Chapter 139: Chapter 139

Sub-Instructor Michael’s knuckles whitened against the rail as the pit below seethed with fire and ruin. His breath rattled like he’d swallowed glass, lungs refusing to work in rhythm as if the air itself had turned against him. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. The bug who had once stood in front of him and promised to feed him his own heart was now dismantling the top cadet in the entire Citadel... as a first-year. Every impossible thing he had mocked, every insult he had hurled, was being shoved back down his throat, one brutal step at a time, and he could neither look away nor deny it anymore.

He had watched the unthinkable unfold in sequence, each stage more grotesque than the last. First came the fortress, a towering construction that should never have been possible inside Nespói, and yet there it was, bristling with defenses that looked ripped straight from a nightmare. Then came fire, the fortress set ablaze and vomiting destruction, chewing through fourth-years as though they were nothing but kindling in a storm. When he thought the tide would finally turn back, when he convinced himself the 90th would reassert dominance, two cadets charged like living bombs. The 90th were too busy cutting them apart to realize they had already lost. The blast was inevitable, detonating with a fury that should not have belonged to first-years. Then when he thought at last the 90th would crush the survivors hiding in the basement like rats, the 93rd dropped the fortress itself on them. Earth and stone became weapons, burying the four-years under rubble. And when Michael was certain there could be nothing left, the 93rd slipped into tunnels, weaving caverns into snares, digging themselves deeper into the jungle’s veins. It was endless, layer after layer of madness, a pattern that repeated with terrifying rhythm. They weren’t cadets anymore. They had become the insurgency itself, the very nightmare that Deic was suppose to have been wielding against them.

Michael’s stomach turned inside out, bile rising in his throat. He could feel Vaeliyan’s words crawling up from memory, heavy as iron chains: I’ll rip your still beating heart out of your chest and make you choke on it. He had laughed when those words were spoken, laughed in the safety of his rank and his experience, convinced they were just the arrogance of a child. Now the dread crawled deep in his chest, and the laughter felt like the hollow cackle of a fool who had mistaken a warning for bravado.

Imujin broke the silence. His voice rumbled like stone dragged across steel, raw and undeniable. “I like Deic. That’s why I made her my apprentice. She’s strong, clever, and her team respects her. But Vaeliyan doesn’t care about respect. He doesn’t need it. He might be just as strong as Deic, maybe stronger, command already showed me enough in Ruby’s holos to convince me. But strength isn’t the point. His main stat is intelligence, and by the gods, he lives to destroy the idea of impossible.”

Michael flinched at the word. Impossible. It echoed in his mind, cruel and insistent. That was all he had been watching for the last thirty minutes: the impossible, made real, repeated again and again. It wasn’t chance or luck. It was deliberate, orchestrated, precise.

“That kid is the future of the Legion, ” Imujin continued, eyes locked on the shifting hellscape below. “And I think you see that now. So, stop trying to get yourself killed, Michael. If I didn’t want you here, you’d already be dead. That isn’t something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is what happens when Vaeliyan becomes a High Imperator, because he will. And when he reaches beyond that.”

Michael’s voice cracked, his throat tightening, disbelief making his tone shrill. “More? He’s... he’s going for a Wooden Ring?”

“When he founds his own Citadel, ” Imujin said without a shred of hesitation, “the war will change. Can you even imagine what he’ll teach the ones loyal to him? The kind of Legion he’ll forge? The kind of monsters he’ll raise in his image?”

A rough laugh split the tension, harsh and unyielding. Jim stepped forward, scarred jaw set like stone, his eyes never leaving the carnage below. “If that kid was born in Nespói, we’d never take it. Not in a thousand years. The jungle itself would consume us all.”

Theramoor’s voice was quiet, almost reverent, but sharp as a scalpel cutting into truth. “What we are witnessing is the weapon that will change the face of the war itself.”

Alorna, who had stood silent through the entire exchange, chose that moment to move. She reached into her coat and pulled out a sheet of parchment, her expression unreadable. With an almost casual flick, she held it up. Michael blinked, his mind stumbling to catch up. A stick-figure sketch stared back at him: Vaeliyan, drawn with absurd clarity, repeatedly punching him in the face. The next sketch showed a stick-figure Michael helping Vaeliyan, looking almost respectable, almost human. And then a third, crudely scrawled, smeared in ink, depicted a little stickman made entirely of shit, with the word Michael scrawled above it in bold, jagged lines.

