🏛️ Ashenwell – Main Courtyard, Under Siege
Chaos reigned.
Ashenwell's protective wards cracked like old glass. Black-winged skimmers swarmed the towers. Students ran. Professors fought. The air pulsed with echo static and Lume disruption.
At the center of it all stood a figure cloaked in obsidian thread, not masked like the others.
Inquisitor Velthorne.
Tall. Impossibly still. Hands folded. A symbol burned across his chest—a silver spiral coiling into a crown.
He didn't bother fighting.
He just walked toward Grim.
Each step crushed the ground beneath him.
Each glance made the strongest mages flinch.
"Subject 04-A," he said calmly. "You will come with me."
Grim stood his ground. Lume fire in one hand, warping heat in the other.
Velthorne raised his palm—air snapped—and Grim was on his knees.
Not by pain.
Not by fear.
By force of gravity, pressure, emotion, all twisted together like a command etched into his blood.
⚡ Sparks' Desperate Move
"He's triggering your failsafe," Sparks whispered. "He's going to fold your will in on itself."
"Then stop him."
"I can't."
"Sparks—"
"But I can force you to evolve."
The world blinked white.
"Wait—what are you doing—"
"It's going to hurt. You'll forget pieces. But you'll live."
"Sparks—!"
A surge ripped through Grim's veins.
Like fire eating memory. Like space collapsing.
Like becoming something Oruin has no scale for.
🌪️ Potential Unleashed
Velthorne took one step forward—
And Grim vanished.
Not teleported—disappeared between moments.
Then:
Boom.
Velthorne was thrown backward through three walls, slammed into the eastern barrier, and the sky above Ashenwell lit up violet-white.
Students stopped fleeing.
Everyone looked up.
And saw Grim—floating midair, Lume and spatial rifts crackling off him like a broken god.
His voice wasn't entirely his.
"I am not yours."
Velthorne stood slowly, blood dripping from his nose.
He looked… amused.
"Very well, Aelric. Next time, we bring your siblings."
Then he vanished in a ripple of void.
🩸 Aftermath
Grim collapsed. Sparks went completely silent.
Not a flicker. Not a thought.
Lys screamed his name from somewhere far off.
Kaia ran toward him, guilt etched into every step.
He hit the ground.
Let's begin.
The storm has passed—but the cracks it left behind are just beginning to show.