Three days had passed since Vane walked into the Red Tower and broke bread with the warlords.

For the average student at Zenith Academy, three days was a blur of lectures, tea in the solariums, and polishing mana crystals. It was a civilized existence.

For Vane, it was a seventy-two-hour siege.

Ashe Razar had taken his comment about "settling the debt" as an open invitation to invade every aspect of his life. She had become an environmental hazard. She did not attack him directly. That would have been too simple. Instead, she eroded his sanity with the relentless, suffocating pressure of a predator toying with its food.

It started in the library. Vane had gone there to research the fungal ecology of Sector 9. He found a quiet corner in the stacks. Ten minutes later, he heard the grinding sound of metal on stone. He looked up to see Ashe sitting on top of a bookshelf twelve feet in the air. She was sharpening her massive claymore with a whetstone, the rhythmic shhhk-shhhk sound echoing through the silence like a metronome of violence.

It continued in the cafeteria. Vane sat with Valerica and Isole. Ashe sat at the table directly behind him. She did not speak. She just ate apples. Loudly. The crunch of the fruit was the only sound she made, but her Aura, that dense, heavy Eastern pressure, pushed against the back of his neck like a physical hand.

And then there were the nights.

Vane would wake up at 3:00 AM, his [Usurper] authority screaming that something was wrong. He would go to his balcony door, look out, and see nothing. But he would find footprints in the garden soil. Heavy boot prints that paced back and forth, circling his villa like a shark circling a cage.

She was waiting for him to snap. She was waiting for the "Civilized Student" mask to slip so she could see the Rat underneath.

But the breaking point did not come in the library. It came on the training grounds.

The First Year Combat Arena was a massive, open-air colosseum divided into twelve distinct sparring circles. The air smelled of ozone, burnt soil, and the metallic tang of exhausted mana.

General Kael stood on the observation deck. The Head of Combat Praxis was a terrifying figure, a war hero with a singular eye and a reputation for failing entire cohorts if they showed weakness.

"Begin," Kael barked.

Vane stood in the center of Circle 4.

His opponent was Elian, a sub-noble from the Blue Tower coalition. Elian was currently Rank 42. He was a competent, if uninspired, mage who relied heavily on the standard Aurelian doctrine: static positioning and heavy shielding.

"You look tired, Rat," Elian sneered. He stood thirty feet away, his ivory wand raised. A shimmering, translucent barrier, a Tier 2 [Aegis Shell], surrounded him. "Did the nightmares keep you up? Or are you just realizing that luck runs out eventually?"

Vane did not answer. He held his training spear loosely in his right hand. His eyes were bloodshot.

'Three hours of sleep,' Vane thought. 'My reaction time is down by twelve percent. My mana efficiency is sloppy.'

He forced himself to breathe. He visualized the marrow of his bones. He pushed his mana into the Spiral Circulation that Senna had beaten into him.

If it sits, it stagnates, Senna's voice rasped in his memory. The Silver Mana is heavy. It wants to sink. You have to keep it spinning. Turn your bones into turbines.

Vane felt the hum start. It began in his ankles, spiraled up his shins, and settled into a low, vibrating thrum in his forearms. It was not the external, flashy light of the Aurelian style. It was internal. Invisible.

"Ignore him," Vane whispered to himself. "Solve the geometry."

Elian began to chant. The air around the noble twisted. He was preparing [Wind Shear], a simple but effective spell that fired a blade of compressed air.

Vane watched Elian's shoulder. He watched the way the noble's elbow dropped slightly as he gathered mana.

'He is telegraphing,' Vane analyzed. 'He will fire high. He thinks I will try to duck.'

The plan was simple. Step left. Close the distance. Use the vibration of the spear tip to shatter the [Aegis Shell] at its weakest point and put the blade to Elian's throat.

It was a standard, low-risk maneuver.

Then the air pressure dropped.

It was not a gradual change. It was instant. The hairs on the back of Vane's neck stood up. The ambient mana in the arena, which usually flowed like a gentle stream, suddenly became turbulent.

Vane's eyes widened. He knew that feeling.

He shifted his gaze past Elian, looking toward Circle 5.

Ashe Razar was supposed to be sparring with a heavily armored clay golem. She was supposed to be practicing her grappling forms.

She was not grappling.

Ashe stood with her back to her opponent. She was looking directly at Vane. Her lips were pulled back in a feral grin. Her right hand was wreathed in a dense, red aura that looked less like fire and more like pressurized blood.

The clay golem swung a massive stone fist at her.

Ashe did not dodge. She spun. She caught the golem's fist with her left hand, stopping the ton of moving rock dead in its tracks. With her right hand, she backhanded the golem's chest.

But she did not just hit it. She released the pressure.

BOOM.

A massive sphere of condensed thermal energy, a "red fireball" created by sheer friction and mana compression, exploded out of the impact. But it did not go into the golem.

Ashe had angled her strike perfectly. The fireball careened off the golem's chest, banked off the containment barrier, and screamed across the arena.

It was heading straight for Circle 4.

Straight for Vane.

Time seemed to liquefy.

Vane saw Elian release the [Wind Shear]. The blade of air was flying toward his head. Vane saw the fireball roaring toward his flank. It was the size of a carriage wheel. It was hot enough to melt steel.

