The two guards shoved Elara through the massive oak doors of the Judgment Hall.

She stumbled forward, her knees slamming hard against the freezing marble floor. The impact sent a sharp jolt of pain up her thighs, but she didn't make a sound.

She lifted her chin. The hall was cavernous, the vaulted ceiling making her feel incredibly small. At the far end, sitting on the raised, imposing judge's podium, was Silas. His face was carved from stone.

Standing right beside him was Seraphina.

Seraphina wore a pristine white dress that made her look like a descending angel. Her blonde hair fell in perfect waves.

The spectator stands surrounding the floor were packed. Elara recognized the faces of her classmates. The awe and jealousy they used to look at her with were gone. Now, their eyes held nothing but raw disgust.

Preston Sterling-Hale IV leaned over the railing.

"Look at the prodigy now!" Preston shouted, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "What a pathetic waste of Academy resources!"

A harsh wave of laughter erupted from the crowd. The sound physically pressed down on Elara, making her ears ring.

She kept her face blank. Underneath her skin, she quietly commanded the dark purple chaos mana to wrap around her bruised ribs and bleeding palms, knitting the tissue back together.

Seraphina picked up the hem of her white dress and gracefully walked down the marble steps. She stopped right in front of Elara. Her eyes were red, brimming with unshed tears.

Seraphina crouched down. She leaned in close, her sickeningly sweet floral perfume invading Elara's nose.

"You deserve to lose everything, you stupid bitch," Seraphina whispered. Her voice was so low, only Elara could hear the venom dripping from the words.

Then, Seraphina threw her head back. She tilted her neck, exposing her delicate throat to the crowd, and let out a loud, theatrical sob.

"Please, Master Silas!" Seraphina cried out, her voice trembling. "Please don't expel my sister! She made a mistake!"

The male students in the stands immediately softened.

"Seraphina is too good for this world," a boy muttered loudly.

"Elara doesn't deserve a sister like her," another spat.

Elara's stomach churned. The urge to vomit was overwhelming.

When Seraphina reached out a perfectly manicured hand to touch her shoulder, Elara's survival instincts calculated the exact angle. The moment Seraphina's perfectly manicured fingertips grazed her uniform, Elara went entirely limp. She let her knees buckle, throwing her own weight backward to collapse onto the freezing marble floor as if the mere touch had struck her with a physical blow.

"Don't touch me," Elara whispered, her voice trembling but pitched just loud enough for the front row to hear. "The stench of your perfume makes me want to vomit."

Seraphina gasped, her eyes widening in genuine shock at the sudden maneuver. She stumbled backward, clutching her chest as if Elara's words were daggers.

The crowd erupted in outrage. Three male mages in the front row drew their wands, pointing the glowing tips directly at Elara's face.

Silas slammed his open palm against his wooden desk.

A massive wave of pressure rolled through the room. The hall went dead silent.

"You destroy your core, and now you assault your own blood?" Silas's voice boomed. "You have lost every ounce of virtue required to be a mage of this Tower."

Elara took a deep breath. She pushed herself up from the floor, standing tall despite her ruined clothes. She locked eyes with Silas.

"Then I formally request to withdraw from the Academy," Elara said. Her voice was hoarse, but it cut through the silence like a blade.

The entire hall gasped. No one ever asked to leave the High Tower. It was professional suicide.

Silas's jaw tightened. A single vein pulsed on his forehead. His authority was being challenged by a cripple.

Seraphina's eyes flashed with wild, unrestrained joy for a fraction of a second before she forced her hands over her mouth in fake shock.

"We can't let this disgrace just walk away!" Preston yelled from the stands. "She needs to be punished!"

Elara let out a dry, mocking laugh. "What? Is the great High Tower going to force a magicless cripple to stay and eat your food?"

Silas's eyes narrowed. The absolute contempt in Elara's stare burned him. She was supposed to be begging on her knees.

"Your withdrawal is accepted," Silas said coldly.

He paused, smoothing the cuffs of his gold robes.

"However, anyone who leaves the Tower must undergo the Purification Protocol. We cannot risk our secrets leaking."

Elara's heart slammed against her ribs. The Purification Protocol. It was a legalized form of torture designed to cripple a mage for life.

Seraphina kept her hands over her mouth, but Elara saw the dark, excited gleam in her sister's eyes. Seraphina wanted blood.

"You will surrender all Academy equipment," Silas declared, his voice echoing with finality. "And you will submit to the Severing of the Pathways."

