I paced.

Back and forth.

Three steps left.

Three steps right.

The ground beneath my boots was still fractured, spiderweb cracks spreading outward like frozen lightning, the scars of power that had no business being unleashed within academy grounds.

Mana still lingered in the air, thin, frayed strands of it like the echo of a scream after the throat had already gone raw.

This was where they vanished.

Sebastian, his team. Lillith's team. And Darge no, not Darge anymore.

The Children of Death's leader had worn his body like a coat.

I stopped pacing.

Then started again.

Normally, people described me as… airy. Scatterbrained. Always distracted. A woman who forgot where she put her tea while holding the cup in her hand. A woman who laughed at the wrong moments and drifted through halls like nothing in the world could ever truly bother her.

My face still looked like that now.

Calm.

Neutral.

Almost faintly amused.

Inside?

Inside was chaos.

The moment I had sensed the familiar mana, I had killed space.

That was the only way to describe it. I didn't move through space. I erased the distance entirely, folded reality inward, and stepped across the absence. One heartbeat, I was elsewhere. Next, I was here.

But I was too late.

The portal had already closed.

Violet residue still clung to the air, like burned threads pulled tight and then severed. I could taste it, death mana layered with something older, something wrong. The signature was unmistakable.

Black.

I inhaled slowly, steadying myself.

Most didn't even know of an organization called "The Children of Death"; those who did treated it like a myth. Not to me. Not to the demon king. Not to a very small number of beings who had seen what the world looked like when death decided to organize itself.

Their leader had named himself Black.

Not a title.

Not a rank.

A declaration.

I had met him once.

Only once.

It had been a few days before I lost my sight in a battle with the Demon King.

The memory rose unbidden, sharp and unwelcome.

The western border of the Human Empire. A sky split open by clashing authorities. Death and death colliding so violently that the heavens themselves cracked under the pressure. Mountains flattened. Rivers boiled away. Entire regions reduced to lifeless glass.

We had fought without words.

Without restraint.

Not because we hated each other, but because neither of us could afford to hold back.

I remembered realizing, mid-battle, that he had the same affinity as me.

Death.

True death.

Not decay.

Not endings.

Not necromancy.

Death as a concept.

That realization had shocked me more than his strength.

SS-rank beings were rare. Ones who could contend with me? Rarer still.

But someone else wielding death?

That was… unprecedented.

The fight would have destroyed half the continent if it had continued.

Lucien Draegor had intervened then.

The Demon King himself had descended upon the battlefield, not to save anyone, but to capitalize on opportunity. He had tried to kill us both, smiling pleasantly as he did so.

He had failed.

We had all survived.

Barely.

And a few days later, we had fought again, this time his curse taking away my sight.

I exhaled.

Black had vanished after that. No sightings. No movements. No traces. A ghost that only I and the demon knew had ever existed.

Until now.

My fingers curled slowly at my sides.

Sebastian.

Of course it was Sebastian.

It didn't take more than a second for the conclusion to settle into place.

Sebastian was public knowledge.

A first year with an affinity to death. A rarity. A statistical impossibility. A problem. A curiosity. A beacon.

Black hadn't come here for Darge.

Darge had been a vessel.

A tool.

Black had come to see him.

To find out how a child, no, a boy, had awakened an affinity that should not have been possible.

And if Black had decided Sebastian was worth personally investigating…

I closed my eyes.

Then, slowly opened them again, though sight meant little to me now.

Black being stronger than me explained much.

His ability to hide from my gaze.

To move beneath my perception.

To orchestrate this entire event within academy grounds without me sensing him until it was too late.

None of that surprised me.

What surprised me was that he had acted now.

My pacing slowed. Then stopped.

Thinking would get me nowhere.

Action.

Action was better than spiraling.

I inhaled deeply.

Then I began to spread my perception.

Carefully at first.

I let it bloom outward from my mind, a vast, invisible web of awareness. It expanded beyond my body, beyond the shattered courtyard, encompassing Astralis Academy in its entirety.

Nothing.

I pushed farther.

The Capital of the Velkaris Empire unfolded within my mind, streets, towers, people, mana signatures layered atop one another in dizzying complexity. Millions of lives brushing against my awareness like grains of sand.

Still nothing.

I didn't stop.

The borders of the empire came next. Then beyond them.

Westward, into the Infernal Sovereignty.

The domain of demons.

Lucien's land.

I felt heat.

Honor.

Cruel joy.

Violence so normalized it had become background noise.

Eastward, into the Verdant Court.

The elven territories stretched out like a living organism. Forests that breathed. Mana that pulsed in slow, ancient rhythms. Eyes watching from leaves and roots and bark.

North and South were mana storms and vast oceans; nothing could survive there, not even SS-ranks.

I kept expanding.

My perception ballooned until it spanned a quarter of the continent.

The strain was… indescribable.

Trillions upon trillions of sensations assaulted me at once. Every heartbeat. Every movement. Every flicker of mana. My mind screamed under the weight of it, pressure building behind my temples until it felt like my skull might fracture.

Blood trickled from the corner of my eye.

I ignored it.

Sebastian.

I needed something.

Anything.

I pushed farther.

Too far.

Something pushed back.

Hard.

Two presences slammed into my awareness like colliding stars, halting my expansion with absolute authority.

Voices slid into my mind.

Uninvited.

The first was smooth. Warm and courteous. Undeniably male.

Amused.

"My, my," the voice drawled, rich with false courtesy. "How rude. Intruding into my domain without so much as a greeting."

Lucien Draegor.

The Demon King.

The second voice followed a heartbeat later.

Softer.

Melodic.

Like moonlight reflected off still water. Ancient and sharp beneath the gentleness.

"Belle Ardent," it said calmly. "You are straining the world. Please refrain."

Lunarith Elvenara.

The Elven King.

I stilled.

My perception recoiled slightly, settling back within the bounds of what reality would tolerate without tearing itself apart.

Of course.

Of course, someone would annoy me.

Two monarchs. Two apex beings. Two rulers whose domains I had just brushed with the subtlety of a battering ram.

I straightened where I stood, the ruined academy courtyard suddenly feeling very small.

Lucien chuckled inside my head, the sound laced with barely concealed malice. "Care to explain why you are poking around my lands, little star? One might think you were looking for something you lost."

A/N: That bastard called her "Little Star." Should I just kill him? And don't even get me started on that Elven king. While I actually like Lucien, I definitely hate that Elven bastard. I'm definitely gonna torture him.

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P.S. I edited this in after releasing the chapter, so it won't cost more.

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