Midnight bnketed Vanguard Academy, the courtyard bathed in silver moonlight. A lone figure moved like a restless shadow—Kai Arclight, sweat clinging to his brow, eyes burning with obsession.

  He moved through mimic stances: fire incantations from Tessai, blink-stride techniques from the Vorn twins, even Grenn’s defensive crystal weave. All of them worked.

  But not her magic.

  He gritted his teeth and tried again, weaving threads of chakra and mana into a mimic of what he’d seen Rhovana Vane do earlier—when she had erased his spells before they formed. His hands froze. The construct colpsed.

  Again. Nothing.

  “You look like you’re trying to solve death with algebra,” said a voice from the shadows.

  Kai didn’t turn. “You always stalk your students at midnight?”

  “I stalk anyone who tries to copy my magic,” Rhovana said, stepping into the light.

  She looked as she always did in battle: calm, poised, faintly wild. Dressed in loose-fitting combat bcks, with a crimson sash that fluttered like smoke. The moon glinted off her silver tattoo—a curved bde across her colrbone, inked in the nguage of old assassins.

  “You nullified my copy attempt the moment I started channeling,” Kai said. “But I’ve copied dozens of other spells just fine.”

  “Of course you did,” she smirked. “Your mimicry is top-tier. But Null Vein Magic doesn’t py by the rules of mimicry.”

  Kai narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  Rhovana smiled, that maddening, pyful glint in her eyes again.

  “Because Null Vein isn’t normal magic,” she said. “It’s a parasitic override. The moment you try to analyze it, your mimic threads get erased. Only that thread. The rest of your arsenal? Safe. I don’t bother wasting power on them.”

  Kai tensed. “You targeted just my mimicry stream?”

  She nodded. “I null the intention to copy before it completes.”

  ---

  Fshback – Ten Years Ago

  They called it the Gss Dagger Incident.

  A high-ranking elite of the Tower, Archmagister Edevan Marn, had long been untouchable. Corrupt beyond measure. He trafficked forbidden artifacts through backchannels, silenced whistleblowers with soul-binding curses, and ensved rogue mages for experimentation.

  No one dared challenge him.

  No one but a bck-hooded assassin, once known only as Phantom Vein.

  She got close during a masquerade held in the spires of Ivoryreach Tower. Slipped between servants like breath on gss. Her body coated in void-spun mana, her bde soaked in null.

  Edevan never saw her coming.

  The moment he activated his tier-seven warding ring, Rhovana’s Null Vein disassembled its enchantment into dead light. When he called down stormfire, it fizzled on impact, as if the very world forgot his mana.

  Her bde met his throat in silence.

  She didn’t run.

  She sat beside his body until they found her.

  When they questioned her, Rhovana only said:

  "I took out the trash the Tower was too cowardly to lift."

  But justice never came. The Tower couldn't allow the truth to surface, nor a tool they could not control. They stripped her of her assassin rank, buried her name under propaganda, and reassigned her to obscurity—

  Css Z.

  ---

  Present

  “I killed someone who deserved death,” Rhovana said softly, staring into the moonlight. “And they buried me for it.”

  Kai remained silent.

  “I don’t regret it. "

  “And Css Z?”

  “My purgatory,” she said with a grin. “Babysitting weirdos like you.”

  Kai scowled. “I’m not a weirdo.”

  “Oh?” She leaned in, smirking. “You’ve been trying to copy a spell that erases itself from your memory. That’s not weird, that’s insane.”

  Kai grit his teeth. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “I am,” she ughed, voice rich and dark. “You’re the first in years to even notice what Null Vein does. But…”

  Her smile faded. Her eyes hardened.

  “You’re good, kid. Really good. But if you can’t even touch me—don’t dream about reaching anyone above the Tower.”

  She straightened, her shadow stretching behind her like a cloak.

  “They’ll chew you up in ways I can’t protect you from. And if you die chasing a power you’re not ready for…”

  Her voice softened.

  “Don’t become a ghost like me.”

  She vanished into the night.

  Kai stared after her, his fingers flexing.

  “She erased the mimic stream,” he muttered. “But not the idea of the spell…”

  His eyes gleamed with resolve.

  “I’ll find a way to mimic the void itself.”

  ---