Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users

The world outside the trap's invisible edge carried on like nothing was wrong, or at least that's how it seemed if you didn't know what to look for.

The sky was clear, the sun warm, and the streets were busy with people going about their day.

Meanwhile, over at the Astralis university, the gardens looked as they always did in late morning, with sunlight falling across the old stone paths and scattering between the leaves overhead.

The grass between the lecture halls was freshly cut, and the faint smell of tea from the little café by the west arch mixed with the dry, clean scent of polished wood that always seemed to cling to the library doors.

Students moved in loose clusters, some rushing to make it to class, heads down and steps quick, while others wandered at an easy pace, talking to friends or staring off toward the rows of trees as though the world beyond them was just a thought away.

Through this everyday scene walked Dean Veyra Kyrelle. Her steps were steady and measured, never hurried, but there wasn't anything lazy about her pace either.

People noticed her without even meaning to. Students, whether they knew her by sight or not, shifted aside just enough to give her a little more space.

A few members of the faculty, catching sight of her from across the courtyard, straightened their shoulders as though some part of them still felt like they were being evaluated.

Veyra didn't say a word to anyone she passed, but she didn't have to. She had a way of carrying herself that shaped the air around her.

Her robes were deep blue and trimmed in fine silver. When the light hit them, they caught a soft sheen that made the fabric seem alive for a moment before the breeze tugged it away.

The tall trees overhead swayed gently, the shadows on the ground shifting and breaking apart, but her stride never faltered.

She didn't glance at the gardens or the sky. Her gaze moved over the university the way someone might look over a chessboard—seeing not just what was there but also the moves that could follow.

Most people thought they knew her, or at least they thought they knew the type of person she was.

The stories students whispered in quiet corners described her as cold, distant, impossible to impress.

Someone who held herself above everyone else. That was fine with her. A reputation like that had its uses.

People underestimated what they thought was just an administrator with a sharp tongue and high standards. They didn't see the rest of it, and that was exactly how she preferred it.

Almost no one outside her family knew that her niece—the same sharp-eyed tutor assigned to work with Ethan—had learned her unshakable composure from Veyra herself.

The two of them could wear calm the way others wore armor, never letting anyone see the thoughts moving underneath. It wasn't a trick. It was discipline.

Veyra reached the shadowed entrance to the main hall and gave the briefest nod to an archivist passing by.

The man bowed his head quickly but didn't slow his pace, and she didn't expect him to. She stepped inside, leaving the warmth of the sun behind for the cooler air of the building.

The hallways here were quieter, the sound of her steps softened by the stone.

She didn't go toward her public office, the wide staircases, or the open faculty wings where other deans kept their spaces.

Instead, she took a side corridor that led into the oldest part of the university—a place most staff had no reason to visit, and many of the younger ones didn't even know existed.

The walls here were darker, the light thinner, the air carrying the faint weight of age. Her footsteps echoed just enough to remind her how empty this section usually was.

At the end of the hall was a plain, narrow door set flush with the wall. It had no handle and no visible lock.

Veyra laid her palm flat against a smooth panel beside it, and pale light traced the outline of her hand before fading. The door slid open without a sound.

She stepped into her private command chamber, the one place on campus where she could work without interruption.

The room was dim except for the soft ring of projection panels that floated in the air at waist height, each one showing fragments of encrypted data—thin streams of moving symbols, flashes of coordinates, occasional blurred still images from hidden observation points.

She moved to the center, the hem of her robes brushing the polished floor. Her eyes were calm and steady as they passed over each panel in turn.

The feeds confirmed what she'd already guessed. Crescent Shadow was expanding along the paths she'd anticipated.

Elowen's movements were subtle but deliberate, closing gaps that could have been exploited.

And the Association's own network had shifted into a kind of alignment that meant only one thing: the trap was already active.

Veyra didn't allow any of this to change her expression. She stepped closer to one of the panels and adjusted the controls to condense all the scattered feeds into a single view.

She read it twice, the glow catching faintly in her eyes, and then she closed her hand to make the display vanish.

"If they have plans on the planet," she said quietly, her voice low but even, "then the university will be on their list. It's too valuable not to be."

She said it the way someone might comment on the inevitability of rain—acknowledging it, but without a hint of surprise or panic.

Moving to the center of the room, she placed her hand on a smooth, black sphere mounted on a thin stand.

It warmed under her palm, humming softly as its surface began to glow. Far below, hidden under the university's foundations, a network of wards and barriers stirred awake, some of them so old their origins were little more than speculation.

Ten barrier spells, each hidden under layers of cloaking, began to turn in a precise sequence.