The arena, which had moments ago boiled with flame, now lay under a colder silence than before.

  Gray ash continued to drift down in slow flakes, dimming what little light remained, while Isabella and Sophia closed in behind Rein — this was no longer a duel, not even remotely, but the first snap of a national-scale intelligence war.

  "Wait," Sophia said, her voice tight in a way it rarely was. "You're saying the Whitmores have been infiltrated too?"

  "Yes. Any house can be a target." Rein nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on the shaken Council President. "That hidden basement under the estate wasn't just a vault for treasures — it was a factory, a breeding ground for a newer, more perfected generation of Shapeshifters."

  "No—!" Alexander tried to shout back, but the words came out thin and trembling. "You're just some stable-boy trash who guesses at shadows! My father… he wouldn't — he can't…"

  "Stop lying to yourself, Alexander," Rein cut in. "They left you in the president's seat not because of your talent or the Whitmore name, but because you were the best living shield they could possibly have."

  "A living shield?" Isabella frowned, the hand on her scythe tightening. "What do you mean, Rein?"

  "Because the Student Council President is the one who coordinates and meets the high-tier mages most often — especially the Five Disciples." Rein glanced at Sophia as if to confirm what she already knew. "From the experimental records I recovered, Shapeshifters have a fatal weakness they still can't solve: their mana structure destabilizes the moment they stand in front of a Mesosphere-tier mage."

  "Ah…" Sophia took a half-step back, as if the memory had weight. "I remember that feeling. Standing near Master Aldric during training — like the air itself was trying to push you out."

  "Exactly," Rein continued. "Mesosphere mana runs at a frequency that destabilizes a Shapeshifter's Core from the inside. Minutes of exposure and they revert involuntarily — they can't control it. That's why they needed an actual human like you to serve as their intermediary, to stand in front of the Five Disciples so they wouldn't have to."

  Alexander froze as if a curse had locked him in place, the already-ruined face twisting — not from physical pain, but from the realization that all this time he hadn't been a king holding power; he'd been a cage that monsters hid behind.

  An oppressive silence settled with the ash, and in Alexander's swollen, bruised eyes something trembled as arrogance finally cracked. He replayed the strange changes in his father over the past months — the unnatural coldness, the merciless orders, the way he kept locking himself away in that sealed study for far too long.

  "They've been using the Whitmore basement as a cocoon," Rein said, voice low and urgent now. "Multiplying quietly… and they're moving into the final stage right now, while everyone's eyes are still on this arena."

  Captain Cruz and the FMD unit stiffened. Isabella and Sophia's expressions hardened in the same instant.

  "Then our families are in danger too — we have to go, now." Sophia took a half-step forward, her eyes on Rein. "We have to help them."

  "Kid… this is the kind of thing that shakes the kingdom's foundations," Captain Cruz said through clenched teeth, the battered cigarette between his fingers looking like it might crumble. "If what you're saying is true, I have to report to Director Rachel immediately — and that means it's not just the twelve noble heads. Arcadia's royal family could already be halfway in their grip."

  "We need to move—" he started, but his words cut off as his steps halted, his gaze snapping toward the darkness inside one of the entrance tunnels.

  Footsteps. Four, maybe five pairs — heavy, steady, perfectly timed — striking stone in a rhythm that crawled under the skin.

  Five figures in fully concealing black stepped out of the shadow, slow and deliberate, their faces hidden behind iron masks carved with strange patterns, radiating warped mana that pressed against the skin like cold iron.

  "Looks like…" Cruz murmured, his tone sliding from complaint into readiness as he and the other four FMD officers shifted into fighting posture, "someone doesn't want us leaving this place easily."

  "They think the FMD is something you can toy with?" Cruz's female assistant added, rolling her neck and cracking her fingers with a dry, sharp pop.

  Rein narrowed his eyes, his focus plunging inward — straight into the world layered over his vision.

  LIZ. Have you found a way to distinguish them yet?

  [LIZ: I haven't done a full live trial — we still don't have a living sample to study behavior in detail — but if you're willing to run a Field Test, I calculate the success probability at approximately 71.4%.]

  No time to hesitate, LIZ!

  [LIZ: Okay! I've installed the 'Shapeshifter Resonance Detection' module by mimicking Mesosphere-tier mana frequency signatures and embedding it into the MiDAR circuit… but there's a severe drawback: it consumes mana at a frankly ridiculous rate. I haven't had time to stabilize the equation.]

  Rein drew a slow breath.

  "Do it, LIZ. Run MiDAR — SRD version."

  The instant he committed, the spell circuits inside Nighty's cloak flared into a deep, saturated blue, and a massive surge of mana pressure broke from Rein like a wave hitting shore all at once — not destructive, not an explosion meant to kill, but a signature frequency that spread outward and blanketed the entire Oval Arena in a blink.

  The air turned heavy enough to feel against skin; even Mira and Boris in the distant stands felt as if a thick stone had been set on their chests, and the space around them quivered in faint ripples — like heat shimmer above a fire.

