2025-04-11 21:52:39Richard's Pov
Two weeks after the duel, everything had fallen back into its regular pattern. I had risen to number 70 and rank E-. Cadets looked at me with more fear in their eyes, and the people who tried to mess with me drastically reduced. I was in the sparring vault, channeling the laws to practice when I felt a tremor. A low, pulsing quake that rolled through Miracle Academy like a heartbeat from something monstrous buried too deep. The stone beneath my knees vibrated, the runes flickering erratically. My concentration snapped as cold stabbed down my spine like a dagger of ice. Something had gone wrong. The next moment, alarms shrieked. Scarlet rune lit up along the corridor walls, spinning in spirals of panic. A single word repeated in harsh, guttural tones through the academy intercom: Containment Breach. I didn’t hesitate. I bolted out of the vault, sprinting through the halls now filled with flashing sigils and panicked cadets. Others moved the opposite direction toward safety. But I was already channeling laws from my core, prepping Null Drive. Something in me knew this wasn’t just a training accident. As I rounded the last turn toward the central lab facilities, I saw the first signs of it. The hallway ahead shimmered unnaturally, like heatwaves dancing on broken glass. Runes etched into the lab’s outer walls were scorched black, pulsing with unstable law energy. The air was wrong—it felt thick and heavy, laced with a pressure that made my skull throb. Then the rift opened. Right in the middle of Miracle’s student labs, reality split like wet paper. A jagged tear formed in the air, pitch-black and writhing with tendrils of shadow. From it poured creatures that oozed out like liquid nightmares, bodies stitched from claws and mist and mouths that never stopped grinning. Abyssals Demons. Real ones. The ones who killed my parents. Not the simulations we sparred with. Not the puppets in tactical illusions. These things breathed death and madness. A group of first-years tried to be brave and intercept the wave. They didn’t last five seconds. I watched them get shredded, screams cut short and blood painting the walls. Then, out of nowhere, Gin landed beside me, two law-blades snapping into form at his sides. “Where’s the rest of the team?” he barked. “No idea.” I said, voice tight. “What the hell is this?” “Experimental rift,” he growled. “Should’ve never been opened. Something came through. Something big.” Then I heard Lena’s voice. “Behind you!” I spun just as an Abyssal lunged. Its form semi-liquid and skeletal, jaws like a shark fused with a centipede. Lena skidded into view, panting. “Count-class. It’s still in the rift. We’re screwed if it gets out.” “Where’s Nyx?” Gin asked. “Already fighting,” Lena said grimly. “And Ara’s trying to use the rune seals to seal it.” I didn’t even get a chance to ask how she could do that. Caleb came crashing through the ceiling. Literally. He landed in a pile of cracked stone and debris, skin flickering with aura and teeth gritted. “There’s too many,” he hissed. “We need to contain the corridor before they spread.” Then Nyx came. She didn’t walk. She cut through a corridor of Abyssals like a storm incarnate. Her blade danced with threads of constructive law, slashing precise arcs into the tide of writhing bodies. Her face was calm. Too calm. “We hold the line,” she said as she reached us. “We stall. Ara’s almost done.” Then it came. A shape crawled from the rift, and silence followed. Even the lesser Abyssals paused—as if afraid of what just emerged. It was tall. Human-shaped, almost. But its arms were too long. Its eyes were too wide. And its voice was more like screeching. A Count level Abyssal demon. Caleb swore and stepped forward. “We can’t let it breach the courtyard. That's the evacuation zone. We don't know how long the instructors will take as there are multiple rifts opened in different parts of the academy.” “Formation?” Gin asked, already shifting into a stance. “Hex pattern,” Lena said. “Flank and rotate. Don’t engage alone.” They all looked at me. I nodded. “I’ll disrupt it. Buy you seconds. Just don’t let me die.” “Try not to,” Nyx muttered. “You’re mildly useful.” We moved as one. I flared Null Drive the moment we engaged, compressing the field around the Count demon’s aura. The lesser Abyssals shriveled under the field, unable to survive the law suppression. But the Count? It resisted. It's claws struck air and tore through space. Lena danced through with precise blasts of wind, using elemental law, knocking its arms off-center while Gin struck high with a burst of rotating edge-techniques. Nyx moved like liquid, too fast, too sharp, her blade never stopping. Caleb tanked a direct hit, his sword fracturing but holding as he pinned the count to a spot by increasing the gravity on the Count demon. Still, every time we hit it, it reformed. Matter meant nothing to it. Only one thing seemed to slow it perfectly, me. “Again!” Nyx shouted. I forced Null Drive deeper. The cost was brutal. My vision blurred. Blood poured from my ears. My glyphs pulsed white-hot under my skin. But it slowed. The Count demon howled, voice rising like a cathedral of screaming throats. That’s when Ara appeared. She stepped out of the collapsing lab behind the rift, hands glowing with gold-red law fire. Her cloak was half-burned, face marked with dust and sweat, but her eyes burned with focus. “It’s unstable,” she said. “We collapse it now, or it spreads.” “Then collapse it!” Gin yelled. “I need ten seconds!” “You’ve got five!” “Buy me time,” Ara ordered, stepping into a circle of runes she’d drawn with her own blood. We gave it to her. Every one of us pushed. Lena threw everything she had, her limbs shaking with strain as she unleashed barrage after barrage of attacks. Caleb slowed time on the Count Abyssal, giving us a better fighting chance. I hit the Count demon with the full force of Null Drive. The world fell away. I stood in silence, face to face with it. It tried to speak—but in my field, law did not exist. And in that moment, it was just a creature. I punched forward with Null Counter. My fist connected, and the glyphs along my arm burned bright. The Count demon staggered, and that was enough. Ara screamed a final incantation, and the rift collapsed. The world snapped, and the Count demon roared defiantly, but finally, silence fell. I fell to my knees and breathe ragged. Around me, the others dropped one by one, each bearing their own wounds. Gin looked like he’d been punched through a wall. Lena’s hands were shaking. Caleb was barely conscious. Nyx sheathed her blade with a soft, deliberate click. Ara walked to the center and looked around. “We survived.” “That’s... new,” Gin said, spitting blood. “We worked together,” Lena added, almost surprised. “Barely,” Nyx muttered. “But we did,” I said quietly. They all turned to me. And for the first time, no one looked away. Even Nyx didn’t scoff. Ara offered a slight nod. We sat in the wreckage, bleeding, bruised, but alive. As team seven.
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