Chapter 212: Intrusion

Anastasia walked away with Lancelot following a precise three paces behind her. She smiled at the approaching students who tried to offer their own gifts for the Day of Concord, using her practiced royal charm to deflect their advances. Her words were sharp and polite, a polished shield that allowed her to navigate the crowded corridors and quickly reach a deserted balcony overlooking the snow-covered training grounds.

She stopped walking. Lancelot mirrored her movement and stopped at the exact same moment.

Thwack!

Anastasia spun around and slapped Lancelot across the face. The sound echoed off the stone walls of the balcony. Lancelot did not move. He did not flinch. He simply stood there, his platinum hair slightly disheveled by the force of the blow.

“You,” Anastasia hissed, her molten amber eyes narrowing until they looked like rings of gold fire. “Why did you exchange words with Vane?”

“He spoke with me,” Lancelot said. His voice was flat and mechanical. “I merely spoke some words back.”

Thwack!

Anastasia’s palm connected with his other cheek. The red stinging marks were already beginning to bloom against his pale skin.

“Speak?” she huffed, her chest heaving with indignation. “Do you wish to make friends now, Lancelot? Do you think you are just another student in this pathetic academy? Do you think the dirt on your boots is the same as the dirt on his?”

Lancelot stayed silent. He did not look at her, nor did he look away. He simply existed in the space she provided for him. Anastasia exhaled, her gold mana flaring slightly before she forced it back under her absolute control. The air around them grew heavy with the density of her SSS-rank Authority.

“Remember what your duty is, Lancelot,” Anastasia said. She leaned in, her golden hair brushing against his shoulder as she whispered directly into his ear. “You are my sword. You are not a person. You are an extension of the Aurelian throne. Your duty is to protect me and kill exactly who I want killed. Do you understand?”

“Understood,” Lancelot replied with a slight, robotic nod of his head. He gave no heed to his red, stinging cheeks.

Anastasia smiled. The anger vanished from her face as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a cold, regal satisfaction. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe before reaching the gold-wrapped box he was still holding with a rigid grip.

“Eat the chocolates when you have time and let me know how they are,” Anastasia said. Her voice was suddenly soft, almost caring in a twisted, proprietary way. “I made them myself. It is a tradition, after all.”

She reached up and scratched her own cheek thoughtfully before placing her warm palm against his stinging skin. A wave of pure, white-gold mana flowed from her hand. The swelling immediately subsided, and the red marks faded into nothingness. Her healing was as perfect and dense as her destruction.

“Don’t do anything against my orders again,” she commanded.

“As you wish, Your Highness,” Lancelot responded.

The quiet moment lasted for exactly two seconds before Lancelot’s red eyes suddenly flared with a sharp, predatory light.

He did not ask for permission. He did not speak. In a single, blurred motion that defied the laws of physics, Lancelot grabbed Anastasia by the waist and threw her behind him. The force was enough to make her gasp, but he adjusted her landing so she remained standing.

In the same heartbeat, Lancelot reached into the air. A massive, heavy broadsword made of dark iron materialized in his hand. He didn’t use a spell circle. He didn’t chant. He simply summoned the weight of his Sentinel-rank mana and slashed at the seemingly empty air in front of them.

The dark iron blade tore through the atmosphere, creating a concussive ripple that shattered the stone railing of the balcony.

“A predator in the garden,” Lancelot muttered.

The air in front of them rippled like water. The space warped and folded, revealing the petite form of Nyx. She was hovering a few inches off the ground, her lavender hair floating as if she were underwater. Her opal eyes were wide with genuine, unadulterated shock.

Nyx had been following them since they left the north courtyard. She had been intrigued by the interaction between the commoner rat and this new, hollow weapon. She had used her Dreamscape to cloak her presence, confident that no student at Zenith Academy could possibly perceive her while she was hidden within the folds of the void.

But Lancelot’s blade had come within inches of her throat.

“My, my,” Nyx whispered, her syrupy voice losing some of its usual boredom. “The puppet has very sharp instincts.”

