EX-Rank Villain: Rise Beyond Fate-Chapter 61 - 24 – A Glimpse Behind the Veil

The academy grounds felt... heavier.

It wasn’t obvious at first. The halls still echoed with laughter, the courtyards buzzed with spells and sparring, and instructors continued their routines. But underneath it all, something shifted. The light felt thinner. Whispers lasted a bit longer. Eyes lingered too long on unfamiliar faces.

Something was wrong.

And then came the announcement.

> "Student Cardel Evayne of Class 3-B has formally withdrawn from the academy, citing personal reasons and mental stress."

A flat voice over the intercom. Polished. Practiced.

But Lucien already knew the truth.

---

He stood silently at the edge of the central courtyard, arms folded behind his back. Beneath his feet, his shadow stretched unnaturally long — a subtle ripple passed through it.

One of his Shadow Soldiers returned.

Its message was brief.

Cardel hadn’t withdrawn. He’d been silenced. Permanently.

The boy had accidentally stumbled across something buried in a forgotten library wing — a single scroll hidden behind a false panel in an old alchemical manual. The scroll was laced with coded markings: phrases like Phase Two – Begin Disruption, Infiltration – Active, and Suppress All Witnesses.

He never even had time to decipher it.

His body was gone. His room, erased. As if he had never existed.

---

Elsewhere, Ignis sparred in the main arena. The crowd cheered at his elegant swordwork — sharp, controlled, precise. A natural prodigy. Flames danced along his blade as he executed a sequence of strikes, keeping three practice dummies on their backfoot.

Lucien watched quietly from the upper stands.

His expression unreadable.

But he wasn’t watching the match.

He was watching beneath it.

Just under the last dummy — a small rune had been inscribed. Carefully hidden, but clearly not part of academy protocol. It pulsed faintly. A trap.

Lucien noticed the glyph. He could have intervened.

But he didn’t.

He let it play.

As Ignis spun forward for the final strike, the trap activated. The rune surged, overloading the surrounding mana and detonating in a tightly compressed shockwave.

Boom.

The dummy exploded mid-air, fragments slicing across the arena.

Ignis was fast — but not fast enough.

The shockwave clipped his side. He was thrown back, crashing into the stone wall with a sickening thud.

The arena fell silent.

He groaned, barely conscious, blood trickling from his temple.

Instructors rushed in. He was carried off on a stretcher. Internal damage. Mana circuit bruising. Three days of forced rest.

Lucien said nothing. He didn’t even move.

He simply tapped open his hidden panel and stared at Ignis’s name under a secondary tracker: [Protagonist Halo: Stable – No critical danger.]

Then he turned away.

---

Later that evening, in the library courtyard, another student — a quiet girl from the healing department — found a red thread tied to her dorm handle.

She had seen too much earlier. Watched Ignis’s injury with narrowed eyes. Whispered something to a friend about the strange rune. Now, she was marked.

She wouldn’t show up to class the next day.

---

Elsewhere, a third student was found dead.

A beastkin, third-year, known for top-ranking mana compatibility. His body was discovered in the back corridor of the alchemy wing — a zone usually restricted after hours.

The report read: "Mana overstrain. Self-inflicted. Case closed."

But Lucien was there before the body was removed.

And he knew better.

There were no signs of internal implosion. No ruptured veins. No burn traces. Just a single puncture wound between the ribs — deep, precise, clean.

Too clean.

A professional kill.

A silent one.

---

The academy moved into lockdown by midnight. Outer gates sealed. Dorm curfews enforced. Instructors began screening spell traces on every floor.

Still, the killers remained hidden.

Because they weren’t just infiltrators.

They were staff.

---

Selena found Lucien near the spell gardens again. She wore a long black cloak, eyes heavier than usual.

"You’re seeing it too, aren’t you?" she asked, voice low.

He didn’t answer.

She stepped closer. "I know it’s them. I can feel it."

Still no response.

Then, quieter:

"If they make a move again... are you ready to kill?"

Lucien finally looked at her — the flicker of crimson behind his eyes cutting through the dim garden light.

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t nod.

But his silence was sharper than a yes.

---

At the same time, in a sealed chamber beneath the archives, two hooded figures stared at an arcane map of the academy. freeweɓnøvel.com

The older one, voice raspy, muttered, "Too many anomalies. Phase Three begins now."

The other, younger, nervous: "But Arkanveil is watching. We’ve lost two already. He’s not what we expected."

The elder didn’t flinch. "He’s a child. Let him watch."

The younger hesitated, then added, "He’s not just watching. His shadows are everywhere. We’re being watched as we speak."

And still — in a corner of the room, where light didn’t reach — a flicker of black twitched. Unseen. Unheard.

One of Lucien’s Shadow Soldiers.

Listening.

Recording.

---

Later, atop the academy’s spire, Lucien watched the moon.

He wasn’t at peace.

The recent killings, the coverups, the scroll Cardel found — they all pointed toward something old. Something buried.

He replayed the decoded message over and over in his mind.

Liberation Organization – Phase Two Initiated – Internal Activation Authorized.

Liberation was not supposed to be in academy under nose of demigods or they didn’t care about such small acts.

But now libration Organization was here — inside Nalanda.

And they weren’t targeting nobodies. They were going after talent.

Why?

Lucien didn’t know yet. But he would.

He always did.

Then his panel blinked.

[Shadow Nest Alert: Unauthorized Movement – Sector B3 Detected.]

A sharp breeze rolled past.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

And with a quiet voice, colder than the wind, he said:

"Time to pull another veil."

He vanished into the shadows.