"As I've said, you don't have to keep apologising," Zephyra said, a genuine, amused smile breaking across her bronzed face, clearly pleased by Seraphina's total lack of pretence. "Just be careful around these halls. Not everyone at this Academy is quite as forgiving as I am."
Zephyra extended her hand toward Seraphina. Instantly, the surrounding crowd of students tensed up, their footing shifting as they prepared to recklessly jump in to shield the first-year.
But much to their absolute shock, Zephyra simply reached out and gently patted Seraphina's head, caressing her dark hair much like an affectionate older sister before turning around and strolling casually down the hallway.
"Was... was that really the Crimson Tyrant...?" a female student whispered, staring after Zephyra with wide, incredulous eyes.
"Did she... just pat someone's head and walk away without causing a total bloodbath?!" another student chimed in, sounding completely floored by what they had just witnessed.
"Seraphina! Are you alright?!"
Lucy came sprinting through the crowd, practically tackling Seraphina as she inspected her from head to toe with immense concern.
"Yeah, I'm completely fine..." Seraphina turned to her, tilting her head in confusion. "Why are you panicking so much?"
"Are you really sure you're okay?! Did she do anything to you?!" Lucy's anxiety didn't wane in the slightest despite Seraphina's calm reassurance.
"Geez, Lucy, I'm totally fine," Seraphina sighed softly, gesturing to herself. "Look at me—do you see a single scratch or bruise?"
Lucy examined her up and down once more before letting out a long, shuddering breath as she finally began to calm down.
"Thank goodness..." Lucy suddenly pulled Seraphina into a tight, smothering embrace, softly petting her hair like a worried parent. "My sweet, innocent baby girl is safe..."
Her overly dramatic relief earned a few stifled snickers from the nearby spectators who were still lingering in the corridor.
"Y'know, ya act less like her classmate and more like her overprotective mother," a familiar voice drawled.
Percy Pantalone strolled over to the pair with his hands tucked casually into his pockets, a relaxed, easygoing smile on his face. "Lucy, ya really need to take a breather. Seraphina ain't a helpless toddler."
"She is MY child!" Lucy declared, shooting Percy a mock-hostile glare while refusing to loosen her grip around Seraphina.
"Y'know, yer embarrassin' her—and yerself—right in the middle of the hallway," Percy chuckled, shaking his head at her dramatic antics. "I get that ya can't help feeling defensive over Seraphina, but ya gotta keep both of yer public images in mind."
"I don't care about public image!" Lucy pouted stubbornly, continuing to fuss over Seraphina's hair.
"Lucy, please... can you just explain it to me?" Seraphina asked, feeling utterly lost and bewildered by everyone's extreme reaction. "Why is everyone acting like I just survived a natural disaster?"
"Because you literally just had a face-to-face encounter with THAT monster!" Lucy blurted out hyperactively. "Of course I'm terrified for you! Geez, you really need to keep your head on a swivel around here!"
"She's talkin' about Zephyra Valkaress," Percy clarified smoothly, stepping into stride alongside them. "Anyway, we've got Astronomy on the top tower in ten minutes, so we'd better get movin' before the professor locks the doors."
"Right!" Lucy nodded quickly, finally remembering their actual class schedule. She released Seraphina from her vice-like hug and fell into step beside her as the trio made their way toward the central spire.
"I don't understand why you're all so terrified of her," Seraphina said, yawning slightly. She was walking somewhat sluggishly, her heavy eyelids making it painfully evident that her lack of sleep over the past three days was finally catching up to her.
"Because that's the Crimson Tyrant," Percy explained gently, slowing down his pace to match Seraphina's sluggish steps. "She's the top-ranked duelist in this entire Academy, and ye really don't wanna get noticed by her. She's famous for causin' absolute chaos and straight-up traumatisin' students in the Duel Arena. She's a walkin', talkin' disaster."
"But..." Seraphina turned her tired gaze toward Percy, her expression soft with genuine surprise. "She acted so nicely toward me..."
