Chapter 1425
“Noxietas!”
As black magic manifested from the fingertips of countless boys and girls, the world began to stir.
Like grace pouring down from the heavens, the curse spread throughout the Eternal Homeland gathered into the students’ magic circles.
Ssssss—!
The color and shape of the magic circles, which had absorbed the world-spanning curse, began to change. The students turned the direction of their circles toward the army of the immortals.
“Now!”
At Maelyn’s cry, countless curses burst forth like stems from the center of the circle.
<Noxietas Link – Anima Vinclis>
Like a natural disaster, the gray curses covering the battlefield poured onto the immortal soldiers. On their bodies, Darkness rippled as if shadows were surging upward in reverse.
This showed that the curse had properly taken hold.
“Begin follow-up attacks!”
At Maelyn’s next order, the students busily moved.
Students of Darkness Dynamics, adept in long-range attacks and bombardments, especially the necromancers of the elemental branch, were the first to step forward.
<Dark Flare>
<Dark Prominence>
Black flames fired from their fingertips, and students of Toxicology threw potion bottles into them.
As the potion bottles burst within the flames, the black fire burned even fiercer, like oil catching alight, and fell in arcs upon the densely packed formations of the undying army.
Kukung!
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-boom—!
The undying soldiers were caught in the chain of explosions.
With overwhelming might, the soldiers in the center were instantly “dissolved”, and those outside the blast radius who had only suffered burns tried to “restore”, but the fire clung and would not be extinguished, leading to further dissolution.
The students watching had their eyes light up.
“It works!”
Chak! Chuk!
Even the undying soldiers, unprepared for such firepower, shifted their movements. Lowering their bows, they raised spears and shields, and charged toward the students with terrifying speed.
[Good, good! This is getting more and more fun!]
Clashing his fists together, Gleck Crow roared thunderously.
[Magical Combat Department, let’s go!]
“Uoooohhh!”
The Magical Combat Department students at the vanguard broke off from the main formation and charged toward the enemy lines.
The distance between the two forces closed rapidly, and just as the vanguards were about to collide—
<Glacier Bind>
Maelyn’s ultra-wide-range black magic, which she had been preparing, manifested. A chill swept through the enemy ranks, freezing the feet of the front-line immortal soldiers. Those following behind collided with their frozen comrades, throwing the formation into disarray.
Not missing this chance, the Magical Combat students stepped on the Darkness and leapt into the air.
Bwoong!
Bwoooong!
They soared over the heads of the heavily armed front-line soldiers and prepared to drop into the ranks of the lightly armed ones.
<Darkness Internal Division>
All of them activated Division right from the start.
<Chwita>
<Thousand Baleful Vital Energy>
Booooom!
Bwoooshhhh!
They plunged inside and began tearing through the enemy ranks with abandon.
“You all know, right?”
Ligang Chopra of the Magical Combat Department shouted.
“How we’re supposed to fight!”
“Of course!”
Chaos erupted, the Magical Combat students fighting in their own unique ways. Some made enemy bodies explode from the inside, some severed necks, some used small tools like needles, while transformation-type students like Gleck Crow literally tore enemies to shreds.
Separating essential body parts like head and torso and leaving them be meant even the immortal soldiers could not recover and were forced into dissolution.
“Let’s go!”
Students from other departments joined the fierce assault.
Toxicology students poured masses of toxins, melting the undying soldiers to the bone, while Hematology students exploited enemy bleeding to corrupt their blood.
For the past week, all the students had been studying death.
Having fully learned how to pierce through recovery and bring about dismantling against undying foes, they fought far more effectively.
<Shatel Original – Domain Reversal>
Though the battle was in a new world, it was still the Top 10 students who shone brightest. Shatel raised vast amounts of soil, burying soldiers alive.
<Maelyn Original – Glacia>
Maelyn crushed foes into nothing but remains with massive volumes of ice.
<Kamibarez Remake – Call Tempest>
Kamibarez leapt into the heart of the enemy lines, raising a vortex of blood centered on herself. As soldiers were drawn into the vortex, students who had coordinated beforehand overlaid curses onto it.
When Kamibarez canceled the black magic, all the undying soldiers caught in the vortex were hurled away and crashed into the ground. Under the curse’s gravitational effect, their bodies shattered, forced into dissolution.
“Let’s go too!”
“Bring everything out here!”
Meanwhile, Summonology Department students, having broken away from the main force, carried out a raid deep into enemy rear lines and summoned hordes of undead.
In the blink of an eye, a group of just a few dozen swelled into hundreds, smashing into the enemy’s rear and drawing their attention.
Thus, in less than an hour from the battle’s start, nearly half of the entire immortal army was rapidly neutralized.
This was undeniably a remarkable achievement. However—
“Huff! Huff!”
“My, my insides feel like they’re going to spill out!”
The biggest drawback of this operation was the excessive consumption of stamina and Darkness.
To dismantle an immortal soldier, one had to end it in a single blow with overwhelming power or mass. As a result, massive reserves were inevitably overexerted in a short span of time.
“Damn it!”
