2025-12-04 21:42:53Crimson University's expansive marble courtyard was illuminated by long, golden streaks of light cast by the lazy morning sun. Children of CEOs, legislators, oligarchs, and ancient-money families poured in via the front gates. Every step echoed arrogance.
Adrian Kane walked among them like a ghost.
A simple black hoodie. Worn sneakers. With hands in pockets. As he floated through the flood of opulent clothing and pricey scents, his demeanor was serene, even blank.
They didn’t know him. They didn’t care to.
But they knew of him.
“There he is,” someone whispered loudly. “The infamous son-in-law.”
“Oh God, that’s him? He looks like he couldn’t even pass an entrance exam.”
“Why did the Hartwell family pick someone like that? The man looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.”
Adrian heard everything. He ignored everything.
His gaze strayed up to the red poplar trees that bordered the sidewalk. Something else than the wind caused their leaves to tremble. A faint pulse. A ripple in the unseen fabric behind the world.
Something was off today.
He felt it the moment he stepped across the university’s gates.
A breath of ancient, familiar air.
War energy.
Faint. But real.
His head tilted slightly as if he was listening to a sound that only he could hear, and his lengthy stride slowed.
Buried, locked, chained, the God of War awakened inside him.
Just faintly.
But enough to make the world sharpen, colors shifting, sounds elongating. Enough for the dormant instincts of the war deity to whisper:
Something is awakening.
Adrian closed his eyes for the briefest second.
Then he kept walking.
A Bitter Introduction
“Adrian!”
Through the courtyard came a piercing voice.
With her arms crossed and her face taut, Lia Hartwell stood at the top of the steps leading to the Administrative Hall. Her clothing was immaculate, and her long black hair flowed perfectly over her shoulders.
She was gorgeous, intelligent, and frigid.
Students paused to stare. They always did. Lia was one of Crimson University’s jewels—untouchable, unapproachable, respected.
Which made Adrian, her unwanted “husband,” a joke.
She approached him, pausing three feet away, as though getting any closer might damage her reputation.
"You're running late," she remarked.
Adrian looked at his cheap wristwatch. “It’s 8:12. Class starts at 8:30.”
“Orientation starts at 8:15.” She sighed. “Just… try to keep up today. Don’t embarrass my father.”
He nodded once. “I won’t.”
That simple response managed to irritate her more.
“You say that,” she muttered, brushing past him, “but somehow trouble always finds you.”
Adrian didn’t respond.
If she knew the truth, she would understand: trouble didn’t find him.
Trouble recognized him.
The Campus Prince
Before he could take three steps, a shadow blocked his path.
Cassian Voss.
She was six feet three, with golden hair that swept back in a beautiful arc, and had a blade-sharp grin. The entire courtyard was infused with a tinge of arrogance as he donned the university's bespoke martial club jacket, which was black with red accent.
Cassian put his hands in his pockets and shouted loudly, "Good morning, son-in-law."
Students stopped. Phones came out.
Cassian always put on a show.
Adrian didn’t bother looking up. He simply moved to walk around him.
Cassian stepped left.
Adrian stepped right.
Cassian stepped again.
A small crowd formed.
“Relax,” Cassian grinned. “I’m just saying hi. Since we’re practically family now.”
Adrian finally met his gaze.
Calm. Bored. Completely unmoved.
Cassian’s smile stiffened for half a second.
“I heard you’re joining the university because your wife’s father forced them to accept you,” Cassian continued loudly. “That true?”
Silence fell.
Dozens of eyes focused on Adrian.
Lia stopped but didn’t turn around. Her posture stiffened.
Adrian said nothing.
Cassian tapped his chest. “Tell you what. If you ever want… tutoring, I’ll help you. You look like someone who needs guidance.”
Adrian’s voice was quiet but clear. “Move.”
Cassian blinked. Then laughed. “What was that? Did the stray dog bark?”
Several students chuckled.
Adrian didn’t.
He simply stepped forward—slow, steady, unstoppable.
As though under pressure from an unseen force, Cassian reflexively took a step back. Confusion flickered over his features as it jerked.
“What…?” Cassian muttered.
That pressure—Adrian hadn’t released anything. Not consciously.
The aura of a sleeping War God had brushed against Cassian’s erratic, fragile psyche.
Cassian recovered quickly, forcing a smirk.
He said, "This isn't over."
Adrian retorted, "I didn't say it was."
He turned to go.
Something chilly slid across Cassian's skin as he peered after him, his eyes narrowing.
What was that feeling?
A Whisper Beneath the Library
The day passed uneventfully—lectures, introductions, mind-numbing chatter. Adrian barely listened. His senses were stretched thin toward a single location:
The central library.
