Infirmary — Evening — Crimson Dormitory Wing
The room was suffused with a heavy, oppressive silence.
Outside, the last dying light bled from the sky, painting the cracked windowpane with bruised purples and cold greys. The survivors of the Crimson Class sat scattered—some wrapped in tattered bandages, others with faces too hollow to show pain.
Chris leaned heavily against the wall, eyes dark and haunted, his usual fire reduced to embers.
Kira's hands rested on his knees, trembling slightly, yet his expression remained unreadable. Rhea's arms crossed tightly across her chest, as if trying to hold herself together against a storm inside.
Even Yuujin, who usually masked everything with biting sarcasm, sat in rare silence.
Liora stood before them—a shadow framed by the dying light. Her face was calm, but her eyes held a storm of unspoken grief.
"You're lucky to be alive," she said softly. "But luck has nothing to do with what comes next."
Chris's voice broke the fragile quiet.
"Enough with riddles. We almost died because of him. Because of Leo. Tell us why. Tell us what he really is."
A chill swept through the room at the name. Leo. The word hung like a curse.
Liora's gaze fell to the floor, then slowly lifted.
"He wasn't always a monster."
Kira's voice was barely a whisper, but it sliced through the tension.
"How did he become this? What turned him into… that?"
Rhea's voice trembled with both fear and curiosity.
"Tell us everything. We deserve to know."
Liora closed her eyes, drawing a shuddering breath. When she spoke again, her voice was distant—like a story carved from ancient stone.
Two centuries ago — The Forgotten Era
The world was young, yet broken.
The academy was not the towering fortress it is today but a fledgling bastion amid chaos, its halls echoing with distrust and decay.
Leo was a child born of no known bloodline. No ancient lineage, no elemental gift. He was an orphan wandering the ruins of a shattered kingdom.
They called him a stray. A shadow without a name.
In the halls of the fledgling school, he was invisible to all but cruelty.
Teachers ignored him. Peers despised him. Nobles spat curses.
But Leo watched.
He watched as alliances were forged and broken.
He watched the demon-human wars tear families apart.
He watched hope drown in rivers of blood.
When the Great Betrayal came—the breaking of the Demon Pact—he was sent as a pawn to die in the front lines. His orders were clear: expendable.
His comrades fell around him like dry leaves in a gale.
Leo alone survived.
But he returned broken—not in body, but in soul.
No one dared ask how.
No one dared ask what he had seen.
A secret beneath the academy
One storm-wracked night, Leo disappeared.
Liora found him beneath the ruins of the old temple—a place whispered about only in fear. The altar was cracked, stained with curses older than history.
Leo stood before a broken throne, fingers tracing runes that twisted and writhed like living shadows.
"Leo…" Liora whispered, but he did not turn.
His eyes glowed—silver and cold.
"I touched the forgotten," he said.
"A power abandoned by gods and men alike."
"The Lawless Sovereignty."
A domain without order, bound only to his will.
Liora tried to pull him back. Tried to remind him of humanity.
But he was no longer human.
He had rewritten the rules.
He became a king not of blood, but of will.
Return to the present
Liora's voice cracked.
"That power… no one truly understands it. Not even Leo."
Chris's fist slammed the table.
"He killed our friends. Our classmates. There's no excuse for that."
Kira's jaw tightened.
"But the world made him this."
Rhea's voice was barely audible.
"Then what do we do? Fight a king forged in silence and shadow?"
Liora met her gaze—dark and resolute.
"You prepare. You become stronger. Because Leo doesn't just want to rule."
Her eyes flicked to the fading sky outside.
"He wants to reset everything.
To break the cycle.
To remake the world in his image."
A long silence fell.
Yuujin finally spoke, voice cold but tired.
"If he's so far beyond us… how can we ever hope to stop him?"
Kira stood slowly.
"Because if we don't, no one else will."
The weight of that truth settled over them like a shroud.