Chapter 74: Sovereign vs. Alchemist

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Sovereign vs. Alchemist

"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood." — Shakespeare, Macbeth

•••

Rumors spread through the academy before students even finished dinner.

By nightfall, three stories were circulating about what had happened at noon.

Some claimed two visiting professors had fought. Others believed a demon had appeared in the archives. And the most unbelievable story was that a first-year student had stopped blood in midair using his mind.

The last student to leave the archives called the floating blood modern art.

Everyone believed that version because it was easier.

An hour before midnight, a card arrived at Hall Nine through ordinary post.

Plain paper. Ordinary wax.

Even Vane’s invitations were perfectly neat.

Nyx read the message upside down from the pipes.

"Professor Vane requests the pleasure of settling accounts. The old siege range, beneath the fourth training hall. Midnight. Dress: informal."

"He’s reserved three rooms of reinforced stone," Joel said. "How thoughtful. He’s even planned for an explosion."

"He’s planning to make you disappear," Nyx replied.

Her crown pulsed orange, showing her displeasure.

"Then he’ll receive a bill instead."

The hunter had finally arranged his meeting, exactly as Joel had expected.

Men like Vane always believed they were the ones in control.

Joel simply had no reason to correct him.

He made sure Roan and Sybill would be somewhere else that night.

Roan went to the night canteen with three desserts and instructions to argue about rune theory with anyone holding a spoon.

Sybill, furious about being left out, went to the telescope tower with a star chart and two seniors who never stopped talking.

After all, an alibi was useless if you were standing inside the explosion.

And Joel had already risked enough of his friends’ blood that week.

•••

Gideon Vane spent the evening preparing for his appointment.

As a Blood-Alchemist, tasting someone’s blood once allowed him to target that person forever.

At noon, he had tasted a drop of Joel’s blood from the cut on his knuckle.

He spent six hours creating a powerful poison specifically designed for Joel, capable of bypassing every defense listed in the academy registry.

He also formed sharp crystal blades from his own blood, each one deadly enough to serve as a weapon.

Once his preparations were complete, Gideon hung his coat on a training golem’s arm and waited calmly.

At midnight, Joel arrived alone.

"You kept the appointment," Gideon said.

"You sent an invitation. Men like you always think they’re the ones in control."

"And you came alone."

"You brought two hundred labels. I brought a floor plan."

"The contract remains until the Syndicate changes it," Gideon replied. "The folio. Everyone who has touched it. And I’ve been told one of those people is available tonight."

"Then let’s settle the accounts," Joel said.

He activated his power, bringing everything within fifty meters under his control.

"Domain."

WHUMM!

[Ding!]

[Pinnacle authority projected: Domain of the Inertia Sovereign.]

[Radius: 50 meters. The Sovereign is comfortable.]

Gideon began his attack by releasing everything he had prepared.

His sleeves opened, sending countless blood threads, needles, sharp blades, and surgical lancets flying toward Joel.

TSSSS!

But halfway across the hall, something went wrong.

The attacks didn’t freeze like they had in the archives.

Instead, they lost all their momentum.

The weapons reached Joel without any force, brushing harmlessly against his shirt.

TIK! TIK-TIK!

Needles fell around him like drops of rain.

Gideon stood motionless.

For the first time in thirty years, his techniques had completely failed.

Nobody had ever survived long enough to describe his methods.

Yet here was a student making those methods useless.

"What are you doing to my work?" Gideon demanded.

"Auditing it," Joel replied. "Your attacks keep losing their force. You should check your accounts."

Gideon understood that his ordinary techniques wouldn’t work.

So he decided to use something far more dangerous.

His own body.

His heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

One beat became three, then a continuous hum.

Blood rushed through his veins at incredible speed. The whites of his eyes turned red, and his body began losing its solid shape.

VMMM!

He had activated one of the deepest techniques of Blood-Alchemist, using his own body as the source of power.

"Why not?" Gideon muttered.

Then he charged.

SHNK!

The first slash came from one direction. Joel didn’t stop it with his Domain.

Instead, he allowed the attack to strike him.

His Class immediately absorbed the force. Just as it had always done.

[Ding!]

[Charge banked: 1. The Sovereign thanks the donor.]

The second attack came from nowhere.

SHNK.

[Charge banked: 2.]

After two exchanges, they both understood how the fight worked.

Gideon’s speed allowed him to land more cuts, but every strike gave Joel’s Sovereign ability more energy to absorb.

The third slash cut open Joel’s forearm.

Poison entered through the wound, carried by Gideon’s crystal blade.

It had been specially designed using the blood Gideon tasted at noon.

And its first target was Joel’s filtration defenses.

[Ding!]

[Toxin inbound: blood-keyed alchemy, tailored from a consumed sample.]

[Caustic Filtration: bypassed.]