He felt something there from the first moment he arrived on campus. A pulse. A vibration. Like the beating of a long-buried heart.
By sunset, the campus thinned. Students went back to their clubs or dorms. Soft amber light streamed through the towering windows of the library.
Adrian stepped inside.
The air was heavy with the scent of dust, old paper, and something else.
He walked past shelves too ancient for a modern university. Leather-bound manuscripts. Forgotten languages.
And deep inside—
He felt it.
A distortion.
Reality distorted like heat over a flame behind a shelf of volumes on historical anthropology.
There.
The room rippled as his fingertips touched the air.
Thin as the edge of a blade, a dark fissure sprang open.
Cold, hateful energy hissed from the gap.
Adrian’s heart stilled.
Not human.
Not earthly.
A breach.
“Of all places,” he murmured. “Why here?”
There was a long, wrenching sigh as the breach became wider.
Skeletal, completely black, and covered in writhing smoke, a hand shot forth.
With its skull twisted at an odd angle and its eyes glowing with ancient hate, a corrupted monster pushed its way through.
Adrian lifted his hand.
The War God’s seal burned faintly on his wrist, a golden mark shaped like a fractured ring.
“Insolent spirit,” he whispered. “You mistake this place for your feeding ground.”
The creature lunged.
Adrian stepped once.
One clean movement.
His fingers cut through the air without the need of a weapon or technique—just instinct honed over innumerable combat lives.
There was a sharp snap.
The creature froze mid-lunge.
Then its head rolled off its shoulders.
It disintegrated into ash before hitting the floor.
The library went silent.
Adrian exhaled slowly, chest rising once.
The crack began to seal—but not before something pushed from the other side.
Not a creature.
A wave.
A pulse of celestial energy.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
Someone—something—had sent that creature deliberately. A probe. A test.
A warning.
He stepped closer.
Through the barely open rift, he heard a voice—a whisper so faint only a god could hear:
“Found you.”
Adrian tightened his jaw.
A blast of chilly wind blew through the rows as the fissure rapidly slammed shut, knocking books from shelves.
The lights wavered.
Adrian stood alone again.
But not for long.
A Witness in the Shadows
Footsteps echoed behind him.
Slow. Confident.
Cassian Voss walked into view, hands in pockets, smirk gone. Something darker replaced it.
“I knew it,” Cassian said softly. “I knew there was something wrong with you.”
Adrian didn’t turn. “Go home.”
“No,” Cassian replied. “You’re not normal. I felt it earlier today. The pressure. The energy. I don’t know what you are… but I’ll find out.”
Adrian finally turned his head.
His eyes—normally calm—now carried a faint golden glow.
Cassian froze.
For the first time, he felt real fear. A primal, ancient fear his human brain couldn’t comprehend.
Adrian took a single step toward him.
Cassian stumbled back.
Adrian’s voice was soft.
Controlled. Cold.“You saw nothing tonight.”
“Y… you think I’ll stay silent?” Cassian stammered.
Adrian’s gaze deepened. “Yes.”
Cassian swallowed hard.
Then—
A loud cracking sound echoed from the far corner of the library.
Both of them turned.
The shadows there shifted.
Something stepped out.
A figure cloaked in black, face hidden by a hood, aura ancient and oppressive.
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
Not a creature.
Not a probe.
A hunter.
The figure’s voice drifted like smoke:
“Reincarnated War God… your time is up.”
Adrian raised his stance slightly, weight shifting.
Cassian’s breath caught.
“What… what is that thing?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
Because the assassin was already moving.
A blur.
A streak of black.
A killing strike aimed straight for his heart.
Adrian pivoted, raising his hand—
And the library exploded into motion.
