2026-09-02 20:10:00Kelvin landed heavily on the fractured obsidian tiles, the impact jarring through his already cracked ribs. He let out a strangled yell, groaning in agonized pain as his vision blurred with red. Blood and dirty floor water seeped through his threadbare clothes. Shaking violently, he pushed his bloodied hands onto the stone and looked up toward the raised dais where Dean Martins stood in his pristine crimson robes.
“Please Dean Martins, please” Kelvin begged, his raw, tear-streaked voice breaking against the heavy atmosphere. “Don't do this, I'm just a cleaner please, I beg you!”
A cold, mocking chuckle rippled across the grand dais. Dean Martins didn't offer a single shred of mercy, instead his eyes glinted with arrogant amusement.
Below the platform, Noah, Alaric, Seraphina, and Chloe watched from the safety of their defensive formation. Despite the looming threat of the beasts, their panic vanished the second they realized who had been thrown to the wolves.
“Look at him crawling!” Noah yelled, breaking into a cruelty-filled laugh.
“Cry louder, trash and show us those non-magical tears” Alaric added, breathing out a relief breath
“Serves him right!” Seraphina jeered, crossing her arms with a delighted smirk. “He's finally doing something useful with his worthless life!” she added joyfully
“An offering for the beasts” Chloe laughed, clapping her silk-gloved hands together as the surrounding crowd of noble students caught on, shouting mock cheers and laughing excitedly at the sight of the helpless cleaner being offered as live livestock.
To them, Kelvin was less than a human being. His desperate, pathetic pleas were nothing more than entertainment before the main show.
Kelvin cried out, sobbing openly as he crawled on his knees, his broken fingers scraping against the rough floor, “Please, someone help me, i don't want to die”
No one stepped forward or hand was extended. There was no escape, no pity, and no way out. Dean Martins raised his hand, looking down at the terror-stricken cleaner with utter disdain. He turned his gaze to the two eight-foot shadow-Stalkers with his voice amplified by magic so it echoed over the courtyard like a decree.
“Feed on his useless body” Martins commanded coldly, waving his hand toward Kelvin as if tossing scraps to feral hounds
“Take your fill of this worthless meat and leave the academy!” He included.
The larger of the two Shadow-Stalkers snarled, its crimson eyes flaring with primal hunger. It took two massive, earth-shaking strides forward, its towering frame casting a massive, terrifying shadow over Kelvin’s small, shivering form. The beast reached down with a massive, razor-clawed hand, snapping its razor-sharp mandibles together as it hoisted Kelvin off the ground by his collar to devour him whole.
Kelvin squeezed his eyes shut, weeping helplessly, waiting for his skull to be crushed between the beast's jaws.
Alas!
The second the creature’s massive claws wrapped around Kelvin’s frame, a sudden, violent shudder went through its body. The glowing red light in the monster's eyes instantly sputtered and went dark. The beast let out a sharp, suffocating gasp, dropped Kelvin onto the hard floor like a hot iron, and backed away as if it had just touched a divine flame.
Both Shadow-Stalkers began breathing heavily, their thick, chitinous chests heaving violently in absolute agony. The dark, magical aura that surrounded them collapsed entirely. The beasts whimpered a terrified, high-pitched sound their massive tails tucking between their legs as they recoiled from Kelvin in sheer, unadulterated terror.
Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, the two Apex predators turned their backs on the crowd, slammed their claws against the stone, and scrambled frantically toward the broken library window, fleeing for their lives as if the helpless cleaner was a god of death.
The students' laughter froze on their lips. Seraphina’s smile vanished, Noah’s jaw dropped open, and Dean Martins’ staff slipped an inch in his trembling grip.
Every single eye in the academy stared at Kelvin, completely in shock.
