Chapter 198: Little Thief?
Chapter 198: Chapter 198: Little Thief?
Chapter 198: Little Thief?
Every pair of eyes was locked onto the woman in vivid red robes.
Liana, Sylvan, the Outer Palace disciples, and even Rhain and Seris stood completely stunned.
This was the legendary Dean of the Stormveil Academy? The supreme Domain Master who ruled over the entire Inner Province’s most prestigious institution?
They had all heard of the legendary, and mysterious Dean Carmilla of the Stormveil Academy.
They had naturally imagined an ancient, aloof figure wrapped in a majestic, untouchable aura—a supreme Domain Master who viewed the mortal world with detached indifference.
Instead, the woman sitting before them looked like a cheerful, carefree elder sister. She had a strikingly beautiful, youthful face, and a playful demeanor that completely shattered every preconception they held.
But while the disciples were merely shocked by her appearance, Zobek, his two guards, and the three "injured" disciples were frightened to the point of losing their minds.
Unlike the Outer Palace disciples, Zobek had seen the Dean from afar during major Academy ceremonies.
He knew exactly who the woman in red was, and he did not expect to meet her like this—caught red-handed in the middle of his corruption.
Carmilla’s bright, almost mischievous eyes swept lazily across the courtyard.
"Why do you look so stiff," Carmilla smiled, looking down at the trembling Zobek. "You were quite authoritative just now, weren’t you, Instructor Zobek. Tossing your weight around, barking orders... it was quite a performance."
Zobek was trembling so much that his teeth chattered. Cold sweat dripped from his nose and pooled on the stone tiles beneath him.
But his survival instincts screamed at him.
He knew that If the Dean learned that he had been actively abusing his authority to serve the Astral Alliance, fabricating charges against innocent disciples, and extorting resources from the weak, he would be completely ruined.
He could not let the truth out.
"D-Dean!" Zobek stammered, forcing himself to raise his head slightly. He pointed a trembling finger at the three battered disciples he had brought with him. "Please, you must understand! These three Outer Palace disciples were brutally beaten by Liana and her friends! I received their formal complaint and was merely doing my responsibility as an Instructor! I was just upholding the Academy’s laws!"
Carmilla didn’t respond immediately.
She hopped down from the wall with a graceful, effortless motion that produced no sound whatsoever, landing on the courtyard tiles as lightly as a falling leaf.
She brushed a strand of red hair behind her ear and turned her gaze toward Liana, Sylvan, and the cluster of Outer Palace disciples.
"So," Carmilla asked, "is what this Instructor says true? Did you little ones really beat up those three?"
Liana and Sylvan opened their mouths, wanting to defend themselves and expose Zobek’s lies.
But standing before the Dean of the Academy, a being whose power was so far beyond their comprehension that it felt like standing before the sky itself, they simply couldn’t utter a single word.
Carmilla watched their terrified faces for a moment, and then her gaze drifted across the courtyard and came to rest on Rhain.
Among all the people present, he was the only one whose expression had remained largely unchanged since her arrival.
Aside from a brief look of surprise when she first appeared, his dark grey eyes were perfectly calm, completely unaffected by her presence.
A glint flashed in Carmilla’s eyes before she turned her attention to the three injured disciples.
"Well?" Carmilla smiled warmly at them, her voice as gentle as a spring breeze. "Did those little disciples over there really hurt you?"
The three injured disciples felt as if they had been submerged in ice water.
They had been told to put on some fake bandages, inflict a few bruises on themselves, and point fingers at Liana’s group.
None of them were told that they would have to maintain their lies while staring directly into the eyes of the Dean.
Under the gaze of the legendary Dean of Stormveil Academy, the immense psychological pressure was simply too much to bear.
"W-We lied!" the disciple with the broken arm shrieked, violently kowtowing against the stone floor, "Dean, have mercy! We didn’t want to do it! We were forced!"
"Instructor Zobek forced us!" the bruised disciple cried out, sobbing uncontrollably. "They told us to fabricate the injuries and frame Liana’s group! Please spare our lives!"
Zobek’s face twisted with fury as he heard the three disciples.
"You lying scum!" Zobek roared, instinctively gathering his Level 9 Core Formation essence as he lunged toward the three disciples to shut them up. "How dare you lie in front of the Dean—!"
BOOM!
Zobek didn’t even make it a single step.
An invisible force, vast and tyrannical, slammed into his body with the casual ease of a giant swatting an insect.
The peak Core Formation Instructor was launched off his feet.
