The days after the duel were a strange, unsettling calm. The academy treated Edward like an unexploded bomb.
Students, who had once openly mocked him, now averted their gazes. They parted before him in the hallways. The instructors either ignored him or watched him with a nervous, fearful respect. He was no longer the "Rankless trash." He was the "Gauntlet-Shatterer." A legend whispered about in hushed, terrified tones.
Chris had been quietly removed from the academy. The official story was a "training accident." A flimsy, transparent lie. To admit the truth—that their S-Rank prodigy had been dismantled by a boy with no official rank—would be to admit their entire system was a sham.
Edward welcomed the isolation. It gave him time. Time to heal. Time to feel his Vitality slowly tick back upwards. Time to practice with his Shadowfang Dagger. Its hungry whispers were a constant, familiar presence.
He knew this peace was an illusion. The quiet, still air before a hurricane. The nobles were not the type to accept such a public humiliation. A system built on the illusion of superiority could not tolerate a living contradiction like him. He knew they were moving against him. He just didn't know when, or how, the hammer would fall.
The hammer fell on a quiet, unremarkable afternoon.
It began with a campus-wide lockdown. Alarms, the same terrifying sirens that had announced the Behemoth's arrival, blared across the academy. Students were ordered to their dorms. Heavily armored Royal Guards swarmed the campus.
Edward was in the library. Poring over ancient texts on forbidden classes. A new, morbid hobby. He didn't panic. He simply closed his book and waited. He knew, with a cold, absolute certainty, who they were here for.
The target was a visiting diplomat. A high-ranking ambassador from Eldoria. Count Alistair.
The crime scene was a bloodbath. The Count's suite was a wreck. The Count himself was dead. His throat was slit from ear to ear. A single, brutally efficient cut. His two elite bodyguards lay dead beside him. Their armor was pierced by a flurry of precise, deadly stabs.
The evidence was immediate. Overwhelming. And utterly damning.
Embedded in the wall, just inches from the Count's head, was a single, black blade. A dagger that seemed to drink the light. A weapon of solidified shadow. Scattered on the floor were faint traces of a unique, dark energy. Predatory and corrupt.
The few witnesses gave the same, terrified description. A shadowy, impossibly fast assailant who moved like a phantom.
Every piece of evidence, every witness account, every trace of energy, pointed to one person.
The fabrication was a masterpiece of political assassination. The nobles had deployed a team of elite, professional assassins. The leader wielded a weapon forged through dark arts. A near-perfect replica of the Shadowfang Dagger.
They had used an illegal artifact to mimic Edward's unique, corrupted aura. The witnesses had been bribed. Their memories magically altered.
It was a perfect, airtight frame job.
Edward's own mysterious power had become the perfect tool to condemn him. His public reputation as a silent, deadly fighter. His use of a unique, shadowy weapon.
His aura of forbidden energy. All the things that made the students fear him now made him the only logical suspect. He was a political liability. And he had just been neatly transformed into a political enemy.
An assassin who had just pushed two kingdoms to the brink of war.
The final, brilliant stroke of their plan was who they presented this evidence to. Not the bumbling Headmaster. Not the slow-moving Royal Guard. They went directly to the one organization that had the authority, the jurisdiction, and the pre-existing suspicion to act immediately and without question.
They went to the Inquisition.
Examiner Jack received the report in his private chambers. He reviewed the evidence. The energy readings. The witness testimonies. The images of the dark blade. A slow, serene smile touched his lips.
The puzzle, it seemed, had solved itself. The anomaly had finally revealed its true, monstrous nature. He no longer needed to play his patient game. He had been given the proof he needed to act. The perfect justification to carry out the sentence he had already passed.
He didn't come alone this time. He arrived at Sunstone Academy not as a quiet examiner. But as a judge, jury, and executioner. He strode through the main gates. A squad of twelve heavily armed Inquisitorial Knights marched in perfect, silent lockstep behind him.
These were not academy security. These were the Templars of the Inquisition. Holy warriors in consecrated silver plate armor. Their faces were hidden behind impassive, featureless helms.
They carried massive, two-handed power-swords that hummed with a righteous, purifying energy. The Church's mailed fist. And they had come to deliver judgment.
Edward was waiting in the academy's central courtyard. He hadn't tried to run. It would be pointless. The entire campus was a cage. To flee would be an admission of guilt.
He stood there, calm and still. Students watched from their windows. Their faces were pale with a mixture of fear and a savage, vindictive excitement.
Jack and his Templars marched into the courtyard. Their armored boots crunched on the gravel. A rhythmic, funereal drumbeat. They fanned out.
A perfect, inescapable circle around Edward. Their power-swords were held at a low, ready guard. Their sheer, concentrated holy aura was a physical force.
Jack came to a stop a dozen feet from Edward. His silver-white hair caught the sun. His expression was no longer analytical. It was one of cold, absolute, divine certainty. He had come to cleanse a stain.
"Edward Ross," Jack proclaimed. His voice was no longer a soft whisper. It was a booming, resonant pronouncement that echoed across the silent courtyard. A voice for all the hidden, watching eyes to hear.
"By the authority of the Holy Inquisition and in the name of the Royal Crown, you are hereby branded a user of forbidden, soul-devouring arts, an assassin of a royal diplomat, and an enemy of the state."
He raised a single, elegant hand. The twelve Templars behind him raised their power-swords in perfect, silent unison. The blades hummed with a lethal, holy energy.
"Surrender now for judgment," Jack commanded. His voice was a final, chilling note of absolute authority. "Your resistance is futile. Your damnation is assured. Confess your sins and be purified."