Chapter 245: The Altar Prince
The lobby of the central faculty building was chaos.
Dozens of terrified, bleeding cadets poured through the blown-out steel doors, slipping on the polished marble floors. The grand hall, usually reserved for formal academic assemblies, was instantly transformed into a makeshift triage center.
"Move the heavy oak desks!" Lucien barked, his voice carrying absolute authority over the panic. "Block the entrance! Bordon, get your shield on the left flank. Do not let them funnel in!"
The students didn’t question him. The hierarchy of the Academy had completely dissolved. Seniority and noble titles meant nothing right now. The only thing that mattered was the teenager in the pitch-black suit holding a smoking hand cannon.
Bordon threw his massive weight against a faculty reception desk, shoving it across the marble floor to barricade the broken doorway. Kael and a few uninjured upperclassmen rushed to help, piling heavy wooden chairs, filing cabinets, and stone statues into a makeshift wall.
"Mariella, set up in the center. Prioritize arterial bleeding," Lucien ordered, walking past the healer. "If they just have cuts, they wait. Use your mana efficiently."
"Y-Yes, President," Mariella stammered, her hands already glowing with a pale green light as she knelt beside a cadet with a severe chest wound.
Lucien turned to Ariana. She was already at work. She stood near the barricaded entrance, uncorking three vials of volatile, glowing orange liquid. With practiced precision, she poured the alchemical catalysts across the floor right behind the barricade, creating a deadly, invisible tripwire of explosive mana.
"Will it hold?" Lucien asked, his voice dropping so only she could hear.
"If they try to blow the barricade, the catalyst will react with their mana and detonate," Ariana replied calmly, adjusting her glasses. "It will melt the first ten men who step through. It will buy us time."
"Good."
Lucien turned his back to the barricade. His [Detection Lv. 8] had been pinging continuously since they entered the building. The Valemont operatives weren’t blindly charging the faculty building. They were reorganizing.
But one signature was moving recklessly. A scout.
The scout was creeping along the exterior stone wall, trying to peer through the thick alchemical smoke screen Ariana had deployed earlier to see if the doors were truly secured.
"Keep fortifying," Lucien ordered Kael. "Don’t open this barricade."
Before Kael could ask where he was going, Lucien stepped lightly onto a nearby stone windowsill, bypassed the main barricade, and vanished through a shattered stained-glass window into the dark courtyard.
The operative was crouched near the exterior wall, holding a standard communication artifact to relay the student’s position.
He didn’t even hear the footsteps.
Lucien dropped from the windowsill. He grabbed the back of the operative’s neck, violently slamming the man’s face directly into the stone wall. The crunch of breaking cartilage was loud in the quiet dark.
Before the scout could scream, Lucien swept his legs, dropping him to the cobblestones. Lucien slammed his boot down onto the operative’s right wrist, pinning his weapon arm, and pressed the hot barrel of the Lumeveil Enforcer directly against the man’s temple.
"Scream, and I pull the trigger," Lucien whispered.
The operative gasped, choking on his own blood. "Y-You’re dead... all of you..."
Lucien didn’t blink. He shifted the barrel of the revolver down, pointing it point-blank at the man’s left kneecap.
BANG.
The muffled gunshot was masked by the chaotic shouting inside the faculty building. The operative violently convulsed, his eyes rolling back as the bullet shattered his leg. He opened his mouth to scream, but Lucien immediately clamped a leather-gloved hand over his mouth, suffocating the sound.
"I don’t have time for ideological banter," Lucien stated coldly, his eyes dead and unfeeling. "Where are the hostages? Where is the altar?"
The operative just glared at him, trembling in sheer agony.
"Fine." Lucien shifted the barrel to the right kneecap.
"Wait!" the operative choked out against Lucien’s glove. Lucien eased his hand back an inch. The man spat a wad of blood onto the cobblestones. "The... the Grand Underground Hall. Below the botanical gardens. You’re... you’re too late anyway."
Lucien’s eyes narrowed. "Who is at the altar?"
The operative let out a wet, raspy laugh. "The Chancellor... has them both. The perfect catalysts. The royal blood of the dead kingdom... and the Ice Princess of the new one. The Gate is opening."
