"Special Admission, Rank 1."

That was the title on the golden invitation I threw into the trash three months ago.
Back then, I was the Crime Lord of Oakhaven. I had money, territory, and an ego that touched the sky. Why would a King lower himself to attend a school?

I was arrogant. I was foolish.

And I paid the price.

It took less than an hour for a single knight to turn my criminal empire into a graveyard. He didn't just defeat me; he ignored me. I was an ant beneath the boot of a god.

Broken and desperate, I used my last asset: a golden letter granting me entry to Zenith Imperial Academy as "Special Admission Rank 1."

It’s a lie. I’m not a prodigy. I’m a fraud with no foundation, surrounded by the strongest heirs in the Empire who want to see me bleed. I can’t cast their spells. I can’t hold their weapons.

But I can steal their lives.

My Authority is [Usurper]. While they study theory, I steal reflexes. While they practice honor, I copy trauma. I am not here to learn. I am here to hunt.

My targets are the "Four Calamities"—four women who hold powers strong enough to rewrite reality.

They think I’m their peer. They don’t know I’m the parasite waiting to hollow them out.

I’m going to make them mine.

Discord: https://discord.gg/FK9GfrSjtb

The semester knitted itself back together the way it always did. There were no grand announcements or formal declarations, just the slow, heavy accumulation of daily schedules. Thorne commanded the training hall at the seventh hour. Sael claimed the eastern wing for her TKR analysis blocks. The winding stone paths of the Academic District naturally developed their usual morning flow. Students drifted between the ancient buildings in a rhythm that felt entirely arbitrary right up until the exact moment you lived inside it long enough to feel its heartbeat.


Chapter 425 - The Rhythm