The situation had turned dire. Of all the Central Academy students who had once been hailed as the pride of their institution, only one among them could still use magic. Kelly. The others stood helpless, drained and broken, their cores nothing but hollow silence.
That left Kelly with a grim truth: the burden of survival rested solely on her.
Her only advantage was the one thing she had always kept hidden, her Dark Magic. Unlike wind, fire, or lightning, there was no formal training, no neat counter-spells printed in textbooks. Dark Magic was a forbidden art, rarely studied, whispered about in fear, and deliberately excluded from the academy's lessons. No one truly knew the best way to counter it.
But by using it, Kelly would be branding herself. Every spell she cast pulled her further into the light of suspicion. If the staff didn't kill her here and now, she would be hunted later. Her fellow students would never look at her the same way again.
