When Vane left the infirmary behind, he walked away with far more than just a rusty dagger. He now possessed the perfect weapons to rot the Fourth Pillar from the inside out: Mirabelle's gender secret and her pathetic soft spot for Kristina.
If he played these two cards right, he could have that toxic Pillar wrapped around his finger before he even stepped foot in the arena. But before any of that scheming, he had something much more vital to take care of: assimilating the foreign aether coursing through his veins and proving his dangerous theory right.
He returned to his room. Upon seeing Vane at the door, Elian nervously stopped fiddling with his pocket watch. A look of undeniable relief washed over his face.
"Where the hell have you been, Vane? I was starting to think you died in some shady corner of the academy," he grumbled. Despite trying to hide it, Elian genuinely cared for Vane—his only friend in this hierarchy of the oppressed. It seemed he would be one of the few people Vane might actually drop his mask for.
"I was just wandering around, Elian," Vane said casually. "Did anything notable happen while I was gone?"
Elian quickly pocketed the watch. "Lyra was asking for you. She said she needed to speak with you privately and urgently. I didn't dare ask why, you know how she is..."
"Thanks, Elian. I appreciate you letting me know," Vane replied, a rare, almost genuine smile touching his lips.
Vane headed straight for the bathroom. He threw off his dirty shirt and locked eyes with his reflection in the mirror. There were only a few faint red marks on his body, nothing more. His hair had grown out wild and untamed. 'I should probably get a haircut when I find the time,' he thought. He turned on the faucet. Even though he waited, the water only ran lukewarm as he began to wash away the stench of that miserable battle.
"Do you know what you need to do with that absorbed aether before you sleep, Vane?" Lysandra spoke, floating in her spirit form in the corner of the bathroom.
Vane closed his eyes as he rinsed the soap from his hair. "If my theory is correct... tonight, we acquire our first element."
"Maybe I'll even gain something like poison resistance or physical plant manipulation," he added.
The ancient Empress simply shook her head from side to side, as if to say, 'I have absolutely no idea.'
After finishing up in the bathroom, Vane returned to his room and made sure Elian was already fast asleep. He sat cross-legged on his bed and closed his eyes. He directed his mind deep within, into the bottomless void inside him. He felt the warmth of the foreign aether he had stolen from Kristina. This time, instead of just circulating the power through his veins and destroying it like he did with Professor Vespera's flame, he focused on molding and confining it right in the center of his chest. In his mind, he visualized Kristina's coiling vines and Mirabelle's winged beetles.
'If I can shape the aether in my mind according to the nature of the element I stole... I can bend that element as if it were my own,' he thought.
Lysandra watched him from the edge of the bed, holding her breath. "I have never encountered an anomaly like you in all my existence, Vane. I cannot comment on this."
Within seconds, Vane's expression contorted in agony. This was far more unbearable than forcing the fire element through his body; it was an agonizing pain that felt like it was shattering his bones from the inside out. A foreign element was forcibly constructing a throne for itself within his veins of 'nothingness'.
"You must endure it, Vane!" Lysandra whispered. The ancient spirit placed a hand on his shoulder as if offering support.
Vane's eyes suddenly snapped wide open. For a split second, his deep purple irises shifted to a toxic green, but then the purple ruthlessly swallowed the green, reverting to their original color.
His clothes were drenched in sweat. He forced his trembling breath to steady. He raised his head and reached his hand out toward Lysandra, who was looking at him with intense curiosity.
A delicate vine glowing with green aether sprouted from the palm of his hand, stretching toward Lysandra with a flawless lotus flower blooming at its tip.
There was no trace of the usual arrogance in the ancient Empress's eyes; instead, it was the proud gaze of a mother looking at her son who had just returned victorious from a great war.
"You are incredible... You actually did it, Vane."
Vane retracted the vine with a single mental command and smiled. "I couldn't have done it without your support. Also... I noticed you stopped calling me 'pawn'."
Lysandra smiled faintly. "I realized... you are far more than just a pawn, Vane." The ancient spirit paused as if she was about to say something much deeper, but chose to keep her silence and faded back into the shadows.