Lucien’s blood ran completely cold.
Both of them.
Alicia was already there. And Celestia was the second sacrifice. They were going to drain them both to tear open a dimensional rift.
"How far along is the ritual?" Lucien demanded, pressing the gun harder against the man’s skull.
"The anchors are set," the scout grinned, his teeth stained red. "The chanting has begun. The Demon King is coming to collect his toll. You can’t stop—"
Lucien pulled the trigger.
The operative went completely limp.
Lucien stood up, holstering the Enforcer. His mind was racing at maximum capacity.
The Imperial Guard was entirely unaware. The Platinum Knights were asleep in their barracks outside the dome. By the time the sun came up and the Capital realized the Academy was silent, the Demon King would have already slaughtered everyone inside this barrier and turned the Imperial City into a graveyard.
There was no waiting for reinforcements.
Lucien vaulted back through the shattered stained-glass window, his boots landing softly on the marble floor of the faculty lobby.
"Lucien!" Kael ran up to him, his golden sword extinguished to avoid drawing attention. "Did you find out where they went?"
"They are under the botanical gardens. The Grand Underground Hall," Lucien said rapidly, walking straight past Kael toward Ariana. "The ritual is already starting. They are using Princess Celestia and Alicia as the core sacrifices to summon a Demon King."
The entire lobby went dead silent. The groans of the wounded stopped.
"A... a Demon King?" Elisha whispered, all the color draining from her face.
Kael’s grip on his sword tightened so hard his knuckles popped. "Princess Celestia... we have to go down there. We have to stop them."
"No, I have to go down there," Lucien corrected, stopping in front of Ariana.
He reached into his coat and pulled out the Rosary of the Weeping Saintess, a Supreme-tier defensive relic. He pressed it firmly into Ariana’s hands.
"Keep this on you. Do not take it off," Lucien commanded, his voice carrying an intense, unyielding weight. "Stay behind the barricade. Do not open the doors for anyone unless you hear my voice. If the barrier breaches, use the relic’s barrier and run deep into the faculty vaults."
Ariana gripped the silver rosary. She looked at the blood on Lucien’s suit, the absolute coldness in his eyes, and understood exactly what he was about to do.
"Kill them all," Ariana whispered, her violet eyes hardening. "And come back."
Lucien gave her a single nod. He turned back toward the shattered window.
"Wait," Kael said, stepping into Lucien’s path. His golden eyes were burning with a desperate, righteous fury. "You are not going alone. That is the Princess of the Empire. If she dies, everything falls apart. I am coming with you."
"Me too," Bordon grunted, stepping up beside Kael and slamming his tower shield into the marble floor.
"I still have a full quiver," Elisha added, though her hands were trembling slightly.
Even Mariella stepped forward, clutching her staff. "I... I can keep you healed."
Lucien stopped. He looked at the four members of the Golden Generation.
They were battered. Bordon’s armor was dented. Kael had a bleeding gash on his thigh. Elisha looked terrified, and Mariella had barely survived a dagger to the gut ten minutes ago. In the game, they were the ultimate heroes. Right now, they were just exhausted teenagers completely out of their depth.
But they had raw, heaven-defying talent. And Lucien needed meat shields to break through the vanguard guarding the underground hall.
"Listen to me very carefully," Lucien said, his voice dropping to a harsh, lethal whisper. "If you come with me, we are not playing knights. We are not taking prisoners. We are not shouting our attacks or offering them a chance to surrender."
He stepped closer, locking eyes with Kael.
"Down there, they will kill you the second you hesitate. If you slow me down, I will not carry you. If you get caught, I will not stop the mission to save you. We are going into a meat grinder to kill a Chancellor and stop an apocalypse."
Lucien drew the Lumeveil Enforcer, the ivory grip gleaming in the dim light of the lobby.
"Do exactly what I say, exactly when I say it. Do you understand?"
Kael didn’t flinch. The Golden Boy looked at the Executioner and finally understood the reality of war.
"Understood," Kael said, raising his sword.
"Then let’s go hunt," Lucien said.
He didn’t look back as he stepped out of the safe room and disappeared into the pitch-black, blood-soaked campus, leading the Vanguard straight into the abyss.
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