“What could be happening?” Dean Martin's was dumbfounded.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
The Shores of Iron-Reach
The jagged cliffs of the Western Continent rose out of the heavy sea fog like the grey teeth of an ancient titan.This was Iron-Reach, the easternmost province of the Sol-Oth Empire. For over a century, its vast mountain ranges and coal-black valleys had served as the penal engine of the realm. Millions of subjugated citizens, farmers, scholars, and soldiers from fallen nations labored in the subterranean siphoning mines, digging out raw mana-veins to feed the endless hunger of the Emperor’s Crown-Core.From the iron bow of The Absolute, Kelvin watched as the smoke of a hundred slave-foundries smeared the afternoon sky into a dreary twilight.Behind him, fifty heavy Vanguard transports and eighty captured sub-dreadnoughts glided into the deep-water bay of Port Vane. The coastal battery guns sat broken and silent, their crews having fled the moment Fortress Obsidian’s fall was signaled across the scrying networks.Captain Jarek stepped onto the iron deck, a massive zero-steel warhammer
The Iron Fortress of the Skerries
The sea mist hung heavy over the Siren-Skerries, an ancient archipelago of razor-sharp black basalt spires rising out of the foam like the teeth of a sleeping beast.At the center of the island chain stood the imperial stronghold of Fortress Obsidian—a monolithic citadel carved directly into the heart of a dead volcano. For two hundred years, it had served as the Sol-Oth Empire’s unbreakable eastern gateway. Its three-tier gun balconies held over two hundred heavy mana-gongs capable of boiling sea water in seconds, while its harbor mouth was sealed by a pair of massive, five-hundred-ton zero-magic brass sea-gates.Inside the fortress command tower, Lord-Governor Malakor peered through a massive crystalline scrying glass. The sight that met his eyes turned his blood to ice.Through the ragged fog came not a shattered remnant of an invaded fleet, but an unstoppable black wall of iron. The Vanguard Armada now flanked by eighty captured Sol-Oth sub-dreadnoughts flying the dark zero-steel
The Armada of Zero
The harbor at Port Gale was no longer a quiet fishing haven; it had been transformed into the beating iron heart of the Vanguard’s total war effort.For three continuous weeks after the reclamation of the Ocean-Core, the grand dockyards hummed with the deafening clamor of industrial production. Heavy steam-hammers slammed down day and night, shaping double-hulled plates of black zero-steel. Great timber beams carved from the iron-wood trees of the Sylvan Reach were bolted together, forming the keels of fifty ironclad war-barges and three massive dreadnought-class flagships designed to cross the stormy expanses of the Uncharted Ocean.At the center of the harbor sat Kelvin’s personal vessel a massive, two-hundred-meter zero-steel battle-dreadnought dubbed The Absolute. It bore no flashy gold leaf, no ornate dragon figureheads, and no shimmering mana-arrays like the Sol-Oth warships. It was a monolith of dark, unpolished metal and heavy cannons, built for one single purpose: absolute do
The Abyss of Thalassa
The sinking of the Void-Emperor sent shockwaves through the seabed, but the Ocean-Core beneath the waves remained in acute danger. Siphoned and destabilized by the Sol-Oth fleet's deep-sea drills, the ancient anchor was vibrating at a frequency that threatened to shatter the tectonic rift of the Storm-Reaches.Down on the sea-slicked rocks at the base of the cliffs, Captain Jarek and the Vanguard diving engineers rolled out two massive Zero-Steel Pressure-Diving Bells—heavy spherical bathyspheres built with double-hulled zero-steel plates, sealed with pressurized rubber gaskets, and driven by heavy mechanical winches.Vanya checked the oxygen-scrubber valves on her diving harness, her dark eyes reflecting the churning black waves."The Sol-Oth siphons severed the outer wards," Vanya reported, securing her twin zero-steel daggers inside water-tight leather sheaths. "The pressure at five hundred fathoms is enough to crush iron like a dry leaf, but the real threat is the wild ocean-mana
The Fall of the Leviathan
The three-hundred-foot plunge from the cliffs of the Storm-Reaches into the churning black tide would have pulverized a lesser man into crimson mist.Kelvin did not flinch.As he fell, the howling gale whipped his dark cloak into a blur of black cloth. Below him, the Void-Emperor, the two-thousand-foot lead Dreadnought of the Sol-Oth Fleet resembled an iron island. Its decks bustled with hundreds of armored brass-warriors, and its central Void-Siphon hummed like a dying star, pumping millions of gallons of boiled, violet sea water out through its massive iron scuppers.Fifty feet above the flagship’s armored superstructure, Kelvin channeled the dense, gravimetric weight of his Primeval Zero-Core straight into his boots.Kelvin slammed onto the dreadnought’s main forward gundeck like an iron meteor.The initial impact sheared through three-inch reinforced brass plating, shattering the steel trusses beneath and sending a shockwave rippling across the length of the flagship. Two heavy tw
The Shadow of the Void-Fleet
The damp, fragrant air of the Sylvan Reach fell away as the Vanguard marched rapidly toward the jagged bluffs of the Storm-Reaches on the eastern coast.Here, the sky was a bruised indigo, heavy with unceasing gale-force winds and salt spray. Off the razor-sharp reefs, the sea churned like black ink, sustained in a state of perpetual tempest by the fifth Sovereign Anchor: the Ocean-Core, submerged five hundred fathoms beneath the waves in the ancient sunken temple of Thalassa.Standing on the high cliff headland, Kelvin watched through a brass spyglass as two monstrous, mountain-sized iron hulls anchored in the outer bay.These were not standard warships. They were Sol-Oth Void-Dreadnoughts, titan-class war machines plating three-foot-thick brass-steel armor and powered by harvested mana-cores. Above their heavy iron decks, colossal void-siphons glowed with a sickly, artificial violet light, drilling deep energy-conduits into the dark sea floor toward the Ocean-Core below.Beside Kelv
You may also like
THE CHOSEN ONE (Reunion)
Kim B18.7K viewsThe Tribrid
Author Wonder20.3K viewsMon'Ter
ReinStriver30.2K viewsAlchemist In The Cultivator World
Ace22.8K viewsThe Humiliated Son-in-Law Who Ruled the Island
Lesora145 viewsThe Winter Wanderer
Varel361 viewsReign of the Shattered Throne: Even Gods Must Kneel
Nifty235 viewsHeroic Chronicle of the Reincarnated Demon General
_michael132 views