Vane had proven his theory. Now, his goal wasn't just to survive. He was going to absorb the aether of all the Pillars and evolve into an absolute power. He summoned his rusty dagger from the darkness and inspected its surface.
And then it happened. A small chunk of the thick, century-old layer of rust on the dagger cracked. The piece of rust broke off the metal, but before it could even hit the bed, it turned to dust and vanished in the air.
'Mother...' Vane thought. As the Black Hole inside him grew stronger, the bloody seal his mother had placed to protect him was slowly beginning to break.
Exhausted, he took off his sweat-drenched shirt, collapsed onto the bed, and his mind plunged into darkness within seconds.
The next day, Vane skipped classes and wandered the corridors, hoping to run into Lyra. The first thing that caught his attention was the change in how the girls at the academy looked at him. The faces that used to glare at the 'bastard' with disgust were now giggling, whispering among themselves, and eyeing Vane's newly defined muscles and increased height with obvious interest.
'Humans truly are simple creatures,' Vane thought mockingly.
Right then, the excited whispers of two students cut his steps short like a knife.
"Did you hear? That freak Lyra... She's getting brutally beaten in the arena by her own Pillar Heir, Lord Kravitz!"
Vane instantly pivoted and headed straight for the Academy Arena.
A massive crowd had gathered by the time he arrived. "Move aside. Excuse me." As Vane shoved his way through the crowd, he found a trembling Elian in the front rows.
"Elian! What the hell is going on here?"
Elian gulped in terror when he saw Vane and managed to utter a single sentence: "I-It's you, Vane... Lyra... Kravitz is going to kill her!"
Vane frowned and moved to a spot where he could get a clearer view of the arena floor. His body went rigid at the sight.
Lyra was lying on the ground, covered in blood. Her ever-present glasses were shattered, and her uniform bearing the silver raven crest was torn to shreds.
Standing directly opposite her was Lord Kravitz, the Heir to the 7th Pillar. With his silver hair and the suffocating black aether radiating around him, he looked like an absolute nightmare. He held two pitch-black daggers in his hands, completely different from Vane's.
When Kravitz slashed with his daggers, an ominous, massive claw made of darkness shot straight toward Lyra on the ground. "Useless traitor!" Kravitz roared.
Lyra forced her bloody eyes open with the last of her strength. Through her blurry vision, she saw a familiar back step right in between her and that lethal strike.
"Y-You..." she whispered.
Vane had jumped from the top of the arena directly in front of the girl. His rusty dagger sliced through the air, and that massive black aether claw was sucked into Vane's dagger in mere seconds, disappearing as if pulled into a black hole.
When the energy wave dissipated, Vane didn't even spare a glance at the Pillar Heir behind him. He dropped to one knee and leaned over Lyra.
"Lyra. Can you hear me?"
Her eyes were half-open. "Y-You shouldn't have come, Vane... He... He's going to—" Before she could finish her sentence, she lost consciousness, her head falling against Vane's chest.
"Her wounds are severe, Vane," Lysandra whispered. "She needs to go to the infirmary immediately."
Vane gently gathered the girl into his arms. His gaze had turned to ice. He started walking toward the arena's exit.
Just then, a dagger made of black aether stabbed into the stone floor right behind his heel.
"We were just talking about you, Your Royal Bastard!" Kravitz shouted in a mocking tone. "Where do you think you're going?"
Vane didn't even slow his pace. He kept walking, carrying Lyra in his arms.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!"
A high-pitched whistle tore through the air. A second black dagger was thrown, this time aimed squarely at Vane's back.
CLANG!
Without even looking back, Vane spun with blinding speed and swung his rusty dagger with his free hand. Steel met steel. Kravitz's attack deflected into the air with a shower of sparks.
Vane's tone was commanding, and literally as calm as a death sentence: "Wait."
Vane walked right into the massive crowd with Lyra in his arms. Or rather, the crowd parted in sheer terror, clearing a path for him when they saw the pure, dark fury etched onto Vane's face.
