The western cultivation district was in absolute chaos.
Students crowded the stone pathways in a panic, instructors struggled to maintain a perimeter, and academy healers moved between fractured groups with increasing urgency. Something significant had just occurred.
Orion felt the shift long before he saw the source. Inside his chest, the Sovereign Core was reacting—a slow, steady, magnetic pull dragging his awareness toward a very specific destination.
"That is definitely not normal," Selene murmured, falling into step beside him. Her expression remained entirely calm, but her voice carried a rare, tense edge.
"You noticed?" Orion asked.
"The Core?" She nodded tightly. "The resonance is getting stronger with every step."
Orion felt it too. Every meter forward intensified the phantom connection, sharpening into absolute certainty. Whoever or whatever was responsible for triggering the academy's alarms was close. Exceptionally close.
