2025-09-20 01:00:01The following days at the academy were anything but quiet. The failed assassination attempt had sent ripples across every corner of the student body.
Though no one dared speak openly about it, the whispers never stopped. Some called Kael lucky, others claimed he had struck a secret deal with dark forces. Many simply avoided him altogether, unwilling to risk drawing the ire of a man whose aura could crush assassins like flies.Kael walked through the halls as though none of it touched him. But in truth, every whisper only sharpened the steel inside him. He knew what they didn’t: the threat wasn’t over. If Elder Veylan had already dared to act in secret, then worse was coming.And he didn’t have to wait long.During the weekly assembly, Headmaster Tyras’s voice rang through the grand marble hall. “In three days, the academy will hold the annual Deathwood Trial.”The announcement was met with gasps and nervous murmurs. The Deathwood was infa
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CHAPTER 54 - THE SHATTERED LIMIT
The air warped.Voidfang hummed with killing intent, Dorian’s aura condensing into a blade so sharp that even space itself seemed ready to tear. He raised it high, movements elegant, precise, the culmination of technique and bloodline power.“This ends here,” he said, voice cold as steel.Kael swayed on unsteady feet. His arms hung heavy, his chest heaved. Blood trickled down his cheek and side, dripping steadily onto the stone floor. Every nerve screamed at him to stay down, to surrender.But surrender had never been in him.Move.His mind whispered, cracked, desperate.Move!He forced one foot forward. It scraped stone, weak but defiant. Then another.The pressure of Dorian’s killing intent bore down like a mountain. His knees trembled. His vision flickered black.But inside, something stirred.Something deeper.Kael’s thoughts stuttered. If I fall now, I die. If I die, they
CHAPTER 53 - THE DESPERATE COUNTER
The blade came down like falling night.Voidfang shimmered with that strange, bending light, half-real, half-phantom as it cut straight for Kael’s throat.The crowd held its breath.Selene’s nails bit her palms, eyes wide and unblinking. Arwyn leaned forward ever so slightly, the staff in his hand humming with restrained power. Even the other students-friends, rivals, enemies alike felt their hearts clench.Kael’s knees buckled. His vision swam. His body screamed at him to move but there was nothing left to give.Nothing… except instinct.His heel scraped stone as he stumbled backward, head tilting away at the last possible second.The blade hissed past, grazing his cheek instead of severing his throat. The sting of cut skin burned down his face. Blood ran warm, slipping across his jaw.Too close. Way too close.Before Dorian could recover the blade, Kael lashed out not with elegance, not with precision
CHAPTER 52 - THE EDGE OF COLLAPSE
The air had grown thinner. Every breath Kael drew scraped down his throat like sand, hot and ragged. Sweat trickled from his temple, stinging his eyes. His ribs throbbed, every shallow cut left by Dorian’s blade humming like a curse beneath his skin. His fists trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of keeping his aura compressed, condensed tighter than ever. Dorian’s grin, infuriatingly calm, had only widened. The faint shimmer of Voidfang still wavered along his sword, an edge both unreal and undeniable. “You’re slowing, Kael,” Dorian said, almost gently. “Your body can’t keep up with your fury.” Kael’s jaw clenched. He blinked sweat from his lashes. “Keep talking. It won’t make your cuts deeper.” But his voice—low, strained—betrayed the truth. Dorian moved again, too fast, too clean. A blur of moonlit steel carved across Kael’s vision. Kael twisted late. The
CHAPTER 51 - THE HIDDEN FANG
The arena still quivered from the last clash. Dust drifted down like ash, glowing faintly under the light of the wards.Kael’s chest rose and fell, steady but deeper now, the heat of battle carving lines of strain across his skin. His fist pulsed with pain where it had smashed against Dorian’s blade, knuckles raw and bloodied.He flexed them once, slow. The sting bit deep, but it grounded him.Across the platform, Dorian stood hunched, one knee bent, sword angled toward the ground. His chest heaved faster, but his grin hadn’t faded. If anything, it looked sharper.“Impressive,” he murmured. His voice carried strangely, laced with aura that threaded into the air. “You’ve pushed further than I thought. But Kael…” His lips parted wider, teeth catching the light. “…you still don’t know what I truly fight with.”Kael’s brow furrowed. His aura stayed coiled, wary. “Then show it.”The air shifted.Dorian straightened, rolling h
CHAPTER 50 - BLADES AGAINST A STORM
The platform quaked as aura clashed again, harder, sharper. Sparks spat from the runes, scattering across stone like fireflies.Kael drove forward, his aura pressing outward in waves. Every step was a drumbeat, the pressure swelling until students near the warded circle instinctively flinched, clutching at their chests.Dorian didn’t falter. His blade slashed upward, cutting a crescent through Kael’s pressure. His aura condensed sharp as glass, focused into a single edge. Where Kael’s dominance pushed, Dorian’s control sliced.Steel kissed fist. The shock snapped through Kael’s arm, rattling his bones. He swallowed the sting in his knuckles, his eyes narrowing.Fast. Too fast to swat down like before.Dorian’s grin tightened. “You’re slower than I thought.”Kael snorted once, a low exhale through his nose. “And you’re lighter than you pretend.”He surged forward again.The duel became a storm of rhythm: sword cu
CHAPTER 49 - THE ARENA OF NAMES
The clang of the Academy bell rolled across the training grounds, heavy and resonant, cutting through idle chatter like a blade. Students stiffened where they stood, and a hush rippled through the crowd.The courtyard gates opened with a groan of iron, revealing the broad stone platform reserved for sanctioned duels. The platform’s runes shimmered faintly in the morning light, a lattice of glowing wards meant to contain destructive aura surges.Kael stood at the edge of the crowd, his arms folded loosely across his chest. His eyes lingered on the platform, calm, but a slow heat coiled inside his chest. His ribs ached faintly from wounds that had not entirely healed since the Deathwood. He rolled his shoulders once, too stiff. He breathed out, steady.“They’ve called it,” Selene murmured beside him. Her arms were crossed as well, though more tightly, her jaw rigid. “It’s official now. No running from this one.”Kael didn’t answer. His gaze slid acr
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