The Floating Academy drifted peacefully through the sky.
Its wards glowed gently. Its towers shone beneath soft sunlight.
Days passed by, weaving into weeks, Sora settled into academy life, and the fanfare around his arrival had more or less died down.
If anything, his days had quickly become slow and monotonous, but he didn't regret coming here.
No.
He was finally experiencing the mundane life of an ordinary boy.
It was boring yes, but it was also oddly satisfying.
Within one of the many towers, he lay sprawled on a couch in his dorm's lounge, one arm draped over his eyes.
A map of the academy.
He'd skimmed it once.
That was enough.
"…So noisy," he muttered.
Not aloud.
In his mind.
Something tugged at the edge of his perception, faint, distant, like a string plucked somewhere far beyond the horizon.
A ripple in causality.
Sora opened one eye.
"Hm."
He sat up slowly.
Not alarmed.
Just… curious.
That was new.
He stood and walked to the balcony, gazing out over the floating gardens, the distant clouds, the slow turn of the academy's wards.
Mana moved wrong today.
Too many converging threads.
Too many futures brushing past one another.
"Someone's planning something stupid," he murmured.
He rested his chin in his hand.
"…Probably involving me."
The thought didn't bother him.
If anything—
It amused him.
The gears of chaos around him had never stopped turning.
It was only a matter of time, before everything reached a tipping point.
At the present moment, in another place, these very sparks of chaos shattered, literally.
Far from the Floating Academy.
Far from the Howling Maw.
Beyond mapped ley-lines and sanctioned gateways, where the world thinned and reality bent under ancient scars, a Dead Zone pulsed with sickly light.
Like sea of black glass stretched to infinity.
Stars burned beneath it, reflected upside-down like trapped souls.
The sky here was fractured, layers of color sliding over one another like broken glass. Gravity pulled in contradictory directions. Mana screamed instead of flowed.
At the centre of it all stood a monolith.
Black, smooth and impossible.
Chains of runic light wrapped around it, each inscribed with symbols that predated the Empire, the Academy, and perhaps even the gods.
A woman knelt before it.
Her armour was cracked, stained with ash and blood that refused to dry.
Her crimson hair—once immaculate—hung loose around a face marked by exhaustion and fury.
Cecil.
Vice Principal of the Floating Academy.
War Commander of the Western Front.
She pressed one gauntleted hand against the monolith, teeth clenched as the surface burned cold beneath her touch.
"…We lost another legion," she said quietly.
The monolith responded, not with sound, but with pressure. A weight that pressed against her soul.
"I know," she continued, voice tight. "A dreadnought-class entity. Fully manifested."
Memories surged unbidden.
Screams cut short.
Mana barriers shattering like glass.
A colossal silhouette emerging from the void, its mere presence unravelling spell formations.
Cecil closed her eyes.
"And still… they advance."
A flicker of light ran through the monolith.
A presence stirred.
Watching.
"I won't ask for permission," Cecil said. "I'm done asking."
Her eyes snapped open, burning.
"The Academy will be targeted next. I can feel it. Every instinct I have is screaming."
The monolith pulsed once, slow, deliberate.
Cecil laughed bitterly.
"Of course you'd agree."
She stood, turning away.
"If the Veilborn move, I'll be there. If the dead zones spill, I'll burn them back."
Her steps slowed.
"And if that boy…"
She hesitated.
"…If Prince Sora is truly what Ptomelus believes…"
The monolith's runes flared violently.
Cecil stiffened.
"…Then this war won't be fought by armies."
Her form flickered and vanished where she stood.
— Elsewhere...Deep Beneath the Academy...
In a sealed chamber even most professors didn't know existed, ancient mechanisms began to stir.
Runes long dormant flickered awake.
A containment field recalibrated.
A crystal sphere—cracked, repaired, and cracked again across centuries—let out a low, warning hum.
An automated system—older than the Empire—updated its threat assessment.
POTENTIAL CALAMITY DETECTED
SOURCE: UNDEFINED
PROXIMITY: IMMEDIATE FUTURE
Ptomelus stood alone in the chamber.
The principal's monocle glowed faintly as lines of golden script unfolded in the air before him. His expression, usually mild and absent-minded, was razor-sharp.
"So it has begun," he murmured.
The crystal sphere before him pulsed again—stronger this time. Hairline fractures glimmered across its surface, light leaking through like veins.
