Nobody at the table moved. Marcus took a slow, deep breath, forcing the air past the tight knot in his chest. Ethan sat frozen, a forkful of salad hovering halfway to his mouth. Roy simply frowned, his eyes darting between Marcus and the retreating back of the Higan scion, analyzing the anomaly.

  ?The heavy, suffocating silence gripped their table for what felt like an eternity.

  ?Clatter.

  ?The sharp sound of a food tray hitting the table next to Ethan broke the spell.

  ?"What are you guys on?" Jinny's bright voice pierced the tension as she slid into the chair next to Ethan. Luna followed silently, taking the seat opposite her.

  ?"You look like you just saw a ghost," Jinny joked, reaching for a bread roll.

  ?None of the boys answered. Roy didn't say a word; he just rolled his eyes, picked up his fork, and pointed the tines directly across the massive dining hall toward the elevated Eastern table.

  ?Acting on pure reflex, Jinny and Luna turned their heads to follow the direction of the fork.

  ?The moment their eyes landed on the group in the white, spider-lily kimonos, the ambient temperature around them seemed to plummet. A wave of oppressive, hostile energy hit them so hard both girls physically flinched, snapping their heads back to their own table so fast their necks cracked.

  ?"Okay... I retract my previous statement," Jinny swallowed hard. The bright, joking tone was completely gone, replaced by a strained whisper. "Ghosts are fine. That is significantly worse than a ghost."

  ?Luna nodded rapidly, her eyes wide, refusing to look back across the room.

  ?The atmosphere at the Higan table was terrifyingly sterile. They ate in absolute, synchronized silence. Not a single piece of silverware clinked against porcelain. Every movement was perfectly measured, almost mechanical. But the truly suffocating part wasn't their silence; it was the localized pressure field they projected. The tables immediately surrounding them had gone completely mute. Dozens of students sat rigid, chewing their food as quietly as humanly possible, terrified that the sound of their own breathing might draw the attention of Kamino Island's apex predators.

  ?In the entire cavernous dining hall, crushed under the weight of the Eastern nobility's presence, only one corner remained completely defiant.

  ?"Tch."

  ?The sharp click of annoyance came from Alissa Valentine. The Ice Queen of Aurelius sat with her chin tilted up. The usual glacial indifference in her amethyst eyes had hardened into absolute, territorial hostility as she watched the entire student body cower before the newcomers.

  ?"So that's the Eastern heavyweight," Alissa stated. She didn't shout, but her voice was perfectly pitched to cut through the unnatural silence of the surrounding tables.

  ?Beside her, Bella was happily shoveling pudding into her mouth, her short legs swinging casually under the table. She seemed entirely immune to the crushing spiritual pressure flooding the room.

  ?"Doesn't matter. She still can't beat my Alissa~" Bella chimed in, giggling between bites as if they were discussing a minor sporting event.

  ?Alissa didn't look at Bella. Her eyes remained locked onto the back of the Higan girl.

  ?"Obviously," Alissa replied. Her voice was flat, but the ambient temperature around their table dropped so fast frost began to form on the edges of their water glasses.

  ?Back at Marcus's table, the air was still thick with tension. Everyone kept their eyes glued to their plates, aggressively focused on their food. Marcus’s brain was screaming a single, logical command: Do not look back.

  ?But his survival instincts—honed by years of anticipating threats in the slums—overrode his logic.

  ?His eyes involuntarily flicked over Roy’s shoulder, scanning the elevated table.

  ?It was empty.

  ?No white kimonos. No floating trays. No movement. They had vanished without a single sound, dissolving into the shadows of the dining hall like phantoms.

  ?"They're... gone," Marcus exhaled a long, shaky breath, his shoulders dropping two inches.

  ?The moment he realized they had left, the crushing, icy weight pressing against the back of his neck evaporated. The ambient noise of the cafeteria slowly began to rise again, the collective tension breaking as students cautiously resumed their conversations.

  ?Ethan finally dropped his fork onto his plate with a loud clank. He let out a massive breath, running a hand through his hair. "Gods... I have never felt anything like that. That girl is fundamentally unnatural. It felt like someone was dragging a block of dry ice down my spine."

  ?"Well, yeah," Jinny leaned across the table, adopting the conspiratorial tone of someone sharing highly classified intel. Her eyes were wide with a mix of fear and morbid excitement. "Haven't you guys heard the rumors? The Higan bloodline... they're the 'Cursed Clan'."

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  ?The cutlery at the table stopped moving again.

  ?"What kind of curse?" Marcus and Ethan asked simultaneously, their morbid curiosity overriding their fear.

  ?Jinny shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't know the mechanics of it. They keep their bloodline secrets locked down tighter than the Council vaults. Honestly... just seeing a Higan in the flesh is considered a rare event here. They rarely leave the Eastern Territories. But man... the reality is way more terrifying than the rumors."

  ?Frustrated by the lack of hard data, Marcus turned to the group's resident analyst. "Vanessa, do you have any actual intelligence on this 'curse'?"

  ?Vanessa let out a long, exhausted sigh, pushing her glasses up her nose. She looked at Marcus like he had just asked her to translate a dead language on the spot. "Do you think I have a direct uplink to the global intelligence network in my brain, Marcus? This is the first time I've ever been in the same room as a Higan scion, same as you."

  ?"Hah!" Ethan burst into a loud, booming laugh that echoed across their section, instantly breaking the remaining tension. Luna quickly slapped his arm, shushing him. "I think Marcus actually assumes you're a walking encyclopedia, Vanessa!"

  ?"Shut up, Ethan," Marcus scowled, baring his teeth at his roommate. "I'm just gathering variables."

