The Grand Ballroom of the Zenith Spire was a study in predatory opulence. Beneath vaulted ceilings of reinforced crystal, the air was a suffocating soup of overlapping influences. It was not just the noise, the orchestrated hum of a hundred different conversations and the clinking of crystal, it was the mana. Every guest was a font of power. Vane watched as a group of Counts from the borderlands huddled together, their auras flickering like guttering candles as they tried to remain invisible to the Great Lords circling the floor.

Valerica moved beside Vane as a silent, silver specter. Her gown was a masterwork of enchanted silk, a shimmering lunar-silver that seemed to catch the light and sharpen it into a blade. She did not walk. She drifted with her chin tilted at the precise angle of a woman used to looking down on the world.

"Do not focus on the noise, Vane," she murmured. Her voice was a cool thread that cut through the cacophony. "The lower nobility are just decoration. The real threats are on the dais, and they have been watching us since we stepped off the carriage."

Vane looked toward the elevated platform at the far end of the hall. Princess Anastasia sat on a throne of gold and white marble, representing the absolute peak of Imperial grace. Standing at her right shoulder was a man who looked like a mountain of dark-iron plate. He held his helmet under one arm to reveal a face scarred by decades of conflict. He was not moving, nor was he actively channeling his power, yet the air around him felt unnaturally still.

Vane narrowed his eyes and the silver sparks of his authority flickered as he pulled the data from the air.

[Target Analysis]

Name: Grand Marshal Varron

Rank: 8 (Grandmaster)

Danger: Catastrophic

Authority: Iron Decree (SSS)

The Grand Marshal's gaze was fixed on the horizon, yet Vane felt the man's presence like a physical weight pressing against his ribs. He saw the name [Iron Decree] in his vision, but he had no idea what it actually did. All he knew was that the Marshal's passive presence made his own mana-core feel sluggish. His Rank 3 energy, still fluid and silver, pushed against the walls of his core. He was not breaking through to Rank 4, but the density of the Grandmasters in the room made the "Gate" feel like it was under constant, rhythmic pressure.

"Vane," Valerica whispered, nudging him toward the side of the hall. "Look past the light."

Vane scanned the periphery, away from the gilded center. In a recessed alcove draped in lavender silk, a girl sat alone. She looked no older than nineteen, her hair a waterfall of pale violet that darkened into midnight-blue at the tips. She was twisting a single mana-ribbon between her fingers with a sleepy, detached expression. She looked like a student who found the most important social event of the century to be a tedious chore.

His [Usurper] vision did not just see her. It flared with a blinding, gold tag that eclipsed everything else in the room.

[Target Analysis]

Name: Nyx

Rank: 4 (Sentinel)

Danger: Unknown

Authority: Dreamscape (EX)

The word [EX] hovered in the air like a forbidden sigil. Vane's heart hammered a frantic rhythm. A second-year Sentinel. Another monster hiding in plain sight. He had no clue what [Dreamscape] entailed, but the gold border around the rank was enough of a warning. Nyx did not look up, but as Vane's gaze lingered, she offered a lazy smirk to the empty air before closing her eyes.

Suddenly, the music died.

The orchestra did not finish the measure. The conductor's baton snapped in mid-air. A sudden, jarring silence swallowed the ballroom. The sound of a falling silk handkerchief would have echoed like a gunshot in that void.

The warmth of the thousands of candles vanished. In its place came a cold that did not just bite, it claimed. A delicate, crystalline frost raced across the floor, turning the dark marble into a sheet of frosted glass. Duke Valandis, standing nearby, watched as his wine glass cracked in his hand, the liquid freezing into a solid ruby before it could hit the floor.

At the center of the hall, space itself groaned. A vertical fissure of cerulean light tore through the air with the sound of a shattering glacier. The rift widened into a portal that bled a mist so cold it turned the breath of every guest into a white cloud.

A woman stepped out.

She did not wear gold or jewels. Her robes were a translucent, shimmering white that looked as though it had been woven from the northern lights. Her hair was a river of silver, cascading down her back as she surveyed the room with eyes the color of a frozen lake.

The reaction was a chorus of terror and awe.

Grand Marshal Varron did not hesitate. He dropped to one knee, the heavy clank of his iron plate echoing through the frozen room. Princess Anastasia went pale, her hand flying to her throat as she sank into a deep, trembling curtsy. Across the hall, Kaito Razar pressed his forehead toward the floor, and Alistair Sol's molten eyes widened in genuine, naked shock.

"The North," a high-ranking Count whispered, his voice trembling so hard his teeth chattered. "She is actually here. The Absolute Zero."

Transcendents were legends who lived in secluded palaces. For one to appear at a student ball was a violation of every unspoken rule of global politics. Vane felt his throat go dry. He watched the Target Analysis flicker, struggling to process the entity before him.

[Target Analysis]

Name: Isadora Glacium

Rank: 9 (Transcendent)

Danger: Error

Authority: Eternal Winter (SSS)

The woman ignored the kneeling Grandmasters. She did not even glance at the Imperial Dais. Her gaze swept the room with a terrifying, ancient clarity until it locked onto Vane.

The crowd did not just part. They scrambled. Nobles practically threw themselves over furniture to get out of her path as she began to glide toward the boy in the midnight-blue suit. Every step she took left a blooming flower of frost on the marble.

Vane stood his ground, though he felt like an ant standing before a falling mountain. The pressure of her presence was like standing at the bottom of an ocean of liquid nitrogen. He felt his Rank 3 core straining, pushed to its absolute limit just to keep his heart beating in the face of her logic.

She stopped directly in front of him.

Up close, she did not look like a monster. She looked like the most beautiful woman Vane had ever seen, her skin as flawless as polished marble. He braced himself and his jaw locked. He expected her to demand satisfaction for the humiliation of her son.

Instead, she did something that shattered the sanity of every noble in the room.

She smiled. It was not a cold, regal curve of the lips. It was a warm, beaming, and undeniably motherly expression. She reached out with a hand that radiated a gentle, soothing heat. Before Vane could recoil, she cupped his face with her palm.

"Oh, you are much more handsome than the reports suggested," she whispered. Her voice was not a blizzard. It was a soft, melodic bell. She leaned in, her eyes crinkling with genuine delight. "Thank you for waking my son up, Vane. Isaac has not looked that alive in years. I think I am going to like you very much."

Vane stood paralyzed, his mind a complete blank, as the most powerful being in the West treated him like her own flesh and blood.

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