His body tumbled through the air, crashing through the courtyard’s stone wall and skidding across the ground outside before finally coming to a stop in a heap of debris and dust.
Carmilla had not raised her hand, not even a single muscle was moved.
She had simply willed it.
The gap between a peak Core Formation expert and Domain Master Realm was so incomprehensibly vast that physical exertion was entirely unnecessary.
A single thought from her was more than sufficient to ragdoll a man who could level entire city blocks.
Carmilla turned slowly toward the crumpled figure lying in the rubble. Her playful demeanor had not vanished entirely, but the brightness in her eyes had cooled by several degrees.
"You still dare to lie before me?" Carmilla spoke, "I have been following that little thief around for the last three days. I saw exactly what happened here. How could you possibly fool me?"
A collective wave of confusion rippled through the courtyard.
Little thief?
No one had any idea who the Dean was talking about. Who was this little thief she had been following for three days?
Zobek, coughing weakly as he crawled back into the courtyard, knew that he was completely and utterly exposed.
Dean had seen everything.
"Dean... please!" Zobek wept, slamming his bloody forehead against the ground. "I was foolish! I was blinded by greed! Please forgive me!"
Carmilla looked down at the groveling man.
With a casual wave of her hand, a golden light detached itself from Zobek’s robes.
It was the Instructor’s seal, the badge of authority that granted him dominion over the Outer Palace’s disciplinary affairs.
"Zobek, you are hereby stripped of your Instructor title," Carmilla declared airily. "You are permanently banished from the Stormveil Academy. Pack your things and leave."
Zobek’s face crumbled. Twenty years of accumulated power, influence, and comfortable corruption, erased in the span of a single breath.
"Dean, please!" Zobek crawled forward, his broken fingers clawing at the dirt. "Twenty years! I gave twenty years of my life to this—"
The playful warmth vanished from Carmilla’s face.
Her eyes, which had been bright and mischievous just moments ago, turned cold like the surface of a frozen lake that concealed unfathomable depths beneath.
"Get out of my sight," Carmilla said quietly. "Before I decide that banishment is not enough."
Zobek breathing stopped. The killing intent radiating from her was so dense it felt like physical blades pressing against his skin.
He didn’t dare to utter another syllable. Scrambling to his feet in absolute shame and dread, Zobek turned and fled from the courtyard as fast as his injured body could carry him.
The two Core Formation guards and the three terrified, pants-wetting disciples scrambled after him, fleeing like beaten dogs.
In the blink of an eye, the courtyard was quiet again.
Carmilla’s chilling aura evaporated just as quickly as it had appeared.
She turned her sparkling, curious eyes toward Rhain and Seris.
"So you are the girl my sister has been gushing about nonstop," Carmilla said, leaning forward slightly to study Seris’s face with unabashed interest. "She has been sending me messages about you every single day since I came out of seclusion. ’Her talent is extraordinary, sister!’ ’Her foundation is flawless, sister!’ ’She is the most precious disciple in a thousand years, sister!’ I was beginning to think she had lost her mind."
Seris felt slightly embarrassed hearing that. "D-Dean, I..."
"Ah, don’t be nervous," Carmilla waved a hand dismissively, her smile widening. "Myrielle is my younger sister, so that technically makes you my niece-disciple. No need to be so formal with me."
Her sparkling eyes shifted to Rhain.
A deeply mischievous and playful smile danced in her lips.
"As for you, little thief..." Carmilla teased, her melodious voice carrying a hint of profound mystery. "I have my eyes on you."
Swoosh—!
Without waiting for a response, her red robes fluttered, and her figure simply vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind.
Silence had returned back in the courtyard.
Slowly, every single head in the courtyard turned.
Liana, Sylvan, the outer disciples, and even Seris—everyone stared directly at Rhain with highly suspicious and utterly bewildered expressions.
"Little... thief?" Sylvan muttered, "What does that mean?"
Seris tilted her head, her pale purple eyes blinking in sheer confusion as she looked at her husband. "Husband... what did you steal?"
Rhain stood frozen in place.
He casually rubbed his nose, an incredibly rare look of genuine embarrassment crossing his handsome face.
He didn’t know whether she was referring to him absorbing the academy’s essence using his Spirit Gathering Profound Banner, or his massive haul of martial arts from the Grand Library, or something else entirely.
But being publicly called a "little thief" by the most powerful woman in the city, right in front of his wife and friends, was a situation he had not been prepared for.
"I have no idea," Rhain coughed dryly, avoiding his wife’s suspicious gaze. "Let’s just... pretend that didn’t happen."