The verdict had already been spoken.
"Nyx Akers, for insulting your juniors, violating academy decorum, and spreading a defamatory video, we, the Student Discipline Committee, hereby announce your punishment."
The room was suffocating with silence, but the voice of Iralyn Veyr — Dragonblood and Student Council President — was cold and unwavering.
"You are suspended from all club and public activities for one week, demoted from Class A-2 to Class D-1, and will write 'I am ashamed of my actions' ten thousand times without the use of magic. Furthermore, you are officially demoted from second-year status to first-year, as is the tradition for senior students who disgrace themselves before their juniors."
No one objected.
Not even Nyx.
He stood there like a statue as the sentence echoed across the marble-paneled chamber.
"...You may leave," Iralyn said, her golden eyes narrowing.
Nyx turned without a word. His footsteps were silent as he exited the room.
But the hallway was far louder.
"There he is!"
"Disgusting bastard!"
"Tried to ruin Georgina and Elias? What a joke!"
Cans. Bottles. Words sharper than blades.
They struck, but he didn't flinch.
He just walked.
Past the jeering students. Past the stares. Onto the academy tram. The doors closed behind him like a coffin lid.
---
The dorm was quiet. Too quiet.
Nyx opened the door to his private room and stepped inside. He didn't take off his shoes. Didn't drop his bag. Just walked to his bed and collapsed onto it, face up, staring at the ceiling.
The light flickered overhead.
A sealed parchment sat on his desk — the official notice of his demotion.
Beside it, a data crystal labeled: "Sabotage Evidence."
Earlier, a student had hurled it at his feet.
> "Now you're a criminal too, huh? What's next? Poisoning the Headmaster?"
He hadn't replied.
He hadn't even blinked.
He just picked up the crystal… and walked away.
---
He lay in the dark for a long time.
Hours passed. Maybe more.
He didn't know.
He didn't care.
His thoughts were blank.
Until they weren't.
> "Artifact Lab Sabotage — Accused: Nyx Akers."
The bulletin had gone live.
A false report, manipulated logs — all pointing to him as the cause of the explosion in Lab #2. Injured students. Tampered wards. His glyph signature.
Everyone believed it.
Because why wouldn't they?
He was already a disgrace.
Now he was a danger.
> "Attempted murder."
> "This guy's insane."
> "He's lucky the Headmaster didn't erase him."
He couldn't even cry.
His eyes burned, but no tears came.
His mana was unstable — indigo veins pulsing faintly beneath his skin, like something inside him was cracking, decaying.
> What did I do wrong?
He'd asked himself that for hours now.
No answer ever came.
Not from his heart.
Not from the world.
Just silence.
And darkness.
Then… finally…
His chest trembled.
A gasp broke from his lips as emotion surged like a wave.
He curled into himself, fists clenched over his heart, and wept.
Not loud — not at first.
But then it broke free.
Sobbing — raw, animalistic, suffocating.
He screamed into his pillow.
Cursed the world. Cursed himself. Cursed everything.
But no one heard.
No one came.
And the boy who once held pride in his heart — a future genius, a star of indigo mana — shattered.
---
Far above, in a crystal observatory built atop the Grand Archive Tower, Arthur Valerian stood before a viewing orb that shimmered with silver light.
It showed the scene in Nyx's room.
The flickering light.
The breakdown.
The fall.
Drake, his silent attendant, stood beside him with a datapad. "As you instructed, all logs were falsified. All safeguards erased. No trace. No trail. He's utterly alone."
Arthur nodded.
Not in joy.
Not in cruelty.
Just quiet resolve.
Elaris spoke in his mind — the voice of his Soul Archive.
> "You've broken him."
> "Is that what you wanted, Arthur?"
Arthur stared into the silver projection screen, watching Nyx curled on the floor of his dorm room, broken and trembling.
The boy's sobs had long since turned silent, his tears spent, his body still.
Even Elaris, bound to Arthur's soul, said nothing.
But Arthur's voice finally cut through the silence.
Calm. Cold. Certain.
"If I offer my hand now…"
He turned away from the screen, the glow of Arcadia's skyline reflecting in his eyes.
"…he will accept it."
A pause.
"He's ready to become my sword."
His coat swept behind him like a shadow as he descended from the observatory tower.
The storm had passed.
And the forging was about to begin.