2025-12-15 20:33:18Asta’s eyes snapped open.
His chest was rising and falling fast, like he had been running for hours. He sat up so quickly the thin mattress on the bunk bed creaked loud. The room was small and gray. Bare walls. A tiny window high up let in cold morning light. The air smelled of dust and old wood.
An old man sat on a wooden chair beside the bed, watching him with calm eyes.
“You okay, boy?”
The old man asked, his voice rough but not unkind.
Asta blinked, rubbed his face.
“Yeah… I think so.”
He looked around again, confusion written all over his face.
“Where the hell am I?”
The old man gave a small smile.
“No need to be scared. You’re in the Labourers’ Unit. Bottom floor of the academy. This is where flameless students work now.”
Asta’s heart dropped.
“Labourers’ Unit…? How did I get here?”
The old man stood up slowly, joints cracking.
“You ask too many questions.”
He said, turning toward the door.
“When we were rounding up the flameless ones after the ceremony, we found you passed out behind the academy. You were burning with fever. We carried you here and gave you some medicine.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“That's enough for you?”
Asta swallowed hard.
“Oh… yeah. Thank you, sir. And sorry for my manners.”
The old man nodded.
“It’s alright. Get up. Come register. From today, this is your new school.”
Asta climbed out of the bunk. His legs felt heavy, like they were made of stone.
As they walked down a dark, narrow hallway, the dragon’s huge red eye flashed in his mind again. Scales. Fire and Chains burning with flames.
His step faltered. His eyes went wide.
The old man noticed.
“You okay, boy?”
Asta shook his head fast, like trying to throw the picture out.
“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”
“Walk faster then.”
They reached a bigger room with long tables. A few older students sat there, wearing gray work clothes. When they saw Asta, whispers started.
“Isn’t that Asta Xavier?”
“The one with no flame?”
“Even the Fire Lord’s son ended up here…”
The old man slammed his hand on the table.
“QUIET! All of you!”
Everyone shut up fast.
He pushed a dirty register book toward Asta.
“Write your name. From now on you work with us. Clean floors. Carry coal. Fix things. That’s your life.”
Asta stared at the page. His hand shook as he wrote his name in black ink.
The old man watched him, his voice softer now.
“Don’t look so sad, boy. You’ll get used to it. Some even say they like it here.”
Asta forced a tiny smile. It died the second it appeared.
He finished and walked toward the exit.
The hallway to the outside was long and cold. His footsteps echoed.
Then,bump!
He walked straight into someone wearing a long brown cloak. The hood hid their faces.
“Oh! I’m sorry.”
A soft girl’s voice said.
She stepped around him quickly and disappeared down the hall.
Asta blinked.
“Wait… a girl? What is a girl doing down here?”
He shook his head and kept walking.
An hour later, he stood in front of the huge iron gates of Xavier Mansion
The golden lions looked the same, but everything felt wrong.
Two new guards in black armor blocked the entrance.
“Stop right there.”
One said, his voice hard.
“By order of the new Clan Head, Cassian Xavier,you are forbidden to step foot inside this compound.”
Asta froze.
“You’ve got to be kidding me… really?”
From the left side of the fence, near some trees, a familiar voice called softly.
“Young master Asta!”
Butler Grogerry stood there with a few maids and housekeepers. They were wearing normal clothes,no uniforms. Their eyes were red from crying. Some carried small bags, like they had been thrown out.
Asta ran over.
“Butler! What happened? Why are you all out here? Where are your uniforms?”
Grogery’s old face was full of pain.
“Young master… Master Cassian fired every one of us this morning. Anyone who was close to you… he said we had to leave. The mansion belongs to the strong now. Flameless have no place inside.”
Asta’s heart stopped.
“He… fired all of you? Because of me?”
The maids nodded, some crying quietly.
One whispered.
“He changed the locks. Threw our things in the street. Said the Xavier clan has no room for weakness or anyone who supports
weakness.”
Asta looked up at the mansion.
On the top balcony, Cassian stood watching, his arms folded and a cold smile on his face.
Asta stood there in the cold wind, his fists clenched and his eyes burning.
