BOOM!
The massive double doors of the back entrance didn't just open; they burst inward, slamming against the stone walls with a violence that made even the judges' floating chairs vibrate. The roar was so sudden and absolute that it shattered the atmosphere of icy terror in an instant.
"Pleading 'guilty of having good taste in allies'," a voice said from the dust of the threshold, in a tone so relaxed it felt like a conscious, malicious mockery of the moment's solemnity.
Oh no... I know that voice. Veridia's mind drew Ryumu's figure long before the dust even allowed her to see him.
Everyone turned their heads, gasping for air like shipwreck survivors who had just breached the surface. The murderous pressure filling the room dissipated—not because it vanished, but because the absurd interruption cut it off at the roots.
Ryumu Ren stepped into the room, sipping noisily from a new juice box (apple flavored, this time). He walked with that exasperating, foot-dragging calm, hands buried in the pockets of his lazily worn, modified uniform.
"Director Ren," the Dean of Theoretical Magic said from above, his voice booming with annoyance, yet carrying an unmistakable tremor of recent fear. "This is a formal disciplinary hearing. I ask that you—"
"I know, I know. Boring as hell." Ren reached the center of the hall and stood beside Veridia, ignoring the twelve most powerful mages of the institution. He looked down at the lynx. "Nice cat."
Kaelen turned his head slowly. The murderous shadow retracted beneath his paws, but his golden eyes locked onto Ren's dark ones.
"Meow," Kaelen said.
The sound lacked any attempt at credibility; it was a pathetic parody of a meow, dry and monotonic, as if a bored emperor were trying to imitate a commoner's babble.
"Heh... HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Ryumu let out a laugh devoid of any shred of solemnity. "I see you're as eloquent as ever, kitty."
Veridia could only stare at the unreality of the situation. Her face, which until now had only betrayed nerves, showed genuine panic at Ren's intervention.
I see... I won't die because the tribunal sentences me to death; I'll die because I have to deal with these two. Veridia suddenly felt tiny, as if she and the judges were nothing more than ants caught in the staring contest of these two monsters.
Nalia kept her expression frozen to hide her own unease, but she reached for Veridia's hand and squeezed firmly to offer some calm.
This scenario is far too convenient, Nalia analyzed, her eyes fixed on the Director's back. Ryumu knows something about the lynx... I'm sure of it now.
"Galt says it was a brutal attack," the Director continued, pointing at the bandaged professor. "But look at the creature. If that thing had truly wanted to attack him, Galt wouldn't be here complaining. He'd be being mopped off the floor with a sponge. The fact that he's alive proves the familiar showed a mercy that... well, if it had been me, I wouldn't be able to make a scene like this just out of the embarrassment of admitting that 'a freshman's kitty turned me into mush'."
"Director!" Galt roared, red with rage, floating in his chair. "He threw me against a wall!"
"And you still dare to brag about it," Ren said with a stifled laugh. "He moved you," he corrected, shrugging. "If you stand in front of an avalanche, you move or you die. You don't blame the mountain for being a mountain."
"This is unheard of!" a professor exclaimed from above. "It is an uncontrollable beast!"
"Exactly," Ren said. In that instant, his "lazy clown" persona vanished, and everyone felt their breath crystallize once more. His voice became serious, sharp, cutting through objections. "That's why I'll be taking charge of him."
The twelve judges, who moments ago felt death's breath on their necks thanks to the demon, now felt a different but equally suffocating pressure from the Director. It wasn't the wild bloodlust of a beast, but the absolute weight of an authority that admits no rebuttal. Beneath his facade of indolence, they remembered why Ryumu Ren ran Zenith. His word wasn't a suggestion; it was a natural decree, as immovable as gravity. Whether they liked it or not, the discussion was over.
Ren turned to Veridia. He was no longer smiling.
"The hearing is suspended. Miss Aethel has a special exam to complete."
"What exam?" Veridia asked, dreading the answer.
"Mine."
Nalia stepped forward, adjusting her glasses with determination, recovering from the initial shock.