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Chapter 81
The planet screamed.Not in sound.In strain.Continents groaned as if pulled by opposing hands. The oceans recoiled from their basins. Gravity fluctuated violently, slamming Lucy to the ground as Adrian planted his feet and absorbed the force without moving.The chasm beneath Nova Imperium University widened another kilometer.Light poured upward—not fire, not energy—but exposure.The Foundation was no longer hidden.It was rising.Sera clung to Adrian’s arm, sobbing.“It’s unraveling the load paths,” she cried. “Reality is sloughing off it like loose skin!”Adrian stared into the abyss.At the structure beneath the world.At the thing that had carried the weight of gods and lies for longer than time had been measured.And for the first time—He understood.THE TRUTH OF THE WAR GODThe Foundation was not evil.It was not angry.It was exhausted.“I know what you are,” Adrian said quietly, his voice carrying through the tremor.The voice answered immediately.“THEN SPEAK IT.”“You wer
Chapter 80
The scream did not travel through air.It traveled through mass.Every tectonic plate on Earth shuddered as if struck by a single, unified nerve. Mountains groaned. Oceans recoiled. Cities felt it as nausea, vertigo, sudden panic without cause.And far below—Something stretched.Adrian stood perfectly still as the signal finished broadcasting itself through the planet’s core. His expression did not change, but something ancient and unpleasant tightened behind his ribs.Lucy clutched her chest.“It feels like… like the ground just realized it was alive.”Sera dropped to her knees, palms pressed hard against the fractured marble.“I can see it,” she whispered, horrified. “I can see the binding layers.”Adrian turned sharply.“How many?”Sera swallowed.“…Too many.”THE TRUTH THE WATCHERS BURIEDThe irregular presence did not retreat.It observed.“EARTH WAS NEVER A PASSIVE NODE,” it said calmly.Adrian’s eyes narrowed.“No,” he said. “It was a prison.”The ground beneath Nova Imperium
Chapter 79
The god’s weapon fell.It did not cut space.It imposed itself.A descending slab of glowing law tore downward, dragging gravity, time, and authority with it. Every atom beneath it screamed as existence was ordered—be still, be corrected, be erased.Lucy couldn’t breathe.Sera dropped to one knee, blood pouring freely from her nose and ears.“This is enforcement,” she gasped. “Pure—old—unfiltered!”The irregular presence did not move.It simply waited.So did Adrian.At the last possible instant—when the god’s blade was a heartbeat from annihilating everything beneath it—Adrian stepped aside.Not back.Aside.The law-blade struck the ground.And the world did not end.WHEN A GOD MISSESThe impact shattered the quad.Stone vaporized.Buildings folded inward like paper under a hammer.But the strike—meant to overwrite—found nothing absolute to bind to.The laws embedded in the weapon screamed in confusion.They had no system to report to.No watcher to validate their authority.The go
Chapter 78
The sky did not tear.It stepped aside.That was the only way Adrian could describe it—the heavens above Nova Imperium University bending not like fabric, but like etiquette. As though reality itself recognized something approaching and politely made room.The presence did not descend.It arrived already standing there.Students froze mid-scream.Wind died.Gravity hesitated.And in the center of the fractured sky stood a figure that did not cast a shadow—because shadows required a light source willing to define it.This thing refused definition.Lucy’s knees buckled.“I can’t look at it,” she whispered. “My eyes keep… sliding.”Sera’s teeth chattered despite the heat bleeding from the air.“That’s not a god,” she said hoarsely. “Gods reflect belief. This thing doesn’t care if we understand it.”Adrian took one step forward.The pressure responded immediately—testing him, measuring resistance, comparing weight.“YOU ARE DIFFERENT,” the voice said, now closer.“THE OTHERS SHOUTED. YOU
Chapter 77
The sky did not close.It simply… failed to respond.Where once divine systems asserted order—where watchers recalibrated, where balance corrected itself—there was now only open, unsettled space. The heavens above Nova Imperium University hung fractured and silent, like a battlefield abandoned mid-command.Adrian stood at the edge of the abyss as it began to collapse inward—not sealing, not healing, but withdrawing. The question it had become sank slowly beneath reality, leaving behind scorched sigils and a pressure that refused to dissipate.The universe had lost its excuse.Lucy staggered toward him, blood on her lip, eyes wide.“Adrian,” she whispered. “I can’t feel it anymore.”He turned.“What?”“The pull,” she said. “The background pressure. The sense that something was watching, weighing every breath. It’s gone.”Across campus, students were rising shakily to their feet. Some were crying. Others were laughing in disbelief. A few stood perfectly still, faces pale with dawning ho
Chapter 76
The silence was absolute.Not empty—deliberate.The abyss held its breath. The fractured remnants of the watcher drifted like frozen ash. Even the Verdict Blade seemed to hesitate, its edge wavering as if unsure which truth it was meant to sever.Adrian stared at the figure before him.Same height.Same build.Same scar along the collarbone—the one earned in a war that no longer existed.But the eyes were wrong.They were calm in a way Adrian’s never were.Not controlled.Resolved.“So,” the future-Adrian said again, stepping down from the throne of collapsed timelines. Each step caused entire potential histories to fold inward and vanish. “This is the moment you finally reach.”Adrian didn’t lower the blade.“Explain,” he said.The future version smiled faintly.“That alone proves I’m real,” he replied. “You always demand context before killing something.”THE MAN WHO FINISHED THE WARThey began to walk—circling one another through the suspended void.“I am you,” the future-Adrian sa
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