Homeroom with Professor Spark was usually the one peaceful corner of the day.
Despite her reputation as volatile incarnate, she taught with a strange, controlled chaos. Lightning dancing harmlessly along her fingertips, teleporting in tiny flashes from desk to desk as if the room were her personal circuit.
Students were used to the static buzz, the scorch marks on ceiling tiles, and Spark's casual energy that made learning feel like surviving a mildly dangerous carnival ride.
Today, the room felt wrong.
Max slid into his seat beside Alex, muscles still sore from the duel the day before. His heartbeat hadn't slowed once since the otherworldly encounter at the infirmary. Something in the air felt weird. A pulse beneath reality that only someone attuned to mana could feel.
Alex leaned in immediately.
"You look dead," he whispered. "Like, dragged into a crypt and politely returned dead."
Max attempted a shrug. "Didn't sleep."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got."
Alex narrowed his eyes. "Cryptic. I hate cryptic."
Before Max could respond, Professor Spark clapped her hands, grin sharp and bright.
"Alright, little storm clouds! Today we're going to learn controlled discharge patterns, which means—"
A tremor rolled through the walls.
Magical wards embedded in the stone flickered like glitching stars. Conversations died mid-sentence.
Spark's smile vanished.
"…everyone stay calm," she said, voice low and clipped as she stepped toward the center of the room. Sigils flared to life around her hands nothing playful now, only precision and readiness. "Do not stand! Do not cast! We wait for ward confirmation."
Another tremor followed. This one was impossible to ignore.
The desks vibrated, lights dimmed, and mana pressure thickened until breathing felt like inhaling water.
Alex gripped his chair. "Okay no one do the brave idiot thing. That's Victoria's job."
Victoria, already rising with chilling confidence, shot him a glare sharp enough to cut steel.
A glowing glyph burst into existence at Spark's side an emergency ward transmission. As she read it, her face went pale.
Her voice rose with absolute authority.
"Tier-One and Tier-Two students—defensive formation. Now."
Victoria, Max and the other top-ranked students moved instantly, forming a line at the front of the classroom. Spell circles ignited around them like halos. Luckily Max knocked Alex out early in the ranking tournament so he was in back despite being strong.
"Tier-Three and lower behind them," Spark continued. "If this is nothing, we'll laugh about it later. If it's something serious—"
She didn't finish.
Whispers erupted behind raised hands.
"Is it an attack?"
"No ward fluctuations don't feel like this."
"Breach in the academy's defenses?"
Max barely heard them.
Because the weapon strapped across his back upset that it didn't see any action during the tournament began to vibrate.
Sending out waves of essence.
A hum that resonated with his bones, his blood, his mana.
Max's breath hitched.
Alex caught his arm. "Max? Talk. Now."
But before he could answer, a voice slid through his mind.
Raven.
[The seal beneath the academy is breaking.]
Max's pulse spiked.
Why? he thought. Zephyr said the portal was dormant.
[It was, Raven hissed. Something forced it open.]
Another tremor.
Students stumbled. Shelves rattled. The windows shook like something outside was pounding against the glass.
Max took a deep breath
What's down there? What's trying to break through?
Raven didn't hesitate.
[The Warden.]
His stomach dropped.
Warden? As in a freaking guardian?
[Executioner] Raven corrected darkly.
[One whom cannot be allowed to walk this world again.]
Max's skin went cold.
And it's waking… because of me?
Raven's voice sharpened like talons.
[Not because of you.]
[Because of us.]
Max staggered, gripping his desk as if the world tilted.
Across the room, Victoria turned her eyes locking onto his. Her expression shifted from annoyance… to fear.
Because she felt it too.
Not the shaking.
Not the noise.
The summoning.
Professor Spark's voice shattered the tension.
"Everyone stay QUIET!"
The room fell still.
A couple seconds of peace…
Then the lights shattered and glass exploding outward as every orb in the ceiling burst in a cascade of sparks.
Students screamed.
Mana flared.
Something beneath the academy roared ancient and furious.
The floor pulsed with a shockwave of mana.
And every single ward in the school flickered—
once—
twice—
Then they all died out.