"As an associate student representative and eyewitness, I request permission to accompany them and observe the—"
"Ah, no. Impossible," Ren cut her off, stopping at the threshold and looking at her with faked seriousness. "You can't come up."
"Why?" Nalia demanded, frowning. "Regulations allow witnesses in high-risk special exams."
"It's because of the... humidity," Ren lied, gesturing vaguely toward the ceiling without making the slightest effort to sound convincing. "Yes, the tower humidity today is terrible for the metal of cheap glasses frames. They'd rust in seconds. A logistical disaster. School insurance doesn't cover selective atmospheric oxidation. Sorry, Aegis. Safety first."
Before Nalia could process the insult to her glasses or the stupidity of the lie, the Tribunal door slammed shut in her face.
Nalia was left alone in the hallway, blinking, her mouth slightly open.
"Selective humidity?" she murmured, indignant. "That's not even a real meteorological phenomenon."
◆◆◆
The "exam" didn't take place in a classroom.
Ren led them to the Clock Tower, the highest structure in Zenith. The wind howled up there, whipping Veridia's cape and Kaelen's silver hair, as he had regained his human form upon reaching the top, away from prying eyes.
"What?! Why are you transforming?!" Veridia hissed at Kaelen upon seeing him in human form.
"I am not showing anything this human doesn't already know," Kaelen stated, cracking his left hand with a slight movement.
They were alone. Just the sky, the giant gears, and a three-hundred-meter drop.
Ren sat on the edge of the stone railing, his feet dangling over the void.
"Alright. It's simple," Ren said, finishing his juice and crushing the box with one hand. "The faculty wants to expel you because they think you don't control your pet. I think they're right. You don't control him. He tolerates you."
Ren pulled a gold coin from his pocket and made it dance between his fingers.
"Veridia. You have three minutes. The exam consists of taking this coin from me. You can use magic. You can use your demon. Anything goes."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I sign your expulsion," Ren said coldly. "And I'll deal with your cat personally. Because if you can't take a coin from me with an Archdemon on your side, then you're too weak to survive the enemies he's going to attract to my academy."
Kaelen stepped forward. His pride, larger than the tower itself, flared. The mention of his species didn't surprise him; he knew someone of this level could smell him.
"Do you think you can challenge me, human?" Kaelen asked, his voice a whisper that bit deeper than the tower wind. The pressure of his mana made the stone crack beneath his feet, opening fissures that radiated from him like a silent warning.
"Try me. Let's see what you can do with that wound," Ren challenged, flipping the coin into the air with a quick flick of his thumb.
"My current state is irrelevant. I could erase you from existence before that coin touches your palm," Kaelen declared with a certainty so absolute and icy it didn't sound like a threat, but like an inevitable truth of nature.
This has to be a joke; these two are planning to gamble my fate over a stupid coin, Veridia thought as her face heated with anger.
Cling.
"Don't you dare lose!" Veridia shouted, staying as close to Kaelen as possible.
Kaelen vanished from his initial position. It was a burst of unnatural speed that ignored wind resistance. In a fraction of a second, he was already in the air, intercepting the gold's trajectory. His hand closed tightly around the coin. He felt the cold of the metal, the texture of the engraving in his palm.
He caught it.
He landed on the railing with feline elegance and squeezed his fist, savoring the easy victory. But when his fingers fully closed, something was wrong. There was no resistance.
Kaelen opened his hand. Empty.
His golden eyes narrowed. He was sure. Absolutely sure. He had felt the metal. His predatory senses did not lie; the coin was there the moment he closed his hand. In less than a microsecond, his mind processed the impossibility and reached the only logical conclusion: the coin had been edited in space.
Space-time editing, Kaelen deduced, his gaze locking onto Ren. He's manipulating the object's causality.
"Interesting," Kaelen murmured.
If the object could be edited, then the target had to be the editor. Kaelen switched focus instantly. He forgot the coin. He lunged directly at Ryumu Ren.
