The alley's humidity crystallized midair as Orion's magic took hold. Frost bloomed across mildew-stained walls in fractal patterns, the stone itself groaning under sudden contraction. Reinhard's joints ached—not from cold, but from the absence of warmth, as if the chill were devouring energy itself.
Orion's exhale hung suspended, a frozen cloud that didn't dissipate. "Your existence fractures natural law," he said, fingertips glinting with hoarfrost. "I'll correct that oversight."
Reinhard laughed—a rasp that echoed too loudly in the ice-locked corridor. "Come carve your principles into my ribs, then."
Orion's wrist flicked. Six glacial spears materialized, their tips gleaming like polished knives. Reinhard blurred sideways before the thought fully formed.
[Hurricane Dash]
Wind sheared through the alley as he dodged, shattering ice projectiles against the wall. Orion's eyes tracked the movement—not with surprise, but clinical interest. A scholar assessing a specimen.
Reinhard's boots touched ground just as the cobblestones beneath him flash-froze. His soles adhered instantly.
Clever.
Jagged ice pillars erupted upward. Reinhard's cloak flared as he triggered [Phantom Cloak], his body dissolving into arcane static milliseconds before impalement. He rematerialized leaning against the opposite wall, posture deliberately slack.
"Tch." Orion's mana flared again. "Parlor tricks."
Reinhard lunged, wind-assisted speed carrying him fist-first toward Orion's throat. The noble didn't flinch.
Contact.
[Frigid Rebound]
The detonation wasn't sound but absence—a vacuum implosion of frozen air that launched Reinhard backward. His numb fingers brushed brickwork as he skidded, frost blooming where he gripped.
Orion adjusted his cuffs, pristine despite the fraying magic. "Predictable."
Reinhard spat ice chips. His stolen [Ashen Ruin] simmered beneath his sternum, eager. Not yet.
Frost crawled. It slithered up walls, gnawed at cobblestones, turned breath to knives in the throat. Orion's spell didn't freeze; it consumed, atom by atom, until even sound stiffened and died.
Reinhard's lungs burned. His capillaries screamed. Ice threaded his veins, and for a heartbeat, he was back in that banquet hall—helpless, heavy, hated.
Then his fingers twitched.
[Devour Magic: Engaged.]
The cold twisted. Not retreating, but rewiring. Orion's perfect sphere of frost fractured, tendrils of blue light peeling away to coil around Reinhard's outstretched hand. The alley groaned as the spell inverted, siphoned into a void deeper than hunger.
Orion staggered. His gloves split as ice erupted from his own fingertips—a feedback loop, his magic now foreign, betrayed.
[Cryo Tyranny – Rare Rank]
Reinhard exhaled. The air shattered.
Frost recoiled from him now, retreating like a whipped dog. Where Orion's spell had been a scalpel, Reinhard's was a butcher's blade—the cold didn't just bite; it hunted.
"You—" Orion's voice cracked, his poise splintering. He looked at his hands, raw and red where his own magic had rebounded. "That's not possible."
Reinhard flexed his fingers. Hoarfrost bloomed in his palm, intricate as cursed lace. "You keep using that word." He stepped forward; the ground wept ice where he trod. "I don't think it means what you—"
Orion moved. Not to attack, but to flee. A shimmering ice bridge arced toward the rooftops. Pride was abandoned.
Reinhard let him go.
The alley lay broken around him, walls scarred with fractal patterns where magic had warped reality. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the new cold in his ribs—a glacier where his heart should be.
Good, he thought, turning away. Glaciers erode mountains.
***
Three days since ice had cracked beneath Orion Fenrir's retreat. Three days since Cryo Tyranny settled into Reinhard's marrow like a feral companion. The noble heir hadn't resurfaced. No boasts in taverns, no threats scrawled in enchanted ink.
Silence could be fear. Or strategy.
The Academy's gates yawned open at dawn.
Astravalion's core wasn't a fortress—it was a siege engine carved from spell-forged obsidian. Its spires didn't loom; they pierced, skewering the low-hanging clouds. Today, the mithril gates exhaled a metallic groan, exhuming a tide of candidates onto the blackened courtyard.
Ten thousand souls. One hundred slots.
Reinhard lingered at the periphery, a shadow wrapped in wool and indifference. Noble scions preened in silks that hissed with defensive wards. Commoners clutched grimoires dog-eared from thirdhand stalls. A girl with scarred lips traced fire runes on her forearm, over and over, until her skin blistered.
Weakness everywhere.
The air curdled.
Candidates buckled as mana condensed above the gates—not pressure, but presence, thick enough to drown in. Grand Magus Eldrin Vael hovered on wings of molten gold, his battle robes seething with runes that rewrote the light around him.
"Welcome," he said, and the word carved itself into the crowd's spines.
Reinhard didn't kneel. His new frost ran through his veins, numbing the compulsion.
Eldrin's gaze swept the masses, lingering nowhere. "You seek entry. Prove you deserve it."
The Gauntlet
Three trials.
Theoretical Crucible
Arcane laws dissected on parchment. Ninety minutes. Half of you will bleed ink instead of answers.
Arena of Teeth
Spells stripped to their bloody essence. Thirty percent will leave missing fingers or pride.
Summoner's Gambit
Bargain with things that gnaw at the void. Fifteen percent will vanish entirely.
Whispers metastasized. A boy in scholar's robes vomited silently onto his shoes.
Reinhard's pulse quickened—not from fear, but recognition. The Academy wasn't screening students.
It was breeding wolves.
Eldrin vanished in a corona of light. The gates began to digest the crowd, line by line.
Reinhard lingered, absorbing the stench of sweat and desperation. His cloak hung heavier today, weighted with stolen spells and the ghost of Orion's fury.
Let them test, he thought, stepping into the shadow of the gates. I'll rewrite their rubrics.