"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 threshold of the Iron-Groves offered no sanctuary. Emerging from the damp and industrial maw of the refinery, Vane found a world stripped of its frantic energy. The mercury rain had finally ceased, replaced by the heavy scent of raw iron and a silence so thick it felt physical. Across the clearing, the 4th Division knights lay scattered like discarded husks. These were the Iron Hounds, the reinforcements meant to be fresh and lethal, yet they were now nothing more than scenery in a graveyard.


Chapter 148 - The Obsidian Silence