Live Streaming Academy

Solomon wiped the blood from his greatsword and turned his attention directly to the hovering bronze owl.

The true targets were currently asleep in their dormitories, completely oblivious to the impending assassination attempt. He lacked the physical speed to cross the entire sect grounds and personally warn every single noble in time.

"Listen to me very carefully." Solomon pointed a finger at the drone’s crystal lens. "I need all of you to enter the live streams of Arthur, Marco, Maximus, Elizabeth, and any other noble students you know. Drop donations to trigger their loud audio alerts and echo warnings directly into their rooms. Tell them the cultists are breaching their dorms right now."

He leaned closer to the floating camera. "If you do this for me, I will repay the favor. I will complete whatever ridiculous challenge you guys want tomorrow."

[GoonLord: SAY NO MORE KING!]

[James_hayes: deploying the wealth right now.]

[Mezz_3863: raid incoming. we got you Solo Man.]

[1Fizzy: RIP to my bank account but I want that challenge.]

[Fatal_Beauty: the warning squad is mobilizing.]

The translucent interface flooded with confirmation messages as thousands of viewers instantly migrated to the other channels.

Solomon turned away from the dead spies and bolted out of the subterranean holding sector. Pushing his leg muscles to their absolute limit, he sprinted across the cobblestone paths of the Azure Dragon Sect.

He navigated the winding corridors toward the residential courtyards to intercept the main assault team.

Vaulting over a stone railing, he landed on the wide tiles of the central plaza. Corvus waited silently in the deep shadows of the main fountain.

The operative adjusted his dark robes and stepped into the moonlight. Several unconscious cultists wearing black masks lay scattered across the plaza tiles. Corvus twirled a silver dagger between his gloved fingers.

"You took a bit longer than I anticipated." Corvus looked at the blood staining Eden’s Penance.

"You already took down the main group?" Solomon tightened his grip on his hilt and analyzed the defeated assassins littering the ground. "You knew the prison break was a decoy the entire time?"

"Yeah, I knew. Or more like... I assumed... or is it called anticipated?" Corvus sheathed his dagger inside his cloak. "The cultist leadership remained hidden in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike the royals. I intentionally sent you into the holding cells to act as visible bait. Your loud entrance successfully drew the true leadership out into this open courtyard."

Solomon rested his greatsword against his shoulder. He walked toward the fountain and nudged one of the unconscious cultists with his boot.

Solomon dropped Eden’s Penance onto the cobblestones with a loud clatter. He lunged forward and grabbed the front of Corvus’s dark robes with both hands. He shoved the operative backward against the stone rim of the main fountain.

"How dare you play me for a fool?" Solomon shouted, tightening his grip on the fabric. "You lied straight to my face. You intentionally used me as bait to draw them out into the open courtyard."

Corvus tilted his hooded head and glanced down at the fists bunching his collar. "The answer to your question is exactly what you are doing to me right now."

Solomon shoved the operative one last time and released his grip. He spun around and drove his boot hard into the ribs of an unconscious cultist lying on the cobblestones.

"You possess a habit of acting entirely on impulse," Corvus stated, adjusting his crumpled robes. "You completely ignore the consequences of your actions. You will blindly do something stupid just to engage in a fight. You absolutely cannot act like that when innocent lives are on the line."

Solomon rested his hand on the crossguard of his greatsword. "I definitely did not act recklessly tonight. I already dealt with your supposed traitors down in the holding sector, and they did not even belong to the Azure Dragon Sect at all."

"The plan was to capture them alive to extract their intelligence," Corvus reprimanded, sheathing his dagger.

Suddenly, the operative froze completely still. He turned his hooded face back toward the silver-haired boy.

"What exactly did you just say?" Corvus demanded.

"I said I am not reckless." Solomon crossed his arms over his chest.

Corvus took a single step forward. "After that."

"I said they were not part of the sect at all," Solomon repeated. "The dead spies down there were complete strangers. They wore the blue uniforms, yet they lacked any actual affiliation with this place."

Corvus furrowed his brow and stared at the scattered bodies littering the plaza. "That makes absolutely no sense. The operation was not supposed to unfold like this."

The operative paced across the stone tiles. "Chenric explicitly told us he had his own men planted inside the sect to facilitate the prison break. If those dead fighters were not his men, where are they hiding?"

Solomon shrugged his shoulders and looked at the unconscious assassins. "Maybe Chenric simply lied about the whole thing. His actual goal was never the prison break. He just needed a massive distraction for something else."

Corvus stopped pacing and locked his eyes directly onto Solomon. "Then why would he intentionally feed us this extraction mission?"

Silence fell over the central courtyard. The two of them stared at each other as the pieces of the puzzle rapidly snapped together.

Chenric knew exactly the strongest student in the sect was Solomon, and another was the supposed Marco Alfoy, whom Solomon had impersonated.

Feeding them the extraction mission served a single, highly effective purpose. The entire operation was a manufactured decoy designed specifically to keep the strongest student in the academy completely occupied elsewhere.

[Mezz_3863: WAIT. CHENRIC PLAYED THEM.]

[1Fizzy: the whole mission was fake!]

[Fatal_Beauty: they got completely bamboozled.]

[James_hayes: Chenric just wanted Solo Man out of the way.]

Corvus dissolved directly into the darkness pooling beneath the plaza tiles to traverse the sect grounds. While Solomon relied entirely on his own leg strength to cover the massive distance.

He sprinted across the cobblestone paths while pushing his physical limits to their absolute peak. Dozens of masked cultists leaped from the surrounding rooftops to intercept his route.

Solomon kept his eyes locked entirely on the distant dormitories ahead of him. He seamlessly executed the first and second forms of the Eden Imperial Sword Arts while running at full speed.

The Eden’s Penance sheared through the attackers and demolished the nearby stone pillars without a single ounce of restraint. He left a trail of bisected bodies and shattered architecture in his wake.

Vaulting off a crumbling guard tower, he launched himself directly into the night sky.