He didn't use magic. He used pure brute force and a speed that tore through sound itself. A direct strike to the Director's face. Ren didn't block. He couldn't. Even if he reinforced his body with all his mana, a single graze from that monstrous force would disintegrate him. Instead, Ren simply ceased to be there.
Whir.
Kaelen's fist tore through Ren's afterimage. The Director materialized two meters to the left, editing his own location in space. Kaelen spun and launched a side-kick that decapitated a stone gargoyle as if it were butter. Ren teleported again, appearing crouched on the clock's edge.
While dodging death by millimeters, Ren's mind worked at the same speed as his feet.
He's fast. Too fast, he thought, feeling the wind from the strikes slicing his skin. But something's not right. He's an Archdemon. It should be raining black fire or gravity should be collapsing. Why is he only using physical force?
Ren took a microsecond of distance to activate his "Flow Vision." His eyes glowed with an intense silver hue, looking through Kaelen's flesh and clothes, straight to his core. What he saw chilled his blood.
Kaelen's core wasn't glowing. It was shattered. It was a cracked black star leaking void—a catastrophic spiritual wound. But the most terrifying thing wasn't the damage; it was the effort. Ren saw how the mana flowed desperately. 99% of Kaelen's energy—an amount that could sustain civilizations for centuries—was being burned in real-time every second just to keep his physical body cohesive. He was fighting against the entropy of the universe trying to erase him.
He doesn't use magic because he can't afford to, Ren understood in a flash of horror and admiration. His bond with the girl is pathetic, barely a silk thread holding up a kingdom. He's using all his life force just not to die, not to vanish... and yet he's cornering me with the remaining 1%?!
"You're a damned monster," Ren whispered, dodging a claw swipe that grazed his bangs.
Kaelen stopped on a gargoyle, panting slightly. His analysis had also concluded. He couldn't win a battle of attrition. His mana drained through the stomach wound like water through fingers. If he tried to saturate the area, his own body would collapse before touching Ren. He needed something that temporal editing couldn't dodge.
Kaelen observed Ren. The Director stood there, catching his breath but maintaining that untouchable smirk. That smile was the clue.
The genius syndrome. He's untouchable. He's probably never felt his life was in real danger. His body doesn't know the fear of death.
Kaelen straightened up, letting his arms drop to his sides, relaxing every muscle. To an ordinary observer, his presence simply vanished, becoming undetectable, while a slight smile crept onto his face.
"Hey, human," Kaelen said in a soft, almost silky voice. "I only need the coin, right? There are no rules on the method."
Ren blinked, confused by the change in attitude, deactivating his mana vision.
"Eh... yeah. Just the coin. But you have less than fifteen seconds left, kitty."
"An eternity for a hunter."
"Sixth Art: Torment."
In that instant, Kaelen didn't use force. He simply let go of the leash of his own mind and released his murderous intent. It wasn't a physical attack; it was a psychic projection of pure violence, distilled over millennia of war in the underworld. An image so vivid and brutal that Ren's brain interpreted it as immediate reality.
For a fraction of a second, Ryumu Ren didn't see a silver-haired man in front of him. He saw his own right arm—the one holding the coin—being ripped out by the roots. He felt the phantom pain of splintering bone, the heat of blood splashing his face, and the icy void in his shoulder.
"—!"
Ren's body, which had never known real trauma, reacted by pure instinct. He froze. His magic, which depended on his relaxed concentration and precise calculation, stuttered before the biological terror of imminent death. It was the only signal Kaelen needed.
It was logical, Kaelen thought. A prodigy who had never known real fear had no defenses against it.
Kaelen didn't run. He exploded into motion, a silver blur crossing the distance with a speed that seemed like magic. But it wasn't. It was the pure and absurd physical power of a body designed to kill gods.
Ren snapped out of his trance feeling the wind of the impact, but it was already too late. Kaelen was no longer in front of him. He was behind, in his blind spot, breathing down his neck.
"The coin or the arm?" Kaelen whispered in Ren's ear.
Ren felt the cold brush of fingers on his closed fist. Real, sharp panic triggered his adrenaline.
