The Campus Guard is a Retired God of War

Chapter 3

The Headmaster's voice, carried through the ancient, analog signal of the Nokia communicator, was the only sound in the suffocating darkness of the maintenance tunnel.

“Be careful, Alistair. The Grand Master’s ceremonial uniform looks strangely like… a security guard’s uniform.”

Alistair didn't move for a full five seconds. The betrayal—or rather, the calculated irony of the High Gods’ penance—was sharp enough to cut through the thousand years of indifference he had cultivated. A security guard uniform. The very symbol of his lowest-status exile was the sign of his greatest enemy's rise.

His mind flashed through the few mortals he had allowed close since his banishment. Elena? Impossible. Victor Lei? Too obvious, and the Headmaster had said someone he trusted.

The only person who fit the description of a trusted colleague—a fellow guard who shared the isolation of the night shift—was a man named Corporal Jin. Jin was a quiet man who worked the night shift at the East Gate, always offering Alistair a cheap cigarette and complaining about the Headmaster's endless demands for floor waxing.

The one I let help me with the security log. The one I showed the hidden flaws in the Gate’s energy signature.

Alistair dropped the Nokia brick. It didn't shatter; it simply hummed and folded itself into a perfect, palm-sized cube of compressed, inert metal. He had no time for speculation. He needed confirmation, and he needed to secure the tablet before the Crimson Sect utilized its power.

He ran his hand along the damp, moss-covered wall of the tunnel. It wasn't just a wall; it was the outer shell of the Nexus. He stopped at a seemingly random spot marked by a tiny, almost invisible etching—a symbol he had created centuries ago.

“Unseal.”

He channeled a second, slightly larger sliver of the Calamity Star’s energy, bypassing the Headmaster's contracts. The dense, focused power acted like a key. The concrete facade of the wall didn't crumble or crack; it simply evaporated into fine dust, revealing a tiny, hidden chamber the size of a shoebox.

This was his Emergency Arsenal—his retirement fund of divine relics, slowly gathered from the Nine Heavens before his forced exile.

Inside the box lay a single, plain silver ring. It looked like cheap costume jewelry.

Alistair picked it up. It was the Ring of the Falling Star, a relic designed to store and instantly discharge massive amounts of kinetic energy. It was normally worn by his lieutenants to carry supplies and ammunition, but for Alistair, it was a necessary boost against a dimensional breach.

He slipped it onto his finger. The silver instantly molded, turning a dull, matte black, absorbing the remaining ambient divine energy in the tunnel.

He also found a simple, flat obsidian chip. This was the Void Anchor, a temporary focus point for inter-dimensional travel.

Alistair stepped out of the tunnel and back into the main library stacks. He still wore the ridiculous catering uniform.

Time is the true enemy, he mused. The industrial docks were miles away, across the heavily guarded city center. Driving would take twenty minutes in rush hour. Running was only slightly faster.

He looked down at the obsidian chip. This required too much power for comfort, but the fate of the city—and his penance—depended on it.

He placed the Void Anchor on the ground and stepped onto it. He didn't channel force out of himself; he channeled his inner gravity inward, pulling the ambient gravitational field around him into an intense, hyper-localized vortex. The air distorted violently, creating a visible heat haze, but no sound.

Void Step: Tier Zero.

In a single, silent moment, the gravity field collapsed. Alistair, the obsidian chip, and the compressed air around him vanished.

He reappeared 3.2 seconds later, ten miles away, in the middle of a massive, derelict industrial lot near the docks. He had chosen an empty oil drum as his landing spot.

He immediately felt the backlash. A wave of nausea hit him—the effect of forcing a Divine maneuver on a weak mortal frame. He clutched his chest, the muscles straining as the Calamity Star’s true power tried to burst free. The Ring of the Falling Star pulsed, absorbing the dangerous excess energy.

He was here. The air smelled of salt, diesel, and freshly spilled blood.

The warehouse was a massive, crumbling structure right on the pier. The ground was wet and sticky. But Alistair didn't need to look. He felt the corruption here, thick and malignant, far worse than the university. The jade tablet was actively leaking energy.

“The Nexus tablet is accelerating the Abyssal energy. They aren't trying to close the Gate; they're trying to exploit the leak,” Alistair realized grimly.

He moved silently toward the main entrance, staying low behind a stack of rusted shipping containers.

Three figures guarded the main loading bay—not ordinary men, but Crimson Sect acolytes. They wore simple black robes and masks, but their hands glowed with a sickly crimson light, the hallmark of channeling tainted power. They were high-grade martial artists, infused with rudimentary Abyssal energy.

One of them was leaning against the steel door, laughing coarsely. "The Grand Master says tonight we transcend the mortal coil! Tonight, we have the power to step on the Zhang family like ants!"

This was no time for finesse. Alistair took a deep breath, focusing his intent on the discarded catering knife still sitting on the abandoned cart miles away. He couldn't retrieve it, but he didn't need to.

He looked at his own shoes—cheap, thin-soled dress shoes required for the catering gig.

