The echoes of the stratospheric clash had finally faded into a heavy, expectant silence, but the air within the Headmaster’s office remained thick with the scent of jasmine and the residual, electric charge of the Nihility Divine Thunder.
Leo Shaw slowly pulled back, his thumbs tracing the line of Susan’s jaw. Her lips were slightly reddened, her golden eyes hazy with a mixture of shock and an intense, shimmering vulnerability. She looked less like the "Witch of the Red Flame" and more like a woman who had just realized the world she knew—a world of cold hierarchies and clinical power—was no longer hers to navigate alone.
"That..." Leo whispered, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that seemed to harmonize with the rhythmic pulse of his Source of Spirit Stones, "is my definitive answer. I’
