The gates of Blackfang Academy looked exactly the same as they had, which somehow made everything worse.Noah stood at the edge of the courtyard, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, and studied the same worn stone archway he'd walked under a thousand times without ever once feeling like a stranger to it. Now every line of it felt foreign, like a photograph of a place he used to live rather than the place itself."You don't have to do this today," Adrian said beside him, voice low enough that the handful of students crossing the quad wouldn't catch it. "Another week of quiet training wouldn't hurt.""Another week and whoever ordered the ambush gets another week to cover their tracks." Noah adjusted the strap on his shoulder, mostly to give his hands something to do besides shake. "I need to be here. I need to look normal.""You don't look normal. You look like someone who died three days ago.""Then I'll have to work on that." It came out drier than he meant it to, and something in Adr

Noah stared at the words until they stopped looking like words at all.**[Objective 001: Defeat a wolf of significantly greater strength than your own. Synchronization reward: substantial. Failure penalty: permanent bloodline regression.]**"Significantly greater," he repeated out loud, testing the phrase against the dread already pooling in his stomach. "How significantly?"**[The target holds a combat ranking ten tiers above your current standing.]**"Ten." He said it flatly, the number too large to feel real. "Ten tiers. I'm ranked last, System. I've been ranked last since the day I enrolled. Ten tiers above last isn't a challenge. It's a joke."**[This System does not generate jokes. The objective stands as stated.]**"Then who." He shifted forward on the edge of his bed, some part of him already dreading the answer before he'd finished asking for it. "Give me a name. If I'm going to lose my mind over this, I want to know exactly who I'm supposed to lose it over."The silver panel

Seventy-two hours.Noah stood in the middle of the quad with that number lodged behind his ribs like a splinter, students moving around him on their way to afternoon classes, none of them aware that the boy standing frozen in their path had just been handed a countdown to losing everything he hadn't even fully gained yet.**[Would you like additional detail regarding the degradation timeline?]** the System asked, patient as ever, as though it hadn't just detonated something in the middle of his chest."Yes." His voice came out rougher than he intended. "Tell me everything. Don't leave anything out this time."**[Synchronization currently sits at four percent. Degradation will proceed at approximately one percent per twelve hours until reaching zero, at which point the bloodline seal will re-close permanently. Enhanced senses, accelerated healing, and thought-reading capacity will fade in the order they were gained. Once zero is reached, this System will no longer be able to reopen the

The old storage building past the north fence smelled like rust and forgotten seasons, cracked concrete underfoot and a single flickering overhead light that buzzed just loud enough to notice. Adrian had already dragged two old crash mats into the open space between stacked equipment crates by the time Noah's eyes adjusted to the dimness."This is it?" Noah asked, looking around at the cramped, cluttered floor space. "This is where we're supposed to close a ten-tier gap?""This is where nobody thinks to look for it." Adrian dropped his bag against the wall and rolled his shoulders, some of the exhaustion from earlier replaced by a focus Noah hadn't seen in him in years. "Space isn't the problem tonight. Foundation is.""Foundation.""You've spent four years watching me train other students and assuming I never taught you anything on purpose." Adrian's voice carried an edge Noah didn't fully understand yet, something old and complicated buried under the words. "That wasn't true. I taug

Ferris lunged.It happened exactly as Noah had feared … a sudden break from the rhythm of the match, weight redirecting hard toward the fallen practice staff at the ring's edge, quick enough that anyone watching without Selene's training would have read it as nothing more than a stumble. The referee didn't react. The crowd didn't react. For half a second, Noah was the only person in the entire training yard who understood what was actually happening.He didn't hesitate.Ferris's reach for the staff meant committing his weight entirely to one direction, torso twisting, guard dropping low and wide to close the extra distance. Adrian's voice rose unbidden in Noah's memory, three nights of the same drill hammered into muscle and bone. *An opponent overextending is an opponent handing you the fight. Don't wait for the opening to widen. Take it the instant it appears.*Noah crossed the distance before Ferris's fingers had even closed around the staff.His first strike caught Ferris square i