you should have stayed hidden(chapter 163)

Chapter 163

For the first time in centuries, the Order faced something they could not comprehend. "Martial law," Althea commanded, her eyes flaring with golden light. Across the Citadel, the response was immediate — battle-mages donned armor, assassins faded into shadow, and diplomatic agents summoned their most dangerous allies. The entire Citadel became a fortress on the brink of war.

Then the Veil split open. The sky — that eternal twilight — shattered. A jagged wound of blinding light and suffocating darkness tore across the heavens, and from it descended a figure. He floated down slowly, effortlessly, as if the very concept of gravity bent to his will. A young man — or something that only wore the shape of one — with lush black hair streaked with crimson, a sharp nose, and lifeless, gray eyes. His presence was… wrong.

The Citadel of Shadows, a bastion of the most powerful mages and assassins across dimensions, stopped. Every single member froze where they stood, eyes drawn upward, and for the first time in years — some for the first time in their entire lives — they felt fear. Whispers spread like wildfire. "Who is he?" "Impossible—" "He can't be—" Then one voice, trembling, cracked through the silence. "He's back."

Heads turned. An older member, one of the few who had survived the massacre years ago, stared at the figure with wide, disbelieving eyes. "The snake… the snake is back." He swallowed, his face pale and slick with sweat. "That's— that's Gray Snape." Panic erupted.

Above them, Gray Snape's eyes drifted lazily across the Citadel. He didn't speak. He didn't move. But his very presence pressed against reality like a crushing weight. The defenses activated. Soulflames flared, launching torrents of black-green fire at him. The sentient gargoyles broke free from their perches, stone wings unfurling as they unleashed storms of elemental magic. The Ethereal Guardians poured from the walls, shrieking wraiths wielding spells of death and entropy. The very fabric of the Citadel's enchantments turned against him — a maelstrom of reality-warping magic, curses, and elemental destruction. It was apocalyptic. The air screamed, the ground cracked, and the sky bled light and darkness as the full might of the Order of Merlin unleashed itself. And Gray Snape floated. Unmoved. Untouched. Unbothered.

With a flick of his finger, the soulflames were snuffed out. The gargoyles turned to dust in midair. The Ethereal Guardians wailed once before they ceased — not destroyed, but erased, their very essence snuffed out without resistance. The storm of magic collapsed in on itself, sucked into a singular point of absolute silence. The Order watched their most powerful defenses die without so much as a reaction from him. And then Gray Snape finally spoke, his voice soft and cold and inevitable. "You should have stayed hidden." The end had begun.

-scene change-

The citadel burned. Flames roared high into the storm-choked sky, painting everything in shades of crimson and black. Screams echoed through the air as Grey advanced, his eyes glowing with cold fury. The ground twisted beneath his feet, marble warping into molten glass and then solidifying into jagged obsidian. The assassins' fortress — a towering spire of black stone and bloodied history — shuddered, its foundations groaning under the weight of his power. This place had harbored those responsible for his family's slaughter. Tonight, it would become their tomb.

The first building to fall was the Hall of Blades — a sprawling training ground where generations of killers were forged. Grey raised his hand, and the entire structure rippled like water before folding inward. Stone, steel, and flesh collapsed into a singularity of compressed matter no larger than a marble. He flicked his fingers, and it detonated in a silent burst of annihilation, erasing the Hall and everyone inside it. The air filled with the scent of burning iron and scorched meat. Blood ran like rivers through the smoking ruin, and the last echoes of their battle cries died in Grey's ears.

A group of assassins surged toward him — their movements swift, their blades gleaming. Grey didn't flinch. The very air around them hardened, transforming into jagged glass that slashed their bodies with every step. He reached out with his will, and their weapons dissolved into sand. The assassins screamed as their flesh began to ripple, bones twisting and melting into liquid gold. Their bodies collapsed into shapeless, writhing forms before cooling into grotesque statues — eternal monuments to their failure. Grey walked past them without a second glance.

The Tower of Secrets stood next — a labyrinth of spies and whispers. Grey extended his hand, and the walls began to bleed. Stone turned to flesh, veins pulsing along corridors as the building became a living organism. It writhed and screamed, consuming those inside. Agents and informants clawed at the walls, only to be dragged into gaping maws that formed from the twisted architecture. The tower convulsed one final time before collapsing into a mound of twitching, lifeless meat. The silence that followed was absolute.

Four centuries of mastery had made Grey a god of change. His Domain pulsed around him, a storm of infinite possibilities where reality bent to his whim. He stood before the Citadel's central keep — the seat of his enemies' power — and raised his arms. The earth cracked and split as the entire structure began to ascend, floating high into the sky. With a single thought, he transmuted its stone into molten gold, its wood into ash, and its glass into needles of obsidian. The keep burst apart in a cascade of liquid fire and razor shards, raining death upon the survivors below. Grey watched them burn, his heart cold and unyielding. This was justice. This was vengeance.

The courtyard erupted in chaos. Shadows danced in the fire's glow as the last of the citadel's defenders poured out, their faces twisted with fear and desperation. Grey stood at the heart of it all — a figure wreathed in shifting energy, his Domain bending reality itself. The ground rippled like liquid, stone rising and falling as if breathing. With a wave of his hand, the air around him solidified into jagged crystal spears that shot forward, impaling dozens. Blood sprayed in vivid arcs, their bodies twitching against the unyielding spikes before slumping lifelessly. Their deaths were swift — mercy they did not deserve.

The Vault of Shadows came next — a fortified prison where his family's murderers had kept their most dangerous captives and secrets. Grey reached toward it, and the massive iron doors warped and twisted, reshaping into a beast of molten metal. It roared, liquid steel dripping from its fanged maw as it surged into the prison, consuming everything in its path. The air filled with the sound of boiling flesh and agonized screams. Prisoners and guards alike tried to flee, only for the stone walls to melt into a cascade of acid, dissolving them where they stood. When the beast finished its feast, the entire vault collapsed into a smoldering pool of slag.