The instructors smirked, some shaking their heads with wry amusement, others not even bothering to hide their grins. To them this truth revealed in the most brutal way possible, distilled down to paper and ink. Even in satire, the meaning was undeniable: Michael had no place here, except as the butt of a joke written by history itself.

Michael didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His throat was dry, his chest tight, his hands numb on the railing. All he could do was look back at the pit, at the collapsed fortress, at the tunnels turned into traps, at the shadows that moved with lethal intelligence. He could see the 90th shattering, could hear their panicked comms, could feel the tremors of another blast rising through the ground. All he could do was admit the truth he had sworn he’d never allow himself to believe:

This was too much. Too impossible. And it was only the beginning. The boy he had once called a bug was turning into the kind of legend that would shape the Legion forever. And there was nothing Michael could do to stop it.

Deic wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around Vaeliyan’s throat and crush until the life left him. Every step her squad took through the twisting nightmare of tunnels and caverns stoked her fury. She tried to push it down, tried to keep her head clear, but the rage was relentless. Every trap was an insult, every taunt a barb driven straight into her chest. They were being baited like animals, and she knew it. They all knew it. But knowing didn’t matter, anger had consumed them, dragging them forward blindly like hounds on a leash of blood. She could taste the bitterness on her tongue, could feel her hands trembling, not from exhaustion but from sheer fury at being played with.

Kerso was the first to shatter. He had shown so much bravery trying to haul Alex free earlier, his hand clutching and straining until his arm was taken from him. His determination had inspired the others for a moment, a rare glimpse of heroism amidst the carnage. But bravery hadn’t saved Alex then, and it didn’t save him now. He plunged into a hidden pit lined with mesh as sharp as razors. The sound was sickening, like meat shoved through a grinder. His scream choked off mid-breath. His courage had become nothing but a sacrifice to the jungle. Another corpse added to the pile the 93rd had weaponized, another lesson carved into their minds about the impossible defiance.

Deic staggered onward, her breath shallow, lungs burning like she had swallowed coals. Her legs felt heavy as stone, each step more labor than the last. The world tilted, blurred, and yet she forced herself to push forward, fury whipping her body into motion where willpower alone failed. The stink of rot clung to the air, a cloying wet smell that stuck in her nose and throat, as they stumbled into a cavern where bog water spread black and wide. The surface glistened like an oil slick under the faint light. Ahead, through the murk, she caught sight of their quarry. Two of the cadets, dark shapes sprinting for the single tunnel exit. Hope flared inside her, a vicious spark, a shard of possibility. With a ragged cry, the 90th threw themselves forward, wading into the bog. Mud sucked at their boots, dragging at their strength. The water seemed shallow enough to give chase, or so it seemed, until the first step went down on something sharp.

A scream ripped out as caltrops bit into soft flesh. Steel teeth hidden beneath the water’s surface chewed through boot leather, tearing feet and ankles apart. Blood slicked the bog, black on black, vanishing into the muck. They limped and faltered, every motion sending agony spiking up their legs, nerves screaming. Still they pressed on, convinced that catching just one of the bastards would make the torment worth it. They told themselves the pain was nothing, that victory would wash it away. But every step only cost them more. The 93rd had salted the earth itself with blades, seeded every inch of the cavern with hidden cruelty. It was not just a trap, it was a lesson, and the lesson was pain. It was cruelty sharpened into craft.

It was exactly like Alorna’s lessons. Weaponize stupidity. Crude, vicious, effective. And they were learning that lesson with every shredded step, each limp another testament to their opponent’s merciless creativity.

But the trap didn’t end with spikes.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelHub for this novel and more.

One of the 93rd had been waiting in the bog itself, submerged in black water, patient as a predator. He had waited for their hesitation, for the limp, for the scream that told him they were vulnerable. He surged up, quick as a striking serpent. His blade flashed, moonlight catching on steel, and Marik’s throat split open before a shout could even form. Blood sprayed across the surface, mixing with the mud in a dark bloom. Johnson spun toward him, too slow, his balance ruined by the caltrops. The cadet cut him down as well, gutting him with one savage thrust that left entrails floating on the black water. The survivors rallied, screaming, slamming lances down, dragging the attacker under with sheer weight and rage. Their fury finally destroyed him, but not before he let out a howl.

