"Special Admission, Rank 1."

That was the title on the golden invitation I threw into the trash three months ago.
Back then, I was the Crime Lord of Oakhaven. I had money, territory, and an ego that touched the sky. Why would a King lower himself to attend a school?

I was arrogant. I was foolish.

And I paid the price.

It took less than an hour for a single knight to turn my criminal empire into a graveyard. He didn't just defeat me; he ignored me. I was an ant beneath the boot of a god.

Broken and desperate, I used my last asset: a golden letter granting me entry to Zenith Imperial Academy as "Special Admission Rank 1."

It’s a lie. I’m not a prodigy. I’m a fraud with no foundation, surrounded by the strongest heirs in the Empire who want to see me bleed. I can’t cast their spells. I can’t hold their weapons.

But I can steal their lives.

My Authority is [Usurper]. While they study theory, I steal reflexes. While they practice honor, I copy trauma. I am not here to learn. I am here to hunt.

My targets are the "Four Calamities"—four women who hold powers strong enough to rewrite reality.

They think I’m their peer. They don’t know I’m the parasite waiting to hollow them out.

I’m going to make them mine.

Discord: https://discord.gg/FK9GfrSjtb

The silence in the central den settled like a suffocating shroud. Varkas was a cooling corpse in the silver mud, the white-gold light of the Justiciar replaced by the low, mechanical hiss of the mercury pipes. Only the jagged breathing of three survivors interrupted the rhythmic pulse of the machinery. Vane stood over the body, his hand tight on his spear as the cold thrum of the Silver Fang resonated through his marrow. This power was a hungry, demanding thing, yet the star-metal tip of his weapon remained pristine. The Authority had rejected Varkas's blood before it could even stain the metal.


Chapter 145 - The Seer’s Paradox