novelraw Chapter 224: Welcome To The Game
Chapter 224: Welcome To The Game
***
In a high-tier VIP box, the air was cold enough to frost.
Genus, the Head Lord of House Plant, didn’t move a finger.
He, of course, didn’t join the standing ovation, nor did he rush down to the arena floor to check on his daughter’s punctured stomach.
He just stood there, staring down at the white-haired boy.
A father stared at his son for a long time.
A very, very long time.
Around him, other nobles were whispering, casting sideways glances at the man who had effectively thrown away the strongest weapon in his arsenal. But Genus wasn’t listening to them. He wasn’t even thinking about the "Demon Tide" Ignotus had just screamed about.
To a man like Genus, the end of the world was a secondary concern compared to the end of a legacy. His mind was a whirlwind of damage control, and the math was looking disastrous.
’Two of them...’
His jaw tightened so hard it looked like it might snap.
First, it was Acer. The talented son, who’d been kicked into the dirt like a common thug.
Then, there was Rosa. The "Perfect Daughter." The one Genus had meticulously crafted to be the face of the family’s future.
Much like her older brother, she hadn’t just lost; she had been dismantled. Used as a damned canvas for Ignotus to show off how much better he was at being a "Plant" than she was.
The reputation of House Plant was under a magnifying glass.
Genus couldn’t handle the fact that every other Great House was currently laughing at him.
If Ignotus was the "failure," what did that say about Genus’s ability to judge talent? He had cast out the strongest member of his bloodline while pouring all his gold into two children who couldn’t even stand their ground against him.
It made Genus look like a senile fool!
But it was worse than just a bad decision.
People were going to start doubting the Plant Element itself.
In this world, perception was power. House Plant ruled because people believed their roots were unbreakable. But Ignotus had just hijacked those roots. He had turned their signature power into a joke.
A "Parasitic Bloom" that made the primary Element look like nothing more than fertilizer for a real monster.
If the commoners and the other Houses started to think that the Plant Element was easily countered or inherently weaker than the "Stranger’s" path, the House’s political leverage would evaporate overnight.
Contracts would dry up, and alliances would shift.
The foundation of their wealth would rot from the inside out.
Ignotus hadn’t just won a tournament. He hadn’t just made a speech. He had grabbed the great tree of House Plant by the trunk and given it a violent, bone-deep rumble.
For the first time in Genus’s life, he realized the roots weren’t as deep as he’d thought.
This was damage, indeed.
But it wasn’t too fatal, not yet.
Reputations were like trees.
They could bend in the wind.
They could lose branches.
But as long as the roots remained strong...
They would not fall.
Genus slowly turned away from the balcony railing.
The nobles behind him instantly went silent.
Most watched him carefully, trying to read his expression.
Trying to understand what the Head Lord of House Plant was thinking.
But his face revealed nothing. Nothing but calm and control, as if today’s chaos had been nothing more than a small inconvenience.
Genus walked towards the exit of the box.
"Prepare a statement."
***
Far away from the noise, deep within the Academy’s highest tower, there was an office.
A quiet one, a very large one. Its walls were lined with old bookshelves that looked older than the Academy itself.
At the center of the room stood a large desk made from dark wood.
Behind it sat a man. The Headmaster of the Academy.
Dante.
His eyes were closed, and his hands were resting calmly on the armrests of his chair.
To anyone walking in, he would look like a man taking a nap.
But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Because Dante was watching everything.
Through the Academy’s vast network of Arcane formations, through Runes carved into the very foundations of the campus, through the countless detection arrays that had been quietly placed over decades...
His awareness stretched outward, across the buildings, the gardens, the training fields, and finally into the Colosseum.
He saw the arena floor.
The cracked sand that had already begun repairing itself, the healers carrying Rosa’s unconscious body away, and the crowds that were still screaming themselves hoarse.
At the center of it all was, of course, Ignotus.
The white-haired boy who had just announced the coming of Demons to the entire Academy.
Dante’s lips slowly curled upward, and his dark eyes opened, gleaming sharply.
"...So you finally did it."
The satisfaction in his voice was impossible to miss.
Because this moment was something he had been waiting for a very long time.
Dante leaned back in his chair slightly as his fingers tapped the wooden armrest.
In his mind’s eye, the arena was still crystal clear.
"—These statements have absolutely nothing to do with the Academy!"
Lothar’s voice echoed faintly in his mind.
"—Student Ignotus was speaking entirely on his own behalf!"
The headmaster shook his head slightly.
"Poor man."
He almost felt bad for him.
Lothar, the announcer, was doing his best to control the situation, but it was like trying to stop a tidal wave with a broom. Once words like "Demons are coming" were thrown into the air...
You couldn’t put them back. The crowd had already heard them.
And more importantly, the Houses had heard them.
That was the real audience.
The first stone had finally been thrown into the lake.
Many ripples would follow, ’ripples’ that Dante was prepared for.
’He’s even better than I expected.’
When Dante first allowed Ignotus to enroll, he had hoped that this strange boy would cause trouble. That maybe, he would shake the stagnant waters of the Academy.
This was far beyond what he had imagined!
Dante slowly stood from his chair.
The long black coat he wore rustled slightly as he walked toward the tall window behind his desk.
Outside, the Academy stretched across the horizon. Hundreds of buildings, thousands of students, and generations of tradition. Above it all was the quiet weight of the Great Houses.
He rested his hands behind his back, watching what he could never truly control.
His expression remained calm, but his eyes were bright.
For years, Dante had been walking a tightrope.
He was the headmaster of Saint Academy, a position that, on paper, made him a servant to the Great Houses. They provided the funding, they dictated the curriculum, and they expected him to churn out perfect, loyal little soldiers who wouldn’t question the status quo.
They expected him to keep the "disgraces" in the dirt and the "geniuses" on the throne.
But Dante had been bored. More than bored—he was stifled. He had been waiting, watching every new batch of students for years, hoping for a crack in the glass. He needed someone with enough power to be a threat and enough insanity to actually use it.
Ignotus hadn’t just cracked the glass; he’d taken a sledgehammer to the entire building.
Dante knew what was coming next.
His communication crystals would be vibrating off the table within the hour. The heads of the Great Houses—people like the Fire House Lord, Merlin’s father—would be screaming for blood.
They’d demand to know why a "Heretic" was allowed to use their sacred Colosseum as a soapbox. They’d hold Dante personally accountable for the panic starting to brew in the streets.
In their eyes, this was a disaster and a failure of leadership.
Dante didn’t care.
The weight of the impending political storm should have been crushing, but instead, it felt like a fresh breeze.
Ignotus had finally provided the friction the world needed.
The "Stranger" had just declared that the old rules didn’t matter because the monsters were at the door, and in doing so, he had forced everyone to pick a side.
"Let them scream."
Hell was stirring, and yet the people who ruled humanity were still busy playing their little political games, pretending that nothing was wrong.
Dante’s smile returned.
"Yes..."
He looked back toward the Colosseum in the distance.
Toward the boy who had just disrupted everything.
"This is exactly what we needed."
A spark, someone reckless enough to say what everyone else was too afraid to say.
And Ignotus, that strange, arrogant, dangerous man, had just done it in the loudest way possible.
"Welcome to the game, Ignotus."
Because after years of watching, waiting, and preparing, things were finally starting to move.
Dante had a feeling that the boy who called himself Stranger was going to turn the entire board upside down.
Things were truly and finally beginning.
***