  ?Once the laughter subsided, Marcus leaned forward, his expression shifting back to serious. "But logically... I assumed the apex power structures were entirely localized within the four major Western nations. Why are we just now encountering this level of threat?"

  ?"That's a geopolitical misconception," Vanessa replied, smoothly slipping back into her academic persona. "There are major bloodlines distributed globally. It is highly probable that there are more than the 'Nine Great Houses' we are forced to memorize in primary education."

  ?She tapped her finger on the table. "Our textbooks are heavily biased. They focus on the Western paradigm because our Houses shaped the modern, industrialized history of this specific continent. The East operates on a completely different axis of power."

  ?As the dinner hour dragged on and the adrenaline crash hit, Jinny and Luna finished their meals. The exhaustion of the day was evident on their faces. They stood up, excusing themselves to return to the dorms.

  ?"You guys go ahead. I'll head back shortly," Vanessa told Luna.

  ?The moment the two girls were out of earshot, the relaxed, casual atmosphere at the table instantly vanished. The four remaining students—Marcus, Vanessa, Ethan, and Roy—instinctively leaned in, closing the perimeter. The topic immediately shifted back to the subterranean vault.

  ?"I need to understand the logic behind this," Vanessa started, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. "Who engineered that dead drop? And what was their tactical objective in luring us down to that specific chamber?"

  ?She rhythmically tapped her fingernail against the wood. "If we analyze the data... the theory of 'bypassing the Toll' is mathematically impossible in the modern era. The absolute limit of current high-tier mages and Apex Houses is 'Toll-reduction'—optimizing the ether flow to minimize cellular damage. Total biological immunity does not exist."

  ?"Maybe it did exist in the past," Ethan offered, scratching his chin. "And the faculty just moved the instruction manual to a secure vault, exactly like you said down there."

  ?"That is the variable that doesn't fit," Vanessa countered, her eyes gleaming with suspicion. "Look at the environmental context of that room. It wasn't a research laboratory. It wasn't an arcane library. It was an archive of historical records. Why would the theoretical schematics for high-level ether manipulation be filed alongside a geopolitical dossier like The Fall of House Eternus?"

  ?The question hung over the table, suffocating the conversation. It was a massive, glaring contradiction. Unless... 'bypassing the Toll' wasn't a magical theory at all. What if it was a historical event that the Council had violently erased?

  ?Vanessa continued to stare at the table, trapped in an analytical loop.

  ?"Ugh, stop overthinking it, Vanessa! You're gonna burn a hole in your brain," Ethan interrupted, lightly slapping the table. "Look at the objective facts: Today was a massive success. We cracked a high-level Council cipher that was literally designed to be impossible!"

  ?"Right..." Marcus dragged the word out, a slow, highly punchable smirk spreading across his face. "And remind me, which esteemed knight of Valcus was hyperventilating and begging to abort the mission the entire time we were down there?"

  ?"Hey! Are you trying to start a war, Marcus?!" Ethan’s face flushed a deep red as his cowardice was exposed to the table.

  ?Roy, who had been resting his chin on his hand, looking half-asleep, immediately joined the offensive. "Yeah, Ethan... were you scared of the dark? Do you need a nightlight for the dorm?" Roy drawled, his tone perfectly matching Marcus's mockery.

  ?"You two are a nightmare combination!" Ethan bared his teeth, pointing a finger between Marcus and Roy. "Just wait. The second the Academy opens the dueling rings, I am dragging both of you into the arena and grinding you into the dirt!"

  ?The genuine laughter that followed finally washed away the accumulated stress of the day. They sat around trading insults and theories until the warning bells for curfew chimed across the campus. Vanessa packed her satchel and headed for the women's dormitory, while the three boys walked shoulder-to-shoulder back to their room, concluding the longest, most chaotic day of their lives at Aurelius.

  ?The men's dormitory was submerged in the heavy silence of the night. The steady, rhythmic breathing of his roommates echoed softly in the dark room, but Marcus lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling. The physical exhaustion from the subterranean infiltration and the psychological shock of the Higan encounter weren't enough to shut his brain down.

  ?He let out a quiet sigh and rolled onto his side.

  ?The sight in the bed next to his made Marcus immediately clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.

  ?Ethan was snoring softly. His massive arms and legs were draped heavily over Roy, clutching the smaller boy like a giant, tactical body pillow. Roy, true to form, was in such a deep coma that he hadn't even attempted to fight off the aggressive cuddling; he was just accepting his fate as a mattress.

  ?A small, genuine smile touched Marcus's face in the dim moonlight.

  ?So... this is what having actual friends feels like.

  ?A wave of unfamiliar warmth settled in his chest. It was a stark contrast to the constant, solitary survival mode he had operated in for his entire life. It felt good.

  ?But it didn't last. The underlying anxiety gnawed at the edges of his mind.

  ?Moving with practiced, absolute silence, Marcus slipped out of bed. He grabbed his uniform jacket, pulling it over his shoulders, and walked out onto the small stone balcony attached to their room.

  ?The midnight air was biting, cutting through his thin shirt, but it did nothing to clear the fog of confusion in his head. He raised his right hand, gripping the fabric of his shirt directly over the purple Fracture embedded in his chest.

  ?The erratic 'nightmare' from the night before began to loop in his mind again.

  ?The crimson sky. The smell of melting iron. The desperate hand reaching out through the smoke.

  ?Marcus stared out into the sprawling, sleeping campus of Aurelius Academy, his brow furrowed in deep concentration.

  ?The nightmare wasn't a random firing of synapses. It felt too structured. Too visceral.

  ?What the hell is this thing trying to tell me?