The shrill ring of the bell signaled the end of the morning lecture, shattering the oppressive silence that had choked the Senior S-Class.
Slowly, the cautious murmurs of the city's elite resumed. Yet, every covert glance and hushed whisper was directed toward the back corner of the room, where Caspian Vane sat like a slumbering apex predator, his chin resting on his hand as he watched the rain lash against the window.
At the center of the classroom, Isabella finally managed to steady her erratic heartbeat.
The primal terror she had felt earlier when Caspian looked at her was slowly being rationalized away by her own bottomless greed. He's just overwhelmingly powerful, she convinced herself. A massive, untamed Aether source. Of course, a raw battery of that magnitude would have an intimidating pressure.
She was a Harvester for the Temple of Holy Radiance. She had broken prodigies, heirs, and Awakened veterans alike. The greater the prey, the sweeter the reward. If she could drain even a fraction of the bottomless abyss she sensed within Caspian, the High Priests would elevate her to the inner sanctum.
Her greed thoroughly eclipsed her fear.
Isabella stood up, smoothing down the pristine pleats of her white uniform skirt. She ensured the silver cross at her collarbone caught the overhead lights perfectly. Radiating a carefully manufactured scent of jasmine and holy incense, she glided down the aisle toward the back of the room.
The male students watched her with a mixture of ravenous infatuation and bitter envy. Isabella was their untouchable White Lotus, an angel who graced them with her presence. Seeing her willingly approach the arrogant new kid made their blood boil.
Isabella stopped gracefully beside Caspian's desk.
She leaned forward just a fraction—enough to display the delicate curve of her neck and a hint of cleavage, but not enough to seem cheap. She offered a smile so devastatingly gentle it could melt iron.
"Hello, Mr. Vane," her voice was a soft, melodic chime. "I'm Isabella. I know transferring to Sacred Heart can be a bit overwhelming. I just wanted to welcome you."
As she spoke, Isabella covertly engaged her Temple-taught arts. Invisible, thread-like tendrils of Counterfeit Spirit-Rhyme seeped from her pores, drifting toward Caspian like hungry leeches. It was a parasitic Aetheric art. All she needed was a single moment of skin-to-skin contact to anchor the siphon into his core.
The boys in the classroom held their breath, waiting for the cold, arrogant Caspian to stumble over his words and fall for the Goddess just like the rest of them had.
Caspian didn't even turn his head. He continued watching the rain.
But deep within the abyssal trench of his spiritual sea, the monolithic doors of The Omega Exchange flared with violent, crimson warning text.
[WARNING: Low-Level Parasitic Siphon Detected.] [Appraising Hostile Entity...] [Analysis Complete: Target 'Isabella' possesses an extremely contaminated Aetheric core. The system detects the lingering, putrid Aetheric signatures of exactly 137 distinct male subjects.] [Purity Level: Bio-Spiritual Hazard. Utterly worthless.] [Recommendation: Do not allow physical contact. Ruinous Retaliation authorized to incinerate the parasite.]
A hundred and thirty-seven.
A microscopic flicker of absolute, unadulterated disgust crossed Caspian's abyssal eyes. This woman wasn't just a spy; she was a communal trough. A filthy, overflowing chalice of stolen, mixed energy, daring to approach the former Supreme Lord of the Cycle.
Irritated by his lack of response, Isabella let her saintly mask slip into an expression of tender, feigned concern.
"Caspian? Are you feeling alright?" she whispered, taking a step closer. She reached out her pale, manicured hand, aiming to gently touch his forearm resting on the desk. "Your aura feels so cold..."
Her fingertips were exactly one inch away from his sleeve.
Caspian finally turned his head.
The temperature in the immediate vicinity plummeted to freezing. The sheer, crushing weight of his gaze slammed into Isabella, paralyzing her hand mid-air. There was no lust in his eyes, no admiration, not even basic human decency. He looked at her the way a man looks at a cockroach crawling across his dining table.
"Keep your filthy hands off me," Caspian stated.
He didn't shout. His voice was a low, gravelly baritone, yet it carried the undeniable, absolute authority of a high-dimensional law. It echoed clearly across the dead-silent classroom.
Isabella's breath hitched. "E-Excuse me?" she stammered, her angelic smile freezing into a mask of pure shock.
Caspian leaned back in his chair, a cruel, mocking smirk playing on his lips as he delivered the public execution.
"You reek of the mixed, putrid Aether of a hundred and thirty-seven different men, barely masked by that cheap Temple incense," Caspian's voice dripped with aristocratic disdain, loud enough for every single student in the S-Class to hear. "Did you really think dressing in white and wearing a silver cross hides the fact that you are nothing but a communal parasite?"
Boom.
It was a psychological nuclear bomb.
The entire classroom inhaled sharply as one. The silence that followed was deafening, suffocating.
Isabella's face drained of all color, turning an ashen, sickly gray. Her eyes widened in absolute, naked terror. Her deepest, darkest secret—the very foundation of her existence as a Temple Harvester—had just been casually dissected and broadcasted to the entire room by a boy who hadn't even touched her.
"I... I..." she choked out, stumbling backward as if she had been physically struck, her legs trembling so violently she nearly collapsed in her pristine white skirt. The Goddess of Sacred Heart had been instantly reduced to a hyperventilating mess.
"Shut your damn mouth!"
A violent roar shattered the stillness.
Three desks away, a heavily built student—a Tier 2 Earth Awakened and one of Isabella's most devoted, high-ranking simps—kicked his desk over. His eyes were bloodshot with rage. To him, and to the other infatuated males in the room, Caspian hadn't just insulted a girl; he had desecrated their holy deity.
"You think because you made Tyler kneel, you can talk to Isabella like that?!" another student yelled, his hands igniting with crackling blue Aetheric lightning as he vaulted over a row of desks.
Within seconds, four of the most powerful Awakened heirs in the Senior S-Class were charging toward the back corner, their Aether flaring with murderous intent, ready to rip the arrogant new kid to shreds to defend their White Lotus.
Caspian didn't even stand up.
He simply watched the enraged, Aether-fueled students charge at him, the cruel smirk on his face deepening into a look of predatory anticipation.
Perfect, Caspian thought, the Ruinous Toxin in his blood singing a dark, violent melody. The Omega Exchange requires Fuel. And the trash is delivering itself.