EX-Rank Villain: Rise Beyond Fate-Chapter 59 - 22 – Shadowed Webs

The moon hung heavy over Nalanda Academy, its glow painting silver across the tiled rooftops. Beneath that cold light, things moved.

Not everything in the academy moved in daylight.

While most students rested, burned from drills and spells, Lucien stood at his dorm window. His expression, as always, unreadable. Still, his red eyes gleamed with sharp calculation.

He wasn’t sleeping much these days.

Whispers had grown louder. Students grouping up. Those too weak to lead aligning with those who showed early promise. Hidden meetings after class. A few senior students suddenly paying far too much attention to first-years. None of it surprised him.

Power attracts parasites.

Earlier that week, Ignis had publicly rejected a noble faction’s offer.

Lucien had, too.

Only, he did it with the kind of words that left a dozen heads spinning.

No one understood the words, but the tone? That needed no translation. It was a clean, brutal refusal. And from that moment, Lucien was labelled as an arrogant loner. Dangerous. Uncooperative.

Exactly how he liked it.

Tonight, however, Lucien had more than words. He had shadows.

With the academy dorms quiet, he sat cross-legged, shadows flickering like smoke around his frame. Then his finger twitched.

Three of his Shadow Soldiers slipped from the darkness. Not summoned with flashy flair, but summoned to vanish.

"Follow the ones from Dorm Block C and D," Lucien muttered, his tone low. "Especially those who met in the mess hall after hours."

The shadows bowed, then vanished into the darkness.

Hours passed.

Lucien meditated with Flow of Adaptation, channeling his mana into his nerves, guiding its natural ebb to feel the shifting auras within Nalanda’s walls. Not just sensing... adapting.

The training Selena gave him wasn’t about brute force. It was control. Awareness. Absorption.

[Proficiency Panel - Update] • Flow of Adaptation: S Rank → Perfected Flow (99%) • Spatial Instinct: Level 2 → Level 3 • Shadow Control (Integrated): Progressing...

A pulse of dark mana flickered.

One of his Shadow Soldiers returned, its form kneeling beside him, whispering a string of details directly into Lucien’s mind.

He stood slowly. Eyes narrowing.

A name.

A student. Quiet. Silver hair. Often missing from class.

Lucien had seen him once. During the combat drills.

Not strong. But his presence... always elusive. Unnaturally so.

Lucien vanished from his room in a blur, shadow-step enhanced.

---

Elsewhere, beneath the veil of stars, Liana trained.

Draconic aura coiled around her like a sleeping storm. Her silver eyes glowed faintly under the strain of layered space compression. Each step bent the space around her, her control far beyond her peers.

A rustle.

She turned.

A figure stood near the trees. Cloaked. Eyes red. Fangs visible.

"Vampire," she whispered, fangs baring.

The vampire gave a smirk. "No need for hostility, princess. I only wish for a drop. A token. Your blood sings like a divine fruit."

He moved fast. Graceful.

But Liana was faster.

A burst of spatial pressure shattered the ground beneath them.

She caught him mid-step, twisted his body midair, and slammed him into a gravity-warped barrier.

He twitched, bleeding.

"Try again, and I’ll bend your spine into a necklace," she said coldly.

He vanished, teleporting away with an injured grin.

Hidden nearby, Lucien’s eyes followed it all. Not interfering. Just observing. Protecting silently.

Back to the main business.

---

He found the silver-haired student in a library annex, alone.

Reading? No.

The pages were blank. Just a cover to keep people away.

Lucien appeared behind him. Silent.

"Nice trick," he said quietly.

The student froze, then smiled without turning. "I wondered when you’d come."

"You’ve been watching me. Spreading rumors. Redirecting attention."

"Observation is power."

Lucien stepped closer. "Manipulation isn’t free. There’s always a price."

"And what price do you pay, Arkanveil? You pretend to be above it all. But even gods bleed."

Lucien didn’t respond. He extended his palm.

Shadow vines erupted.

The student reacted fast, casting a layered illusion. But Lucien didn’t rely on eyes. The Eye of Data saw through it.

A disabling strike followed. The student’s limbs locked, aura suppressed.

"You’re a puppet," Lucien said softly. "But the strings... they lead somewhere else."

He scanned him.

Something was embedded in the student’s inner core. Foreign mana. Like a signal. Not active, but ancient.

One name flickered across Lucien’s panel.

Liberation Organization – Signal Fragment Detected

He froze.

The Liberation Organization. A ghost faction. Believed dead. Known for anti-noble campaigns. Chaos agents.

And now, a student within Nalanda connected to them?

The silver-haired student smirked, even paralyzed.

"You’re too late."

Lucien leaned close.

"I will erase your name, your family, and your ancestry from history."

The smile never faded.

Lucien knocked him unconscious. Hard.

Three ribs cracked.

He dropped the body off at the healing ward, speaking only to the healer: "He fell. Hard."

Then walked away.

---

But as he returned to his room, a presence stirred.

In the courtyard.

A shadow, not of his own making, moved unnaturally.

Someone was watching.

Not the silver-haired student. Not even a student.

Something older. Patient.

Lucien didn’t look back.

But his mind raced.

This isn’t over.

The strings didn’t end here.

They were only just beginning to be visible.