"She was probably just in an unusually good mood or somethin'," Percy shrugged casually. "Normally, she would've caused ye some serious inconvenience just for standin' in her path."
Seraphina didn't offer a rebuttal, falling quiet as she continued walking beside the two. Percy and Lucy carried the conversation for the next few hallways, flitting through casual topics about upcoming coursework and campus rumours. Seraphina's mind, however, drifted far away from their conversation.
"Could Amon beat that senior in a fight?"
She blurted the question out without thinking. The moment both Percy and Lucy stopped in their tracks to stare at her, Seraphina realised she had voiced her internal thoughts out loud, her cheeks instantly flushing with flustered warmth. "Sorry... I didn't mean to—"
"Well, if they're allowed to use familiars, then Amon would absolutely annihilate the floor with her," Percy replied with zero hesitation, a confident grin breaking across his face. "It wouldn't even be a fight. But if we're talkin' pure combat without familiars... then I honestly don't know."
"Percy, you're completely forgetting the fundamentals of familiar contracts—they grant permanent passive stat boosts to their contractors, which remain active even when the familiars aren't physically manifested," Lucy chimed in, her tone shifting into a rapid, analytical lecture mode. "Amon is contracting two Primordials. The boosts flowing through his body from those pacts alone are absurd. So, I'd give the benefit of the doubt to Amon. Even without summoning them, he has the clear advantage."
"Even so, we haven't seen the true, uninhibited extent of what Zephyra Valkaress can do," Percy countered, looking unusually thoughtful as they reached the grand winding staircase leading up to the Astronomy Spire. "According to the rumours I've heard, she possesses enough mastery over her Personal Magic to deploy a Final Technique. But she's never actually used it against anyone in an official duel because, in her own words... every opponent she's faced so far is far too weak to warrant it."
"We haven't seen the full extent of Amon's power either," Lucy countered, a playful smirk spreading across her face. "I'd place my bet on him any day. Simply because of how utterly absurd that guy is."
"Ye really don't wanna go down that path with me, Lucy," Percy said, giving her a sharp, wicked grin as they reached the final landing of the winding staircase. "Out of the 929 bets I've made in my life, I've only lost two. Are ya sure ya wanna bet against my record?"
"One thousand deiom," Lucy declared without dropping her confident smirk for a single second. "I am willing to stake a full one thousand deiom directly on Amon."
"Bet," Percy said, his eyes gleaming as he offered his hand for a firm shake. "If ye win, I owe ya one thousand deiom. If ya lose, you owe me one thousand deiom. Deal's set."
Seraphina was too tired to even say anything. She knew how fiercely competitive these two were against eachother, and they wouldn't listen if she tried to make them call off the bet.
. . .
Khalia walked into Oberyn Lockhart's specialised research lab within the R.S. Advanced Academy. She had a rare forty-minute window before her first lecture, so she had decided to drop by and consult him regarding their joint research on Dark Magium.
When Khalia crossed the threshold into the expansive laboratory, she found him standing completely still beside his primary workbench, staring at a small glass vial of dark liquid in his right hand with an unnerving, hyper-focused curiosity. Oberyn's lab was vast—a sprawling maze of high-tier bio-synthesis equipment, glowing containment chambers, and scattered, handwritten research notes.
"Hello, Oberyn," she announced her presence, stepping across the pristine tile floor to approach his workstation. "How've you been holding up?"
Oberyn offered no verbal reply, remaining dead silent as his piercing gaze stayed fixed on the vial. Khalia frowned, glancing at the fluid and wondering what could hold the interest of the Empire's apex biologist. But then, an unnatural, skin-crawling sensation rippled through her senses.
"Oberyn... don't tell me that vial has concentrated Dark Magium suspended inside it..." Khalia stared at him, a mixture of genuine shock and exasperated fatigue washing over her features.
