The news of a Poseidon envoy was old by now. Classes had ended, and the campus settled into its first normal evening in what felt like weeks. By 8:00 PM, a fragile sense of routine had returned and the students no longer behaved stangely. everything returned to normal like it had never happened.
In Winston's private office, the heavy atmosphere was cut only by the clink of crystal. Winston, Vanessa, and Barracuda sat in a tense triangle. Barracuda swirled a glass of Winston's best whiskey, his posture relaxed but his eyes missing nothing.
"The boy seems safe," Barracuda stated, his voice a low rumble. "My Lord's concern seems unwarranted. Your internal problems are not my mandate." He took a slow sip, his gaze lingering on Vanessa's coiled tension and Winston's distant stare. "But the air here is sour with secrets. The calm outside is paper-thin."
"The academy handles its own affairs, Master Barracuda," Winston said, his tone dismissive as he refilled his own glass. "Your presence is appreciated, but not an invitation to audit our security."
Vanessa shot Winston a look but said nothing, her crimson eyes fixed on the darkening skyline through the window.
A sharp, coded knock at the door broke the silence. Leo.
"Enter," Winston called.
Leo slipped in, his usual smirk absent. He gave a curt nod to Vanessa and a measured, assessing glance at Barracuda before focusing on Winston. "Sir. My report."
"Here is fine," Winston said, a clear dismissal of Barracuda's earlier curiosity.Barracuda merely raised an eyebrow, a silent spectator.
"Sir, perhaps the balcony?" Leo suggested, his voice low. "The details are... sensitive."
Winston exhaled through his nose, a sign of irritation, but stood. "Excuse us."
He and Leo stepped through the tall glass doors onto the broad, stone balcony over
looking the central quad. The evening air was cool. Below, students milled about, taking advantage of the curfew's slight relaxation. There was laughter. For a fleeting moment, Winston's stern facade softened.
His eyes found Drake. The boy was with Alexis and Xian, the trio caught in some argument that ended with Xian shoving Alexis, who feigned dramatic injury. Even Jackson Storm hovered near their periphery, not part of the group but not opposing them either—a golden-haired statue amidst the easy chaos. The sight was ordinary. Human. It sparked a faint, almost forgotten warmth in Winston's chest. This was what they were fighting for. This fragile normality.
"Report," Winston said, the warmth fading as he turned to Leo, his back to the scene below.Leo leaned on the railing. "Connor Frey. His routine is flawless, which is the problem. No slips. The girl, Elara Reed, is his shadow. Their interaction patterns are off—telepathic, I'd wager. The strange behaviour of the students seem so have suddenly van......
Winston never heard the end of the sentence.
Every hair on his body stood on end. A primal chill, deeper than any Aether sensing, scraped down his spine—the instinct of a King who had survived a hundred ambushes. His head snapped up, not to the sky, but to a specific point in the space just beyond the academy's outer wall.
"MOVE THEM!" Winston's roar wasn't a command; it was a detonation of sheer will that shattered the evening calm. It echoed across the quad, freezing students mid-step. "GARLACK! EVACUATION PROTOCOL OMEGA! NOW! ALL STUDENTS TO QUARTERS! VANESSA!"
Inside the office, Vanessa and Barracuda were on their feet in an instant. Vanessa burst onto the balcony, fire already wreathing her fists. "Winston, what—?"Barracuda followed, his relaxed demeanor gone, replaced by the lethal stillness of a deep-sea predator.
Winston didn't answer. He pointed.
A hundred meters beyond the main gate, on the bridge, the air shimmered. A thin, vertical line of violent purple light tore into reality from the ground up, stretching three meters tall. It hung there for a heartbeat, a bleeding scar in the world.Then it widened.
Not like a door opening, but like a wound being pried apart.Four figures stepped through onto the cobblestones. Distance hid their features, but their posture screamed predatory leisure. The rift sealed behind them with a sound like a thunderclap swallowed by silence.
"Gods," Vanessa whispered, her fingers clenching.
"They've come." She muttered.
Chaos erupted below as Garlack's voice boomed through speakers, Sentinels materializing from alleys to herd terrified students toward dormitories.
"Go," Winston commanded, his voice ice-cold now, all warmth burned away. "Engage. Hold them at the perimeter. Do not let them reach the main gate."
Vanessa nodded, a fierce grin touching her lips. She shot into the air, a comet of crimson fire streaking toward the gate. Barracuda didn't wait for orders. He simply stepped off the balcony, falling like a stone before a geyser of pressurized water erupted beneath him, carrying him forward in a surging wave.
Leo made to follow.
"No," Winston said, grabbing his arm. His eyes were locked on his office. "Round up the club captains and be ready to fight. They might be others within the walls already.""Yes sir."Leo didn't hesitate. He spun and leapt off the balcony—not toward the main gate, but into the shadowed arteries of the academy, moving to rally their defenses from within.
Inside the office, the air behind Winston's desk rippled.
Another spatial tear opened. This one was smaller, cleaner, about the size of a man. The same purple light— a silent rift in the fabric of the room.
Two men stepped out.
The first was of such impossible, godlike beauty it was jarring—silver hair, silver eyes, earrings that caught the dying light. Saturn, the Ninth Hand, surveyed the room with mild curiosity.
The second had long, white hair tied back, one eye covered by a lock of it. His remaining eye, a pale blue, held a timeless weariness. He held two slender swords, already loose in his grip. White Fang, the Sixth Hand.
The balcony doors were still open. The sounds of panic from outside, the distant roar of Vanessa's opening salvo, filtered in.Saturn smiled pleasantly at Winston. "Principal. We apologize for the intrusion. We're here to pay a little visit."
White Fang's dual swords gave a soft, harmonic chime as he settled into a stance. "And we have a special surprise for you" he said, his voice quiet as falling snow. "The Great Lord sends his regards."
Winston didn't look at the chaos outside. He kept his hazel eyes fixed on the two Hands in his office, his King-ranked aura beginning to press down on the very stone of the tower, making the whiskey bottles on the sidebar shudder.
The first attack on Arachis had begun. Not at the gates.
But in the heart of its power.