The air in the room vanished. Even the angry students in the stands sucked in a collective breath. The Severing was barbaric.

Elara curled her fingers into tight fists. Her nails dug so deeply into her palms that fresh blood welled up.

She stared unblinking at Silas.

"I accept the verdict."

Silas stood up. His massive frame cast a long, dark shadow over the podium.

"Furthermore," Silas's voice boomed, laced with heavy mana that made Elara's teeth vibrate in her skull. "You will walk the Stairway of Penance."

A wave of genuine horror swept through the spectator stands. Whispers broke out like a sudden fire. The Stairway of Penance was a death sentence. The steps were carved with soul-tearing runes. No human without magic could survive the climb down.

"Before you walk the stairs," Silas continued, his tone flat and cruel, "your remaining physical mana pathways will be manually severed."

Elara's muscles locked up. Manual severing meant they were going to cut her open. It was the physical equivalent of being flayed alive.

"Stop!"

A voice cracked through the tension. Professor Elias Vance, the head of the Alchemy department, shoved his way to the front of the stands.

Vance practically jumped over the railing, landing heavily on the marble floor. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

"This is murder, Silas!" Vance shouted, pointing a shaking finger at the podium. "She has no core! The Severing alone will kill her!"

Silas looked down his nose at Vance. He adjusted his gold cuffs. "The Alchemy department has always been plagued by weak stomachs and excessive sentimentality."

Vance spun around, looking up at the other professors seated in the high boxes. "Vote with me! Overturn this! It's barbaric!"

Every single professor looked away. They stared at their laps or the ceiling. No one was going to risk their own comfortable position to save a ruined girl from Silas's wrath.

Seraphina glided over to Vance. She placed a gentle, white hand on his arm.

"Professor Vance, please," Seraphina said, her voice dripping with fake sorrow. "Don't break the Academy rules for her. It hurts me too, but the law is the law."

Vance ripped his arm away from her touch like she burned him. "Save your act for the fools who buy it, girl."

Seraphina stumbled back, her lower lip trembling. Immediately, four senior male students stepped forward, glaring daggers at Vance.

Vance took a deep, ragged breath. He turned back to Silas. "I will take her. Let her serve as a menial laborer in the Alchemy labs. I'll take full responsibility. Waive the sentence."

The entire hall went still. All eyes shifted to Elara. Vance was offering her the only lifeline she had.

Elara looked at the sweat dripping down Vance's face. She felt a sharp pang of gratitude in her chest. But she knew the truth. Staying in the Tower meant Silas would eventually find out about her chaos core. Staying meant death.

Elara straightened her spine. She pulled her shoulders back.

"Thank you, Professor Vance," Elara said, her voice ringing clear and cold. "But I decline."

Vance's jaw dropped. "Elara, are you insane? You will die!"

"I would rather drag my bleeding body down that stairway than breathe the same air as the hypocrites in this Tower for one more second," Elara shouted, her voice echoing violently off the walls.

The crowd erupted. Insults and death threats rained down on her from the stands. The students were furious at her arrogance.

Silas let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Good. Very well."

He slammed the base of his staff into the floor.

The marble beneath Elara's feet began to shake violently. A massive crack formed in the center of the hall. The floor split open, sliding apart to reveal a steep, jagged stone staircase plunging into absolute darkness.

Dark, dried blood stained the edges of the steps. Thick, razor-sharp iron thorns grew from the walls. A freezing wind blasted up from the abyss, carrying the faint, sickening sound of distant screaming.

The wind hit Elara, making her sway on her feet, but she locked her knees and refused to step back.

Silas waved his hand. "Bring out the executioner."

The crowd parted. A tall young man in a pristine, tailored uniform walked onto the floor.

Leander Vale. The Tower's top swordsman. Elara's fiancé.

Leander stopped ten feet away from her. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles twitched. His eyes were a storm of conflict and deep, cowardly pain.

The moment Elara saw him, her chest constricted. The phantom pain of his sword piercing her back in her past life flared up, making her breath hitch.

"Leander," Silas commanded. "Prove your absolute loyalty to your family and this Academy. Sever her pathways."

Leander's hand trembled as he reached for the hilt of his enchanted broadsword. The metal scraped loudly as he pulled it from the scabbard. He pointed the tip directly at Elara's chest.

Leander's knuckles turned bone-white around the hilt of his sword. The blade shook slightly in the air between them.

"Elara, please," Leander whispered, his voice cracking. He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Just apologize to Master Silas. Beg for mercy. I can fix this."

