"We’re going to give them the data," Jhaevorn repeated, his voice biting through the hiss of the encroaching gas, "but not the real one."Elara stared at him, her chest heaving as she fought the urge to cough. "The encrypted core? The one you spent three weeks decrypting? You’re just going to… what, throw it at them?"Jhaevorn reached into his vest, pulling out a blank, obsidian-cased crystal, indistinguishable at a glance from the actual evidence they had recovered from the Treasurer’s vault. "I’m going to feed them a loop. A feedback cascade wrapped in a trojan horse. When the security team plugs this into their main terminal to 'verify' the seizure, it won't just dump useless data—it will trigger a localized logic-bomb that burns out their entire internal grid. It buys us the time.""And the real evidence?" Elara barked, her eyes darting toward the heavy, reinforced door where the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the sentinels’ approach grew louder."It’s already in the courier pipe," Jh

 "If we’re off by a heartbeat, the shockwave liquefies our brains before the doors even buckle," Jhaevorn finished, his fingers dancing across the hilt of his gauntlet. The door groaned, a jagged fissure of white light erupting along the iron frame as the sentinels hammered again. The sound wasn't just physical; it was a rhythmic, soul-shaking thud that rattled the fillings in Jhaevorn’s teeth. "They’re close," Elara hissed, backing toward the rear exit, her knuckles white around her own dampening crystal. "Mavrek Sorn is out there, isn't he? I can feel the shift in the ambient mana. He’s closing the loop on our signatures." Jhaevorn glanced at the hallway scanner. Three red pips were converging on their position. "Sorn is opportunistic. He’s not going to rush in and risk getting caught in the crossfire of his own golems. He’s waiting for them to open the door, waiting to

 "If the Academy falls, Sorn loses his seat at the table," Jhaevorn said, his voice barely audible over the grinding of iron hinges. "He’s not here to execute us; he’s here to negotiate. He needs the keys to the vault just as much as the Treasurer does, but for the opposite reason. He wants the leverage to stay alive, not to burn the evidence." The door groaned, a final, screeching protest of metal against stone before the entire frame buckled inward. A cloud of pulverized masonry exploded into the room, choking the air with the taste of ancient dust and ozone. Through the haze, three massive, steam-hissing golems loomed, their eyeless sockets glowing with the baleful, sickly green light of corrupted mana. They didn't move like soldiers; they moved like tectonic plates, relentless and inevitable. "Elara, now!" Jhaevorn screamed, diving behind a overturned mahogany desk. Elara

 "He won’t kill me," Elara said, her boots slamming hard against the cold, marble tiles of the Academy corridor. "Not yet. I’m the only one who knows the cipher for the Treasurer's private lockbox. Sorn isn't just protecting his immunity; he's hunting for the one thing that keeps him from being disposable." Jhaevorn skidded around a corner, his lungs burning. "If he thinks you’re the key, he’ll take you captive. He won't kill you, but he’ll drag you to the vault and bleed the information out of you until you’re just a shell. We have to beat him to the hall." "The hall is crawling with the Treasurer's private guard," she countered, her voice sharp. "We're walking into a slaughterhouse." "We’re walking into a choice," Jhaevorn corrected, glancing at her. "For the faculty. They’re scared, Elara. They’ve spent their entire lives under the Treasurer’s th

 "He’s been liquidating your departments to pad his own exit strategy," Elara’s voice cut through the smoke, cold as a winter blade. "Check the seals. Those aren't your signatures authorizing the transfers. They’re forgeries. He’s already sold your life’s work to cover the deficit he created." The silence that followed was suffocating. Professor Halloway, his robes singed and blackened, stumbled back, his face a mask of trembling disbelief. He snatched a ledger from a nearby crate, his eyes darting frantically across the ink-stained vellum. "This is... this is impossible. I had a surplus of three thousand units last quarter. He told me it was moved to the deep reserve." "There is no reserve," Jhaevorn stepped out from the shadows of the mezzanine, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade. "There is only the bonfire, Halloway. And you’re the kindling." "Lies!" a voice boom