After leaving the crumpled, bleeding form of Aiden Colstar on the pristine marble floor, Devin didn't look back. The satisfying crunch of the prince's jaw was a fleeting comfort, quickly swallowed by the overwhelming gravity of his actual mission.
After several dizzying run-arounds through the labyrinthine corridors of the United Educational Institute, he finally made it. The atmosphere had shifted dramatically the deeper he ventured into the specialized research wings. The bright, sunlit atriums filled with chattering nobles gave way to dimly lit, subterranean hallways built from heavy, cold stone.
The Venom Research Department was entirely isolated from the rest of the academic body. It was enclosed by a massive, intimidating door that looked more like the entrance to a maximum-security vault than a university faculty wing. It was forged from thick, dark iron, completely devoid of any welcoming academic crests. Instead, it was etched with deeply carved containment runes and plastered with stark, red-lettered warnings detailing the catastrophic dangers of biological contamination.
Devin stood before the imposing metal barrier, his heart hammering a slow, heavy rhythm against his ribs. He raised his knuckles, fully prepared to pound on the iron and demand an audience with the monster orchestrating the North's downfall.
But before his knuckles could even make contact, the massive door groaned.
A heavy sequence of internal locks disengaged with a series of sharp, mechanical clacks, and the iron door creaked open on its own. It was as if the room itself was a living, breathing entity, sensing exactly what he was about to do. Or perhaps, the dark, alchemical wards woven into the iron hadn't sensed his physical movement at all; perhaps they had simply recognized the dense, lethal concentration of Cyprian venom coursing through Zain Ricky's veins, welcoming one of its own back into the fold.
Devin pushed the heavy door the rest of the way and walked in.
The department was incredibly expansive, far larger than he had anticipated. It was essentially a cavernous tunnel—a straight, wide walking lane paved with immaculate white tiles that practically glowed under the harsh, magical luminescence overhead. Flanking this central artery were a series of enclosed offices and laboratories.
He kept walking for what felt like an absolute eternity, though it could have only been a minute. The sheer scale of the subterfuge was breathtaking.
Devin glanced through the thick, reinforced glass windows of the side offices as he passed. He saw brilliant Northern scholars in white protective gear frantically scribbling on chalkboards. They were meticulously analyzing vats of bubbling, dark viscous liquids, and arguing over complex antidotal formulas. They were dedicating their brilliant minds and their entire lives to finding a cure, utterly oblivious to the fact that the man signing their research grants was the very architect of the poison.
It was a macabre, tragic play, and Devin was walking right through center stage.
Finally, he reached the end of the long lane. While all the subordinate researchers' offices and containment labs were relegated to the sides, Dr. Langstrum's office sat dead ahead, claiming the absolute apex of the department. He had the biggest door by far—a towering slab of polished obsidian that seemed to actively absorb the light around it. It was perfectly fitting for a Head of Department whose true allegiance lay deep in the shadows.
Devin stepped up to the obsidian slab, his stolen muscles tensing. This was it. The moment he confronted the handler. He raised his hand, bracing himself for whatever dark conspiracy awaited him inside.
As he was about to knock, a sharp, thoroughly unimpressed voice sliced through the sterile silence.
"He's not in at the moment."
The voice didn't come from behind the obsidian door. Devin took a swift, venom-enhanced turn to his right.
There, tucked away in an alcove he had somehow overlooked, was an office completely without a door. From the sheer volume of perfectly organized ledgers, the towering stacks of decoded missives, and the general aura of bureaucratic gatekeeping, it was easy to deduce this was the secretary's domain.
And there she sat. She was the absolute, textbook archetype of an impenetrable administrative fortress. She wore sharp, narrow glasses that glinted dangerously in the harsh light, perched perfectly on the bridge of an aristocratic nose. Her curves were wrapped tightly in a severe, tailored grey uniform that screamed rigid discipline. She had a stern, deeply unforgiving look on her face, her hair pulled back so tightly into a bun it looked physically painful.
But beneath the cliché exterior, Zain's heightened senses picked up something deeply unsettling.
Her heartbeat was too slow. It was too perfectly rhythmic. And the faint scent wafting from her impeccably clean desk wasn't standard parchment ink; it was the faint, sickly-sweet tang of chemical preservatives.
Another Watcher, Devin realized, his eyes narrowing. Another Cyprian asset hiding behind a pair of reading glasses.
He stood there, staring at her, waiting for the secret passcode or the hidden Cyprian gesture that would officially grant him access to the inner circle.
Instead, she didn't even bother looking up from the thick scroll she was annotating. She simply dipped her quill into a pot of crimson ink and delivered her dismissal with icy, bureaucratic precision.
"Dr. Langstrum is currently lecturing the upper-tier biological defense seminar. You are Zain Ricky, are you not? Class 4 Stark?" she asked, her tone making it abundantly clear she already knew the answer.
"I am," Devin replied, his voice flat.
"Your unexplained absence has already generated enough paperwork for my office," she continued without missing a beat, her quill scratching loudly against the parchment. "You are scheduled for your own academic evaluations today. The Doctor expects his operatives to maintain their cover flawlessly in the public eye. Come back after your lesson hours, student."
She punctuated the sentence with a sharp flick of her quill, entirely dismissing his existence.
Devin stood there for a fraction of a second, the royal indignation bubbling up hot in his chest. He desperately wanted to step forward and shatter her perfect, organized desk into splinters. But he swallowed the pride. He nodded mechanically, turned on his heel, and walked away.
He left the suffocating atmosphere of the Venom Research Department, the heavy iron door sealing shut behind him with a definitive, echoing clang.
I can't believe I have to actually attend lessons, Devin thought, practically seething as he retraced his steps through the subterranean corridors, heading back up toward the sunlit academic wings.
His grand, tactical plan had been a quick, decisive in-and-out. He was supposed to march into the handler's office, give his cold, sociopathic report about Emerald's demise to Dr. Langstrum, secure his next set of bloody orders, and begin dismantling the Cyprian network before the sun set.
Instead, he was being sent to class like an errant child.
The sheer, ridiculous absurdity of the situation nearly made him laugh out loud—a harsh, humorless sound that bounced off the stone walls.
He was an eighteen-year-old body swapped prince. He harbored the profound, miraculous Holy Gene. He was trapped inside the hyper-lethal, venom-infused body of a twenty-year-old Cyprian sleeper agent who had just committed a brutal murder.
And his biggest immediate obstacle was making sure he wasn't late for a Class 4 Stark lecture.
What does a Class 4 Stark lesson even entail? Devin wondered, his scowl deepening.
He hadn't opened a textbook in over two cycles. He had spent his time drifting in the void of death, screaming at a deity woven of pure light. Now, he was expected to sit in a polished wooden chair, surrounded by the elite, arrogant nobility of the North—including the Mortipia twins and the boy whose jaw he had just shattered—and pretend to care about advanced academic theories.
Devin rubbed his temples, feeling a severe headache beginning to form directly behind his eyes. He looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the UEI, his dark, borrowed eyes piercing through the stone, aiming his resentment directly at the heavens.
I guess this God has other plans for me.
The creator didn't just want a bloodbath. He wanted a theatrical performance. He wanted the absolute humiliation of a royal assassin forced to raise his hand to ask a professor for permission to speak. The divine entity was writing a dark comedy, and Devin was the miserable, blood-soaked punchline.
He tightened Zain's woven jacket around his broad shoulders and began the long walk toward the academic halls, preparing himself for a completely different kind of torture.