"Calm down," Ronan said, his voice steady. "Tell me exactly what happened. From the beginning."

Elara’s jaw tightened, frustration bleeding through her expression. .

"The node just... vanished. One moment it was there, secured in the storage cache. The next, gone. No sign of forced entry, no broken runes, nothing." Her hands clenched into fists. "There were guards stationed nearby. Multiple rotations. No one should have been able to get close without being seen."

Ronan kept his expression neutral.

So it happened.

The original timeline had placed this theft later, but his interference accelerated it drastically.

In the novel, it had been Darius’s vice leader – a forgettable character who’d sold out Class B to Class A after Armani promised his noble family political support in the future. A small betrayal that cascaded into larger consequences. The traitor had used insider knowledge to bypass security, steal the node, and deliver it to Class A.

Class A, in turn, had discovered through a Ravencrest student in their ranks that runes could be modified to allow two minor nodes to channel simultaneously into a single statue, quickening the pace drastically.

A powerful advantage that the Academy technically knew about but had never officially acknowledged because proving insider manipulation was difficult without concrete evidence. They very well could have found out by accident.

The Academy’s logic was simple. Theft, betrayal, and information manipulation happened constantly in the real world. Students needed to learn how to protect their assets or suffer the consequences.

Ronan studied Elara’s face. She was angry, yes, but also desperate for answers. For direction.

"There’s no way of knowing who took it," Ronan said calmly, "as long as they did even a semi-decent job covering their tracks. We don’t have the time to conduct a full scale investigation either."

Elara’s eyes narrowed. "You’re saying we just... accept it?"

"No. I’m saying we can’t question every student without causing panic." Ronan gestured vaguely toward the camp. "If we drag people in for interrogation, morale collapses. And if someone loyal to Class B had seen something suspicious, they would’ve reported it already."

"You’re right," she admitted grudgingly, adding her own reasoning. "If we start accusing people without evidence, we’ll tear the class apart from the inside. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. They knew how to move without being caught."

"Exactly."

Elara exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair. "Then what the hell do we do? We can’t just pretend we didn’t lose a node. Class A will know we’re weaker. Class S will press harder. And if C/D figures it out–"

"Calm down," Ronan said again, sharper this time. "The situation isn’t as bad as it looks."

Elara’s head snapped toward him, disbelief written plain across her face. "What?"

"It isn’t as bad as it looks," Ronan repeated, meeting her eyes steadily.

"We just lost a node, Ronan. We’re down to one. How is that—"

"What’s the point of this war?"

The question stopped her mid-breath. She blinked, confusion replacing anger. "What?" 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"What’s the point of the Inter-Class War?" Ronan gestured vaguely toward the forest around them. "Why did the Academy throw us out here?"

Elara’s jaw worked, searching for the obvious answer. "To win. To prove we’re—"

"No."

She bristled. "Then what?"

Ronan leaned against the statue’s base, arms crossed. "The Academy isn’t testing whether we can collect nodes or hold statues. They’re testing how we perform in a war environment."

Elara frowned, still not following.

"Think about it," Ronan continued. "Headmaster Rubin didn’t frame this as a game. He called it a battlefield. Real danger. Real decisions. No safety net." He tilted his head. "The Academy wants to see how students respond when things go wrong. When plans collapse. When allies betray. When leaders fall."

Elara’s hands tightened into fists. "So you’re saying losing the node doesn’t matter?"

"I’m saying it matters less than what we do next." Ronan straightened. "Class B just got hit by something we couldn’t predict or prevent. The Academy’s watching to see if we freeze, panic, or adapt."

Elara processed that, her frustration shifting into something sharper. More focused. "And you think we should adapt."

"I think this is a massive opportunity to show we perform under pressure."

She stared at him. "How?"

Ronan’s expression didn’t change.

"We attack."

"What do you mean?" Elara’s voice sharpened, suspicion threading through the question.

Ronan pushed off the statue’s base, arms still crossed. "We need to attack a class weaker than us. Hit them now, while they’re vulnerable, and gain the advantage before anyone realizes we’re short a node."

Elara’s expression twisted into something between disbelief and bitter amusement.

"There aren’t many classes weaker than us right now." She paused, then added with heavy sarcasm, "Actually, we might be the weakest class in terms of pure military strength. Class C/D has numbers. Class A matches us at best, and even they’re a bit stronger than us. I don’t even want to talk about class S." Her voice dropped. "But that’s not the point. Our class is defense focused. We capture the points, then defend them with Sapphire’s runes and through thorough organization. That’s where we thrive, not in attacking."

Ronan smiled.

Elara’s eyes narrowed immediately. "What?"

"I do have a class in mind that’s weaker than us." Ronan said with a coy smile. "I’ll go as far as to say we won’t even need a fifth of our forces to deal with them."

Elara stared at him, processing the claim. Her frustration shifted into something colder, more calculating. "You’re serious? I know you’re usually right about these things, but I don’t think–"

"Completely."

She studied his face, searching for the catch. "Which class?"

Ronan thought of the conflict that should be unraveling inside the C/D alliance right now – Adam standing between arguing students. Ronan’s careful words would be bearing fruit exactly as intended. Class C would claim the statue, causing an internal rift between classes.

It wasn’t something that happened in the original novel. No, because in the original novel, despite being overthrown by Adam at the time, Locke had been able to ease the tension on both sides and mend the conflict between the two classes.

But Locke was here.

And Ronan doubted Adam emulated those same results.

"Class D," Ronan said simply. "They’re about to split from Class C."