[POV Liselotte]

  The silence of the room, which just minutes ago had felt like a warm refuge after the emotional confessions with Leah, was violently shattered. We were finishing adjusting the final details of our ga uniforms for the reception of the new heroes when the door burst open with a sharp crash.

  Chloé stumbled inside, her face paler than I had ever seen on her adventure-hardened features. Her ears were pressed ft against her skull, and her tail, usually restless and pyful, was stiff, bristled as if she had received an electric shock. What shocked me the most was her gaze; her golden eyes were dited with primal terror, the kind of fear only animals feel before an earthquake or a natural catastrophe.

  "Chloé, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen death itself," Leah said, stepping toward her with genuine concern.

  "My... my instincts..." Chloé stammered, clutching her chest while breathing erratically. "Something is wrong, Lotte. Something is terribly wrong. I feel like my body is going to explode, I have a cold sweat that won’t let me think... it’s like the air itself is warning me to run, but I don’t know where."

  I moved to hold her, but before my fingers could touch her arm, I froze.

  It wasn’t a thought, it was a physical sensation. A shiver that was born at the base of my neck and ran down my spine, freezing my soul. I felt the bond I had with Tiara, the essence of the pnet residing within me, vibrate with agonizing pain, as if an invisible wound had opened in the very earth we walked on.

  "Lotte... look out the window," Leah whispered with a broken voice.

  I turned slowly. The afternoon sun, which should have been bathing the city in orange tones, had disappeared. In its pce, the sky had turned a dense red, the color of arterial blood. Dark, almost bck clouds began to swirl at an unnatural speed, forming a vortex that seemed to devour the light of the world.

  "Everyone out. Now," I ordered, my voice sounding strange even to myself, loaded with an authority that the ice inside me demanded.

  We rushed out to the academy courtyard, and what we saw took our breath away. Hundreds of students and professors had also come outside, flooding the corridors and gardens. In the street, beyond the institution’s gates, people had stopped dead. Some citizens dropped to their knees, praying to Goddess Gaia, thinking it was a divine sign or a celestial celebration; others, the more experienced ones, ran to take shelter in their homes, sensing disaster.

  "We need to go to the castle! Right now!" I shouted, pulling Chloé’s arm to snap her out of her trance.

  We ran to the entrance, where we managed to intercept a carriage that was about to depart. We didn’t ask for permission; we simply climbed in, and Princess Leah’s imposing presence made the driver not dare to protest. The carriage started moving, pushing its way through the crowd that was beginning to panic.

  Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was suffocating. Chloé hugged herself, trembling.

  "I feel the air getting heavier with every second," Chloé said through clenched teeth. "It’s like we’re trying to breathe lead. I’ve never felt a mana pressure so... so twisted."

  Leah looked at me, searching for answers in my blue eyes. Her hands were intertwined with mine, and I could feel her accelerated pulse.

  "Lotte, you know something, right? This isn’t a natural phenomenon. It has something to do with the heroes?" Leah asked urgently.

  I sighed, feeling the weight of my secret become a shared burden. "Do you remember what I told you about the other world?... Someone there warned me that not everything is what it seems. There are two goddesses, Leah. Gaia and another beyond our comprehension. They are pying with us, seeking a conflict between humans and demons for their own amusement, as if this world were a chessboard. I don’t know exactly what is happening right now, but this... this red sky and this pressure... can only mean one thing: the war is not a future possibility, it is erupting right now."

  "But the siege was in half a year..." Leah replied, confused.

  "The enemy doesn’t always wait until you’re ready to attack," I answered bitterly. "If the goddesses want blood, they will force events to happen."

  The carriage finally arrived at the castle gates. The usual security had been repced by a massive military deployment. Soldiers in full armor ran back and forth, and the sound of steel striking stone filled the air. We ran into the throne hall, ignoring the guards who tried to stop us.

  We found King William in the middle of the hall, but he was not seated on his throne. He was surrounded by maps and captains, shouting orders with a voice that cut through the surrounding panic.

  "Organize patrols in every district! I don’t want looting! If anyone takes advantage of this darkness to fight or steal, execute them on the spot! Secure the granaries and the water sources!" William roared, his armor already on, his hand never leaving his sword.

  When he saw us, he stopped for a second. "Leah, Lotte. I’m gd you’re here. The world has gone mad in the st ten minutes."

  "Father, what is this? Did Orestia do something?" Leah asked, approaching the map table.

  Before the King could respond, it happened.

  It was like a silent but devastating explosion. Everyone in the hall, from the humblest soldier to the King, staggered. A wave of dark magical power erupted from some distant point, crossing the entire continent with a force that made the crystal mps on the ceiling shatter into a thousand pieces. It was a dense energy, loaded with a malevolence that felt like cws brushing against our throats.

  I felt my yellow mark burn, not with pain, but with a warning vibration. The ice inside me roared, instinctively responding to the threat.

  "That feeling..." Chloé whispered, dropping to her knees with her hands on her head. "It’s too much... it’s too dark."

  I stepped in front of the King and Leah, my gaze fixed on the invisible horizon beyond the shattered windows. The pieces of the puzzle Tiara had given me finally fit together, but the resulting image was a nightmare.

  "Your Majesty... this is not a sign from the goddesses," I said, and my voice resonated with the cold of the gcier I carried in my soul. "This is the work of the demons. That burst... is something that has happened, or something that has been released. The bance has been broken."

  William clenched his fist on the table, digging his fingers into the wood. "If the demons have managed to project that level of power from their territory to here... it means our siege strategy was stillborn. We’re not going to hunt them, it seems they’ve come to hunt us."

  The sky outside the castle remained an unnatural red, and the screams of the city were beginning to turn into a collective ment. The tension had reached its breaking point. The "peace" of the st three years had evaporated like dew before a wildfire, and as I looked at Leah, I knew that our promise of protection would now face its ultimate test. The enemy was no longer hidden; its shadow covered the entire world.