“Focus. Compress.”

He channeled a small, controlled amount of kinetic power into the soles of his shoes. With a subtle, almost imperceptible shift of weight, Alistair kicked a small, pebble-sized chunk of concrete from the ground.

The pebble, now energized and guided by the gravitational force Alistair commanded, shot forward. It didn't make a sound.

Crack!

It hit the temple of the acolyte leaning against the door. The acolyte didn't even fall; he simply disintegrated into a puff of red dust and black smoke.

His two companions immediately spun around, weapons drawn—a pair of glowing, crimson daggers. They saw only empty space behind the shipping containers.

Alistair had already moved.

The second acolyte felt a pressure change. He looked down, horrified, as the Ring of the Falling Star on Alistair's finger discharged its stored kinetic force directly into the gravel beneath the acolyte’s feet.

The explosion wasn't outward. It was inward. The gravity focused and imploded, causing the acolyte's legs to instantaneously collapse, folding bone and muscle into a bloody, impossible knot. The man screamed, but the sound was instantly cut off as Alistair delivered a precise chop to the back of his neck, ending his misery.

The third acolyte, seeing the horror, turned to run into the warehouse.

“Insufficient,” Alistair muttered.

He reached up to the shipping container and applied a brief, concentrated pulse of anti-gravity. The eight-foot-tall container, weighing several tons, rose silently four feet into the air, blocking the acolyte’s path into the warehouse.

The acolyte stopped, staring at the floating obstacle in terror. He spun back, searching for the enemy.

Alistair stepped out of the shadows. The acolyte lunged with his crimson daggers.

Alistair did not dodge. He did not block. He simply took a step back, drew his black finger along the front of the acolyte’s chest, and focused his intent.

“Disrupt.”

The acolyte’s Abyssal energy, which flowed through his blood vessels to empower him, instantly rebelled. The man dropped his daggers and seized his chest, his eyes wide as his own tainted power turned on him, burning his internal organs. He let out a gargantuan, final scream before collapsing.

Total engagement time: 4.1 seconds.

Alistair looked down at the last acolyte’s body. This is why I prefer war to penance. War is simple.

He pushed the floating container back onto the ground. The way was clear. He could hear a low, rhythmic chanting from inside the warehouse. The ceremony was reaching its peak.

He approached the metal loading door. It was locked with a heavy, multi-tumbler padlock. Alistair didn’t bother with the tumblers. He placed his hand flat against the steel door and whispered a single word of the High Tongue: “Open.”

The entire door did not open. Instead, a circle of steel, exactly the size of a human torso, evaporated from the door, leaving a clean, glowing hole.

Alistair stepped through the portal of molten steel and into the warehouse.

The air inside was suffocating. Hundreds of robed figures stood in concentric circles around a central platform, chanting in a mixture of Latin and High Abyssal. In the center, a crude altar was bathed in a pulsing, sickening green light.

Lying on the altar was the jade tablet, now radiating a massive pillar of black energy into the ceiling, ripping a visible tear in the atmosphere above the warehouse. The ritual was working.

Alistair ignored the hundreds of chanting figures. He ignored the raw, dangerous energy. His eyes went directly to the central platform.

There stood the thief—the Zhang family rival who had stolen the tablet—standing beside the altar, his face a mask of zealotry. But he was just the delivery boy.

And then Alistair saw him.

Stepping out from the shadows behind the altar, emerging from the black smoke, was the Grand Master of the Crimson Sect.

He was wearing a uniform. It was the same cheap, blue polyester of the Horizon Imperial University security division. He wore the cap, too.

The Grand Master raised his hands, and the chanting stopped instantly. He was a small man, unremarkable, with thinning hair and a nervous twitch around his mouth.

It was Corporal Jin, the East Gate guard.

Alistair felt a rare, searing flash of true anger. Not because he was betrayed, but because this man, this insignificant mortal, dared to use the uniform of Alistair's penance as his ceremonial garb.

Jin, the former Corporal, now the Grand Master, smiled—a terrible, chilling smile that showed his true nature.

"Alistair. You're late for the ceremony. Did you have trouble getting past the West Gate without your key card?" Jin mocked, raising the jade tablet above his head. "I suppose I should thank you. Your work for the last year was crucial in stabilizing the Abyssal energy long enough for me to steal this."

He tossed the tablet dismissively into the air.

Alistair was about to leap onto the stage, but Corporal Jin’s next words stopped him, freezing the Calamity Star where he stood.

"It's not just the tablet I took, Alistair. I also took a look at the Headmaster's contract. Did you know that when the Nexus Seal is broken, the one closest to the breach when the Seal was first cast… pays the price?" Jin smiled wider, pointing toward the ceiling. "Your wife, Elena, is currently doing an all-nighter marking papers in her faculty office. Her office, Alistair, is directly above the Nexus. And the price, Calamity Star, is her soul."

Alistair’s control shattered. His eyes flared blue, his aura surging. This was no longer a war for a distant Heaven; it was a war for the woman he had sworn to protect.