Chapter 161: His Arrival

Raziel stared at the glowing white text hovering in his vision.

The Forge recognized the tenth bell and offered access to Level -7.

He clenched his fists because four days remained and had zero time to explore a hidden dungeon beneath the academy, so he swiped his scarred hand through the air and dismissed the notification to lock the mental door and walk away.

The next four days dragged by and buried everyone inside St. Celeste under a suffocating tension.

Raziel trained his new Gifts until his muscles gave out.

He practiced Anchor Blood in the empty storage room by cutting his own palms with his iron dagger, and he burned the spilled blood to feel the massive power spike.

He practiced the Devourer by standing next to Lucian to sense the stealth magic humming inside the noble’s core.

He pushed his physical limits and ignored the exhaustion.

Zorya locked herself in the East Basement to memorize every geometric angle of the counter-shield, refusing to eat or sleep.

Lara sat on the cold stone floor of the second-floor cloister and kept her empathic net active over the courtyard day and night.

She bled from her nose twice from the sheer mental strain.

Lucian and Gideon sat in the dirt and sharpened their iron weapons in heavy silence, waiting for the executioners to show up.

Day zero arrived.

The morning sky hung heavy and gray over the capital, and a freezing wind blew through the academy grounds.

A raw scream echoed from the second-floor cloister.

Raziel dropped his iron dagger and ran out of the storage room.

Lucian and Gideon met him in the main hallway, and the three of them sprinted toward the front entrance.

Lara stood on the balcony overlooking the main gates.

She gripped the stone railing and gasped for air while tears streamed down her pale face.

“They are here,” Lara chokes out between heavy breaths. “I feel them.”

Raziel ran down the stone steps and crossed the dirt courtyard.

He reached the massive iron gates of the academy and grabbed the thick metal bars to look out into the road.

Thirty elite Inquisitors marched up the dirt path.

They wore heavy silver breastplates over crimson robes and carried long steel halberds.

They stepped in flawless military synchronization with blank faces, looking like machines built for war.

Ten master sealers walked behind the vanguard in dark gray tunics, carrying heavy iron chains and massive wooden crates.

Elector Mordecai led the formation.

He wore pristine white robes with gold trim and leaned on his crystal cane.

He stopped fifty yards away from the academy gates and pointed his cane at the dirt road, letting the sheer weight of his army speak for him.

The Inquisitors stepped forward and dropped three massive wooden beams onto the ground.

They hammered iron nails into the wood and erected three heavy crosses right in front of the academy.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

The wood settled deep into the earth.

Two armored guards dragged a prisoner out from the back of the formation.

Mirael wore heavy iron shackles around her wrists and ankles, and thick dried blood coated her white tunic.

The guards pushed her forward, slammed her back against the center cross, and wrapped thick chains around her waist to secure her to the wood.

Raziel gripped the iron bars of the gate until the metal bit into his scarred palms.

He saw the blind Oracle bleeding in the dirt and remembered the promise he made to protect her in the previous cycle.

“Bastards,” Lucian spat on the ground next to him.

Gideon stood on the other side and stared at the crosses.

He recognized the execution method and his hands shook with raw panic.

Mordecai stepped closer to the chained Oracle and kept his eyes locked on the main gates of St. Celeste.

He stared right at Raziel and snapped his fingers.

A sealer ran forward carrying a heavy black iron box, opened the lid, and stepped back.

Mordecai reached into the box and pulled out a solid black sphere the size of a human fist.

The object absorbed the morning light and cast zero reflection.

It was the Silencer.

He placed the black sphere on the dirt road and tapped the top of the artifact with his crystal cane.

CLINK.

The artifact activated with a sub-audible frequency that hit the air like a physical wall.

Raziel heard nothing, but his eardrums popped and warm blood dripped out of his left ear to run down his neck.

His teeth vibrated inside his gums, and the sheer physical pressure dropped him to one knee in the dirt.

Lucian groaned and covered his ears while Gideon collapsed onto his hands and knees.

The physical world outside the gates started to change.

The grass and dirt near the black sphere vanished into thin air.

The reality of Phaedra tore at the seams, revealing jagged white wireframes underneath the solid earth.

Bright red digital static crawled across the empty space, and the green leaves on the nearby trees turned into transparent, glitching polygons.

The visual corruption spread outward from the Silencer in a massive geometric circle.

Raziel stared at the digital static, and his tactical brain processed the absolute horror of the situation.

The Inquisition wielded a weapon that interacted with the Architect’s game rules.

They deleted the game code and erased the physical assets from the server.

Deep underground in the East Basement, the frequency bypassed the stone floors and hit the foundation.

The noise drilled into the structural integrity of the ancient node.

Zorya sat at the wooden desk in the center of the workshop.

The pressure slammed into her skull, forcing thick red blood out of her nose to splash onto her translation parchment.

The silver ink flowing through the veins in her hands flickered and dimmed under the brutal assault.

She slammed her bare hands flat against the stone slate resting on her desk and pushed her unchained core to its maximum limit to activate the architectural counter-shield.

VMMMM!

A dome of brilliant silver light erupted from the basement and expanded upward through the academy walls.

The light shot out of the ground and crashed into the spreading red digital static at the main gates.

BZZT!

The silver magic clashed against the deletion code.

The red static sparked and fought to push forward, but the silver dome held the line because the architectural rune analyzed the frequency and matched the pressure.

Zorya anchored the defense and kept the building alive.

Raziel wiped the blood from his ear and stood up from the dirt.

He drew his iron dagger and looked through the iron gates.

The siege began.

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