The Academy gardens were quiet at midnight—bathed in silver moonlight, lined with crystalline flowers that shimmered with mana. Students rarely ventured out this late. But Alan Grey wasn't a student.
He was a storm cloaked in skin.
He strolled past the sleeping vines, katana sheathed at his side, coat fluttering with a breeze that didn't exist. His senses were sharp, attuned to everything—the heartbeat of the earth, the crackle of nearby enchantments, the quiet footstep behind the hedge.
He stopped near a marble bench.
"Are you going to keep hiding?" he asked softly.
Silence.
Then, a figure stepped out from the shadows—a girl with silver hair like threads of moonlight, her eyes glowing violet. She wore a student cloak, though it shimmered unnaturally, woven with stealth wards far beyond Academy grade.
She didn't bow. Didn't smile.
"You're dangerous," she said. "More than any student here. Even more than most of the professors."
Alan tilted his head. "You've been watching me."
"I'm a Seer," she replied. "I see things others don't. You're wrapped in so many fates, they collapse just by touching you."
Alan smirked. "That sounds like a compliment."
"It's a warning," she said. "The gods marked you. Something old and furious watches your steps."
Alan's expression turned serious for the first time. "Let them watch. I'll blind them."
A beat of silence.
She stepped closer. "My name is Elira."
"I know," Alan said, smiling faintly. "Top of your class in prophetic arts. You turned down noble sponsorship. And you've been investigating forbidden relics beneath the archives."
Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"
"I see things too."
Elira hesitated. "Why are you really here, Alan?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he glanced up at the moon, then toward the statues at the edge of the garden—twelve massive figures, each carved in the image of a god.
"Because the gods think they won," he said. "I'm just here to remind them they didn't."
Suddenly—
The shadows twisted.
A figure lunged from behind a tree—cloaked, masked, daggers glowing black with poison.
Assassin.
But Alan didn't move.
CLANG.
Midnight Fang was drawn in a blur, its blade slicing through the air with such force that the shockwave split the tree behind the assassin. The attacker hit the ground before his body even realized it was cut.
The silence returned.
Elira's breath hitched. "That strike—wasn't human."
Alan's blade slid back into its sheath with a click. "Neither am I."
*****
Somewhere far away, in a ruined temple beneath the ocean, an ancient eye opened.
"He has returned..." a voice trembled.