"Damn—!" he didn't finish.
The Director lost his composure. In a reflex act, he detonated an uncontrolled spatial translocation. It wasn't a short, calculated jump. It was a brutal push of space-time to put the maximum possible distance between him and death.
Ren reappeared on the other side of the tower, slamming his back against the giant clock face with a dull metallic sound.
Cling... The gold coin fell into Veridia's hand, as she ran exactly where Ren had been standing a second before. Kaelen was on the opposite railing. They had won.
But then, something broke.
"Aghhh!"
Kaelen's cry wasn't one of triumph, but of pure agony. Veridia, watching from the center of the tower, saw the archdemon fold over himself like a dry leaf in a fire.
"Kaelen!" she screamed.
Ren, still catching his breath, looked at the scene, and his eyes widened in horror as he realized what he had just done. He looked at the distance between Veridia and Kaelen. He was too far away.
"Dammit," Ren muttered. "I moved him too far."
The safety limit had been broken violently. The "invisible leash" keeping Kaelen's existence tied to reality strained and snapped.
Kaelen fell to his knees. His skin, already pale, turned grayish instantly. The wound in his stomach, which until then had been a pulsing black stain, exploded. A dark, viscous corruption began to devour his robe and skin, spreading toward his neck. He clawed at his chest, tearing the fabric as a dark, wet cough shook his body.
"Get back!" Ren shouted, stepping forward. "Get close to her!"
But it was too late for rational orders.
"Grrr...!"
The sound stopped Ren dead in his tracks. Kaelen looked up. And Veridia felt the ground vanish beneath her feet.
The golden eyes no longer had pupils. They were dilated, dark, unfocused. Kaelen's intelligence, arrogance, personality... everything had evaporated the moment the bond stretched too far. The only thing left was a wild, frantic glow.
"His ego has dissolved," Ren diagnosed, his voice grim. "By breaking the safety radius, his core went into emergency mode. He's burning his own consciousness to stay physical."
"What does that mean?" Veridia asked with a trembling voice, seeing Kaelen's nails lengthen into claws that scratched the stone.
"It means he's no longer Kaelen," Ren said, moving into a stance. "He's a hungry beast looking for a mana source. And you're the closest one."
Kaelen roared, a sound that made the tower's gears vibrate, and his human form flickered, overlapping with the spectral silhouette of a monstrous tiger. The black corruption began to stain the stone floor, hissing like acid.
"Do something!" Veridia screamed. "You moved him away!"
"I can't touch him! That darkness would destroy me!" Ren pushed her forward. "You have to do it! He's your familiar! Your core is the only thing he recognizes!"
"Me?! What do I do?!"
"Re-establish the bond!" Ren pointed to Kaelen's convulsing hands, where the flesh was beginning to dissolve into vacuum particles. "The passive bond is useless now—the connection broke! You need a more intense bond!"
Veridia saw the beast turn toward her. Kaelen looked at her as a wolf looks at a rabbit. He took a staggering step toward her, with a wild expression, far from the fine profile of their first meeting. Veridia swallowed hard. Fear told her to run. Logic told her that monster was going to tear her apart. But then she saw Kaelen's hand. It was trembling. Not with rage, but with... fear?
Everyone can feel fear. Even as a beast, he was afraid to vanish.
"Dammit," Veridia whispered.
She ran toward him. Kaelen launched an instinctive swipe, a downward strike capable of splitting stone. Veridia lunged forward, but her legs weren't fast enough. She was going to take the hit.
Whir.
Suddenly, the space around her knees contracted. It was a nauseating sensation, as if the floor had spat her forward. It hadn't been her momentum. Someone had "edited" her position, pushing her those vital ten centimeters she needed to pass beneath the mortal blow. Ren, from behind, had an arm extended and his eyes fixed on her, sweat pouring down his temple. He hadn't checked out; he was playing against death to keep her alive.
"Kaelen!" she screamed, seizing the gifted opportunity to grab his ice-cold hand with both of hers. "Look at me! Stop acting like a wild animal!"