  Captain Cruz and his FMD team paused mid-step, staring at the first-year with expressions that hovered between suspicion and disbelief, while Isabella and Sophia felt it too — the density of Rein's mana, far beyond anything a normal student should possess.

  Sweat beaded and slid down Rein's brow, sharp pain flickering along his mana nerves as power was ripped out of him too fast. The mana status numbers in his vision flashed a dark amber warning —

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  30% remaining, from a single activation.

  But the result was worth it.

  In the holographic overlay, fifteen deep-red points flared to life among the crowd and the surrounding shadows — fifteen knots of energy resonating so violently that the simulated Core Mana Circles inside them began to warp and buckle.

  "Bingo," Rein panted, pale-faced. "Fifteen. The whole arena has fifteen of them."

  He straightened, forcing his shaking body back under control, then let a small, defiant smile pull at the corner of his mouth.

  "This isn't Halloween," his voice rang out through Sonorous amplification, unnervingly calm.

  "Time to take off those rotting masks… you impostors."

  And among the shattered stands — among students and spectators alike — bodies began to warp, one by one, revealing something grotesque beneath.

  A shrill keening rose across the terraces — too sharp, too wrong to be human — as the Shapeshifters hidden in the crowd started losing control of their borrowed forms; the fake skin split, revealing dark purple fissures and twisted limbs underneath, and they lunged at the masses in frantic violence, trying to carve out an escape route.

  But what they met weren't helpless victims.

  The remaining elite students and veteran faculty snapped back into focus with frightening speed, and walls of magic and assaulting firebolts slammed into the impostors from every direction, tightening the space they could move in — compressing their options, squeezing the hunt closed.

  "Sophia! Isabella! Hold that side!" Rein shouted, forcing his voice to stay steady.

  He didn't need to repeat himself. The two girls launched forward without a word — Sophia became an orange gale that scoured everything in her path, while Isabella slipped through shadow, her black scythe taking down impostors with surgical precision whenever they tried to reach the first-years.

  "As for the rest of you — get Alexander out of here." Captain Cruz drawled at his men, as casually as if he were ordering lunch, though his eyes were honed razor-sharp.

  "This is more than enough with just me and Kate."

  Rein stayed where he was, unmoving, his body chilled by the sudden mana loss — mana shock — as he controlled his breathing to calm the violent turbulence inside his circuits, all the while watching the fight ahead.

  Kate, Cruz's braided assistant with long black hair, pushed off first without a flicker of fear, driving straight into a cluster of five Shapeshifters blocking the way; through Mana Vision, Rein saw something that made him pause — her body carried no spell arrays at all, just a dense silver aura, layered so thick it distorted the mana field around her.

  That's not ordinary mana… that's Aura — the state-force of a Silver-Rank warrior… and not just Silver, but Peak Silver.

  Kate's punches landed with concentrated destructive force, each impact throwing shockwaves that cracked stone on contact; the impostors went flying in a single blow, slamming into the arena wall hard enough to spiderweb stone.

  At the same time, Captain Cruz stepped into the encirclement with calm, a crushed cigarette hooked at the corner of his mouth, then snapped a bare-handed knife-edge through the torso of one Shapeshifter.

  Its limb sheared clean off as if a hot blade had passed through butter, and Rein's eyes widened as he caught the mana at Cruz's fingertips — compressed thin, vibrating at such a high frequency it became an invisible blade, sharp enough to cut without being seen.

  So that was the secret of a true battlemage: mana condensed into an edge, keen enough to bite even into rock.

  Rein watched, impressed despite himself. The FMD — dismissed by nobles as mere "civil servants" — had a unit leader who was both a high-tier warrior and a battlemage of this caliber.

  Fists heavier than annihilation spells, bare hands sharper than steel… the existence of people like this is a direct insult to nobles who worship "pure blood" and "ring-casting" like scripture.

  He murmured it to himself as his own mana finally began to settle into a steadier rhythm.

  "Looks like this investigation…" he breathed, eyes narrowing, "…is going to show me something more interesting than just a nest of impostors."

  Silence pressed in for a heartbeat, and in Rein's vision there was only LIZ's message blinking.

  [LIZ: MiDAR — SRD version performed better than expected. Which means the instruction set you stayed up all night reading in that "mystery dungeon" was accurate down to the last line.]

  Rein lifted a hand to rub his chin, brows drawn together as he tracked the scattered fights across the arena.

  [LIZ: The theory that Shapeshifters lose control of their appearance when stimulated by Mesosphere-frequency mana has been validated. You should be happy your prediction wasn't wrong.]

  Wait, LIZ… Rein pushed back in his head.

  If they know this weakness so well, why would they lure the Five Disciples into gathering at the palace? For what?

  [LIZ: They might not know their own weakness?]

  No. Rein's teeth clicked. Even Superman knows what kryptonite feels like the moment he gets close. A reaction this violent has to have happened to them before, whenever they stood in front of a Mesosphere-tier mage.

