Chapter 33: Shadows Moving Behind the Smoke

The thick purple smoke billowed high from the east stand of Alistair Academy, spreading the smell of sulfur and leftover dark mana that made anyone who breathed it feel dizzy. The panicked screams of the noble students gradually subsided, replaced by the busyness of magic instructors and royal guard knights busily putting out the fire and evacuating victims with minor injuries from the chaos just now.

In the middle of the open training field, the situation felt far more intense. Prince Leonhardt stood tall with the golden sword blade still pressed against the traitor knight's neck. The prince's face hardened, radiating the cold wrath of a ruler who had just realized that enemy had infiltrated right behind his back.

"Tell me who ordered you," Prince Leonhardt's voice lowered, sounding cold and lethal. "Or this sword will sever your head from your body this very second."

The traitor knight whose right hand had been frozen by the impact of my ice winced in pain, his body trembling violently not only because of the cold creeping on his skin, but also because of the absolute terror from the crown prince. Yet, instead of begging for mercy or naming the mastermind behind the terror act, the corner of the knight's lips suddenly crooked into a smirk. Fresh blood flowed from between his teeth.

Damn! He bit the safety poison in his molar teeth!

"Quickly stop him!" I shouted spontaneously while stepping forward.

However, it was already too late. Before Prince Leonhardt's hand could pull the knight to be searched, the traitor's body convulsed instantly. His blue eyes rolled back, and within seconds, his body weakened and collapsed lifelessly onto the wet grass ground. Thin toxic smoke billowed from his lips, erasing all traces of important information we should have extracted from his mouth.

Prince Leonhardt snorted harshly, pulling his sword back with a sharp motion full of disappointment. He glanced briefly at the corpse on the ground, then shifted his gaze to stare intently at me. A meaningful glint radiated from his pupils.

"The warning you gave this morning was not just a bluff or empty guess, Alicia," Leonhardt said softly with a voice only the two of us could hear. "You know something bigger than this, right?"

I straightened my chin, maintaining the arrogant and cold expression of a villainess before the prince, even though various bad possibilities were spinning fast inside my head. Raven was right; the shadow faction had planted their claws too deep into the empire's ring one. If a crown prince's personal guard could be infiltrated so easily through dark magic manipulation, no place was truly safe in this academy anymore.

"I merely used my own eyes to see what the overconfident elite royal guards failed to realize, Your Highness," I retorted coldly, glancing briefly at the other two guard knights standing pale with fear behind the prince. "If you still wish to preserve your remaining dignity as a future ruler of the empire, start cleaning your own ranks before the enemy destroys you from within."

Before Prince Leonhardt could reply to my words, the sound of heavy footsteps approached from the main corridor. Academy Headmaster Lord Vane along with senior teachers and special monitoring troops rushed toward the field with extremely panicked facial expressions. This black magic bombing incident in the academy's open area could no longer be covered up or resolved in a closed meeting like previous cases. This security scandal had tarnished the proud name of the number one magic institution in the kingdom.

"Your Highness! What on earth happened here?!" exclaimed Lord Vane out of breath, stopping right before the prince and the poison-stained guard corpse.

Amidst the commotion breaking out again due to the academy leaders' arrival, I stepped back slowly, detaching myself from the center of attention. My eyes glanced briefly toward the burned east stand row. Behind the thinning black smoke clouds, a fleeting figure in a long cloak was seen standing on the building roof, observing the whole incident with a victorious smile before finally melting and disappearing swallowed by the morning wind.

The game had just been raised to a far more dangerous level. The shadow faction no longer merely sent threats via letters or low-level assassins at night; they now openly challenged the empire under sunlight. And amid this vortex of storm, I, Alicia, must keep walking on the thin line between survival and total destruction.