2025-12-15 20:30:36The big brass bell on top of the Crimson Flame Academy tower rang loud and long.
Dong… dong… dong…
The sound rolled across the red-tiled roofs and poured into every classroom like warm honey. Students jumped from their seats, chairs scraping the stone floor, bags flying onto shoulders.
Inside Class 3-A, the noise was even louder.
“I can’t wait for tomorrow!”
“Finally, the Awakening Ceremony!”
“Who do you think will get the strongest flame this year?”
Asta Xavier sat at the very back by the open window, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded. His black hair fell over his brown eyes as he stared at the excited crowd. A tiny smirk played on his lips.
He whispered to himself, so low no one heard.
“Keep talking. Tomorrow you’ll all be looking up at me.”
The classroom door slid open with a soft creak. Miss Rena, their homeroom teacher, stepped in. Her long red robe fluttered like real fire. She clapped once. Everyone went quiet.
“Hey everyone, listen up!”
She smiled wide.
“Hope you guys know what tomorrow is?”
“Yes, ma’am!!”
The whole class shouted together.
Miss Rena laughed.
“Good. And guess what? Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress herself, is coming to watch the ceremony. So be early. Be clean. And behave… unless you want to be fried into crispy chicken.”
She winked.
“Okay, ma’am!”
The class answered again with laughter.
Miss Rena gave a small wave, turned on her heel, her robe swishing, and walked out. The door closed softly behind her.
The second she was gone, the noise exploded again.
Whispers turned into open talk.
One boy nudged his friend and pointed at the back of the room.
“Ohh, look at Asta Xavier.”
Another girl giggled.
“Yeah, I bet he’ll be the strongest among all of us. I mean, he is the real son of Lord Ignatius,the strongest Flame mage ever and leader of the Xavier clan.”
A third boy nodded hard.
“Exactly! His flame will probably be even bigger and hotter than his father’s!”
Asta heard every word. He turned his head slowly and looked out the window. Sunlight fell on his face. The smirk grew bigger.
He muttered under his breath.
“I won’t brag… but yeah, they’re right. Tomorrow I will find out just how strong I really am.”
He gave a tiny, proud chuckle.
“Bet I’ll be way stronger than Father ever was.”
Just then the classroom door opened again.
Every head turned.
Elara Veyron walked in like she owned the whole academy.
Her long platinum-blonde hair shone like moonlight. Her ice-blue eyes sparkled. The crimson uniform hugged her body perfectly. Gold phoenix patterns danced on the sleeves.
The boys forgot how to breathe.
“Wow…”
“She’s so beautiful…”
“Goddess level, seriously.”
“I would die for one smile.”
Elara didn’t even look at them. She walked straight to the back, heels clicking, hips swaying just a little.
She stopped behind Asta’s chair, bent down, wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, and kissed his cheek softly.
Asta’s face turned bright red.
Elara’s lips brushed his ear. Her voice was sweet, low and a little naughty.
“What are you thinking about, hmm? Thinking about me?”
Asta stammered, his heart racing.
“Y-yes! Of course I was thinking about you!”
Elara giggled. She rested her chin on his shoulder and looked at him with half-closed eyes, full of heat.
“Good. Because after tomorrow… when you awaken the strongest flame… I’ll be completely yours.”
She dropped her voice even lower.
“We’ll spend the whole night together… and have lots of fun. You know exactly what I mean, right?”
Her eyes were hungry, her lips slightly parted.
Asta trembled. His voice came out tiny.
“Y-yes… yes, I know what you mean…”
Inside his head he screamed.
‘I have zero idea what she’s talking about!’
Elara smiled in a satisfied manner.
“Perfect. I have to go now. My driver’s waiting.”
She turned his face gently and kissed him full on the lips this time,slow and right in front of the whole class.
The boys exploded.
“Ugh, kill me now.”
“Lucky bastard!”
“Why him?!”
