Around Mossan, one figure after another began to appear.
Those… were the people he had once killed!
The first figure to appear was someone from his childhood.
One day, he met a little girl. She was beautiful.
He would look for her to play every day. Until one day, he saw her playing with another boy.
In that moment, Mossan felt a surge of anger.
So, when the girl was alone, Mossan grabbed her and questioned why she had betrayed him.
However, he didn't notice that something was wrong with his body.
A magic pattern appeared within him at that time.
Unable to control his strength, he accidentally strangled the girl to death.
In that instant of the girl's death, Mossan felt panic, but more than that, a strange sense of pleasure.
When he returned home, his family didn't care about his murder; instead, they focused on the fact that his magic pattern had manifested.
In House Windwhisper, this was seen as a talent! Everyone cheered for him.
Eventually, killing wasn't enough for him; he grew to enjoy the struggle of people before they died.
Before killing a girl, he would viciously torment her, even in front of her closest ones.
The despair, struggle, and vacant gaze in those moments before death were like poison, deeply attracting him.
Mossan couldn't remember how many people he had killed, much like one wouldn't remember how many pieces of bread they had eaten.
And now, all those girls he had once killed were standing before him!
Even… as he looked at each girl's face, the memories he had long forgotten resurfaced.
They hadn't died?
They had always been by his side?
Always… ready to kill him!
"Impossible! You… you're all dead! You can't still be alive!" Mossan's voice turned frantic. "Since I can kill you once, I can kill you a second time!"
His mana surged to full power. Magic bombarded the figures surrounding him, but they wouldn't die! His magical attacks didn't even cause a ripple on them.
They were all immune to his attacks.
Green stood nearby, watching Mossan, who was nearly losing his sanity.
He released magic around him, avoiding the area where he stood.
If Mossan were rational and clever enough, he might have noticed this.
This was a deliberate blind spot left by Green.
He didn't want to kill Mossan in this manner; he aimed to defeat him honorably.
Unfortunately, Mossan didn't notice this either, nor did he see Green.
Mossan had fallen into madness. Green sighed. He chose not to kill Mossan but instead walked away.
A Mossan who lived forever in his own fear would be the best punishment for him!
Of course, this relied on Mossan being able to escape from this perilous secret realm.
Green didn't even want to glance at him again. There was no need anymore.
In Nora's location, there were more students from Crossbridge Academy nearby. She quickly gathered some of them.
After experiencing a virtual life, Nora exuded an invisible aura that inspired confidence.
Upon encountering the Windwhisper and Lunastone families, she immediately recognized their ill intentions.
She took the initiative to strike first, her own strength enough to crush the alliance of those two families.
For Nora, such enemies barely sparked her desire to fight. "Be cautious when encountering the other two families in the secret realm! They want to attack us!" Nora warned the students following her.
These students were still in high spirits after the battle.
They had not expected these two families to be so treacherous.
If they hadn't met Nora beforehand, they might have truly fallen victim to those families' ambushes.
However, when Nora demonstrated her tier-silver peak mana fluctuations, it caused the others to hesitate.
Even so, some were still uncertain about whether to attack.
After all, it was a violation of the rules.
Nora was proven right.
Throughout the ordeal, she didn't attack; the only thing she did was display her tier-silver peak mana, making the combined forces of the two families cautious.
Achieving tier-silver peak was no easy feat. Over the past few months, the two families had poured substantial resources into elevating only a handful of individuals to tier-silver peak.
Most of the others had barely even qualified for training.
Ultimately, after much hesitation, the numerical advantage still outweighed the fear of the tier-silver peak.
After all, if there was a fight, the tier-silver peak experts from both families would quickly arrive.
How strong could a single Crossbridge Academy member be?
But they didn't anticipate that Nora wouldn't strike at all.
Just those other students following her were enough to deal with the combined forces of the two families.
Although these students had not received Daniel's special training, they had used the energy from mana stones to break through.
Their living environment included the presence of a luna tree, making them fundamentally superior to the mages from Windwhisper and House Lunastone.
The battle started suddenly and ended swiftly.
The outcome was a complete victory for Crossbridge Academy. Only a few students were injured due to indecision.
Overall, Crossbridge Academy held an absolute advantage, whether in tier-silver matchups or tier-bronze ones.
Nevertheless, some unfortunate souls had been too close to the two families when they entered, leading to ambushes.
Fortunately, their magical equipment was of high quality, allowing them to escape despite severe injuries. Otherwise, they might have been forever trapped in the secret realm.
This was unavoidable.
The two families had joined forces to stir up trouble in the secret realm, something no one had expected.
Rose also found several other students from Crossbridge Academy, informing them of the plans of Lunastone and House Windwhisper within the secret realm.
Those students followed Rose as they explored further.
Outside the secret realm, others were completely unaware of what was happening inside.
The heads of House Windwhisper and House Lunastone were extremely confident.
They believed this time in the secret realm would lead their two families to ultimate victory.
They could hardly wait to see how few students from Crossbridge Academy would survive.
As for Daniel, that arrogant fellow was merely relying on his father's legacy to hold on for a few months.
The ultimate winners would undoubtedly be their two families!
Crossbridge Academy would be thoroughly eliminated from Riverside City, and the entire Riverside City would return to their control.
At this moment in the secret realm, the situation had reversed.
Originally, the two families were jointly attacking Crossbridge Academy.
However, now that the high-end combat power of the two families, the tier-silver peak experts, had been resolved by a few from Crossbridge Academy, the remaining members could do little.
They could only ambush the isolated students from Crossbridge Academy.
However… Daniel had purchased too many items from Dragonscale Bank, which meant that even their ambushes would only result in severe injuries, allowing the students to escape instead.
While recovering from their injuries, they quickly spread the word to other classmates still within the secret realm.
Ultimately, under Rose's call, the students gathered around her began hunting the young members of the two families who had entered.
Indeed, it was a hunt.
The situation had completely reversed.
Initially, it was the two families leveraging their numbers and combat strength to encircle and kill the students of Crossbridge Academy.
But now, with their high-end combat power neutralized and several already defeated, the remaining young members of the two families combined amounted to just over twenty.
Yet, the students from Crossbridge Academy still hadn't lost their anger.
Though they had received immediate healing, they couldn't let the two families get away after seeing their classmates seriously injured.
These students had just returned from the battles at the border.
They had been resting, and now, knowing about the schemes of House Windwhisper and House Lunastone, how could they not be enraged?
In short, a large-scale operation to hunt down the two families had begun in the Mistriver Realm.
...
"How is it? Is it safe here?"
"Don't worry, this is a natural cave. I've blocked the entrance with grass and stones. Those Crossbridge Academy folks will never find us here."
In the dark cave, a voice responded.
The cave had airflow coming from elsewhere, so there was no fear of suffocation.
Inside the cave, there were five or six young members of House Windwhisper and a few from House Lunastone.
After entering the secret realm, they hadn't encountered anyone initially.
Later, they met someone from House Lunastone, who warned them to hide quickly; the Crossbridge Academy students were hunting for them, and being found would only lead to death.
Fortunately, they found this cave and hid.
To avoid detection, they didn't even dare to use magic to light a fire, fearing it would leave traces.
They couldn't understand how, having started as two families jointly hunting Crossbridge Academy, things had changed so dramatically.