The bell tower struck midnight. Once, then twice—its dull chime echoed over the city of Vireen, casting long shadows across the cobbled streets.
In the deepest level of the Citadel dungeons, Kael counted the sound with half-lidded eyes. Twenty hours, maybe less, until the "execution."
He sat in stillness, chains biting into his wrists, the stone beneath him cold and humming with mana suppression. The rune cage was designed for dangerous criminals, rogue mages, or war beasts—never students.
But Kael had long since stopped being just a student.
His breathing was steady. His mind sharper than ever.
They want me to despair. To fear the end.
But I've been here before. Back on Earth, I faced this loneliness too. And just like then… I endured.
Then, faintly—a whisper.
It wasn't sound. It was vibration. A pulse in the stones, traveling through the runes like a warning.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"...She's here."
---
Above, in the outer corridors of the Citadel, two guards lay unconscious—no blood, no alarm. Just collapsed bodies hidden neatly in the alcoves of the stonework.
Lia stepped through the shadows, hood drawn low, holding the black steel blade her sister had handed her. Its edge shimmered faintly with resonance—an anti-barrier enchantment older than the kingdom.
Beside her walked Seren, clad in a sleeveless cloak, one shoulder bare, silver tattoos glowing faintly against her skin.
"You're sure this is the level?" Lia asked, her voice barely above breath.
Seren didn't answer. She simply raised her hand.
A ring of mirrored glyphs bloomed in the air, twisting and dancing until it pointed down the corridor.
"There," she said. "They buried him deep. They always do with people they're afraid of."
The sisters moved like wraiths—silent, fast, efficient.
Each hallway they passed was cleared in seconds. Spells rippled beneath Seren's fingertips—glyphs that silenced sound, slowed time, blinded watchers. She wielded her Myth-tier ability with chilling grace.
At the last stairwell, Lia stopped. Her hand gripped the stone wall as her breath caught.
"Do you feel it?" she whispered. "The suppression runes... they're heavy."
"They've layered at least four rings of anti-magic," Seren murmured. "He must've scared them badly."
Lia's voice cracked slightly. "He did more than that."
Seren turned. "Stay close."
They descended.
---
In the prison chamber, the lights flickered. For the first time in hours, the ever-burning torches stuttered—an anomaly no ward should allow.
Kael looked up.
From the corridor beyond his cell, came a faint sound: the wind… no, a breath.
Then, the impossible happened.
The outer seal burst—a silent implosion of glyphs twisting in on themselves, disrupted by a sharper, more ancient sequence.
The guard barely had time to rise before Seren's sword flashed through the bars and cut the mana locks.
Kael's restraints fell away like thread.
He didn't wait. His hands moved instantly, tracing a glyph midair that recharged his reserves with the leftover ambient mana from the shattered ward. His body burned, but control returned.
He stood.
Lia pressed her hands against the bars. "Kael—are you—?"
"I'm ready."
Seren simply watched him, measuring.
"You don't look like a genius," she said. "You look like hell."
Kael smiled. "You should see the other side of my mind."
She grunted, then sliced open the lock. The door flew wide.
But just as Kael stepped out—alarms rang.
A piercing screech erupted through the tower—an old war-ward Kael recognized immediately.
"They bound the dungeon to the execution hall," he growled. "Failing one triggers the other."
"Then we don't have time," Lia said.
Footsteps thundered above. Arcanists. Talents. Knights. It wouldn't be long.
Kael glanced to the sisters.
"Can you teleport us out?"
Seren shook her head. "The Citadel's shrouded in anchor runes. They'd rip us apart mid-cast."
Kael closed his eyes, then pointed.
"Level four. The Grand Hall. There's a collapsed channel under the observatory—the old tunnel system from the founding era. I read about it last year. Nobody uses it anymore, but it connects to the outside cliffs."
Seren stared at him. "You memorized the old layouts?"
"I like reading at night."
Her expression darkened into something between respect and concern.
"Then we move," she said.
---
They surged up the stairwells. One level, then two. Magic flared behind them as chasers began closing in—Talent-users, bladesmen, enforcers in enchanted plate.
Kael kept track of them all.
They were a dozen moves behind. Not enough.
Need more time.
They reached Level Four.
Explosions shook the stone. The hall above began to glow as reinforcement mages began to bind the air with suppression spells.
Kael knelt by a statue, his hand tracing the base.
"I need thirty seconds," he muttered. "The mechanism's hidden beneath this pillar."
Seren turned. "Thirty seconds is luxury."
Lia took position behind him, sword raised. "We'll buy it."
And then—
The enemy arrived.
First one, then five. Then Ardyn.
He strode through smoke and shattered stone like a ghost.
"Kael."
Kael looked up. His hands didn't stop.
Ardyn raised his sword.
Kael smiled.
"I told you I wasn't alone."