Elara pulled away, waved her fingers at Asta, and walked out, hips swaying even more. The door closed softly behind her.
The boys turned to Asta like angry cats.
“You lucky bastard!”
One shouted.
“Seriously lucky.”
Another agreed.
“Everyone knows he’ll be the strongest tomorrow, so of course the prettiest girl wants him.”
A third boy shrugged,his voice low.
“Yeah… I guess you’re right.”
Asta looked at them from the corner of his eye and smirked harder than ever.
‘They still don’t get it. The reason Elara is all over me is simple:when we were kids, my father and Duke Veyron made a promise. We’re engaged. Tomorrow I’ll make it official and propose it properly.’
He muttered to himself as he stood up, swung his backpack over one shoulder, and walked out of the class like a king.
The afternoon sun was orange and warm. Asta walked along the tree-lined road that led away from the academy. He could have taken the family carriage, but he liked walking.
A big black school bus full of older students roared past him. Asta’s eyes locked on one boy inside,tall, black hair with red tips, gray eyes, two years older. The boy stared back for a second, then the bus turned into the academy gates.
Asta kept walking.
Twenty minutes later he reached the huge iron gates of Xavier Manor. Golden lions stood on both sides. The gates opened by themselves.
Two lines of butlers and maids bowed low.
“Welcome home, Young Master Asta!”
They said together.
An old housekeeper with kind eyes hurried forward and took his backpack.
“You must be tired, dear.”
The head butler, Mr Gregor, tall, gray hair, always serious,walked up and bowed.
“Young Master, I still don’t understand why you refuse the carriage every day.”
Asta grinned, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Because I love walking, Gregor. I love it so much.”
Before the butler could argue, Asta raised a hand.
“I’m starving. Tell the chef I’m home.”
“Right away, Young Master.”
Gregor turned to leave, then stopped.
“Oh,I almost forgot. Your cousin, Young Master Cassian, will arrive tonight. He’ll attend tomorrow’s ceremony with us.”
Asta froze on the stairs. His smile disappeared for a second.
“…Alright.”
He said quietly, then kept climbing.
In his room he threw off his uniform, washed his face in the marble basin, and changed into soft home clothes. The water was warm and smelled like roses.
A small silver bell rang downstairs,dinner was ready.
Asta ran down the grand staircase two steps at a time and sat at the long dining table. Plates of roast meat, buttered bread, and honey-glazed carrots waited for him. He started eating happily.
‘Ding-dong!’
The front-door bell.
Footsteps. Mr Gregor’s voice, warm and welcoming.
“Oh! You finally made it, Young Master Cassian. How was the trip?”
Silence.
Heavy boot
s on marble.
Asta turned his head slowly.
The boy from the school bus stood in the doorway,tall, black hair with red tips, cold gray eyes.
Cassian Xavier looked straight at Asta with a scornful gaze.
“I’m home.”
