the true, living catalyst bloodline could activate that toxin’s full potential.
Scarlett lowered her arm, her face returning to its emotionless mask.
Her heart was hammering, but she ruthlessly re-engaged her neural mute, wiping her mind back into a flat, dead vacuum before Valerius could read her adrenaline.
She turned her head, expecting him to be furious that she had just exposed her combat training.
Instead, his expression was completely unreadable.
Valerius stepped over the shattered concrete, his shadow blocking out the chaos around them.
He reached out, his pale fingers catching a stray strand of her dark hair, his knuckles lightly tracing the edge of her cold jawline.
“Magnificent,” he whispered, his eyes fixed on hers.
“You didn’t flinch.
You didn’t think.
Even while firing a lethal weapon, your mind remained completely silent to me.”
He leaned down slightly, his gaze steady and intense.
“Modern science didn’t create you, little ghost,” he murmured, his fingers gently tightening against the side of her neck, right over her rapid human pulse.
“You are the exact weapon my bloodline has been hunting for three centuries.
Hide behind your silence for now.
Play your little human games.”
His voice dropped into a quiet, absolute promise.
“But this war is just getting started.
And I am never letting you out of my sight again.”
From the broken doors below, the heavy steel reinforced gates groaned as the elite Thorne syndicate forces finally burst into the hall.
Heavy tactical boots crunched against the millions of neon glass shards.
“Lord Thorne!” the commander shouted, weapons raised, his eyes darting from the stone-faced, paralyzed beast to the destruction of the upper tiers.
“Secure the perimeter!
Check for signs of rogue psychic resonance!”
The soldiers swarmed the lower rows, but their commanding officer halted dead in his tracks the moment his eyes fell upon the highest tier.
Valerius hadn’t moved an inch away from Scarlett.
In fact, his left arm remained loosely draped over the back of her bench, a clear, unspoken declaration of ownership to anyone who dared look up.
The smoking star-shaped brand on his palm was tucked away into his pocket, but his posture radiated a calm authority that froze the squad instantly.
“The threat is neutralized,” Valerius said, his voice cutting through the blaring backup alarms with quiet indifference.
“Clean up the asset on the stairs.
And clear the room.
Now.”
The commander bowed his head deeply, sensing the underlying tension.
“At once, my Lord.”
As the squad began deploying containment chains around the frozen beast, Professor Vance slowly packed his digital documents, his hands remarkably steady despite the ruin around him.
He didn’t say a word, but as he turned to leave through the back faculty entrance, his eyes locked onto Scarlett one last time.
It wasn’t a look of fear—it was the look of a scientist who had just verified a myth.
He knew.
Scarlett pulled her hood back down, her fingers adjusting the hem with methodical precision.
She could feel the lingering stares of the few trapped students below, their whispers already mutating into rumors that would spread across the academy by nightfall.
A scholarship student dropping a vault-class apex predator with a hidden weapon was an anomaly.
An anomaly that Valerius Thorne had just shielded with his own body.
“You should leave with your men, Lord Thorne,” Scarlett said, her tone devoid of any warmth as she gathered her standard academy satchel from beneath the debris.
“The class is officially dismissed.”
Valerius let out a low, dark chuckle that vibrated dangerously close to her ear.
He didn’t step back to let her pass; instead, he forced her to step around his broad frame, his eyes tracking every single line of her movement.
“Enjoy your walk back to the dorms, little ghost,” he murmured, his voice laced with quiet anticipation.
“Rest well.
Because tomorrow, your official evaluation begins.
And I will be the one conducting it.”
Scarlett didn’t look back.
She walked down the fractured stone steps, passing the paralyzed beast and the elite forces without a single tremble in her stride.
But beneath her dark sleeves, her fingers were tightly clenched against the metallic casing of her weapon.
The web had been cast, but as she walked out into the cold, rain-slicked courtyard of the academy, she realized the terrifying truth.
She wasn’t the hunter anymore.
She was the prize.
Seeing the untouchable pureblood king lose his composure for the first time…
there is truly nothing more satisfying.
Our little ghost just proved she’s not someone who can be easily cornered.
A single glowing mark and one flawless shot have completely rewritten the rules of her mission.
Valerius finally recognizes the ancient blood in her veins, but Scarlett is ready to show him he still doesn’t know the full extent of her power.
Quick Question: How did you like Scarlett’s savage comeback?
And how do you think she will survive Valerius’s personal “evaluation” tomorrow?
Let me know your theories below!
Let’s climb the rankings together!