The contact was violent. Veridia felt as if her fingers were holding lightning. Images that weren't hers—black snow, blood, an infinite loneliness—flooded her mind.
"You're Kaelen!" she insisted, squeezing harder, ignoring the cold pain climbing up her arms. "You said you'd stay, didn't you?! That was the deal! I'm supposed to be your anchor! Come back, you stupid cat!"
Kaelen looked at his hand trapped between the human's. The heat. The pulse. The brave stupidity of this weak creature daring to give orders to an archdemon. Slowly, the claw relaxed, becoming a hand again. Kaelen returned the squeeze.
"I accept..." he whispered, and the blackness in his eyes receded, returning the clear gold and vertical pupil. "The deal... stands. I will... not be lost."
A pulse of green light exploded between them, pushing the corruption back, calming the storm. Kaelen collapsed forward, unconscious. Veridia held him as best she could, falling into a sitting position under his weight.
At the same time, a sharp hum ceased abruptly. Ren lowered his trembling hand with which he had been pointing at Kaelen's back. It wasn't just Veridia's will that had stopped the beast; Ren had been compressing the space around the demon's claws, creating an invisible straitjacket second by second so he wouldn't tear her apart before contact. Holding back the physical fury of an archdemon, even a dying one, had been like trying to stop a castle with one hand.
Ryumu's legs gave way. There was no triumphant pose. The Director dropped into a sitting position on the tower rubble, exhaling all the air from his lungs. He looked at his hands; they were trembling slightly. It wasn't just the magical effort.
"He read me," Ren thought, feeling a chill in his gut. He was on the brink of death, barely able to stand, and yet he saw right through me. He knew exactly how to make me hesitate. That's the difference between theory and experience.
"Wow..." he murmured to the air, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of genuine respect. "That... that was close."
Veridia panted, feeling like her life had been drained.
"Did it work? Is he okay?"
"He's stable," Ren said, without getting off the floor. "But I warn you, Aethel. That emergency handshake wasn't free. To bring him back from that far, you just created a bond with a blurred line. There's no certainty of the consequences, but it won't be as simple as before."
"What?"
"You're more tied to him now," Ren explained. "Now you'll surely share part of his feelings. Did you see something when you touched him?"
"I... I saw snow," Veridia said, looking at the sleeping man in her lap. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pang in her stomach and a crippling exhaustion that didn't belong to her. Feeling that, she thought she understood the price of that bond.
"Snow, huh?" Ren murmured.
Silence settled on the tower top for a few moments, broken only by the wind whistling through the cracks Kaelen had left in the stone. Ryumu Ren stood up, brushing the dust from his uniform with a slow, almost distracted movement. His gaze, normally lost in perpetual boredom, was fixed on Kaelen with a sharp, unknown intensity. He scratched his head, thoughtful.
"I have no doubt," he murmured to himself, in a low but firm tone. "It must be him."
Veridia blinked, forgetting the shared pain for a second. She watched the Director with genuine intrigue. She had never seen that expression on him. It wasn't the face of the lazy clown drinking juice in hearings, nor the arrogant genius playing with time. It was the face of a strategist who had just found a piece lost from the board for centuries—a mix of caution and recognition.
"Him?" Veridia asked, feeling she was about to hear a dangerous secret. "Do you know who he is?"
Ren seemed to wake from his trance at his student's voice. He looked at Veridia, at her eyes wide with curiosity and fear. He let the mask of laziness fall over his face like a heavy curtain.
"Eh? Oh, sure. He's the 'Calamity Cat'," Ren said, regaining his carefree smile and waving his hand to downplay the matter. "Or maybe the 'Duke of Hairballs'. I'm not sure of the official title in the underworld; my Demonic is a bit rusty."
He leaned toward her, winking.
"The important thing is that now you have an excuse. 'Professor, I have to go because my demonic cat is depressed.' Works every time, I guarantee it."
Before she could protest Ryumu's nonsense, Veridia succumbed to the exhaustion and pain, falling into a deep sleep.