“Assassin,” Anastasia snarled. She did not hesitate. She drew her star-metal rapier in a flash of gold light. She didn’t care who Nyx was or that she was a second-year Justiciar. To Anastasia, any threat to her person was an insult to the Empire.

She lunged forward, her rapier becoming a conduit for her SSS-rank Authority. The strike was not a simple pierce. It was a conceptual hammer of pure energy that threatened to drown everything in its path.

Nyx raised her hand, her violet mana flaring to life. “This is why I hate the highborn. So loud.”

Lancelot moved at the same time as Anastasia. He was a blur of platinum hair and dark iron. He didn’t use flashy spells. He simply used the overwhelming physical force of a Rank 4 vessel. He swung his broadsword in a vertical arc that threatened to split the balcony in two.

Nyx slammed her palms outward. A wave of psychic force erupted from her, clashing against the combined assault of the two Sentinels.

The resulting explosion of mana was catastrophic. The shockwave blew out the windows of the adjacent library and sent a cloud of pulverized stone into the air.

Nyx used the distraction to retreat. She warped the reality around her, turning her physical body into a phantasm. Anastasia’s rapier passed through her shoulder as if it were smoke, the golden mana harmlessly dissipating. But Lancelot was different. He didn’t aim for her soul or her mana channels. He aimed for the physical space she occupied.

Nyx was forced to block Lancelot’s broadsword with her bare hand, reinforcing her skin with the absolute highest density of her Dreamscape logic.

The dark iron blade met her palm.

A sharp, metallic ring echoed across the courtyard. Nyx hissed in pain as the raw, unadulterated kinetic force of Lancelot’s strike bypassed her mental defenses. She twisted her body, using the momentum of his blow to launch herself backward into the sky.

“Enough playing,” Nyx called out. She blurred into a kaleidoscope of lavender and violet light.

Anastasia prepared to launch a second strike, her rapier humming with enough energy to level the entire wing of the building. But Nyx was already gone. She folded the space around herself and vanished into the Dreamscape, leaving nothing behind but the scent of sweet ozone and the dust of the shattered balcony.

Anastasia lowered her rapier, her breathing heavy. She looked at the ruin of the stone railing. Her golden mana was still crackling around her blade, looking for a target that was no longer there.

“She was a Justiciar,” Anastasia noted, her voice cold and sharp. “Why was an upper-year lurking in our shadows?”

Lancelot did not answer. He dissipated his dark iron sword into mist. He looked down at his right hand, then looked back at the spot where Nyx had disappeared. His red eyes were as blank and robotic as ever.

“She was watching Vane,” Lancelot said.

Anastasia gripped her rapier tighter. “Vane. Always that flea. We are leaving, Lancelot. The security wards will be swarming this area in seconds.”

“Understood,” Lancelot replied.

Miles away, on the roof of the central clock tower, Nyx materialized out of the shadows. She stumbled slightly as her feet hit the cold slate tiles.

She did not look at the view. She did not look at the moon.

She lifted her right hand—the one she had used to block Lancelot’s sword.

The hand was shaking. It was not a faint tremor. Her fingers were vibrating with a violent, uncontrollable kinetic resonance that refused to dissipate. The skin of her palm was bruised a deep, sickly purple.

Nyx stared at her hand in silence. She was a Low Justiciar. She was a master of the Dreamscape. She had faced monsters and veterans that would make the first-year students scream in their sleep.

But as she remembered those stark, crimson eyes looking directly at her through her cloak, she felt a cold shiver run down her spine. Lancelot had not looked at the illusion. He had looked at her. He had seen the void and decided he could cut it.

“Vane, you little rat,” Nyx muttered to the empty night air. She clutched her shaking hand to her chest, her opal eyes wide with a new, sharp kind of caution. “You really need to be careful. That thing the Empire sent… that is not a student.”

She shuddered as the memory of the red eyes flashed in her mind again.

“That is a monster in the shell of a student,” she whispered. “And it is looking right for you.”

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