If he dodged left, the Wind Shear would take his head off. If he dodged right, the fireball would impact the students in Circle 3. If he blocked...

'Standard reinforcement won't work,' Vane realized instantly. 'The thermal mass is too dense. A steel spear will turn to slag in my hands. An external shell would shatter.'

He was trapped. A pincer move between a noble idiot and a bored monster.

'Leverage,' Senna whispered. 'You cannot stop the train, boy. But you can switch the tracks.'

Vane dropped his center of gravity. He abandoned his attack on Elian. He channeled every ounce of the Silver Mana in his body into the shaft of the spear.

[Authority: Silver Fang]

He did not push the Authority to the breaking point. He just made the spear hum.

The steel lance vibrated. It shook so hard that it became a blur, a ghost image of a weapon. The air around the metal began to scream as the molecules were forced apart.

Vane slammed the butt of the spear into the ground, burying it deep in the soil to create a fulcrum. He twisted his hips. He did not swing at the fireball. He swung at the air in front of it.

The flat of the vibrating blade slapped the space inches from the incoming spell.

The [Silver Fang] created a vacuum. A high-frequency rejection field.

When the fireball hit that field, it did not explode. It skidded.

Like a flat stone skipping across a pond, the massive sphere of thermal energy bounced off Vane's deflection. It curved violently upward, missing Vane's hair by a single centimeter. The heat blistered his skin. The sound was deafening.

The fireball soared over Elian's head.

The noble looked up, his eyes bulging, just as the spell slammed into the upper magical barrier of the arena.

CRACK-BOOM.

The explosion shook the foundations of the stadium. Debris rained down. Elian was knocked off his feet by the shockwave, his [Wind Shear] dissipating harmlessly into the dust.

Vane stood alone in the center of the chaos. He was breathing hard. His hands were numb from the vibration. Smoke curled from the tip of his spear.

Silence fell over the arena.

"Oops," a raspy voice called out.

Vane straightened up slowly. He looked over the barrier to Circle 5.

Ashe was standing there, dusting off her hands. The clay golem behind her was missing its entire upper torso. She looked at Vane with an expression of intense, scientific curiosity.

"My hand slipped," Ashe said. She did not sound sorry. She sounded delighted. "Sweaty palms. You know how it is."

"Cadet Razar!"

General Kael's voice thunderclapped across the grounds. The General jumped from the observation deck, landing in the arena with an impact that cracked the stone. He marched toward Ashe, his singular eye burning with fury.

"That was a Tier 3 equivalent discharge in a Tier 1 zone," Kael roared, getting right in Ashe's face. "You nearly incinerated three students. Do you lack motor control, or do you simply lack a brain?"

"Just testing the perimeter, General," Ashe replied. She didn't flinch. Her eyes flicked past the General, locking onto Vane. She winked.

'I saw that,' the wink said. 'You did not use a Shell. You used physics. Show me more.'

Vane looked away. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He looked down at his hands. The skin on his knuckles was red and raw from the heat.

He looked up at the VIP balcony.

Jax was there.

The Blue Tower leader was leaning against the railing, sipping a glass of iced juice. He was flanked by his coalition members. Jax was not angry about the disruption. He was smiling.

He was watching Vane panting in the dust. He was watching the "Rat" struggle to survive a training session.

Jax raised his glass in a mock toast.

'He loves this,' Vane realized. The thought was cold and sharp. 'He thinks the Red Tower is doing his work for him. He thinks I am drowning.'

"Session over!" Kael barked. "Razar, you have detention until you rot. Everyone else, hit the showers."

Vane pulled his spear out of the ground. The metal was warped, bent by the sheer force of the deflection.

"Where are you going, Rat?" Elian shouted. The noble was scrambling to his feet, his face red with humiliation and dust. "We are not finished! I slipped! That didn't count!"

Vane did not stop. He walked past Elian without looking at him. He walked toward the exit tunnel.

Ashe fell into step beside him. She smelled of sweat and burning stone.

"You hesitated," she criticized quietly, her voice low enough that Kael couldn't hear. "You saw the fire coming. You calculated the trajectory. But you checked the background for collateral damage first. You wasted 0.4 seconds worrying about the students in Circle 3."

Vane kept walking. "Collateral damage is inefficient."

"In the East, that half-second hesitation gets your throat cut," Ashe said. She leaned in, invading his space again. "You are soft, Vane. You have the teeth, but you are afraid to bite."

Vane stopped.

They were in the shadowy tunnel leading to the locker rooms. The cheers and shouts of the arena were muffled here.

Vane turned to look at her. He was tired. He was sore. And he was done being the prey.

"I am not soft, Ashe," Vane said. His voice was flat. Dead. "I am just trying to graduate without burying a body."

"Boring," Ashe whispered. "Prove it."

"Not here," Vane said. "And not with rules."

He turned and walked away into the darkness of the tunnel. Ashe watched him go, her grin widening until it looked painful.

Vane knew he had to end this. He couldn't study the map of the Fungal Caverns if he was constantly looking over his shoulder. He couldn't lead a team if his "tank" didn't respect him.

Jax wanted a show? Ashe wanted a fight?

He would give them both what they wanted. But he would do it on his terms. The stalking ended tonight.

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