Chapter 32 – 32: Bloody Banquet (6)

The night wind howled against the empty hillside.

The old tree at the crest of the hill creaked under the pressure, its half-broken branches clawing at the sky like brittle fingers.

Caldus slumped heavily against the trunk, his chest heaving.

Every breath burned.

His robes were torn, stained dark with blood and ash.

His right arm trembled violently, and his legs barely supported his own weight.

He coughed wetly, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his ruined cloak.

Blood.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’

The lights of Valor Academy flickered in the distance, distant and blurred through the tears burning his eyes.

He could still hear faint explosions.

Still hear faint screams.

The city behind the academy was quiet, peaceful compared to the battlefield he’d left behind.

It made him sick.

‘The bombs were planted perfectly.’

‘We even dealt with the nosy little student that got curious. Silently. Efficiently.’

He laughed—a broken, cracked sound that died quickly in the night air.

His wand, the once-prized artifact of his early achievements, lay snapped and useless beside him.

The mana-boosting drug that once made him a match for Director Aldros now only left him a trembling wreck—drained, half-dead.

He pressed his back harder against the rough bark.

The cold seeped into his bones.

‘The plan was solid.’

‘The Academy was supposed to fall tonight.’

‘And yet… everything collapsed.’

He clenched his teeth, rage flickering low in his battered body.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

He was supposed to bring them to their knees.

Not sit here like a wounded dog, hiding in the dark, waiting for the end.

A branch snapped lightly above him as the wind shifted again.

Caldus closed his eyes, breathing shallow, the ache in his chest growing sharper.

Just a little longer.

He had called for extraction.

Soon, the red-haired runner would arrive.

Soon, he could salvage something from this nightmare.

Footsteps crunched softly against the grass.

Caldus’ eyes snapped open.

He forced his battered body upright, biting back a groan as fresh pain lanced through his ribs.

Through the darkness, a figure approached.

Slim, hunched slightly from exhaustion.

A mess of red hair tangled over his forehead.

Caldus exhaled a shaky breath of relief, the pressure in his chest loosening slightly.

‘Finally.’

The runner had survived.

Some part of the operation, at least, hadn’t been a total disaster.

The redhead slowed as he approached the dying tree, stopping a few meters away.

Caldus rasped out the words between cracked lips.

“What happened?”

The redhead shrugged awkwardly, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“A variable showed up,” he muttered, voice strained and scratchy from smoke and magic exhaustion. “But everything’s still under control.”

Caldus narrowed his eyes slightly, searching the boy’s face.

There was something… off.

Something stiff.

Forced.

But exhaustion dulled his instincts.

He didn’t question it.

Just nodded slowly, the last scraps of adrenaline keeping him upright.

‘They salvaged the plan.’

‘Good.’

Caldus’ fingers fumbled inside his shredded cloak.

He pulled out a small, black, worn remote device, the surface cracked but still functional.

He stared at it for a long second.

The key to erasing the last traces of failure.

The last bombs.

The final blow.

“This ends now,” he rasped, raising the remote with a trembling hand.

The redhead didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Caldus pressed the trigger—

Caldus’s bloodied finger pressed down on the trigger.

For a fraction of a second, the world held its breath.

Noel watched it all unfold through a sharpened, cold lens.

‘Here it is.’

‘I knew it. I knew it was weird the bomb didn’t have a timer.’

‘It wasn’t set to blow on its own. It needed manual detonation.’

A click echoed faintly from the device.

But nothing exploded.

Because even before the trigger could fully engage—

Noel moved.

Revenant Fang’s trait surged through his body.

Clarity.

Time slowed.

The world around him blurred at the edges, colors stretching thin like paint dragged across a canvas.

Caldus’s movements looked sluggish, desperate.

Noel didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t think.

He stepped in smoothly, Revenant Fang flashing through the air with lethal precision.

One clean, brutal slice.

Steel bit through flesh.

“AAAAARRGHHHHH!”

Caldus’s scream tore through the night like a wounded animal, high and broken.

His severed hand flipped through the air—the remote still clutched in the limp fingers.

Blood sprayed in slow arcs, each drop hanging in the air like crimson stars.

Noel lunged.

Caught the severed hand mid-air.

Ripped the remote from its grip.

Clicked the switch firmly to OFF.

The unstable mana signature inside the bomb he had carried sputtered weakly—and died.

Noel exhaled once, sharp and controlled.

The illusion over his body shimmered.

Mana unraveled and dispersed with a faint hum.

The image of the red-haired student dissolved—

And standing there, soaked, bloodstained, Revenant Fang dripping at his side—

Was Noel Thorne.

Caldus collapsed against the tree trunk, clutching his bleeding stump, gasping and moaning between broken sobs.

