Chapter 354: The Beginning Of The End [XVI]

Four days slipped by fast, and then… the Midterms finally arrived.

The academy felt different today. The halls were louder, the air thicker with nerves, and every student looked like they were preparing for war.

Meanwhile, I almost felt bored.

Being the enforcer meant I didn’t need to take the Midterms at all.

I would get the highest grade without lifting a finger.

One of the few perks of being in the student council, I guess…

After a brief discussion with the professors, Lunara arranged for the so-called “relic synchronization” to be the last test of the midterms.

This means that I could only attack during the night, which was actually quite beneficial for me, but the only problem was that fucking Fallen God detecting barrier.

I looked through a few documents, and didn’t find anything about the hour they were going to use it.

“…Junior! Are you ready?”

Elijah’s hand tapped my shoulder gently, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I turned to him and gave a small smile.

“Yes. It won’t be too difficult to deal with students who break the rules.”

“Mhm.” He nodded, adjusting the glasses resting on his nose.

“The first test is the forest exploration. They need to cross the entire divine forest and reach the opposite side. Any student who tries to cheat by using his divine sense, flying, teleporting, anything like that, will be handled by you.”

He looked at me with a light smirk.

“Simple enough for you?”

“Yep.” I nodded lightly.

At the moment, we were both floating high above the massive divine forest.

Below us, thick emerald leaves swayed with gentle wind, and ancient trees glowed faintly with divine light.

The forest stretched endlessly, like a sleeping beast.

In the distance, I could see the whole crowd gathering at the forest entrance. Almost three hundred students… all tense, all loud, all excited.

The professor in charge, an old man with silver hair tied back, hovered a few meters above the group and raised his hand.

“Silence!”

The air shifted at once. Conversations died. Even the wind seemed to pause.

“This is the first test of the Midterms,” he announced, his voice echoing through the clearing.

“Forest navigation. Your task is simple: reach the other side. The forest will test your senses, your instincts, and your control.”

Students exchanged uneasy looks.

I could already see a few of them sweating.

“No flying. No divine sense. No teleportation. No shortcuts,” the professor continued.

“You rely only on your body and your natural perception. Anyone who tries to cheat… will be immediately dealt with by the enforcer.”

He tilted his chin upward, directly towards me.

Some students followed his gaze. A few flinched when they saw me floating there, casual, arms crossed.

Kael and Tyrian were right at the front row.

Kael was, as always, smirking like an idiot, rolling his shoulders.

“Heh… easy stuff,” he muttered.

Tyrian elbowed him.

“Yeah? When you get swallowed by a tree, don’t cry.”

Selindra was a little to their left, hair tied in a high ponytail, her arms crossed tightly under her chest. Her golden eyes flicked toward the forest with clear annoyance.

“Tsk… tests like this are boring,” she whispered, flicking her fingers like she was itching to burn something.

Carliat stood right behind her, yawning loudly.

She rubbed her eyes with both hands.

“Why do we need to run through trees…? I barely woke up…” she groaned.

“Wake up now or the forest will do it for you!” Selindra warned her with a stern yet teasing expression.

Carliat only sighed harder.

The professor raised his hand again.

“Inside the forest, there are natural traps, illusions, divine beasts with non-lethal aggression, and shifting paths. Use your brain. Use your instincts. And don’t forget….” He pointed directly at the trees.

“This forest reacts to fear!”

“Oh, that’s fun,” Kael grinned widely.

Smack!

Tyrian swatted at his shoulder.

“Shut up before you attract something.”

The professor took a deep breath.

“Everyone, get ready.”

Students bent their knees, gripping weapons, adjusting their stances. The tension in the air rose like heat from fire.

Elijah stood beside me, whispering softly:

“This is when it gets messy.”

“Yeah,” I replied, eyes fixed on the forest entrance.

“I’ll handle whoever tries something stupid.”

He nodded lightly.

Down below, the professor lowered his hand.

“BEGIN!”

The crowd exploded forward.

A booming sound rolled across the field as hundreds of feet stomped the earth at once.

Swoop!

Students dashed straight into the forest entrance, shoving, sprinting, jumping over bushes, vanishing into the shadows of the divine trees.

But then… just like I expected… a few idiots already thought they were smarter than everyone else.

Not even one full minute had passed.