Cassian said…
His words hung in the air as their gaze was still locked on each other…
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Chapter 858
They didn't have the luxury of celebrating the bridge's outcome for long.Word reached them two days later, carried by a rider Sera's remaining trusted contacts had sent ahead, Emberfall, the border city they'd once saved from a single feral Choir fragment weeks earlier, was burning again, and this time the scale dwarfed anything the squad had faced there before."How bad." Asta asked, already moving toward the horses before the messenger had finished catching his breath."Bad." The rider said. "Whatever hits the city isn't one fragment anymore. Reports describe multiple sources of uncontrolled flame, civilian casualties climbing by the hour, and Council forces either unable or unwilling to intervene effectively.""Unwilling." Roderick repeated, sharp. "Why would they be unwilling?""Because the soldiers on the ground are saying it looks exactly like what happened at the bridge." The rider said, grimly. "Except nobody stabilized this one. It's still spreading."Vex's expression
Chapter 857
The light and dark flame collided in a violent, churning column above the shattered carriage, and Mira, thrown backward by the shockwave along with half the squad, watched in horror as the eleven fractured voices continued screaming, no longer coordinated, no longer speaking as one, a cacophony of grief, confusion, and raw, remembered pain pouring out of eleven bodies that no longer knew how to be a single harmony and hadn't yet remembered how to be separate people again."It's destabilizing." Emrick shouted over the chaos, having insisted on accompanying the strike team despite his weakened condition, his eyes fixed on the churning light with grim, focused intensity. "Exactly as theorized, but faster, more violent than I predicted. The resonance broke all eleven bonds at once instead of gradually.""Is that good or bad." Roderick shouted back, blade raised against the chaos while trying to keep the reeling, disoriented Council soldiers from regrouping around them."I don't know ye
Chapter 856
They reached the convoy's projected route on the fourth day, cresting a ridge that overlooked a long, winding stretch of road cutting through a narrow valley, the kind of terrain, Yuki noted grimly, that made for excellent ambush ground and equally excellent killing ground, depending entirely on who controlled the higher elevation first."This is it." Lucien confirmed, studying the road below with the particular certainty of a man who'd memorized this exact route during his months of forced service. "The convoy passes through here tomorrow morning, assuming the schedule hasn't shifted. There's a narrow bridge crossing about two miles further along, the only viable route through this section of terrain. Everything funnels through that point.""A bottleneck." Roderick said, already assessing the tactical shape of the ground with a soldier's eye. "That's our best chance to isolate the transport carriage from its full escort.""It's also the most heavily guarded section of the entire
Chapter 855
The next two days blurred into a grinding cycle of riding, planning, and stolen hours of sleep, the squad pushing hard toward the convoy's projected route while Yuki and Emrick refined their theory into something that might actually survive contact with reality."Resonance isn't a weapon." Emrick said, for what felt like the third time, sketching another diagram in the dirt as the fire burned low around them. "It's a condition. You can't simply throw fire at eleven merged voices and expect coherence to shatter. You need something that speaks to what's holding them together in the first place.""Which is what, exactly." Roderick asked, patience visibly thinning after two days of theory without a clear plan of execution."Shared trauma." Emrick said. "That's the foundation every successful bond I studied was built on. The Choir isn't eleven separate people cooperating. It's eleven fractured identities that found it easier to stop being separate at all. The harmony holds because sep
Chapter 854
They rode through the morning in near silence, the weight of Emrick's revelation pressing down on the whole company harder than exhaustion or the dwindling clock on the convoy ever had. Kael rode near the back, alone, refusing the company even Asta offered, and Emrick kept his distance at the opposite end of the line, watching the old man's back with an expression Mira couldn't quite name, not forgiveness, not yet, but not pure hatred either. Something unsettled in between.They made camp at midday out of necessity, the horses needing rest and Seris still weak enough that Sera insisted on a proper stop rather than pushing straight through toward the convoy's projected route.It was Yuki who finally broke the uneasy quiet, approaching Emrick with the same careful, methodical curiosity she brought to every piece of the puzzle they were still assembling."You said you studied for twenty years." She said. "Do you know what they were trying to learn? Specifically?"Emrick considered her
Chapter 853
Roderick's blade met the first guard's with a screech of metal, driving the man back into the second before either could raise a full alarm, and for a handful of desperate seconds the narrow corridor became nothing but steel and breath and the grim, practiced economy of a soldier who'd learned, the hard way, exactly how to make three seconds last as long as thirty.He dropped the first guard with a strike to the temple, disarmed the second before he'd finished raising his blade, and was already turning to follow the others when a third voice, not a guard's, called out from a cell further down the block, low and urgent."Wait. Please. Whoever you are, wait."Roderick hesitated, torn between the escape already underway and the desperate plea echoing off stone, and something in the voice's raw, worn quality stopped him from simply running past.He found the source in the block's last cell,an older man, gaunt, scarred along both forearms in patterns that looked disturbingly familiar, eyes
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