Chapter 40: The Entrance Exam (VII)

Blood sprayed into the sky, painting a thin arc before falling like red rain.

The bodies dropped right after.

Then, silence.

A deep, empty silence.

Only the faint hum of fading mana was left in the air… and the soft creaking sound of Gray’s threads pulling back, twitching like spiders returning to their nest.

He stood still, arms open just slightly, like he was soaking it all in.

His breathing was calm again, his eyes were half-lidded, like this wasn’t even worth feeling anything over.

“…Waste of mana,” he muttered under his breath.

His threads slowly slithered back into his gloves, dissolving into faint glimmers before vanishing completely.

Lyra, floating a few meters behind, didn’t move.

Her hands trembled faintly, her spears hovering around her like guards who didn’t know what to protect her from anymore.

Her lips were parted slightly, and she hadn’t blinked for a while.

Not once.

Gray finally stopped in front of the fallen heads. He looked down at them… not with anger, or regret, or even triumph.

Just tired indifference.

He squatted and then started searching their bodies. It took him about two minutes, and honestly, he was dead disappointed.

He stood up and wiped his hand on the ice user’s cloak.

Only then did he turn around to look at Lyra, meeting her eyes.

“…You alright?” he asked, tilting his head with a light, almost teasing expression, like he hadn’t just killed two people in the most brutal way possible.

Lyra gave a small nod, still processing it all.

“…I guess so…”

Her voice was quiet, uncertain.

She wasn’t scared of him, at least, not exactly… but something about how easily he moved… how naturally he ended lives… it stuck with her.

It didn’t feel like it was the first time for him. It felt like he’d done it more times than he could count.

Gray didn’t press, instead, he only raised his arms, stretching casually.

“Mhm… wonder how many people are left now?”

Lyra walked up beside him, glancing around the wasteland that had gone eerily quiet.

“There were thousands of students when this all started. It should still be a lot, no?” she said, more to fill the silence than anything.

Gray hummed in vague agreement.

But both of them knew better.

The killing was fast, and brutal. The weak fell in minutes. Even strong ones were hunted like animals by those more prepared or more ruthless.

[…There are currently 62 students in your zone, including you and Lyra, of course.]

Jasmine’s voice echoed in Gray’s head, amused as always.

He raised an eyebrow.

’Only 62?’

[…61… 60… 59…]

The number dropped rapidly, and Gray’s eyes narrowed.

Someone very powerful and dangerous was acting… and just as he thought about that…

Tssst!

A spike of pressure slammed into Gray’s senses.

“Fuck!”

Crack!

The air behind him shattered like glass as he twisted his body sideways, rolling across the dirt in a blur.

He didn’t even look back, he just grabbed a small rock mid-roll and marked it.

The space where he’d just stood was now warped, cracked like a mirror struck by a hammer.

And then… a familiar, femine and overly arrogant voice reached out to his ears.

“Ahh… it really was you. Gray.”

Gray stood up slowly, brushing dust from his shoulder, and looked ahead with cold eyes.

“…Maelis.”

He said her name like it meant nothing.

Like they hadn’t just kissed barely an hour ago.

Standing across from them, framed by the soft glow of the forest, was Maelis d’Aurélion, and her group, shadowed behind her like hounds at her back.

Dexter stood ’silently’ with his arms crossed, although his eyes were pretty much thirstly, his hands practically trembling with the urge to grab the axes on his waist.

And Leon… he wasn’t even hiding it anymore.

His glare burned with hatred, killing intent leaking off him like steam.

His fingers twitched near his weapon, and the space around him faintly rippled with pressure, like he was moments away from snapping.

But strangely… not one of them spared even a glance at Lyra.

All eyes were on Gray.

[…Phew~ finally face-to-face with your precious stepsister, no disguises, no distance… How does it feel, darling~?]

Jasmine’s voice coiled into his thoughts with a giggle, soaked in amusement.

Gray didn’t even hesitate.

’Terrible.’

His reply was blunt, deadpan.

Across from him, Maelis slowly stepped forward, her boots crunching softly on the broken twigs and leaves beneath her.

“…I’m honestly curious,” Maelis said in a clear mocking tone, “How damaged does someone’s brain have to be to walk into Gloria Academy’s entrance exam… with strength like yours?”

She smiled sweetly, but her eyes were like knives.

“Did losing your spatial affinity melt that little genius brain of yours? Or have you always been this… pathetic?”

Dexter chuckled behind her, low and amused.

“Tch. You should’ve just stayed hidden like a rat, Gray,” he muttered, spinning a thin thread of glowing mana between his fingers.

“Now look at you. Crawling in the dirt.”

Maelis placed a finger gently on her chin, pretending to think.

“Actually… maybe you’re not entirely useless,” she said slowly. “You’d make a lovely stepping stone for someone, wouldn’t you?”

Then her smile widened just a little too much.