Three students suddenly shot upward, using small wind bursts under their feet, trying to fly low between the branches. Not too high, not too obvious—just enough to avoid the maze-like paths below.

I sighed.

They really thought they were clever.

I vanished.

A soft crack of air, then I reappeared right in front of them, blocking their path on a thick branch.

“Going somewhere?”

I asked in a cold tone.

The three froze mid-air before landing awkwardly on the branch. One of them clicked his tongue and glared at me as if I were some annoying bug.

“Tch. Of course, the council dog shows up…”

“Seriously? They sent a newbie to stop us?” the second student scoffed.

The third one smirked, eyes dripping with contempt.

No wonder he got the job. Must’ve licked someone’s boots.”

I smiled faintly.

“You’re done?”

They laughed in my face.

“Oh, look at that! He probably thinks he’s scaryyy~”

“You going to cry?”

“Maybe run to the president for help?”

I slowly reached behind my back and grabbed my sword.

Their smiles vanished.

Even their breathing changed.

I stepped forward once.

The branch under us cracked lightly.

“W-wait—”

Too late.

I dashed in.

Swoop!

My sword moved in a small arc, hitting the first student clean in the stomach.

WHAM!

His breath exploded out of him as his body bent forward.

Before he even fell, I turned.

A backhand strike.

The second one tried to block with his arms, but the hit still sent him crashing into a thick trunk.

THUD—CRACK!

He gasped, sliding down the bark, coughing hard.

The third one panicked and tried to jump back.

“Shit—!”

I didn’t let him finish.

In an instant, I elbowed his side, causing him to groan, his body arching slighly. Then, I banged my knee against his stomach before slapping his chest.

Each move hit him faster than he could react.

His body shook like a rag-doll.

“GUH—AGH—STOP—!”

I grabbed his collar and slammed him down onto the branch.

BAM!

Leaves rained down.

All three of them were already groaning on the ground, bruised, bleeding a little, trying to breathe through broken pride.

I kept my sword pointed at them.

“Next time,” I said softly, “use your brain before using your mouth.”

I flicked my wrist.

A soft pull of divine force wrapped around their bodies, lifting them helplessly into the air like sacks of trash.

“Let’s go.”

I appeared again beside the professor at the forest entrance and dropped the three bodies onto the grass.

Thud, thud, thud!

He didn’t even look surprised.

“They cheated?” he asked calmly.

“Yeah. They tried to fly.”

The professor sighed and wrote something on the clipboard.

“Very well. These three are eliminated.”

He crossed their names with a thick stroke and stamped a big fat 0 beside them.

The three injured students groaned like dying animals, but no one cared. They would heal in a few minutes anyway.

The professor looked at me and nodded once.

“Good work”

I just turned away as more idiots were definitely going to try something.

And honestly… they really were fucking idiots as more and more students tried to cheat. I didn’t know why they did that, though.

The test seemed simpler enough, but maybe the forest had something special about it that scared the students, or something like that.

Well… I must admit that at least it was fun to beat them.

BANG!

Thud!

“Haah…”

The professor sighed at the mountain of unconscious corpses that I had brought out to him before crossing the names of the students who were in the mountain.

Then curiously, I decided to ask.

“Why are they even trying to cheat? The test seems quite simple in my opinion,” I crossed my arms, looking at the professor.

The professor chuckled lightly.

“You must be the new famous student, Aestrea?” he looked at me with a faint smile while stroking his long, white beard.

“That is indeed right.”

“This Divine Forest is called… the Forest of Depravation, and it’s actually one of the most deadly places in the academy,” he declared.

The Forest of Depravation…?

“When someone enters it, they will be targeted by multiple enemies, such a ghosts, divine beasts, and even spiritual traps. One could say it’s basically a torture to walk more than one hundred meters.”

He chuckled lightly.

“As for the reason we use this forest as a midterm exam… is to test the new students’ resilience and determination.”

His voice suddenly grew more serious.

“With the arrival of the Fallen God, these students are our last hope! We need to make sure we guide them in the right direction to slaughter that unholy creature!”

BOOM!

His aura exploded as soon as he said those righteous words.

“I see… thank you for the information, professor!”

I flew back to the sky, where I could see the whole forest. With the forest being like that… no wonder those guys tried to cheat.

“Haah… how beautiful it is being a student council member…”

Aside from the tedious tasks, this kind of perk is really amazing!

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