Fangs of Ascension

Mixed-blood human Sera briefly resonates with a nine-tailed fox in the Spirit Corridor but fails to bind it and is forced to accept a shadow serpent everyone calls worthless. Her half-sister Ophelia, meanwhile, becomes an academy star with a crimson griffin. At the bottom of Apex Academy's hierarchy, Sera survives sabotage and exclusion and discovers that her serpent carries the ancient Abyss Python bloodline. Kael, a leading student burdened by his own family scandal, becomes her ally and love interest as they investigate a spreading corruption in the north, but their cross-species bond violates academy law. Guided secretly by the fox spirit, Sera must evolve her contract, defeat Ophelia and Dorian, and solve the disappearance of the ancient beasts.