It was a fine Saturday evening, the teachers were off duty, and the school buildings were quiet.
The setting suns could be visible when one looked to the west.
The star system that the planet Kreiz was located in, was one with three stars acting as its suns.
All three of them were arranged in a triangular formation, yet even with these three suns, the heat on Kreiz and its neighbouring planets was not as much as one would expect.
In the area that spanned tens of thousands of kilometres, dedicated to the second-year students of the Academy, there were various recreational centres for the students.
As the saying goes; 'All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.' The academy created these centres so the students could relax on their days off.
As this Saturday was one of such days, Arthur had dragged Layla, Nicole, Edward and a few of his classmates over to one of these places.
He had personally gone over to their rooms to drag them out to go. It was inconvenient at first as some simply just wanted to laze around all day but they eventually ended up enjoying it.
They watched a movie, went to a park, and were currently on their way back to their dormitories after having a meal.
"Told y'all it was gonna be fun, my ideas are always fun."
"It's not much fun when you drag people over regardless of their will you know?"
Edward sighed after retorting to Arthur's words, he was slightly tired after the whole day's adventures, however, he had to admit that he had some fun.
"You ended up hitting off on Nicole, maybe your single life might come to an end soon."
One of his friends hung his arm over Edward's shoulder and whispered into his ear.
Although Edward and Nicole had met each other before, they didn't really talk much until today.
Surprisingly, they had a lot in common and he ended up getting along with the usually quiet girl.
Some of the other girls were shocked because they had never seen Nicole so lively before.
Edward just shook his head in sadness and replied.
"Sadly, as much as it annoys me, she already has eyes for someone else."
"Huh? For real? Who?"
Another boy came over and joined in on the conversation, hearing Edward's words, he couldn't help but ask out loud.
Edward knocked him on the head before replying silently.
"A certain willful silver-haired kid."
"Ow!-wait up! Are you kidding me? Him? Really?"
"Yeah, how sure are you?"
The two listeners were shocked at his reply, they did not expect it at all.
"I happened to overhear it."
Edward replied before walking up to Arthur and Layla who were in the front of the group, however before he could call out, he felt a chill down his spine.
'Wha-! Such malicious intent'
Looking around the wide courtyard of one of the dormitory buildings they were in, he realized the source of that intent.
Their group was quite large, there were over 30 students walking together, they all felt it too, it was too much for them not to instantly figure out the source.
"That took longer than I thought, oh well this is according to plan."
Arthur's calm voice brought them out of their stupor, he calmly walked over to the one who was releasing this dangerous aura.
"Yo! Senior Pearce, long time no see?"
Zach was standing at the edge of the courtyard, his unrestrained aura pouring out continuously.
His eyes were glazed over and there was visible rage on his face.
His blonde hair was stained with blood, probably that of the student who collapsed on the ground beside him.
He stretched out his hand and chanted one word.
"Explosion"
Arthur's mischievous grin was wiped off instantly.
An enormous fireball was launched towards them.
"Shit! Defensive magic everyone!"
They all didn't need to be told that, they all activated their various defensive magic and skills, and the power they felt from that fireball was nothing to scoff at.
Then the magic landed.
**KABOooOOoM
There was a loud sound alongside a blinding light, it was loud enough to attract the attention of others who were passing by, and even those in their rooms heard it and came over to their windows to look for the source.
"Tsk... I wanted to see how much he had increased, but this is a little too much isn't it."
Arthur spoke as he looked at the Burns on his hands.
"What the?! Why didn't you use your defensive artifacts?!"
Layla screamed out seeing Arthur's injuries, however, he just scoffed, pointed to Zach and replied.
"They're just light burns, they'd heal soon enough. On a more serious note, have you noticed?"
It was then Layla looked at Zach and realized what Arthur was talking about.
"Is that monsterization?"
She had never seen a monsterized devil before, she only guessed that because Arthur had told her that Zach was possibly one.
Arthur nodded in affirmation while clicking his tongue.
'His strength increased from the inferior stage.'
When he was talking to Layla about what to do with Zach, Zach's appearance became strange.
"YOU BASTARD… BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BAAAAASTAAAAAAAARDDDddd ! ! ! !"
He let out a scream as if he had gone insane, and he began to clad himself with an extraordinary amount of magic power.
"Hey, Layla."
"What is it?"
"Umm, do you think he can be brought under control?"
"…I don't think so."
"…Isn't this bad?"
"…It's bad."
With that, Arthur took out a Sword from the extra-dimensional storage space artifact on his other wrist, rushed out towards Zach, and said,
"Layla! Take everyone away from here! This is going to get really bad!!"
"Tch! I understand!"
With the Sword in hand, he launched himself towards Zach. However, he was blown away midway because of the release of an enormous magic power.
"Arthur! !"
He heard Layla shouting, but he didn't have the time to pay attention.
While in mid-air, he regained control of his stance and landed on the ground. Then, he turned his focus towards Zach…
"…Are you serious…"
Zach stood there while releasing ominous magic power, and his eyes had turned into a deep shade of red in colour.
"Superior stage…grandmaster!"
The monsterization increased Zach's strength to the peak of the grandmaster realm.
'If he's given any more time he would become an Epic, I have to end him quickly.'
However, nothing goes the way one may want it to.
Zach placed his hand on the ground and muttered incoherently, Nicole's face paled upon seeing this.
Besides Arthur, she was the most sensitive to energies, even more so than Layla. She instantly realized what he was doing.
"He's summoning something!"
At her words, some of the students launched magic attacks towards Zach, however, they never reached him.
Multiple triple-layered barriers appeared around him and protected him from their attacks.
This was normal, Arthur and Layla who could defeat grandmasters were abnormal, and it was normally difficult for the attacks of people in the inferior or intermediate stage of the master realm to harm those in the peak stage of the grandmaster realm.
His summons was completed successfully, multiple magic circles appeared around them, and from these circles, actual monsters began crawling out.
They numbered in the hundreds, their strength ranged from the inferior stage of the master realm to the intermediate stage of the grand master realm.
This was one of the reasons that sentient humanoid races being moisturized was dangerous, they gained the ability to summon and control monsters weaker than them.
With the energy reserves of a superior stage grandmaster, summoning hundreds of these monsters was not enough to put a dent in his energy level.
"I'd deal with him, you guys handle the other monsters."
By this time, they had all realized that Zach was clearly not in his right state of mind, even though they did not instantly assume he was monsterized, it would not take them long to arrive at that conclusion.
Edward and the others nodded at Arthur's words and took out the self-defence weapons they carried with them.
As they were going out for fun, most did not carry their main weapons with them. A few students passing by also joined in to deal with the monsters.
Some of those who were in their rooms also jumped out through the windows to join in eliminating the monsters.
The guards who were usually placed at the dormitory entrances also joined in.
**ROARRR!
Zach let out a roar and dashed towards Arthur.
"Hold on for a bit would you."
Arthur clenched his fist and pulled back his arm, he then threw out a punch immediately after.
The air pressure generated by the punch was enough to force Zach to be pushed backwards by a few meters.
"What the?!"
Some of the spectators were stunned, with no magic or energy, just pure physical strength and he pushed back a superior stage grandmaster.
It was an absurd situation, Arthur ignored their surprise and spoke towards Zach,
"I hope you'd entertain me"