Even though Oberyn rarely showed his face to the public or participated in high-society politics, Khalia had been close colleagues with him for quite some time. She knew his eccentric, unhinged personality better than almost anyone. He had a notorious habit of executing chaotic, borderline-illegal experiments simply to satiate his insatiable biological curiosity. But keeping a raw, uncontained sample of concentrated Dark Magium on an open workbench inside the Academy was dangerously pushing the line.
"It's reassuring to see that your Magium sensitivity remains as sharp as ever," Oberyn commented smoothly, his eyes never leaving the glass tube.
"More importantly, why on earth do you have a sample like that in the middle of campus?" Khalia demanded, her tone sharpening with annoyance.
However, as she narrowed her sensory perception to analyse the precise frequency emitting from the vial, her breath caught in her throat.
While the sample was heavily saturated with the oppressive, corrupted weight of Dark Magium, it hadn't entirely erased the baseline signature beneath it. The underlying Magium frequency radiating from the blood was a resonance she recognised instantly.
"How in the world... did you manage to get a hold of Amon's blood?" Khalia asked, her voice dropping into utter, speechless astonishment.
"I took a short trip to the infirmary earlier this morning and drew a clean sample directly from his right arm," Oberyn answered casually, unscrewing the vial and carefully dispensing a single, dark droplet onto a prepared glass slide. "And before you ask—yes, I managed to convince his Primordial familiars to allow the procedure."
"HOW?!" Khalia's voice spiked up an entire octave at his nonchalant admission. "I LITERALLY SPENT AN HOUR YESTERDAY TRYING TO DIAGNOSE HIS MAGIUM CIRCUITS TO ENSURE HIS CHANNELS WEREN'T COLLAPSING, AND THOSE TWO MONSTERS ALMOST TORE MY HEAD OFF THE SECOND I STEPPED WITHIN THREE FEET OF HIS BED!"
"Geez, lower your volume, Khalia," Oberyn muttered, using a pair of thin silver tweezers to carefully position the glass slide beneath the lens of a massive, futuristic microscope. He leaned over the eyepiece, speaking in a deadpan, clinical tone. "Though I have to admit... the sheer speed at which people form a deep, instinctive revulsion toward you after a first impression really ought to be documented and studied as a psychological phenomenon."
"I didn't even do anything wrong!" A prominent, furious vein bulged on Khalia's forehead as her hands clenched into tight fists. "I walked into the room with pure diagnostic intent, and yet those two beasts glared at me as if I were some kind of degenerate criminal who was planning to defile their master the moment they turned their backs!"
"To be completely fair, you are a criminal in every legal sense of the word," Oberyn replied smoothly, his eyes remaining glued to the microscope lens as he adjusted the magnification dial. "The sheer number of war crimes you've personally committed against the Aimus faction over the past four years would have seen you publicly executed by three separate tribunals, you know."
"YOU AND I ARE BOTH WELL AWARE OF PRECISELY WHAT THOSE AIMUS ANIMALS HAVE DONE!" Khalia snapped, her composure shattering completely as her voice echoed off the lab's reinforced metal walls. "THE TYNAX TERRITORY MASSACRE! THE BLACK RIVER INCIDENT! THE ORPHANAGE OFFERINGS! NEED I GO DOWN THE ENTIRE LIST FOR YOU, OBERYN?! THEY SLAUGHTERED THOUSANDS OF DEFENSELESS INNOCENTS AND SUBJECTED CHILDREN AND MEN TO UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS! THOSE FUCKING MONSTERS DESERVE ZERO MERCY!"
"I get it, I get it," Oberyn said, casually adjusting the microscope's fine-focus dial while maintaining his smooth, unnervingly calm tone. "You really don't have to shout it."
He paused for a beat, turning the magnification setting a notch higher.
"Besides, Her Highness doesn't seem to mind your extensive rap sheet in the slightest. Hell, if anything, she's thoroughly impressed by the sheer volume of war crimes you've managed to rack up. She even gave a glowing speech praising your total ruthlessness toward the Aimus during a Prosecutor Council assembly, telling the other Prosecutors that you ought to be the golden standard for anyone signing up to fight the Aimus."