THREAT VECTOR MULTIPLYING
EXTERNAL HOSTILITY CONFIRMED
CALAMITY PROBABILITY: ESCALATING
Ptomelus exhaled slowly.
"This system was built to withstand gods," he said softly. "And yet… even it is uneasy."
A second presence stirred behind him.
"You're awake late."
Ptomelus didn't turn.
"Cecil," he replied. "Back so soon. I felt you enter academy airspace three minutes ago."
A ripple of heat distorted the air as Cecil stepped into the chamber, removing her gauntlets. Her red hair was tied back now, expression hard, battle-worn.
"The Dead Zone confirmed my fears," she said. "The Veilborn are moving. Not probing. Not testing."
She looked at the sphere.
"They're committing."
Ptomelus lifted a hand, halting Cecil just before she stepped back through the warded threshold.
"I suspected as much." Ptomelus nodded. "There is one more thing," he said.
Cecil turned, one brow lifting. "If this is about redeployments, I already—"
"It isn't," Ptomelus interrupted gently. He adjusted his monocle, the lens catching the glow of the crystal sphere. "Before the system triggered—days before—one of our professors received an anonymous message."
Cecil stilled. "A threat?"
"A warning," Ptomelus replied. "Carefully worded. No names. No symbols. No traceable signature. Merely a statement that the Academy would be struck soon, with the intent to cripple the next generation."
Her jaw tightened. "Which professor?"
"I won't say," Ptomelus answered. "Not yet. The message wasn't meant to be trusted on its own. And I won't risk turning a potential ally into a target."
Cecil folded her arms slowly. "So you dismissed it."
"I catalogued it," he corrected. "As one does with uncertainty."
He turned back toward the crystal sphere. Its fractured surface glowed brighter now, threads of light weaving into rigid geometries.
"But the moment the Causality Warning System activated," Ptomelus continued, voice calm and absolute, "that uncertainty ceased to exist."
Cecil followed his gaze. "So the warning and the trigger are connected."
"Yes," he said. "The anonymous tip was not proof. It was intent. The system does not react to intent."
He tapped the air, and a projection unfolded—countless branching timelines collapsing inward.
"It reacts when the laws of causality themselves agree that an outcome has become unavoidable. When enough choices have been made—by enough actors—that the future can no longer diverge meaningfully."
Cecil's eyes narrowed. "Meaning the attack is locked in."
Ptomelus nodded once.
"The system never lies," he said quietly. "It has no concept of fear, politics, or misjudgment. It does not predict. It observes. It reads the flow of cause and effect and sounds the alarm only when violence has crossed from possibility into inevitability."
He glanced at her.
"The anonymous message warned us someone intended to strike the Academy," he said. "The system's activation confirmed that they will."
Cecil exhaled through her teeth. "So whoever sent that message knew the decision had already been made."
"Or," Ptomelus added softly, "they were trying to delay it. Even by minutes."
Silence settled between them, heavy with implication.
Cecil straightened, fire flickering faintly along her gauntlet as she re-equipped it. "Then we treat this as a certainty."
"We already are," Ptomelus replied.
The crystal sphere pulsed again, brighter than before.
HOSTILE EVENT: CONFIRMEDCAUSALITY CONVERGENCE: IRREVERSIBLE
Cecil looked once more at the sphere, then toward the unseen towers above.
"…So the board is set."
"Yes," Ptomelus said.
"And the pieces?" she asked.
His gaze drifted upward, distant and unreadable.
"Already moving."
Cecil crossed her arms. "And the boy?"
At that, Ptomelus hesitated—just a fraction.
"Probably…Unaware," he said carefully. "But not blind."
Cecil snorted quietly. "Of course not. His eyes are far too sharp to miss something like that. Still... His presence unsettles me."
She paced, boots echoing.
Ptomelus snorted, "The great Cecil afraid of a little boy? Your vast armies would be shocked."
"Little?" She chortled, "Ptomelus... Do you not realize what you've placed in this academy?" she asked. "A Transcendent with infinite potential, surrounded by children who barely understand mana flow."
"I placed nothing," Ptomelus replied calmly. "He came of his own accord."
Cecil stopped pacing.
"That makes it worse."
Silence stretched.
Then she asked quietly, "If they attack… and he intervenes?"
Ptomelus adjusted his monocle.
"Then we will learn," he said, "whether Prince Sora becomes a shield…"
A pause.
"…or a singularity."