The night wind howled again, carrying the faint smell of blood and burning wood across the hillside.

‘Now for the real conversation.’

Noel tightened his grip on Revenant Fang and walked forward.

Noel stopped in front of Caldus, Revenant Fang gleaming dark with blood.

The older man lay slumped against the broken tree, clutching his bleeding wrist, trembling from shock and pain.

Noel said nothing at first.

He just crouched down slowly until he was eye-level with him.

Staring.

Waiting.

Caldus glared at him through bloodshot, pain-clouded eyes, hatred burning so fierce it almost looked pathetic.

“You’re gonna talk,” Noel said casually, voice low and sharp.

Caldus spat blood onto the ground.

Noel’s lips twisted into a humorless grin.

“Yeah. I figured you’d be stubborn.”

Without ceremony, he drove Revenant Fang straight into Caldus’s thigh.

Deep.

The blade pierced through muscle and tendons with a sickening, wet crunch.

Caldus let out a broken scream, his body jerking violently.

“Arghhh–!!!!!!!!”

Noel didn’t flinch.

Didn’t even blink.

He leaned forward slightly, pressing his weight down onto the hilt, grinding the sword through the wound.

“Let’s cut the bullshit,” Noel said, voice dropping to a growl.

“You’re gonna answer my fucking questions, or I’ll start digging around until there’s nothing left of your goddamn leg.”

Caldus gasped, trying to push him away weakly.

Noel shoved him harder against the tree.

“First question,” Noel said coldly. “What’s the real fucking goal? Why all this?”

Caldus coughed, trying to keep some shred of dignity, but Noel twisted the sword slightly, making him howl again.

Finally, through gritted teeth:

“Chaos,” he rasped. “Fear. Weaken the academy… shatter its power.”

Noel’s eyes narrowed.

‘Same as the novel.’

Still, he didn’t pull the sword out.

“Who’s pulling the strings, huh?” Noel pressed. “Who’s the little shit behind the curtain?”

Caldus shook his head, breathing raggedly.

Noel twisted the blade again—slowly—until Caldus nearly blacked out from the pain.

“F-fuck…” Caldus stammered. “It’s… not just me… Higher orders… from the ‘hands’…”

“‘Hands’?” Noel snapped. “You’re saying you’re just another fucking pawn?”

Caldus nodded weakly, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.

“Plan Sanguine… contingency… if the first wave failed…” he gasped. “Wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

Noel leaned back slightly, breathing out a sharp sigh.

‘Great.’

‘So it’s already different.’

In the novel, there was no “Plan Sanguine.”

No massive second attack.

It had been one clean strike—the Bloody Banquet—and that was it.

But now?

Now there were layers.

Contingencies.

Unknowns.

That worried Noel more than he cared to admit.

Way more.

‘Shit’s already spiraling outside the script.’

And he hated it.

“Alright there is nothing more I need to know”

He pulled Revenant Fang out with a violent jerk, blood splashing onto the broken grass.

Caldus slumped forward, whimpering in a half-conscious daze.

Noel stood.

Cold.

Noel stared down at Caldus, the dying man slumped against the scorched tree, gasping like a fish on dry land.

Pathetic.

Broken.

Exactly what he deserved.

Without a word, Noel reached into his jacket and pulled out the dead weight he had carried all this way—

The bomb.

Still inert.

Still packed with enough volatile mana to reduce half the hillside to ashes.

He tossed it casually into Caldus’s lap.

“Here. Hold this,” Noel said, his voice almost conversational.

Caldus blinked, confused, bleary from blood loss—

Then he saw it.

Recognition dawned in his shattered face.

“No—wait—!” he gasped, struggling weakly to push it away.

Noel just smiled grimly.

Too late.

He took a few slow steps back.

One hand raised.

Mana gathered at his fingertips, burning hot and focused.

Simple.

Brutal.

He whispered it under his breath.

“Fireball.”

A searing orb of molten flame flared into existence in his palm.

He hurled it without hesitation.

The Fireball struck the bomb squarely.

For a heartbeat, everything was frozen.

Then—

BOOM.

A deafening explosion ripped across the hillside, painting the sky in violent orange and black.

The tree evaporated instantly.

The ground trembled under the force of the blast.

Flames swallowed everything—Caldus, the bomb, the very ground they had touched.

Gone.

Obliterated.

Ash and smoke rolled upward, carried by the screaming wind.

Noel stood there, Revenant Fang resting casually against his shoulder, watching the fire consume the broken hillside.

No triumph.

No anger.

Just cold justice.

“Serves you right, you son of a bitch,” Noel muttered.

Without another glance, he turned away, vanishing into the darkness, leaving nothing but smoke and silence behind him.

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