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Chapter 744: THE COUNCIL IN CHAOS
The grand council chamber of the capital had not held this many raised voices at once since the founding accords were signed, and even that occasion, according to the older histories, had been a more orderly affair.Every major clan leader sat, or rather did not sit, in the ring of high-backed chairs arranged around the chamber's central floor, the seats themselves largely abandoned in favor of standing, pacing, gesturing, the specific physical restlessness of powerful people who had run out of ways to project calm.Cassian sat near the chamber's east arch, one of the few still in his chair, watching the room with the stillness of a man conserving his energy for whatever came after the shouting."Simultaneous."A clan leader near the center of the floor said it for perhaps the fourth time, his hands spread as if the word itself needed to be held up for the room's inspection."Every royal castle. Every nation. At the same hour. That is not opportunism. That is coordination.""Coordinat
Chapter 743
One syllable, low, carrying an alien weight in its consonants that recalled the incantation from minutes before, ancient and heavy, a sound shaped by a mouth that had never grown up speaking anything currently living, and every torch along the walls dimmed by a fraction as it passed through the air, as though the room itself had flinched.……..Dero's response came instantly.She raised one hand, fingers spread, and the air in front of her tore open.Not open. Tore. The way fabric gives way when tension finally exceeds what the weave can hold, a jagged, swirling wound of grey flame spreading outward from a single point, widening, stabilizing, until it stood taller than any of them and wider than the doorway it framed, a portal that showed nothing of what waited on the other side of it so much as it showed the absence of a side at all, a grey churn that hurt slightly to look at directly.The heat coming off it was different from Loki's, colder somehow despite the flame, a heat that pull
Chapter 742:DEPARTURE THROUGH THE RIFT
The Grand Master rose to his feet, still working the last tremor of the incantation out of his shoulders, the new fullness of his restored power settling into him in visible increments, a straightening of the spine, a steadiness returning to hands that had shaken faintly only minutes before.He gestured toward the three of them with one open hand, the specific gesture of a man presenting something he had personally cultivated."Descendants."He said."Of your former, loyal minions."Loki's eyes moved across the three faces again, slower this time, the assessment deepening into something closer to recognition, the specific quality of a man searching a new face for the ghost of an old one and finding it there waiting for him.He stopped on Kyx first.Her posture. The set of her jaw. Something in the shape of her eyes that belonged, apparently, to someone else entirely, someone who had stood in this same room a very long time ago and had likely knelt in the same place she was standing no
Chapter 741
The Grand Master stood completely still.His eyes were fixed forward, and whatever he was feeling as the incantation built was not visible on his face because he had decided it was not going to be visible on his face, the specific composed stillness of someone who had been through a great many things and had developed considerable capacity for absorbing them quietly.……..Kyx had been watching the entire thing with the focused attention of someone trying to understand something and finding that understanding kept arriving partially, that each piece led to the edge of the next piece rather than to a complete picture."What is he doing?" She said.Gull was already in motion, the specific small, self-satisfied motion of a man who had been waiting for someone to ask exactly that question and had spent the intervening time preparing an answer that was perhaps slightly more elaborate than the situation strictly required."What we're looking at." He said, lowering his voice to the specific
Chapter 740:THE ANCIENT PACT AND POWER SHARING
"It's good to be back." Loki said.He said it the way he said most things, with the smooth, unhurried quality of someone who had decided long ago that rushing words was a waste of the specific pleasure that a well-placed sentence could produce when given adequate time to land.His eyes moved across the Grand Master's face in the specific reading way of someone who was cataloguing something, not assessing threat, something closer to taking stock, the inventory of someone who had been away and was checking what remained while they were gone."Grand Master." He continued. "It seems you are almost there too."The Grand Master inclined his head slightly."The preparations are nearly complete.” He said. "Everything is moving according to plan." A pause, and something in the pause carried the specific weight of someone arriving at a part of a conversation they had been building toward. "But there is something we still need. Something that is, not yet within our reach."Loki's eyes mov
Chapter 739
"I am just telling you as a friend, Web. As someone who cares about your continued existence and the condition of your general wellbeing going forward.""Shut up." Web hissed."I'm genuinely trying to help…""Gull.""...look out for you…""I will remove your ability to speak and the method I use will not be subtle…"Kyx looked at both of them."Shut up.” She said.She said it at the same volume as the rest of the conversation, but with the specific flat quality that made volume irrelevant. Both of them went silent with the specific simultaneous stoppage of two people who had received a clear signal and had the collective sense to act on it.…….Loki and Dero had drawn apart.Not completely,his hands were still loosely holding hers, and she was still close enough that when he spoke again it was for her rather than for the room."I've missed you."He said. Low, private, in the smooth serpentine register that his voice had settled into since the moment of awakening. "Mi amor."Dero's
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