The sound was unbearable. It wasn’t a voice, it was a weapon. The roar ripped through the bog like a shockwave, tearing at eardrums. Pain exploded in their skulls, hot needles stabbing deep, leaving them clawing at the sides of their heads. They clutched their ears, staggering, deafened, ears bleeding. Their senses shattered, balance gone, they reeled like drunkards while the echoes rattled the cavern walls. The howl lingered even after silence fell, a ghost of sound that throbbed in their bones and left them dazed.

When the noise faded, only three of them were left standing. Crippled, limping, bleeding, and half-deaf. Every breath rasped, dragging pain through lungs raw with effort. Every motion was a struggle, muscles trembling and close to collapse. Deic’s vision swam, the edges of her sight blackening, her body begging her to stop. Her jaw clenched until her teeth felt ready to crack. For a heartbeat, she almost did. She almost dropped to her knees and let it all end, imagined the cold relief of surrender. But that wasn’t the Legion’s way. That wasn’t who she was. She forced her body forward, one dragging step at a time, teeth clenched hard enough to splinter. Rage and spite shoved her past the edge of reason.

If just one of us catches them, it will be enough, she lied to herself. If one of us sinks our hands into their shadows, if one of us makes them bleed, then we can still win. She could feel the lie unraveling in her chest, but she held it close anyway, clung to it like a drowning soldier to driftwood.

She whispered it in her head like a mantra, even as her legs trembled and her hearing rang with the ghost of that howl. She repeated it because there was nothing else left to cling to. Her squad was gone, her body was breaking, her rage her only companion. But surrender was not in her blood. The lie was all she had, and she held it like a weapon, because letting go of it meant admitting she had already lost. And that was a truth she refused to give up, even as the darkness of the cavern pressed closer and the phantom that haunted them remained unseen.

The last three of Deic’s squad stumbled into the cavern, broken shadows of the warriors they had once been. Their ears still rang with the howl that had ruptured their drums, blood leaking down their necks in sticky lines. They limped, armor cracked, breaths ragged, rage and desperation the only fuel left. Every step looked like it might be their last, but still they pressed forward, clinging to the lie that if they just caught one of the 93rd it would be enough.

That was when the light came.

At first it was only a shimmer, silver and gold threads weaving through the dark. Then the cavern erupted into brilliance. Two figures stepped forward in eerie synchronicity, their bodies shrouded in refracted nanite haze. Light bent around them, bounced off them, ricocheted between them until it was impossible to tell where Sun ended and Moon began. Their presence was not fire or shadow but something worse: a mirrored phenomenon made flesh.

The three staggered back as beams burst outward, dazzling glares that burned into retinas. Vision collapsed into afterimages, searing orbs of gold, silver streaks, shifting halos that swallowed the cavern whole. Eyes clenched shut offered no protection. Even through lids, the light stabbed deep, imprinting phantom shapes that pulsed and multiplied. The world was gone. There was only brilliance.

Then the temperature shifted.

One heartbeat was blistering heat, air scalding in their lungs, armor plates searing against skin. The next was bitter cold, the kind that bit marrow, breath crystallizing into shards that stung lips and tongues. Heat to cold, cold to heat, over and over, so fast their bodies couldn’t keep pace. Sweat froze on their brows, then boiled on their skin. Teeth rattled, muscles spasmed, lungs seized in confusion. Nerves screamed contradictions: burning and freezing, fire and frost at once.

Blinded. Deafened. Betrayed by their own bodies.

Zeni dropped his lance and clawed at his face, convinced his eyes were melting, only to collapse twitching as the chill locked his muscles stiff. Sarah vomited bile and blood, retching as the sensory overload crushed her sense of up and down, leaving her writhing in the muck. The last stumbled wildly, swinging her weapon at phantoms, only to slip and crash hard to the ground. she lay there gasping, every breath a shudder, unable to tell if the sweat down her neck was boiling or freezing.

The twins did not advance, did not speak. They only stood, perfectly mirrored, letting the light ricochet endlessly between them. The cavern was their weapon, their brilliance a tide no broken squad could ever stand against. Deic watched, blind spots flickering across her vision, body trembling on the edge of collapse, and realized with choking clarity: her squad hadn’t just been beaten. They had been unmade.

Then she felt the cold weight of a lance press against the back of her head, the tip cool against her sweat-soaked skin. Her breath caught, rage curdled into bitter recognition. It was over, not in a clash of champions, not in the roar of her colossus, but with her on her knees, broken and unseen until the very end. The humiliation bit deeper than any wound.

The flechette struck, tearing through thought and sensation, ripping the simulation away in a blaze of static green. One moment she was in the cavern, the next she was nothing at all.