[Burn is considered billable.]

The poison burned through Joel’s veins like fire, spreading from his chest.

But deep down, Joel smiled.

The pain was exactly what he wanted.

Fate Points could only be earned by surviving dangerous situations.

He had entered the fight with fifteen Fate Points, and the shipment was arriving tomorrow night.

Joel could have stopped Gideon’s heart with his Domain at any moment.

But killing him would only make the Syndicate send someone worse.

Keeping him alive was more useful.

Besides, the poison was earning him Fate Points.

[Ding!]

[Fate Point earned: +1. Source: lethal toxin, first crest, survived.]

[Balance: 16.]

So Joel pretended to be the weak first-year everyone knew.

His blinks grew slower, and his guard dropped slightly with each exchange, as though the injuries were wearing him down.

Gideon’s blades left shallow cuts across his forearm, ribs, cheekbone, and palm.

Joel kept track of every wound.

[Charge banked: 7.]

[Charge banked: 9.]

"You’re slowing down," Gideon said, almost warmly. He sounded genuinely pleased for the first time since arriving at the academy. "It’s a fine poison. It deserves to finish its work."

"It does," Joel agreed.

Gideon swung his blade upward, aiming beneath Joel’s ribs.

It was his harvesting strike, the same technique he had used to wipe out an entire Syndicate Chapter house.

At the same moment, the poison reached its peak.

It spread into Joel’s heart and settled there.

[Ding!]

[Fate Point earned: +1. Source: lethal toxin, final crest.]

[Balance: 17. The Wheel notes an increase in courage-related activity.]

Then Joel suddenly stopped slowing down.

Every attack that struck him had only made him stronger.

Twelve cuts, poison burning through his heart, and all the force he had absorbed.

He had kept track of everything.

Joel straightened from his stagger and caught Gideon’s wrist with one hand.

Then he released all the stored force into him.

"Balance due."

KRAKOOM!

Gideon flew backward and smashed through the first wall.

KRUNCH!

His body crashed through the second wall.

KRUNCH!

Then he struck the third wall, built with the academy’s strongest siege-grade reinforcements.

KRUNK!

The wall held, but Gideon’s body left a deep imprint in it.

[Ding!]

[Settlement delivered: one (1) installment, kinetic. Walls retired: three (3). Recipient: airborne, then walled.]

In the third room, Gideon Vane lay among the rubble, calmly assessing his injuries.

Several ribs were broken. One arm wasn’t responding properly, and the vision in one eye was growing darker.

But the pain wasn’t what frightened him.

It was the realization.

He had been sent to eliminate everyone who had touched the stolen folio.

And now, somewhere beyond three broken walls, the person he had been hunting stood unharmed despite being poisoned.

That boy wasn’t an ordinary student who had learned a powerful technique.

He was a monster hiding behind the identity of a first-year ranked fiftieth out of three thousand.

Gideon had spent thirty years eliminating dangerous people for the Syndicate.

But this time, he had found someone far more dangerous than himself.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a black ampoule.

It had cost more than the entire contract, but Gideon knew it was his only chance of surviving.

TCHAK!

He crushed it between two fingers.

Then he activated the final technique of his [ Blood-Alchemist Class.]

His body began dissolving into thin crimson smoke.

Within moments, his physical form disappeared completely.

The smoke flowed through the settling dust and escaped through tiny cracks in the walls, slipping beyond Joel’s fifty-meter Domain.

Outside that range, the normal laws of motion still applied.

Joel watched the crimson smoke disappear.

He made no attempt to stop it.

After all, you couldn’t charge the weather for running away.

"Quote the table a rate," he told it, "for three walls."

Nyx emerged through the holes in the broken walls, clearly delighted.

"Architect. You let him escape in an envelope."

"He escaped like a letter," Joel replied. "The Syndicate will be the one to open it."

[Ding!]

[Toxin: metabolized. Burn: settled. The vintage has been deducted in full.]

Joel coughed once and wiped a thin streak of pink blood from his lips.

The twelve cuts on his body were already healing, thanks to Juggernaut Vitality.

The fight had cost him a little blood, but earned him two Fate Points and left Gideon alive to carry a message.

By morning, Roan would have nine witnesses from the canteen, while Sybill would have two seniors confirming her whereabouts.

As for the three destroyed walls, Roan had already prepared an explanation.

A water pipe accident.

He would send the repair bill later.

That night, Joel opened Gideon’s file and updated it one last time.

Payment: Partial.

Remaining balance: Deferred.

Status: Escaped as smoke. Reassessed. Returning to the Syndicate with evidence of Joel’s strength.

One night remained before the shipment.

Twelve units. One reservoir. No delivery man.

And Joel now had seventeen Fate Points saved, with his recent rewards still fresh.

The house was ready for its next gamble.