Elara stared at the man she had once loved. A harsh, ugly sneer twisted her lips.

"You don't have a spine, Leander," she spat, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. "You're just a puppet on a string."

Leander's head snapped up. His face flushed a dark, angry red. His pride was his weakest point, and she had just driven a knife right through it. His grip on the sword tightened until his joints popped.

From the edge of the crowd, Seraphina's soft voice drifted over. "Leander, dragging this out only tortures her more. Be merciful. Make it quick."

Leander squeezed his eyes shut. He sucked in a sharp breath.

When his eyes opened, they were dead. The enchanted blade in his hand erupted with blinding, crackling blue lightning.

He swung.

The blade sliced cleanly into Elara's right shoulder. The lightning seared through her flesh, violently snapping the primary mana pathway connected to her collarbone.

The pain was apocalyptic.

Elara's vision went entirely white. A sickening crunch echoed in her own ears. She let out a choked grunt and collapsed onto one knee, the impact sending a shockwave up her shin.

Hot, wet blood immediately soaked through the fabric of her uniform. It dripped down her arm, pooling on the edge of the open abyss.

Leander ground his teeth together. He swung again. And again.

He slashed her left thigh, her right calf, and straight across her back. Every strike severed a major pathway. The lightning cauterized the edges of the wounds, trapping the agonizing heat deep inside her muscles.

Elara collapsed onto the marble floor. She looked like a discarded, bloody ragdoll. Her chest heaved with shallow, erratic breaths. But her eyes were wide open, staring a hole into the ceiling. She didn't let a single tear fall.

Some students in the front row turned their heads away, their stomachs turning at the sheer brutality. But most watched with cold, silent satisfaction.

Leander lowered his sword. He looked down at his blood-splattered boots, his chest heaving.

As he moved to sheathe his weapon, Elara saw it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Seraphina's index finger twitched. A minuscule, nearly invisible needle of compressed Light magic formed at her fingertip, perfectly camouflaged by the residual glare of Leander's lightning. It was a high-tier, traceless piercing spell, aimed directly at Elara's heart.

The chaos core in Elara's gut flared violently, sending a spike of pure adrenaline through her veins.

Using every last ounce of physical strength she had left, Elara threw her weight to the side, rolling half a foot across the bloody marble.

The needle of light shot past her heart and slammed into her left ribcage.

The spell blew a charred, smoking hole through her flesh, the traceless nature of the magic leaving no visible residue. The kinetic force of the impact lifted Elara off the ground and threw her backward.

No one in the crowd even blinked; Seraphina's execution was so utterly flawless and silent that it looked as though Elara's own battered body had simply given out under the agonizing strain of her severed pathways. Only Elara knew her sister had just tried to assassinate her in plain sight.

Elara hit the ground hard, skidding backward until half her body was hanging over the edge of the Stairway of Penance. The freezing wind whipped her hair around her face.

Professor Vance rushed forward, pretending to check if she was dead.

As he rushed forward, his boot caught on the slick, bloody marble. He stumbled, falling hard onto his knees beside her. Under the chaotic flurry of his wide robes and the sudden burst of a bright, blinding green diagnostic spell he cast to mask his movements, Elara felt his warm, trembling fingers shove a small, heavy glass vial deep into the leather of her boot.

"Live," Vance breathed, his voice barely a whisper.

Before he could say another word, a guard shoved Vance hard in the chest, knocking him backward.

Silas stood up. He flicked his wrist dismissively. "Finish it."

Two armored guards stepped up to the ledge. They lowered their long halberds, pressing the cold, flat metal against Elara's bleeding chest.

They shoved.

Leander's hand shot out on pure instinct. He lunged forward to grab her, but his fingers only closed around a torn, bloody piece of her sleeve.

Elara fell backward into the abyss.

She tumbled down the jagged stone steps, her body bouncing violently against the sharp rocks.

The heavy stone floor of the Judgment Hall slammed shut above her, plunging her into absolute, suffocating darkness.

Leander stood frozen at the edge of the seam in the floor. He stared at the bloody scrap of fabric in his hand. His chest tightened so painfully he couldn't pull air into his lungs.

Seraphina walked up beside him. She placed a warm, gentle hand over his. She pulled the fabric from his grip, dropped it onto the floor, and stepped directly on it.

Down in the dark, Elara's body was being torn apart. She bit her tongue to stay awake, forcing the chaos mana to wrap around her heart to keep it beating.

Her bloody fingers reached down and closed around the glass vial in her boot.

The fire of pure hatred burned brighter than the pain.