Chapter 59: Party Shattered
The thunderclap rattled the broken glass of the tall bedroom window. Rain poured into the dim chamber, soaking the heavy velvet curtains and splashing cold droplets across the carpet.
Noel Pendelton shivered on the floor, his face pale as chalk. He looked up at Valerie with wide, bloodshot eyes.
"Valerie, please!" Noel cried out, his voice cracking in desperate panic. "You cannot walk away! Think of the Holy Church! Think of our holy mission!" Noel crawled forward on his hands and knees. His trousers were still tangled around his boots.
He reached his trembling right hand out, trying to grab the steel greave of Valerie’s dragon armor. "Do not touch me," Valerie said. Her voice was not loud, but it carried the weight of pure disgust.
Noel did not listen. In his blind fear of losing his party, his fingers reached for her armored ankle. "Valerie, we need each other! Without me, you are just an ordinary knight! With my stats, we will conquer the calamity together!" Valerie’s patience snapped.
Her right arm pulled back, her steel gauntlet clenching into a heavy iron fist. Crimson dragon aura flared along her knuckles, heating the steel red-hot. Crack! Valerie drove her armored fist straight into Noel’s face.
The punch landed with the force of a battering ram. The impact shattered Noel’s nose, broke three of his front teeth, and split his upper lip in half. The sheer kinetic force lifted Noel’s body into the air, launching him across the room. Crash!
Noel smashed back-first into the heavy mahogany wardrobe. The thick wooden doors exploded into flying splinters, collapsing on top of his half-naked body. Noel slumped into the broken wood, coughing up a mouthful of blood and broken teeth.
He groaned weakly, clutching his shattered jaw with both hands as tears of agony poured down his cheeks. Valerie stood tall in the center of the room, her chest heaving with heavy, furious breaths. She did not look at the blood on her knuckles.
Instead, her armored fingers reached up to the left side of her steel breastplate. With a sharp wrench, Valerie ripped the golden Hero Party badge from her armor. The polished gold crest, carved with the Radiant Sun, snapped free with a metallic crunch.
Valerie tossed the golden crest onto the carpet near Noel’s boots. She leaned down and spat a mouthful of saliva directly onto the golden symbol.
For three years, Valerie had genuinely loved Noel. She had admired his radiant smile, fought bloody battles at his side, and dreamed of becoming the proud warrior wife of the realm’s greatest savior.
To realize that the man she loved had viewed her and Seraphina as disposable toys for perverted stat gains tore her heart to pieces.
"My oath to you is broken," Valerie said, her voice shaking with bitter agony. "If you ever come near me again, I will not use my fist. I will use my blade."
Beside the doorway, Spiritist Maya wept openly. Maya had silently loved Noel since the day he recruited her from the temple, devoting her gentle heart entirely to his holy path.
Maya unpinned her silver party crest with trembling fingers, letting it fall beside Valerie’s badge.
"The Holy Hero Party is dead," Maya sobbed softly. "And so is the man I thought I loved. You are on your own, Noel."
Noel tried to speak from the broken wardrobe, but only a wet gurgle of blood escaped his shattered jaw.
He watched in helpless horror as his two strongest protectors turned their backs on him. Valerie and Maya walked out of the broken suite doors, leaving the disgraced Hero half-naked and bleeding in the dark.
Their heavy footsteps echoed down the carpeted hallway of the guest wing. Neither woman looked back. As they reached the wide marble staircase, a deafening sound suddenly tore through the academy grounds. Dong! Dong! Dong!
The great bronze emergency bells in the central academy tower began tolling in rapid, frantic bursts. The emergency sirens had not sounded like this in fifty years. Magic loudspeakers mounted along the stone corridors hummed to life with a loud, crackling screech.
The stern, booming voice of Grand Elder Morzan echoed across every hallway, courtyard, and dormitory: "Attention all students, faculty, and visiting delegations!" "Due to an unprecedented subterranean breach and structural collapse beneath Sector Seven, the ancient containment wards have been compromised."
"By order of the Grand Council and the Imperial Inquisition, Azure Crest Academy is placed under an immediate Emergency Academy Lockdown!" "All academic lectures, tournament matches, and campus activities are suspended indefinitely."
"All students are ordered to pack essential belongings and prepare for mandatory campus evacuation!" The announcement repeated three times, its booming echo shaking the stone walls of the guest wing.
Outside in the corridors, panic erupted immediately.
Doors flew open as cadets and noble scions rushed out into the hallways, shouting in confusion and hurrying to pack their travel bags.
Valerie and Maya walked down the grand staircase into the ground floor pavilion.
The main courtyard was already in total chaos.
Cold rain lashed down from the dark sky, soaking the cobblestones as hundreds of students ran toward the carriage gates with leather luggage. Instructors were shouting orders, guiding younger cadets away from the trembling ground near the library annex.
Imperial guards in heavy silver armor formed defensive lines around the perimeter, directing carriages and sealing off the damaged underground entrances with heavy iron chains.
Valerie and Maya walked out into the rain.
The cold water poured over Valerie’s armor and soaked Maya’s robes, but neither woman moved to find shelter.
They stood in the open courtyard, surrounded by rushing students and shouting guards.
Valerie looked down at her bare breastplate where the golden party badge had rested for three years.
The sudden emptiness in her chest felt like a deep, open wound. For years, she and Maya had loved Noel with absolute, pure maiden devotion.
They had dedicated their youth, their swords, and their hearts to his dream. Yet beneath his holy golden smile, the man they loved was a monster who traded their virtue for numbers on a status screen.
Beside her, Maya sank onto her knees in the wet grass, burying her face in her hands as loud, broken sobs tore from her chest in the pouring rain.
Across the busy courtyard, the heavy oak doors of the luxury residential suite swung open.
Leo Vance stepped out into the rain, his dark coat swaying lightly in the cold wind.
Behind him stood Lady Elara Snowveil, Lady Celestia Raine, and Saintess Seraphina, dry and calm beneath a shimmering umbrella of refined mana.
Leo’s dark, sharp eyes looked across the crowded courtyard, locking onto the two soaked warrior women standing alone in the storm.