Khalia's rigid posture visibly relaxed. A subtle, satisfied smirk even flickered across her face at the mention of the Empress's approval. But the moment passed, and she quickly remembered the real reason she'd barged into his lab.
"Setting that aside... Oberyn, have you made any actual breakthroughs on your end?" Khalia asked, her tone shifting back to academic precision. "I've managed to draft a spell that can significantly delay the rate of Revenification triggered by Dark Magium exposure."
"Revenification?" Oberyn turned his head back, raising an eyebrow at her. "Seriously? You went ahead and coined a whole new clinical term for the process of turning into a Revenant?"
"Oh, come on!" Khalia pouted slightly, crossing her arms. "Zombification sounds so dreadfully uninspired and overused. Everything deserves proper terminology!"
"Fair enough," Oberyn offered a slight, amused smile. "As for my progress... I've been attempting to synthesise a universal neutralising agent to purge Dark Magium from a host's circulatory system forcibly. But it's an absolute nightmare to isolate. Dark Magium operates on an abstract conceptual signature—it continuously mutates its infection symptoms and scrambles the victim's underlying genetic sequence in real time. Crafting a fixed cure has proven nearly impossible."
Khalia hummed thoughtfully, processing the sheer difficulty of the biological puzzle.
"However... after running a preliminary sweep on Amon's blood sample, I believe I've just stepped significantly closer to a functional blueprint," Oberyn added, his voice carrying a rare thread of genuine optimism that caught Khalia completely off guard.
"Wait, really?" Khalia looked at him in total surprise. "What did you find?"
"The Magium refinement inside his physiology is absurdly dense and pure—so much so that the Dark Magium trapped in his physiology is completely incapable of taking over or mutating his cells," Oberyn explained, retrieving the glass slide from beneath the lens. "Instead of consuming his tissue, the Dark Magium is actually forced into a bizarre state of coexistence with his natural Magium... and it's actively reinforcing his muscular and neural density. But..."
Oberyn trailed off, his expression turning grave.
"There's a catch," Khalia filled in the blank, her eyes narrowing as she met his gaze. "You're talking about the cognitive erosion effect. The way Dark Magium eats away at an individual's core sense of self."
"Precisely," Oberyn nodded. "The Dark Magium won't degrade his body or turn him into an unthinking Revenant—his pure Magium reserve acts as an unyielding anchor. However, because the concentration currently sitting in his system is so absurdly high, it is guaranteed to leak into his psychological framework. It will inevitably tamper with his psychology and alter his personality traits."
Khalia leaned against the lab table, her eyes wide as the pieces clicked together. "So... what you're telling me is that the only blueprint for a functional Dark Magium antibody... is Amon's modified blood."
"Bingo," Oberyn confirmed smoothly. "Though there's no reason to panic over supply. It's simple enough to replicate his blood using our high-tier DNA synthesis machinery. Or, if we want to save tons of operational costs, we have an even better option: you."
"I am not serving as a duplication glitch, Oberyn." A prominent vein popped on Khalia's forehead, her eye twitching at his deadpan suggestion. "You are a high-ranking spellcaster. Learn the duplication spell yourself and handle the manual labour."
"Are you forgetting that my Magium reserves aren't a bottomless ocean like yours?" Oberyn offered a remarkably cheeky grin. "When it comes to pure magic output and spell efficiency, nobody in this entire Empire can match you—except for Her Highness and Grand Duke Crown, of course. Granted, you're still noticeably weaker than her, Grand Duchess Crown, Grand Duchess Chloe, and Grand Duke Crown..."
"You really didn't need to list out every single person stronger than me, you absolute prick!" Another vein bulged dangerously near her temple.
She took a sharp breath, rubbing her forehead before letting out an exasperated sigh.
"Fine. I'll handle the blood replication process... but we need to prioritise finding a way to stabilise his mind before that Dark Magium permanently rewires his personality."