Running Metamorphosis alongside Darkness Internal Intensification, Gleck Crow’s werewolf transformation was half undone as he panted, tearing the head off an undying soldier and flinging it away.
He was about to attack the next enemy, but realizing that the soldier’s “curse” had worn off, he quickly switched to defense, blocking an incoming spear thrust.
“Katarology Department, what are you doing! Isn’t Noxietas working properly?”
“These guys don’t have the resurrection delay effect!”
At first, everyone had used Noxietas together before charging, but now only the Katarology Department students were handling Noxietas, so the curses weren’t evenly applied across all soldiers.
Above all, since the proficiency and Darkness input for Noxietas differed between students, the times at which curses wore off varied, throwing their calculations off.
If not for the state of ‘Anima Vinclis’ through Noxietas, dismantling the undying soldiers was practically meaningless, so the guideline for this battle was to capture them while under curse as much as possible.
“Sorry! We’ve reached our limit too!”
Jaime, the class rep leading the Katarology Department, cried out while gasping for breath.
“Those with some reserves, cast a bit of curses each to help out!”
“We’re already at our limit fighting inside, how can we even cast curses on top of that… urgh!”
A male student was struck by an arrow marked with a talisman and fell. Other students rushed in, quickly supporting him and dragging him out of the battlefield.
The number of wounded began to surge.
Maelyn, who had been raining down powerful ‘Elemental Busters’ from the sky, shouted.
“Don’t relax your guard! Just hold on a little longer!”
Shhhhhh!
Almost immediately, another student was slashed by a sword and injured. Seeing this, Maelyn descended from the sky herself, raising a wall of ice to block the advance of the undying army.
“Summonology Department, buy us some time! Get the wounded out first!”
She shouted as her student council president’s coat flared in the wind.
“And even if it isn’t in the Anima Vinclis state, reducing the enemy’s numbers right now is the priority! Don’t stop attacking!”
With dropouts appearing, their numbers became insufficient. Students from departments other than Summonology also began bringing out their own undead—zombies, skeletons, and the like—to hold the line.
“Just a little more!”
“We’re winning this!”
Still, Keyzen’s third years were third years. Each and every one of them fought to the very limits of their endurance.
And there were those who shone in the moment of crisis. Particularly, the giant half-blood Shatel Maer, who kept altering the terrain to bury enemies alive, and Professor Abo, who fended off foes with his blue blood magic while sending homunculi to rescue every single wounded student without fail.
Just when they thought the enemy’s numbers had nearly dwindled—
Tuduk, tuk.
The air shattered once again like puzzle pieces, and from within the cracks resounded a voice like the abyss.
Ah-ah, ahhhh-ahhh-ahhhh—!
The voice of Jin Hyun, the Savior of Corruption.
At that aria, like a song from hell, the situation changed drastically.
Crunch!
Crack!
The undying soldiers began to twist grotesquely.
Even those who had met dismantling conditions—chests pierced with massive holes, heads sent flying far away—suddenly refused to dismantle, instead jerking upright.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
“What the hell is this?!”
Bodies rising without heads. Skin peeled away, bones dangling loose, muscles alone moving the husks forward.
Whether able to move or not, nearly all the undying soldiers turned almost zombie-like, and charged.
“Everyone, fall back!”
They moved even without connected body parts. Severed arms wielded weapons and swung them. Maelyn’s expression twisted in disgust.
‘This is too much!’
Though their opponents were stripped of reason, they were still people, and the students tried their best to send them off without pain. But the Savior of Corruption was committing acts one should never inflict upon their own people.
“Maelyn! Behind you!”
Thwack!
At a classmate’s cry, Maelyn turned and sent a massive glacier to pierce through a soldier’s body. But even with the torso blasted apart, the soldier raised his weapon and swung his spear straight at Maelyn’s face.
She hurriedly pulled back, but the spear tip still flew toward her eye.
‘I can’t dodge this…!’
At that moment—
Flash!
Something streaked past, dyeing the surroundings in violet light.
It left behind the afterimage of a straight crack drawn across the air, and the spear tip aimed at her split in half and flew away.
Thud.
Maelyn fell onto her backside, trembling, her eyes wide as she stared at the soldier. The torso-blasted soldier looked at his broken spear, threw it aside, and staggered toward her—but a following violet flash erased his head completely.
“No way…!”
Maelyn turned her head.
Gooooooohhh!
In the far rear, she saw the figure of a man still sitting.
He was holding a large frame.
At the sight of his magnificent figure, reminiscent of Feon, Maelyn’s heart thumped loudly, but she quickly regained herself and shouted.
“W-wait! You’re not supposed to step in… huh?”
But she realized Simon had not moved a single step from the rear, as per the original directive.
Maelyn’s pupils shook.
‘From that distance, how could he…!’
Around him, frames were spread out, and countless staffs protruded from them.
[Fuuuuu.]
The Lich’s Bone Armor clicked into place around Simon’s body, and Darkness rippled over it, reshaping into garments.
It was a classic formal suit, the kind that looked timeless even among the Dark Alliance. Taking a long breath, he raised a staff and manifested a new black magic.
“Let’s go, everyone.”
<The Gentleman’s Accord – Gentleman’s Pact>
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters