Chapter 26
The final day of the midterms.
As the week-long exam, where each coin could bring tears of joy or sorrow, drew to a close, the fate of each group had become clear.
Those who were confident in their outstanding performance celebrated, while those who barely scraped by with a handful of coins consoled themselves, grateful that they had managed to survive.
The worst off were the groups that had been disbanded.
They were left in a state of despair, as if the sun itself would shatter tomorrow. Some still couldn’t believe their group had dissolved and would habitually wander near their former training rooms.
On the other hand, some had quickly accepted reality and were already working behind the scenes, trying to secure spots in the “recruitment market” to save their future.
Whether they were clinging to the past or moving shrewdly to secure their future, all of them shared a gloomy shadow over their faces.
It was a mix of hot and cold, heaven and hell, celebration and mourning.
One side was laughing, the other crying—a scene that perfectly encapsulated the current atmosphere of the academy.
So, what about me? How do I feel?
Honestly, indifferent.
That’s it. Really.
Why? Because this is a festival for kids.
The ones laughing and crying right now are the kids. They’re the ones feeling like they’ve won the world, and they’re the ones feeling like they’ve lost everything.
Only children can express their emotions so openly over something like a midterm exam.
Ilhee ilbi (one moment of joy, one moment of sorrow).
This is a privilege and charm that belongs to those who still have their innocence.
In life, you’ll face all sorts of challenges.
Is this midterm one of those challenges? It might be so insignificant that it’s embarrassing to even call it a challenge. When you look at life as a long journey, this moment will seem as trivial as a single star in the vast Milky Way.
I can guarantee this, having been a jaded adult.
Now, would it be embarrassing—no, pathetic—if someone who was once an adult got all worked up and excited in the middle of that crowd?
In reality, my involvement was only at the very beginning.
I disbanded a few groups and then left the rest to Merry and Jun-woo. Thanks to that, my young friends gained valuable experience in real combat.
It’s rare to encounter such a variety of magic, weapons, and combat styles in such a short time. They’ve had an experience that money couldn’t buy.
All I did during this process was clap my hands.
Watching my young friends grow, I sincerely applauded their shining talents.
This is what an adult’s role is. A good adult should naturally do this.
“But.”
My eyes narrowed to slits.
What I saw within those slitted eyes was a duel.
Another one of those duels I’ve seen countless times over the past few days involving Merry and Jun-woo.
It was a 5-on-2 fight.
The only unusual thing was that my young friends were losing.
Thud—
Merry’s mace was blocked by her opponent’s shield. At the same time, the opponent’s charge pushed Merry back. Another charge came as she lost her balance.
Two men, each a head taller than Merry, pressed their shoulders into her. With their sheer weight and size, they were driving her into a defensive position.
She tried to cast spells at a frightening speed.
Clang!
But they were blocked.
A strange magical array emerged from the enemy’s armor and effortlessly blocked her attacks.
Merry was faltering.
Normally, she wouldn’t be pushed this far, and even if she were, Jun-woo would step in to support her.
That’s how I taught them.
But Jun-woo was in an even more critical situation.
One opponent was as fast as Jun-woo, an assassin matching his speed. Another was a swordsman who could rival Jun-woo’s swordsmanship. And to top it off, a space mage was helping to suppress Jun-woo’s inherited power, the Dancer’s ability.
The enemy had come prepared with countermeasures against Jun-woo’s three deadliest weapons.
Their goal was clear: to sever Jun-woo’s limbs.
And this was the crucial point.
Their aim was not to win but to endure, to block, to ultimately wear him down.
If they had fought at full strength, there might have been room for a counterattack. But by deliberately choosing to annoy him, Jun-woo, who was still inexperienced in such dirty brawls, didn’t know how to respond.
“Hmm.”
I’m pleased. Really pleased.
Just look at how much they’ve stirred things up.
If a way to counter them didn’t show up by now, then it should have. This is, after all, an academy filled with the country’s most promising talents.
The protective gear covered in anti-magic.
The strategy to blunt Jun-woo’s blade.
It’s all good.
“But.”
As I mentioned earlier.
This is a fight between children, isn’t it?
They fight, win, lose, cheer, and despair.
Young buds will grow strong, nourished by all these experiences.
We adults should be cheering them on from a step behind. A good adult should, anyway.
So why?
“Why? Why is an adult getting involved in a kids’ fight?”
My gaze shifted to the enemy’s side.
‘What the hell, this is incredible!’
‘It’s not just in my head! This is real!!’
Whether it was double-casting by completing one spell with one hand while attempting another with the other, or cutting off the opponent’s attack at the perfect moment.
Skills they’d never even dreamed of were now at their fingertips.
They couldn’t believe it.
It felt like they could do anything, and it turned out they really could.
It was all thanks to that miracle potion called “Cocktail.”
The potion that made the impossible possible.
At first, they were skeptical when their leader, Choi Mi-jung, brought the potion to them.
Buffs and doping are fundamentally different, so they hesitated, fearing they might be penalized.
But Choi Mi-jung’s next words were enough to ease their worries.
“My dad got this. You know my dad is the vice president of the Association, right?”
Looking at it rationally, her logic was full of holes.
The Association.
To be precise, the “Korean Association of Superhumans” is indeed a high-ranking organization that advocates for the rights of Korean superhumans.
But could it really compare to the academy, which had Yggdrasil backing it? Absolutely not.
In fact, the academy is superior.
But how could mere first-years understand this?
Blood, connections, school ties—the most powerful of all is blood ties.
And this was the classic case of using “Dad’s connections.” Who would believe that her father would give her something dangerous? This vague trust led them all to take the potion.
And the results were clear.
“Urgh.”
“Ugh!”
Though they were already talented, Merehem, who had no equal after learning sorcery, and Han Jun-woo, who even their group leader couldn’t match in a one-on-one, were now on the ground!
They were defeated!
Though it was a 5-on-2, what does it matter?
The result! What matters is that they won!
‘At this rate.’
‘Even that monster called the Calamity.’
‘We could win!’
Their confidence soared to the heavens.
In reality, it was just the side effects of the “Cocktail” slowly numbing their minds, but in their excited state, the members of Group 16 couldn’t possibly know that.
They were in a state where they couldn’t see reason.
In such a state, they committed acts they wouldn’t have dared to think of otherwise.
They turned to the fallen opponent and, in a moment of madness, fired a high-level fire spell—Flame Burst—straight at them.
“Ha ha ha! Die!!”
“…!”
“Stop it—!!”
Who would’ve thought they’d strike a downed opponent with an explosive spell? By the time their teammate tried to stop them, the spell had already been cast.
Caught off guard, Merehem made a fatal mistake.
She instinctively closed her eyes.
‘No!’
She quickly opened her eyes and tried to cast a defensive spell, but it was too late.
The heat was already searing her skin, and her vision was filled with flames.
At that critical moment.
Even she couldn’t survive a direct hit from Flame Burst while in a defenseless state.
But at that moment, Merehem’s thoughts weren’t about the danger.
‘I’m going to get scolded.’
How much would she be nagged for this? Just thinking about the grim future made cold sweat break out.
And Merehem was right.
“I told you not to let your guard down.”
In the blink of an eye, Park Ki-hyuk appeared and blocked the attack in front of her.
Flame Burst exploded, sending flames in all directions.
Boom!
Rumble—!
The ground was scorched black.
The air was thick with acrid smoke.
The flames were so intense that they would have devoured anything in their path, whether living or inanimate.
But.
Despite the flames continuing to burn, no one here thought that Park Ki-hyuk had been defeated.
Because their opponent was a Calamity.
“I’ll lecture you later.”
With a quick flick, Merry was thrown out of the flames.
Through the roaring inferno, Park Ki-hyuk’s eyes narrowed into crescents.
“Kids, we still have some things to talk about, don’t we?”
Suddenly, darkness descended around Park Ki-hyuk.
The flames were swallowed.
The space vanished.
As if it had never existed, the darkness.
The darkness consumed everything.
“Shall we have a chat?”
There’s a saying passed down at the academy.
Yggdrasil’s eyes are everywhere within the academy.
It’s an old saying that has been whispered among students for ages.
Most assume it’s just a phrase that reflects Yggdrasil’s value within the academy, but in the present day, no one really pays attention to it.
However.
To be clear, this saying is 100 percent true.
If Yggdrasil wanted, she could know everything that happened within the academy.
Just like right now.
“Hmm…”
A video hovered over the tranquil lakeside.
It was of Park Ki-hyuk and his duel with all the members of Group 16.
“Block him! If we block him the way we practiced, we’ll be fine!”
“Everyone used their artifacts, right? Hang in there! We’ve got the upper hand. In the end, we’ll be the ones who win.”
“Light to all. ‘Bless’!”
“Miss Mi-jung, you’ve really prepared well.”
They were covered head to toe in artifacts with holy attributes, prepared to counter Park Ki-hyuk’s extreme darkness attribute.
According to common sense, darkness’s weakness is light. They must have believed that with the upper hand in attributes, if they calmly approached the situation, they could overcome the calamity known as Park Ki-hyuk.
As mentioned earlier, this is the typical understanding.
The usual elemental relationships.
Fire is doused by water, water is absorbed by the earth. The earth is eroded by wind, and wind, rather than extinguishing fire, often fuels it.
In this elemental dynamic, light is said to illuminate the dark. It’s considered the ultimate counter.
But if you asked Yggdrasil about the relationship between these elements.
Her answer would be.
