As time passed, both the professors, the three Archons and their subordinates grew exhausted. Mana depleted, movements slowed, and breathing turned heavy.
Yet, the undead remained endless.
For every one they cut down, more took its place. The battlefield was littered with corpses, yet the horde pressed on.
"This isn't working," Caelum muttered, blowing another undead's head. "We need to stop them at the source."
The headmistress understood what he was trying to say but thought against it. "We just need time for the students to escape. I've already contacted the AED through the communication crystal earlier so you don't need to take things in your own hands. They'll be here any minute now."
"The undead is endless, we'll be wiped out before the Academy Enforcement Division arrives." Caelum argued.
Caelum's eyes looked around, searching for the mad student. Then he noticed that he was chanting something again.
Everyone else followed Caelum's eyes.
"O tenebrarum dominator, ex abyssis te invoco."
The mad student slowly rose into the air, his body twisting unnaturally as if his bones were no longer bound by human limitations.
"Carne mea fiat templum tuum, sanguis meus sacrificium."
His limbs lengthened, his fingers stretching into clawed talons.
"Anima mea vinculum, voluntas mea tua est.
Intra corpus meum et ostende potentiam tuam!"
His skin darkened, pulsing with veins that glowed like molten embers.
A low, eerie chuckle echoed through the hall. Then, the chuckle grew—a deep, guttural laugh that rattled the air like a chorus of distorted voices.
"What's happening to him?" Caelum asked.
"Tha—that's Demonification." Professor Schafer answered.
"This is bad, really bad." Professor Fuchs said.
As the mad student's body continued to twist and distort, Ava didn't waste a second.
She raised her staff, and a blinding surge of wind magic exploded toward him, kicking up debris and forcing him to shield his face.
"Not happening!" she shouted, her spell cutting through the dark aura surrounding him.
The transformation faltered. His form flickered between human and something monstrous, his rage boiling over as he snarled at her. "You, peasant!"
But before he could retaliate, Egbert stepped forward. In one swift motion, his staff shifted—wood and metal twisting until it became a gleaming sword before attacking the mad student from every direction.
Alaric's eyes widened in shock. "You can do Form Transmutation already?!"
Then, a wave of fire roared.
Aidan stood in the middle of the battlefield, his arm engulfed in golden flames. His usual smug expression was replaced with determination. He slammed his palm against the floor, and the fire surged outward in a wave, swallowing the horde of undead whole.
The moment the purifying flames touched them, the corpses convulsed, their rotting flesh crackling as hollow eyes flickered. One by one, they collapsed, their twisted forms consumed by embers. The hall echoed with the wails of the damned until the last of them disintegrated into nothingness.
Silence.
For a brief moment, the students and professors stared in shock, their breaths heavy.
Aidan wiped sweat from his brow, his flames slowly dying down. Then, a voice—low, seething with fury—shattered the quiet.
"You…"
The mad student—no, the monster who had summoned the undead—stood trembling, his face contorted in fury as he desperately tried to summon another horde, but nothing answered his call.
His eyes burned with madness as he raised a shaking finger at Aidan.
"What have you done?!" he roared, his voice cracking with rage.
Dark mana swirled violently around him, its pressure hurling Egbert into a corner. His body twisted unnaturally as he prepared another spell, this time with a singular purpose—to kill Aidan.
Aidan barely had time to react before a massive surge of dark mana erupted from the student's outstretched hands. The air crackled, the ground trembled, and in an instant—black tendrils lashed out like whips.
His lackeys, who had always stood behind him, instinctively moved to shield him.
Crack!
The first was sent flying across the hall, slamming into a marble pillar with a sickening crunch. Blood splattered as his body went limp.
The second tried to counter with a spell, but the moment his mana clashed with the cursed energy—his arms twisted unnaturally, bones snapping as he screamed.
The tendrils wrapped around him, dragging him across the floor like a broken doll before hurling him aside.
Aidan barely had time to process their fates.
The third tendril lashed toward him, but at the last moment, Ava who came out of nowhere shoved him aside.
Instead of his heart, the tendril stuck his shoulder.
"Stop, you insects!" the monster roared.
His breath hitched—a sharp, wet cough escaping his lips. He staggered, eyes wide in disbelief, as pain bloomed deep inside him.
Blood seeped into his uniform, dripping onto the cold floor beneath him.
For the first time, Aidan, the arrogant noble, the so-called prodigy—looked weak.
He fell to one knee.
Ava's hands trembled as she pressed against Aidan's wound, his blood soaking through her fingers.
"Why did you save, cough, cough!"
"Don't talk."
His body screamed at him to move, to fight back, but the mana poisoning from the attack was already spreading through his veins like fire.
The monster sneered, stepping closer. His aura was suffocating now, thick with malice as his mana released poisonous gas.
Aidan lifted his head, his once-defiant eyes flickering with something foreign.
Fear.
The surrounding professors and students tried to conjure protective spells, but the erratic energy in the air disrupted their focus.
"You won't be able to defend yourselves with defensive spells at your current levels. Run!" Professor Schafer commanded.
"What about those two?" Alaric motioned to Ava and Aidan.
"We'll handle them, go now!" Seeing that all the students was finally able to escape, the Headmistress issued her last command to the remaining students who were fighting with them earlier.
The three Archons along with their subordinates scrambled to the back door to obey, but for some, it was already too late.
