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.

The darkness was absolute.

Elara's body slammed against the jagged edges of the stone steps. Every impact sent a sickening crack through her frame. Her left collarbone snapped. Her ribs groaned under the pressure.

As her blood smeared across the ancient stone, the runes carved into the stairs activated.

Eerie, sickly green flames erupted from the rock. The fire didn't burn her skin; it bypassed her flesh completely and seared directly into her soul. It felt like hot acid being poured over her brain.

Elara bit down on her lip so hard she tasted a fresh wave of copper. Her hands shook violently, but she forced her fingers to grip the glass vial in her boot. She yanked it out.

She didn't have the strength to pull the cork. She brought the vial to her mouth and bit down on the stopper, tearing it out with her teeth.

She tipped her head back and swallowed the bitter, sludgy liquid.

Vance's high-tier health potion hit her stomach like a warm fire. The magic rushed through her veins, aggressively knitting her broken bones back together and sealing her internal bleeding.

But the green flames of the stairs kept tearing her apart from the outside. She was trapped in a horrific cycle of healing and breaking.

Suddenly, the silver bracelet on her wrist flared. A brilliant, blinding silver light exploded from the metal, forming a thin, tight membrane around her head and chest, shielding her brain and heart from the soul-fire.

At the same time, the chaos core in her abdomen spun wildly. It acted like a black hole, greedily sucking in the residual energy of the green flames, converting the torture into raw power.

Time lost all meaning.

Finally, the steep incline leveled out. Elara dragged her battered body across the rough stone, leaving a thick trail of blood behind her.

She collapsed onto a flat, rocky outcropping.

Below her was The Abyss. A massive, bottomless canyon filled with churning, toxic black miasma. Freezing rain lashed against her face, stinging her open wounds. She gasped, her lungs burning as she sucked in the foul, heavy air. She was alive.

A shadow detached itself from the rock wall behind her.

Cletus McCoy, a low-ranking Tower guard known for his gambling debts, stepped into the dim light. He hadn't been stationed here. He was a scavenger, sneaking down to the edges of the abyss to strip the corpses of condemned mages for leftover magical artifacts.

When Cletus saw Elara's chest rising and falling, his jaw dropped.

Elara's eyes snapped to him. She tried to push herself up, trying to summon the chaos mana, but her muscles were completely locked. Her body had hit its absolute physical limit. She couldn't move a single finger.

Cletus's shock slowly melted into a cruel, greedy grin.

He walked over to her. Without a word, he lifted his heavy, steel-toed boot and brought it down hard on her freshly healed left leg.

A sharp crack echoed in the rain.

Elara let out a choked, guttural scream. Her vision swam with black spots. She glared up at him, her eyes filled with murderous rage.

"Look at the great prodigy now," Cletus sneered, spitting a wad of phlegm onto the rock next to her face. "Nothing but a dead dog."

He crouched down, his eyes locking onto the silver bracelet on her wrist.

"I'll be taking this," he grunted, grabbing her arm and yanking at the metal.

The second his dirty fingers touched the silver, the bracelet violently discharged. A loud crack of static electricity blasted Cletus's hand.

He shrieked, falling backward. The skin on his fingers was charred black and smoking.

Cletus scrambled to his feet, his face twisted in humiliated rage. He drew a short, jagged dagger from his belt.

"Stupid bitch!" he roared.

Instead of stabbing her, he pulled his leg back and kicked her squarely in the stomach.

The force of the blow sent Elara sliding across the wet stone. Half of her body slipped over the edge of the cliff. The violent wind from the abyss whipped her hair into her eyes.

"Let the beasts at the bottom eat you," Cletus laughed, and he stomped his boot directly onto her chest, shoving her off the ledge.

Elara fell.

The sickening sensation of weightlessness consumed her. Cletus's laughter faded as she plummeted into the thick, swirling black miasma.

The toxic gas rushed into her nose and mouth, but instead of choking her, the chaos core flared to life. It devoured the dark energy like a starving animal, pumping heat back into her freezing limbs.

Just as her consciousness began to slip away, two bright, mechanical beams of light cut through the fog below her.

A massive, patchwork mechanical glider made of scrap metal and glowing runes swooped upward.

Two young people in heavy leather coats were strapped to the frame.

"Got a big piece of trash today!" the pilot, a boy with goggles named Jasper, screamed over the wind.

The co-pilot, a girl named Kira, leaned over the edge and grabbed Elara by the collar of her uniform, hauling her onto the metal deck. Kira's hands immediately glowed with a soothing green light as she pressed them to Elara's bleeding chest.

The glider banked sharply, diving deeper into the unknown darkness of the abyss.