“Where do such things exist?”
She wouldn’t deny that some elements are advantageous or disadvantageous. After all, that’s the natural order.
But what we’re discussing here is magic.
Magic is a force derived from nature, but it isn’t nature itself.
In fact, it’s more like a miracle.
A miracle that makes the impossible possible. Isn’t it strange to impose the constraints of elemental relationships on such a miracle?
If you can conjure fire out of thin air, what’s stopping you from creating fire that water can’t extinguish?
For Yggdrasil, the most important aspect of magic is proficiency.
“Does fire always go out in water? What about lava? Does water always get absorbed by the earth? What about the ocean?”
Like a mountain standing firm against any wind, or a typhoon swallowing everything in its path.
A complete attribute is one that is complete in itself.
Darkness is no exception.
“Complete darkness hides everything.”
Even if that includes the sun that lights the world.
As the spells rained down, I whistled.
“Your preparation is commendable, but…”
The kids were wrapped in rare white magic artifacts.
Even from here, the unpleasant scent of holiness reached me, carried on the mana fluctuations.
Thanks to that, they were barely managing to withstand the skeletons I had summoned.
Tsk, I still have a long way to go. To think I could be stopped by such trivial means. If I gain anything from today, it’s the realization of this fact.
Yes, that’s all this is.
This is the only significance this duel holds for me.
“Hmm, I’m starting to get bored.”
They attack, and I block.
I advance, and they retreat.
I understand that their plan is to wear me down, but they’re maintaining their distance so blatantly that it’s not just boring—it’s downright tedious.
It’s time to end this tiresome standoff.
“I’m getting hungry. What should I have for dinner?”
Just as I was pondering the dinner menu and snapped my fingers.
A magic circle appeared in front of me.
Immediately, light began to ripple.
A complex array of shapes and letters formed within the circle.
From the basics of the spell to its full manifestation, everything was complete within the circle.
And if I added the yet-unfinished “fragment of the Demon King.”
The Hexagram glowed.
Begin.
Snap!
As soon as I snapped my fingers again.
The spells that touched the magic circle vanished.
The spells vanished.
The flames were swallowed by the magic circle, and the wind dissipated.
Water was absorbed into the circle as a liquid, and the thorns rising from the ground crumbled into sand and were absorbed by the circle.
Even the light spear, which had managed to hold its form the longest, lost its brilliance the moment it was touched by the tendrils of darkness emerging from the circle, turning into darkness and being sucked into the magic circle.
Ah—!
A gasp of despair echoed around me.
“This can’t be happening…”
Why can’t it?
Black is a color that encompasses all others.
There’s no attribute that complete darkness cannot contain.
But what’s an obvious truth to me seems to be a tremendous shock to them.
The professors looked as though they had discovered a new continent, and the spectators seemed so tense that they could barely breathe, as if they were the ones facing me.
But the most pitiful sight was, without a doubt, the kids in front of me. The ones whose drug-induced high was slowly wearing off.
As the excitement faded, the kids seemed to be realizing the situation, their faces growing pale.
Their bodies, now free from the adrenaline, began to show signs of fatigue, their movements slowing noticeably.
“Tsk, must’ve been a cheap ‘stimulant.’”
Its official name in the Empire was the “Mana Hole Stimulant.”
As the name suggests, it’s a drug that stimulates the mana hole, dramatically increasing mana activity. It was once praised as the “Elixir of Truth” because it allowed one to briefly glimpse a higher level of existence.
However, the drug mysteriously disappeared after it was revealed that it caused permanent damage to the mana hole.
It’s absurd, really.
Of course, it would have side effects.
Leaping to a higher level isn’t child’s play.
That old man once told me.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Nothing comes naturally.”
Every phenomenon has a cause. Behind everything you take for granted lies an intricate web of causes and effects.
It could be knowledge, or it could be grueling effort.
“So shut up and get back to the lab.”
I chuckled, reminiscing about those times, before steeling my expression again.
“Pathetic little brats, resorting to tricks already.”
No doubt someone had egged them on.
Someone who doesn’t like me, for instance.
As I scanned the professors, a few of them averted their gaze. Especially that Professor Hwang-whatever, who I had put in his place once before, was glaring at me as if he wanted to kill me.
Interesting.
“Looks like a warning is in order.”
Snap!
Magic circles appeared.
This time, they were much larger, filling the sky.
Hundreds of magic circles merged into one, forming a massive array.
The magic circle, like the eye of a god, gazed down upon the world.
The magic I was about to unleash was the same one that, alongside the Army of the Dead Skeletons, had led me to the throne of the Demon King.
The magic that had once terrified the world, known as the most perfect darkness.
The spell that turned everything to nothing, known as ‘Destruction.’
My punishment as the Demon King.
Apocalypse
Apokalypsis
The world shattered.
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