The luxury coach hissed to a stop in front of the Azure Heights Grand Hotel, a masterpiece of glass and timber perched on the cliffside. As the students spilled out, marveling at the five-star view, the faculty gathered near the luggage bay, looking like soldiers preparing for a siege.
"Look at them," Mr. Henderson sighed, watching Lucy vault over the luggage railing instead of using the stairs. Her striking white hair caught the mountain sun, shimmering like polished silver, while her piercing blue eyes scanned the lobby for her next target. "The students worship her. They don't see a girl; they see an icon."
"They see a prodigy who can pass a calculus final while sleeping," Ms. Lane added, clutching her clipboard. "And she's a beauty—no one can deny that. But to us? She's just the 'White Devil.' Brilliant, arrogant, and utterly hell-bent on making our lives a nightmare."
"I heard she's already looking for the master key to the kitchen," Henderson muttered. "God help us if she decides to throw a party in the penthouse."
Meanwhile, Lucy wasn't thinking about the penthouse. She was huddled behind a decorative marble fountain with Amy and two other students, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Okay, listen up," Lucy whispered, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial purr. "The teachers think they're safe in the 'Staff Only' lounge on the second floor. But I noticed the ventilation grates are wide enough for a customized smoke-bomb delivery. By the time the welcome dinner starts, Henderson and Lane are going to be sneezing glitter for a week."
"Lucy, that's insane," one of the boys whispered, clearly terrified but grinning. "We'll get suspended for sure."
"Only if they catch us," Lucy smirked, pulling a small, high-tech canister from her designer backpack. "And I'm too fast to be caught. Besides, consider it a 'welcome gift.' This place is a bit too quiet for my taste. It needs a little... chaos."
As she spoke, she didn't notice the sky through the glass ceiling beginning to bruise. The sun wasn't setting; it was being smothered. A low, rhythmic thrum—like a heartbeat deep within the mountain—vibrated through the floorboards.
Lucy paused, her hand hovering over the smoke canister. For a split second, her blue eyes didn't look human; they looked like cold, flickering flames.
"Did you guys feel that?" she asked, her flippant tone wavering for the first time.
"Feel what?" Amy asked, looking around the opulent lobby.
But Lucy didn't answer. The air was turning heavy and cold. Outside, the chirping birds went silent, replaced by the sound of glass shattering in the distance and a scream that definitely didn't belong to a student.
The transition from a five-star vacation to a living nightmare happened in the heartbeat it took for the lobby's grand glass ceiling to disintegrate.
The obsidian spire didn't just impale the luxury coach; it sent a shockwave through the hotel that threw Lucy off her feet. She hit the marble floor hard, the wind leaving her lungs in a painful wheeze. As the dust cleared, the "White Devil" looked up to see a harvest beginning.
"Everyone, run! Get to the—!" Mr. Henderson never finished his sentence. A shriveled, grey-skinned creature dropped from the rafters, its jagged blade silencing the history teacher mid-shout. Nearby, Ms. Lane was overtaken by a swarm of smaller, clicking monsters. Several students near the entrance were cut down in the initial chaos, their bodies turning to ash before they even hit the floor.
"Lucy! Help me!"
The cry came from Amy. She and a group of surviving classmates were pinned against a marble pillar, two of the creatures closing in on them. They were still alive, their eyes wide with a terror that Lucy had never seen.
"No... no, no, no!" Lucy scrambled to her knees, her flippant arrogance replaced by a cold, paralyzing void. She saw the monsters raising their weapons, ready to finish what they started with her friends.
The demon closest to Lucy turned its hollow gaze toward her. It moved with supernatural speed, its rusted blade catching Lucy across the shoulder and spinning her around. She collapsed against the base of a shattered fountain, but the demon didn't stop. It lunged, the tip of its blade piercing through her thigh and pinning her to the floor.
Lucy let out a choked sob, clutching her bleeding leg. She looked past the demon at Amy and the others, who were screaming her name. She saw the blood of her teachers on the floor. A surge of pure, unadulterated fury and protective instinct roared through her. She didn't care about the pain; she hated that she was too weak to save them.
"I said... LEAVE THEM ALONE!"
As she screamed, her body reached its breaking point. The violet essence leaking from the nearby monsters and the air itself didn't just drift; it was forcibly dragged into her wounds by the sheer intensity of her will.
The sensation was agonizing. The essence didn't form a weapon outside her body; it poured directly into her veins. Her skin turned a ghostly, translucent pale, and her blood glowed with a bruised purple light. She was absorbing the very nature of the demons, her prodigy-level mind instinctively cataloging the raw power as it merged with her DNA.
Her hand clamped onto the blade pinning her leg. Under the pressure of her awakening, the metal didn't just break—it turned into liquid shadow and flowed into her palm, absorbed entirely into her system.
The Hell Canto screeched in confusion, its weapon gone.
Lucy stood up, the wounds on her shoulder and leg sealing with dark, crystalline scars. She reached into the air, and using the essence now circulating in her blood, she crafted a jagged, shimmering blade of solidified energy right out of her own palm.
With a roar of defiance, Lucy swung the energy blade. It hummed with the power she had just stolen. The creature shattered into a flurry of black ash and violet sparks, all of which were instantly pulled into Lucy's skin, fueling her further.
Lucy stood firmly between the remaining students and the monsters, her white hair matted with blood and her blue eyes burning with a terrifying, fractured light.