  He swept his gaze over the chaos, and a sensation like a misaligned gear began chewing at the back of his mind — something didn't mesh.

  "A plan like 'lure the tiger out of the cave'…" he muttered, "…even if they gathered a hundred Shapeshifters, they still wouldn't be able to handle five Mesosphere mages at once. Those people are the kingdom's apex; mere disguise can't do anything but buy a moment of panic."

  The puzzle pieces in his head rotated, clicked, and shifted direction, dragging him back to the Eboros invasion — how he'd survived only because of the Five Disciples' intervention…

  Rein raked a hand through his hair hard enough to leave it a mess, thoughts running faster than he could slow them —

  "No… we missed it." His voice sharpened. "We missed the most important thing!"

  He triggered Mana Resonance Link at once, and this time he added Isabella into the connection without hesitation.

  "Isabella — hold here!" Rein barked through the mental channel. "Check every Shapeshifter corpse. If you find anything abnormal, even the smallest hint, tell me immediately!"

  "And Sophia!" he called next, reaching for the orange-haired girl as she hunted two Shapeshifters along the stands. "Once you clear the remainder, fly as high as you can and give me a full situation report around the area — I suspect there's a massive spell formation hidden nearby, something meant to gather mana!"

  "Wait, Rein — where are you going?" Sophia shot back, slicing an impostor clean in half with Vacuum Blade —

  — but Rein didn't answer.

  His body blurred out of existence from where he stood like a phantom, leaving only a spiraling gust and a perfect circle of ash flung outward by his sudden, over-limit acceleration.

  With Haste turning the world into streaked lines, Rein shot toward the direction of the Whitmore estate—toward the orange flare that had just erased it.

  If I’m right, the Five Disciples are tied up right now—hunting Shapeshifters erupting across the palace, dealing with the great noble houses—and that takes time. It always takes time.

  [LIZ: You’re saying…the chaos at the palace and among the houses is a staged spectacle meant to pull the Five Disciples away?]

  Yes. Rein vaulted over a rooftop as smoothly as if gravity were optional.

  They never intended to eliminate the Five Disciples in the first place—because they know they can’t.

  [LIZ: Meaning they changed plans recently.]

  Yeah… “lure the tiger out of the cave” is correct, Rein admitted.

  They escalated the sabotage to something that forces the Five Disciples—scattered across the capital—to converge on a single point.

  [LIZ: Then what’s their real objective?]

  Rein’s jaw tightened as the last piece slid into place.

  “The Academy." A beat of silence. "They want this place… when the Five Disciples aren't here to guard it.”

  These entries expand the lore and mechanics introduced in this chapter.

  Completely optional—read only if you enjoy diving deeper into the system.

  Location

  Shapeshifter Factory (Whitmore Basement)

  Rein confirms the hidden basement under Whitmore Manor was not just a treasure vault, but a controlled production site—described as a “factory” and “breeding ground” for a newer, more perfected generation of Shapeshifters. This reframes the Whitmore estate from “noble stronghold” to “incubation infrastructure.”

  Magic and Spell Techniques

  Mesosphere-Frequency Weakness

  A critical biological-magical weakness: Shapeshifters destabilize when exposed to Mesosphere-tier mana frequency. Prolonged proximity causes involuntary reversion as their Core structure buckles from the inside. This is presented as a hard limitation they have not solved.

  Shapeshifter Resonance Detection (SRD)

  A new detection module LIZ installs by mimicking Mesosphere-tier mana frequency signatures and embedding them into Rein’s MiDAR circuit. SRD forces Shapeshifters’ simulated cores to resonate and destabilize, making them light up as distinct red points in MiDAR overlay. Drawback: extreme mana consumption and unstable equations.

  MiDAR — SRD Version

  A modified MiDAR activation that blankets the entire arena with a frequency field. It functions as both a scanner and a stress-test: Shapeshifters are revealed because their borrowed forms can’t withstand the resonance pressure. One activation consumes roughly 30% of Rein’s mana.

  Mana-Condensed Knife-Edge

  Captain Cruz demonstrates a true battlemage technique: mana compressed into a thin, vibrating edge at the fingertips—an invisible blade sharp enough to shear limbs cleanly, even through tough material.

  Mana Shock

  After the SRD pulse, Rein experiences rapid-drain backlash: sweating, nerve pain, shaking, and internal turbulence as mana is ripped out too fast. It’s presented as a physiological penalty separate from ordinary “low mana.”

  Aura

  A power expression distinct from spell-ring casting: pure bodily force reinforced by condensed internal energy. Rein recognizes it as the hallmark of high-end warrior paths, capable of distorting the mana field simply by presence.

  Characters

  Kate (FMD Assistant)

  Cruz’s assistant “Kate” fights without visible spell arrays, relying on a dense silver aura—identified as Aura, the state-force of a Peak Silver-rank warrior. Her punches generate shockwaves that crack stone on impact, establishing FMD field agents as elite combatants, not desk officers.