He found Elian in the crowd and carefully placed the bloodied girl into his arms.
"Go straight to the infirmary, Elian. I'll be there soon." Vane's voice was perfectly calm, but that sociopathic expression on his face stated the exact opposite.
"V-Vane... Kravitz, he's a Pillar Heir! Don't do this!" Elian pleaded helplessly.
Vane merely waved a hand, signaling him to leave.
Once he was certain Elian was out of sight, Vane turned around and walked back to the center of the arena.
"Who the hell do you think you are, giving me ord—" Kravitz's words were cut off by a rusty dagger shooting past his cheek like a bullet, missing him by mere millimeters.
Kravitz couldn't even process what had happened. Suddenly, he felt a stinging pain on his cheek. He reached up and saw his own blood smearing his fingers.
The thrown dagger had already returned to Vane's hand.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Kravitz charged at Vane, foaming at the mouth with fury like a rabid dog. "How... How dare you!"
Vane dodged the enraged Pillar Heir's strikes easily, almost dancing around him.
"If he could control his anger, he would move much more logically and lethally," Lysandra whispered.
Vane waited for the perfect opening. He continued to evade the barrage of black daggers until he finally saw a massive gap. Just as Kravitz lunged to plunge both daggers into Vane's chest, Vane gracefully sidestepped. Following that missed heavy strike, Vane carved a deep gash into Kravitz's shoulder with his rusty dagger.
Kravitz roared in pain.
"You have absolutely no real combat experience, do you, Kravitz?" Vane said. "You're just a son of a bitch who only knows how to play with those weaker than you." As Vane spoke, that chilling calmness in his voice was slowly beginning to crack, and the dark anomaly beneath was clawing its way to the surface.
"Crazy bastard! You're the one responsible for everything!" Kravitz shouted, babbling nonsense through his pain and rage.
The crowd in the arena had swelled. Everyone was trying to comprehend how the King's 'trash' bastard managed to draw blood from a Pillar Heir. When Vane cast a sideways glance at the VIP boxes above the crowd, his blood ran cold.
The other Pillar Heirs had taken their seats in the stands and were watching the fight.
'Fuck,' Vane thought. 'I can't get carried away. Not all of the Heirs are as weak and stupid as this pathetic bastard. I can't reveal all my cards. I need to hide my true strength for a little longer.'
Vane deliberately slowed his footwork. Instead of parrying Kravitz's incoming black dagger strikes, he intentionally took a few hits to his shoulders and torso. Blood began to seep into his uniform.
"This is how it's supposed to be, Vane! You should have used your only chance during that brief moment I pitied you!" Kravitz bellowed, thinking he had regained the upper hand.
Despite his bleeding wounds, Vane continued to play the weakling under the piercing gazes of the Pillars.
"He can't even control his stupid aether properly, Vane," Lysandra noted. "If you provoke him, he might lose his balance completely."
That familiar, demonic smile crept onto Vane's lips. He leaped backward and shouted in the loudest, most mocking tone possible:
"You have a crush on Lyra, don't you, Kravitz? Is that why you hate my guts to death?!"
Kravitz's body went stiff. "W-What nonsense are you spouting! A Pillar Heir like me, with a common vassal..." His voice was trembling badly.
The crowd instantly started buzzing and whispering. The seeds of malice had been perfectly planted. The weak spot hiding behind his aristocratic arrogance had been exposed.
"Lyra really is a lovely girl," Vane continued, emphasizing every single word. "Want me to share exactly what we do when we're alone at night? I could send her to your room one night if you wan—"
The last shred of sanity in Kravitz's eyes vanished in that exact second. He stood frozen. That thin string holding his mind together had snapped.
And suddenly, a pitch-black wave of shadows erupted from the arena floor, swallowing all the light around them and transforming into a massive, isolating dome—a wall of shadows. Inside this dark domain, the two of them were completely cut off from the outside world.
Lysandra's voice echoed with savage anticipation in the darkness: "Here we go."