The pit was silent as the 93rd rose victorious. Dust still hung in the air, fragments of simulated stone dissolving into motes of light. For a long moment, no one moved. The entire Citadel held its breath, every eye fixed on the first-years who had done the unthinkable.

What Vaeliyan and his class had accomplished was impossible. They hadn’t just beaten the 90th, they had rewritten the rules of the game and made it look effortless. Their victory rang louder than any cheer could.

Deic and what remained of her squad walked toward them. Armor dented, visors cracked, their steps uneven. They looked less like victors of countless past matches and more like survivors crawling from wreckage. The silence deepened as the distance closed, the weight of every spectator’s gaze pressing down on the space between the two classes.

Deic stopped in front of Vaeliyan. For the first time, her rage was gone. There was no fire in her eyes, only exhaustion, and the brittle edge of someone who had seen the shape of her own defeat. She gave a single nod.

“You’re something else, ” she said, voice rough but steady. “I won’t forget this.”

Beside her, Alex stirred, pale and shaken. His voice cracked as he spoke. “Deic… did you see what we lost?”

Confusion swept the watchers. Deic frowned and snatched the slate from his hand. Her eyes scanned the text once, then twice. The blood drained from her face.

“What?” Her voice broke into a scream, echoing across the pit. “This can’t be something you can fight for!”

Vaeliyan’s answer was calm, almost casual. “There’s literally no rule against it. I don’t think people take Deck’s class as seriously as they should.”

Shock rippled through the ranks of spectators. Murmurs spread like wildfire as realization took hold. The wager hadn’t been for pride, or points, or placement. Deic had staked everything without even looking, and lost. By Legion law, her squad was now the 93rd. Vaeliyan and his class had taken the place of the 90th, and with it their seats in the High Imperator training class. But they didn’t lose their own. Instead of the standard four, his class now held eight seats.

Vaeliyan grinned, the weight of victory settling on him like a crown. He met Deic’s eyes without a shred of hesitation. “Well… it was good fighting you, new Class One of the 93rd, ” he said, his tone almost gleeful, mocking the exchange of titles with a sharp edge of triumph.

He turned to his own squad, voice cutting through the silence. “Come on. Me and the new 90th have things to celebrate.”

Damien Stone had no idea what had just happened. The whelp he had been so sure would get torn apart, the one he had arranged for his cousins to beat into the floor, had just taken out the strongest class in the entire Citadel. And he had done it while sustaining nothing but self-inflicted losses, trading lives to take more than he gave away. It wasn’t luck. It was deliberate. Tactical. Terrifying.

And now Deic would be on the warpath. The moment she realized classes could be stolen, she wasn’t going to sit at the bottom for even a second. Damien could already see it: she’d turn her sights on the third-years. If Merigold’s class lost, they’d just take from his. The cycle would grind him down until he was left at the bottom again, nothing but a rung on someone else’s climb. All because of that upstart.

The real problem was worse. Damien could see the truth clearly: he had no chance of beating Vaeliyan. No one did. He hadn’t just won a sim. He had beaten the insurgency of Nespói as the invading force. The impossible had been turned into fact, and Damien understood then that this wasn’t a rival he could scheme against or push around.

Sub-Instructor Michael couldn’t breathe. The bug had won, and it was brutally apparent that he would have to pick a side. His chest felt tight, heart hammering against his ribs as the truth sank in. Every eye in the Citadel was turning toward Vaeliyan and the new 90th, and Michael knew that siding with him was survival. But in his heart, he wanted nothing more than to crush the upstart under his heel, to erase him before the corruption spread any further. All the instructors who dared to support him needed to die with him, their names burned out before they dragged the Red Citadel beyond recognition. Google seaʀᴄh novel~fire~net

Michael’s loyalty to his House was absolute, and he could already hear the whispers of the Nine echoing in his thoughts. The Citadel was straying too far from their grip, too close to independence, too close to breaking the chains that had bound it for generations. The Nine... Well, the Eight, House Sarn had always been Legion first, traitors to the true order.

So, Michael forced his breathing steady, forced the mask of composure onto his face. He would play along with this charade, nod when the others nodded, and act as though he was another believer in this so-called miracle. But behind that mask, in the clenched steel of his mind, he vowed that he would find a way to end it. He would stop this corruption from spreading, even if it meant slaughtering students, betraying colleagues, or burning the Citadel itself to the ground.