Midnight in the Stellar Ascendancy Academy was a different world.
The gleaming halls, so full of arrogant life by day, became a cathedral of shadows and silent, automated sweeps by cleaning drones. The security system was formidable—motion-sensing glyphs on the floors, thermal scanners in the ventilation, and patrols of silent, floating Sentinel Orbs.
To Ken, it was a circuit board.
And he was a glitch moving through it.
Clad in his phase-suit, a matte-black fabric that drank light, he stood perfectly still in an alcove as a Sentinel Orb floated past. His **Eye of Truth** painted its path in his mind—a predictable patrol loop.
The moment it turned a corner, he moved.
Not with a run, but with a fluid, silent glide.
His target was not in the dormitories. It was in the Applied Engineering Wing, in a sub-level lab marked "Advanced Materials Synthesis — Authorized Personnel Only."
The student who used it, a third-year named Orric, ranked 44th in his class. Publicly, a diligent, if unremarkable, aspiring engineer.
According to the Phantom's dossier, purchased from The Fixer with a stolen data-core: an SS9 message drop and chemical synthesizer. His latest project, cross-referenced with missing academy supplies, was a neuro-toxin designed to mimic a sudden cerebral aneurysm.
Orric was making weapons of deniable death for the SS9 to use on campus.
A clear threat.
An acceptable target.
Ken reached a sealed bulkhead door. A biometric scanner glowed beside it. Orric's handprint and retinal pattern were required.
Ken didn't have them.
He had something better.
He focused, extending a sliver of his will.
**Spatial Rewrite**.
Not on the door, but on the air in front of the scanner. He created a microscopic, stable pocket of warped space, a lens that bent the existing, residual light in the corridor.
To the scanner, for a fraction of a second, the distorted light matched the required retinal pattern from its last successful scan.
A glitch.
The scanner chimed green.
The bulkhead hissed open.
The lab was a clutter of glassware, humming reactors, and holographic schematics. Orric was there, hunched over a distillation apparatus, a faint, proud smile on his face as a clear liquid dripped into a vial.
He didn't hear Ken phase through the closing door.
He didn't hear the footsteps.
He only sensed a presence when Ken's shadow fell over his workbench.
Orric spun, eyes wide.
"Who—? This is a restricted—"
His words died as he saw the figure.
Not a face, just a silhouette that seemed to blur at the edges, and two points of cold, gray light where eyes should be. The rumors flashed in his mind.
*The Phantom. The Heretic.*
"The compound," Ken stated, his voice altered by a sub-vocal modulator into a hollow, multi-tonal whisper. "LD-47. Neuro-toxin. Who is the designated recipient?"
Orric's fear curdled into defiance. He was SS9. He had power. His hand darted under the bench toward a panic button.
He never reached it.
Ken didn't move. He didn't need to.
He exerted his will again. A minor **Spatial Rewrite** in the air between Orric's wrist and the button.
The space *compressed*.
Orric's fingers strained, clawing at empty air mere centimeters from their goal, as if an invisible wall had sprung up. His eyes bulged with terror.
"The recipient," the Phantom repeated.
"You're a dead man," Orric spat. "The Order will flay your soul. They know you're here! They know about the weakling prince you—"
Ken's analysis was complete.
Orric was a fanatic. He would not talk. He was also about to scream.
Efficiency dictated the next action.
Ken **Quantumized**.
One step forward, his body becoming insubstantial as light for a millisecond, passing through the workbench. He rematerialized inside Orric's guard.
His hand, clad in a non-conductive polymer glove, shot out.
Not a punch.
A precise, medical tap with two fingers to a specific cluster of nerves below Orric's ear.
The synth-vial of LD-47 was in Ken's other hand.
As Orric convulsed, paralyzed, Ken caught him under the arms and lowered him silently back into his chair at the workbench.
He arranged the body, head slumped forward as if in exhausted sleep.
He placed the vial of clear toxin in Orric's limp hand, then used Orric's own finger to press the release seal on the vial's cap.
A near-invisible mist puffed into Orric's face.
He inhaled once, a final, shuddering breath.
Ken watched, emotionless, as the science completed itself. The toxin worked with brutal speed. Orric's body gave one final twitch, then went still. Pupils dilated.
Life signs, visible to Ken's **Eye of Truth** as a fading ember of bio-energy, winked out.
*Cause of death: Accidental self-intoxication during illegal experiment. Efficiency rating: 99%.*
Ken's work continued.
He spent three minutes methodically searching the lab. He found a hidden data-slug behind a wall panel. He did not take it.
He connected it to the lab's main terminal and uploaded a sophisticated corruption virus, one that would scramble its contents and overwrite them with benign engineering data in twelve hours, leaving no trace of physical theft.
Finally, he went to the wall opposite the body.
With the same ceramic stylus, he etched his mark.
The circle.
It was not for the authorities.
It was for the SS9 agent who would find the body before the academy did.
*Message delivered.*
He phased back through the bulkhead door and vanished into the academy's arteries, a ghost erasing his own trail.
---
**The next morning, the academy buzzed with a different rumor.**
Not of phantom heresy, but of tragic, shameful accident. A talented but reckless engineering student, working alone on forbidden projects, had paid the ultimate price. A cautionary tale recited by stern professors.
Prince Ken Vaelstron heard the news in the communal refectory, picking at a plate of nutrient-rich gruel.
He showed a flicker of appropriate, distant sadness before returning to his meal. Around him, other students gossiped with morbid excitement.
At a nearby table, Seraphine Rae ate in silence, her sharp eyes occasionally scanning the room.
They lingered on Ken for a moment—the prince who seemed to absorb none of the chaos around him—before moving on.
Across the hall, at the prestigious high-rankers' table, Princess Selene Vaelstron sipped her tea. Her expression was one of mild, bored interest in the gossip.
But her eyes, a calculating amethyst, were not on the gossips.
They were fixed on a distant point on the refectory wall, as if replaying a piece of data only she could see.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips, gone before anyone could notice.
Ken finished his gruel.
He had a scheduled orientation in the Central Archives. It was the first step toward gaining a research pass. A perfectly average student, pursuing perfectly average academic curiosity.
As he stood to leave, his data-pad chimed with his updated, post-exam class schedule.
He was assigned to "Foundational Combat" with Instructor Rourke, "Origin Theory" with Professor Lyra, and "Applied Engineering" in Workshop Bay 3.
In Workshop Bay 3, according to the student roster he'd memorized weeks ago, one of the assigned student assistants was Jax Meridian.
The pieces on the board continued to fall into place.
The Phantom's first academy operation was complete.
Prince Ken's infiltration was proceeding optimally.
And in her spire, Empress Valeriana received a report not of an accident, but of a silenced agent and a familiar, mocking circle.
Her smirk that day held no warmth at all.
It was the edge of a knife.
---
**[End of Chapter 3]**