Those who attempted to defend themselves fell victim to the poisonous air, choking and suffocating as it enveloped them.
Professor Fuchs raised his staff, chanting an incantation that formed shimmering glyphs in the air, attempting to stabilize the rogue wind.
But the poisonous wind was too strong. The monster's rogue expression is sickening with rage flickering else.
The moment passed, and his mana surged once more, spiraling further out of control.
"Enough!"
Ava's presence alone was strong with her crackling mana. Her voice resonated with power, an undercurrent of rage laced in her words.
Professor Fuchs and Professor Schafer didn't wait for permission.
In perfect synchronization, they unleashed their combined art—one sealing spell, one disruption technique—collapsing around the monster like a vice.
"Tyhponis Oculus!"
"Celer Harinae!"
The unstable mana crackled violently, resisting the containment.
And then comes the attack.
Ava raised her staff high, chanting an incantation so ancient that the very air seemed to bend to her will.
"Ventus Furoris, Eripio Mundi—"
"How?" The Headmistress gasped upon hearing the spell that she herself was still unable to master. "That spell, how did—" She cut herself short as she stumbled down along with everyone else due to the poison.
The Professors had their eyes darted on Ava before they fell unconscious. Some noticed the shocked expression of the Headmistress before closing their eyes.
A surge of golden energy erupted, wrapping around Ava in a binding light before it settled.
By the time she opened her eyes.
"—Tempestus Exilium!"
A violent windstorm forms around the monster, whipping the air into a frenzy.
The storm grows more chaotic as Ava was trying to contain it in its spot.
Seeing the spell, Aidan, despite his injuries, chanted another spell to merge with Ava's art before collapsing unconscious.
The tempest swirled with flame.
Her head formed large beads of sweat as her vision blurred but she faught back the urge to faint from the sudden axhaustion caused by mana drain.
Seeing that the spell was losing control, the Headmistress tried intervene by conjuring a swirling vortex of wind, trapping Ava's spell within.
"Venti caelorum, claudite hoc malum,
Ligate vim eius in spiralis—"
But before she could finish the spell, she was unable to fight the urge to pass out.
Ava's body trembled, her breaths ragged as she struggled to maintain control over the wild torrent.
The sheer magnitude of the spell she had cast crackled in the air, splitting the marble beneath their feet as it spiraled out of control. Her vision swayed.
She had never pushed herself this far before, but if she let go now, the spell would consume everything and everyone in its path.
That was when he moved. He watching everything in the sideline but seeing that the whole Academy was in jeopardy, he stepped out.
Ava barely registered his presence until she felt it—a second force, calm and unwavering, pressing against hers.
Her chaotic energy stilled, as if responding to an invisible hand far more experienced than her own.
She turned, her fading consciousness catching a glimpse of the boy, standing amidst the chaos, his eyes sharp with focus.
It was Austin.
His hands hovered near hers, yet he did not touch them. He didn't need to.
The unstable wind that had once been hers bent to his will, compressing and settling into something controlled, precise.
The pressure in the room lifted, and for the first time since the nightmare had begun, Ava could breathe.
Then, darkness claimed her.
The spell slowly teared the monster apart and scattering its existence into nothingness.
***
Pain.
It was all he could feel as the flame tempest consumed him. His body—his very existence—was unraveling, torn apart by the spell. Yet, even as his flesh burned away, his rage remained.
"Why?"
Why did they hate him? Why did they mock him, push him down, laugh at his failures? Just because he was weak? Just because he wasn't like them?
"Useless."
"Pathetic."
"A disgrace."
The academy didn't care. The professors barely noticed him. The students treated him like filth. And his family…
He clenched what remained of his fists, his twisted fingers trembling in fury.
They were ashamed of him. When he was expelled, they couldn't even look him in the eye.
His father, always so proud of his lineage, had sighed—just sighed, as if he had expected this failure.
His mother had wept, but she hadn't fought for him.
His siblings? They avoided him.
"What was I supposed to do? Just accept it?"
The fire ate through his chest, and the rage flickered.
He had just wanted to be strong too. He had just wanted to prove them wrong—to show them he could be someone, that he wasn't worthless.
But now…
Now it was too late.
The heat didn't hurt anymore. The anger was fading, replaced by something colder, emptier. A hollowness in his chest.
And in that silence, memories surfaced.
Laughter at the dinner table.
His mother humming as she cooked.
His father's rare, gentle smile.
His siblings teasing him, nudging him, running through the fields behind their home.
The peaceful days when none of it mattered.
He let out a soft, choked laugh, barely a breath. His body was nearly gone now, turning to dust in the wind.
"I miss you guys."
A single tear slipped down his burning cheek before he was obliterated.
***
The fire tempest eventually dissipates, leaving only silence in the grand hall.
A sole student stood in the center. Austin.
A squad of armored figures suddenly stormed inside. Their polished uniforms gleamed under the flickering torchlight, each insignia marking them as members of the Academy Enforcement Division (AED). Their staves crackled with contained energy, ready to subdue any remaining threats.
But there was nothing left to fight.
One of the AED officers stepped forward, scanning the carnage with a hardened gaze before speaking to Austin.
"We came as soon as we received the distress signal…" His voice trailed off as he took in the destruction, his grip tightening around his weapon. "What the hell happened here?"
Austin was gone.