“…Maybe fo—”

Fwip!

Before the last syllable left her lips, Gray was already in motion.

He shot forward like a bullet, his rapier slicing through the air in a brutal diagonal arc.

CLANG!

Dexter instantly stepped in front of Maelis, drawing his twin axes to block the strike for her. But… it was the dumbest mistake he had ever made.

Gray’s eyes narrowed coldly.

“…Bow down, weakling.”

His voice was flat.

And suddenly…

VRAAM!

The space around them cracked slighly. Gray instantly tilted his head to the side as a thick arc of void energy came hurling in from Leon.

Then, he slid his rapier off Dexter’s axes, and spun on his heel…

Thud!

A perfect kick to Dexter’s chin from the most weird angle possible, and then, as he noticed the approaching void energy, Gray’s lips parted.

“Swap.”

With a soft blink of distortion, Gray reappeared at the top of a nearby rock outcropping, threads glinting visibly in the air now stretching from his fingertips like fine silver lines dancing across the battlefield.

They glowed faintly, forming a spiderweb of death.

Because the threads were visible, that made Maelis’s group think that that was the reason he had vanished in contrary to when he was disguised.

Maelis narrowed her eyes, then reached out.

“…Mhm, instead of using magic, you are deciding to use those little strings of yours to kill people…?” Maelis hummed slighly.

She touched one of the threads with idle curiosity.

“…Tch.”

Sssshhk!

“Agh…!”

Her hand retracted immediately. A clean cut ran across her fingertip, blood dripping silently to the ground.

She blinked, confused for half a second, then her gaze snapped back to Gray.

Because now… she saw it.

The strings that made her bleed by just touching them, were wrapped tightly around his arms, his chest, his legs, woven almost like some kind of armor.

But in reality, it was simply to make Gray’s movements faster, and stronger.

Baam!

Dexter’s body suddenly slammed into the ground like a sack of stones.

A small crater formed beneath him, dust flying up as the impact echoed out.

And the source of that hit was none other than Lyra, who was standing in front of Gray now, one fist still smoking from the punch, her eyes sharp and burning.

“Are you okay?”

She reached out, her hand gently helping him up.

Gray nodded once.

Then rolled his neck with a loud crack, his expression returning to that usual unreadable calm.

“…Could’ve been better,” he muttered.

His eyes flicked toward the approaching figures of Maelis’s group.

“…But now we have to deal with them.”

But just as he was about to step forward, Lyra suddenly stepped in front of him.

“Rest.”

Her voice was gentle, but somehow commanding.

“…What?”

“Don’t be ridiculous—” Gray frowned.

Thack, thack, thack!

In the blink of an eye, purple spears shot out from the ground around him.

One.

Then two.

Then a dozen.

They formed a glowing, humming cage that pulsed with strange energy, locking Gray inside without even scratching him.

The threads surrounding him curled backward, avoiding the barrier’s edges like they sensed the danger themselves.

“…What the hell are you doing, Lyra?”

Gray’s voice sharpened, but she didn’t answer him.

Instead, she turned to Maelis’s group.

The warm light in her eyes were completely gone, and all that remained as a cold and almost frightening silence unlike her.

Maelis tilted her head with a slow, amused smirk.

“Hiding behind your girlfriend now?”

She gave a theatrical sigh, twirling her staff lazily.

“You do realize Gray’s the biggest playboy ever, right? He switched girls in the span of actual minutes. I wonder how long you’ll last before he trades you too~”

But even as her words dripped with mockery, Maelis’s hands tightened around her staff.

Because she felt a quiet pressure in the air, and the dangerous aura emanating from the girl in front of her.

And for once… she didn’t like it.

But just as she opened her mouth to say more…

FWOOOM!

From the side, Leon stepped forward, raising his hand in a swift, brutal motion.

VRAAM!

A wide arc of void energy sliced through the air, black and violet light screaming toward Lyra like a rift trying to erase her.

“Die—!”

Fwip.

Lyra opened her eyes.

In that moment… something changed.

Her irises shimmered.

A strange symbol glowed across her pupils, like a broken ring intertwined with tiny stars, rotating gently in reverse.

And the void energy vanished.

Just disappeared.

Snuffed out like a candle flame before it could even graze her.

“What the… fuck?” Leon’s mouth fell open in disbelief.

And so did everyone around.

But then, Lyra’s body staggered.

A thin line of blood slowly trickled down from both her eyes, sliding along her cheek as her breath grew shallow.

“…Don’t interrupt me again,” she whispered.

Crackle…!

CRACKLE!

In that instant… multiple more purple spears, but this time, crackling with a strange golden lightning appeared around Lyra’s body.

They were hovering in the air, with their blades pointed exactly at every member of Maelis’s group.

And then… under the group’s silence.

Lyra finally spoke, and then pointed a finger at them.

“Descend.”

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