A tense silence had fallen over the trial grounds after Yuzar's uncontested victory. The other qualifiers watched him with a mixture of fear and resentment, a solitary island of unsettling calm in a sea of buzzing magical auras. As Yuzar turned to leave, his path to the academy's inner sanctum clear, a voice cut through the quiet like a shard of ice, laced with an authority that rivaled the Headmistress's own.
"Stop."
The air itself seemed to solidify. From a shimmering portal of swirling shadows, a woman emerged. She was breathtaking, a stark contrast to Seraphina's solar radiance. Where the Headmistress was light and fire, this woman was the night given form. Her hair was a cascade of ink-black silk, her eyes the color of polished amethysts, sharp and knowing. She wore armor of obsidian and silver that seemed to drink the light, and a cloak of what looked like woven starlight draped her shoulders. This was Natasha, Matriarch of the Blackthorne Clan, the second strongest person in the world, and a woman known for her cold, merciless, and unpredictably bold nature.
The crowd, including the elders, dropped into deep bows. All except Yuzar and Seraphina, who stood rigid on her observation platform, her expression unreadable but her eyes narrowing to slits.
Natasha ignored everyone, her violet gaze fixed solely on Yuzar. She walked toward him, each step echoing in the dead silence. She stopped mere inches from him, looking up at his face, still half-hidden by the hood of his robe.
"I want you to become my disciple, boy," she stated, her voice not a request, but a declaration. It was a statement that shook the foundations of the academy. Natasha had never taken a personal disciple in her centuries of life.
Yuzar's mind, cold and calculating, raced. To refuse would be to insult one of the two most powerful beings on the planet, a potentially fatal mistake. To accept would grant him the immense backing and resources of the Blackthorne Clan, a shield and a weapon as he grew in power. His path was one of consumption, and her clan's shadow-aligned arts could be a potent feast for the Black Dragon.
He was about to give a measured, neutral response when Natasha moved faster than anyone could perceive.
With a flick of her wrist, she reached up and pulled back the hood of his robe, revealing his face fully to the world for the first time.
A collective, sharp intake of breath swept through the arena.
The Void-Forged Body and the Black Dragon's influence had refined his features to impossible perfection. His skin was pale and flawless, his jawline sharp. His hair was the color of the void itself, falling over his brow. But it was his eyes that captivated and terrified—violet pools, not of warmth, but of deep, starless night, yet now shimmering with a faint, otherworldly light. He was devastatingly, unnaturally handsome.
All the female students, and many of the males, felt their faces heat with an involuntary blush.
On the platform, Seraphina's breath hitched. Her heart, which had been a tumult of confusion since sensing him, now slammed against her ribs. Kaelan. It was him. Her son. The son she had abandoned. He was not a null; he was… this. A beautiful, powerful enigma. A possessive, mad fire ignited in her gut.
Beside her, Selene's hand flew to her mouth, her face pale. The boy from the gutter, the one she had left behind, was now this breathtaking, icy god. A wave of regret so powerful it was nauseating washed over her, mixed with a fierce, shocking jealousy.
Before anyone could process the revelation, Natasha did the unthinkable.
A bold, wicked smile played on her lips. She saw the frozen recognition on the faces of the two most powerful women in the audience, and she loved it. She lived for this chaos.
"My, my, what a beautiful man we have here," she purred, her voice carrying to every corner of the grounds. Then, in a move that would be spoken of for centuries, she grabbed the collar of Yuzar's robe, pulled him down to her level, and pressed her lips to his in a firm, claiming kiss.
The arena exploded into chaos. Gasps, screams, shouts of disbelief. It was an unprecedented, scandalous act.
Yuzar, the boy who had sealed all emotion, who had become a vessel of cold vengeance, felt a jolt unlike any other. It wasn't love or desire. It was sheer, shocking sensation. A heat, a pressure, a connection he had never experienced. For the first time since his rebirth, a faint, rosy blush colored his pale cheeks.
Natasha pulled back, her smirk triumphant. She looked directly at the observation platform, at the utterly stunned and livid faces of Seraphina and Selene.
"My, my," Natasha taoned, her voice dripping with mock sweetness. "Are we jealous, little birds? Does it bother you that the most interesting man in a millennium has chosen my shadow over your light?"
Seraphina's hands were clenched into fists at her sides, knuckles white. The air around her shimmered with heat haze. She wanted to incinerate Natasha where she stood, to claim her son and drag him away. But she couldn't. An open conflict with the Blackthorne Matriarch here would shatter the continent. She forced her expression into a mask of cold disdain, pretending the boy meant nothing to her. "The aspirations of a new student are of no concern to me," she lied, her voice dangerously calm.
Selene, her heart aching, also looked away, trying to appear aloof, though her trembling hands betrayed her.
Seeing Yuzar's uncharacteristic blush, Seraphina's jealousy burned white-hot. He blushed for her. He never... for me... The thought was a poison in her veins.
Desperate to regain control, Seraphina spoke, her voice echoing with forced authority. "Aspirant Yuzar. The Phoenix Clan also extends an offer. We can provide you with resources beyond imagination. Name your price."
Selene quickly added, "The Moonfall Clan would be honored to have you. We offer the same."
All eyes turned to Yuzar, the blushing, kissed, violet-eyed center of the storm. The blush faded as quickly as it came, his face settling back into its chilling neutrality. He looked at Natasha, ignoring the two women he once loved completely.
"I will join your clan," he said to Natasha, his voice flat. "Under three conditions."
Natasha's smile widened. "Bargaining already? I like it. Name them."
"One: I have complete freedom. I come and go as I please. I am your disciple, not your prisoner." "Two:If the clan is ever under threat or on a raid, I am given a position of command on the battlefield. I will not be sidelined." "Three:The third condition I will tell you later. It will not be a threat to you or your clan. It will be small, compared to the others."
Natasha laughed, a sound like ringing cold silver. "Done. Done. And done. Your terms are acceptable, Disciple Yuzar."
Yuzar gave a single, curt nod. Then, without a single glance back at his mother or Selene—as if they were mere strangers, insignificant specks of dust—he turned and walked toward the Blackthorne contingent.
Seraphina felt the dismissal like a physical blow. He had ignored her. He had chosen another. The psychoactive regret and obsession within her twisted into a new, sharper pain. Selene felt her heart break all over again, realizing the boy she knew was truly gone, replaced by a man who looked through her as if she didn't exist.
Natasha shot one last triumphant, teasing look at her rivals before following her new disciple, leaving a silent, shocked, and irrevocably changed academy behind. The game had just gained new, infinitely more dangerous players.