Ikerite Academy, Jera Memorial Square.
The hands of the distant clock tower had just ticked past five. The lingering glow of the setting sun spilled across ring after ring of classroom windowpanes, reflecting a dazzling orange brilliance that illuminated both the stone tiers of the square and the metal frame of the giant open-air screen.
Well before nightfall, the square's steps were packed to overflowing.
Students clutching drinks and snacks were far more excited than usual.
The noisy hubbub bore no resemblance to the relaxed leisure of an ordinary afternoon after class!
Most pedestrians strolling along the pathways outside the square stopped dead in their tracks, mouths agape in astonishment, craning their necks to stare at the projection on the giant screen.
"I just stepped away to grab a bite! How the hell did they already deduce the traitors?!"
Farther off, plenty of students stared at the screen, questioning their very grip on reality.
"'Deduce'...?"
"Think about it carefully. If you view it as Headmaster Lan rounding up two delinquent students, doesn't a complicated problem suddenly become very simple?"
"If those Resurrection Church cultists had slightly weaker willpower, they probably wouldn't have survived even one round of Headmaster Lan's anti-cult pop quiz."
"What a bloody piece of work."
A five-day, five-night game of dark slaughter.
A Shadow World hailed as the most perilous and sanity-shattering battle of wits.
Yet under Lanqi's machinations, it had somehow ended up just like his previous Shadow World!
"Ever since Frey overturned the psychological pressure on both sides this morning, Lanqi kept ratcheting up the mental strain on the traitors while easing the stress on the friendly challengers. He drew all the hatred onto himself so the others wouldn't have to dread being murdered tonight, minimizing panic among his teammates. That way, the Poet of Great Love's negative effects on allies were reduced to almost nothing."
Many students who had arrived with an analytical mindset were already breaking down the synergy between Frey and Lanqi.
If Frey hadn't laid a swift foundation of control early on, Lanqi could never have forged such great rapport with everyone out of thin air in a single day, let alone completely shattered the traitors' composure.
As for the Poet of Great Love, her exact effects had never been formally identified.
Even if the School of Sages faculty might have understood what she did, on Dean Loren's strict orders, no one had ever leaked a shred of information about Lanqi.
Students who watched Lanqi's first Shadow World knew that back at the Demon Academy, whenever Lanqi summoned the Poet of Great Love, all the demons began acting bizarrely, showing all manner of strange symptoms.
From that, one could deduce she exerted mental interference or illusions over her targets, though her precise mechanism remained hard to pin down.
Only today were the students finally convinced: the Poet of Great Love's ability was to amplify emotion.
And it made no distinction between friend and foe!
In anyone else's hands, this grey-haired succubus would be a double-edged sword requiring immense caution; only in Lanqi's hands did she become an immeasurable calamity—an utterly rotten match made in hell!
While the students chattered animatedly...
The clatter of iron clashing against iron struck like thunder falling from the heavens, jolting the entire square and setting eardrums ringing.
On the open-air screen, the sanctuary of Lichtenstein Castle was no longer a haven bathed in holy light.
Engulfed in hellfire birthed from the shadows, it had twisted into a battlefield belonging to the netherworld.
Searing crimson devoured everything in sight, while flying sparks danced to a violent cadence.
The students instantly ceased talking, their eyes drawn back to the screen where the ferocious audiovisual battle had begun!
Through the painted stained-glass windows of the vaulted ceiling, the rich, sacred sunset streamed inward like a strand of pearls strewn across a tranquil sea, mingling with the brutal flames erupting from the floor, as if heaven and hell converged right here.
At that moment, the scene was ruthlessly torn apart by a female knight clad in black armor, wielding a longsword.
Silhouetted against the sanctuary's radiance, she seemed a black fissure cleaving the world in two.
The Executioner and Paladin standing in her path were knocked back a dozen meters together.
Two golden beams enveloped them, and the gruesome wounds beneath their cracked armor were swiftly healed by the Cleric's prayers.
"Church of the Goddess of Fate scumbags... only good for getting in the way..."
Every step she took made the marble floor tremble, until the ancient sanctuary seemed ready to crumble under her magic and sheer might.
Seeing the Saintess of Destruction close in on the back row, the Executioner and Paladin braced themselves with stern resolve, tightening their grip on their weapons.
After the sudden clash had broken out, the battlefield had been divided in an instant!
At the very start, the merchant guild's male guard had taken out the dazed priestess, knocking her unconscious and binding her before carrying her to the rear under guard.
While the Saintess of Destruction clashed wildly with the Executioner and Paladin on the frontline, the back row was shifting positions to open up a safe distance.
In this rapidly shifting battlefield, aside from the frontline where the Executioner and Paladin held the line to delay the Saintess of Destruction's charge, the male guard occupied the mid-front, while behind him in the mid-rear lay the traps set by his younger sister.
At the very back, near the sanctuary walls, stood the Cleric, who had just repositioned to provide healing and blessings to the vanguard; the powerless young master of the merchant guild; and Mr. Lawyer alongside his companion, who were keeping watch over the unconscious priestess and the noble mage girl who had lost all will to fight.
If the Saintess of Destruction broke through to the back row they had fought so hard to distance, their formation would collapse.
"Die, cultist!!"
Roaring, the Executioner charged forward once more, his tread rumbling like falling boulders. He swung his Sun-Crossing Great-Axe, bloodshot eyes locked onto the Saintess of Destruction, like a valiant bear locked in a life-or-death grapple with its mortal enemy.
"Know your place."
The Saintess of Destruction smirked as if watching a beast perform tricks. Transforming into a black shadow, she slipped past the Executioner's blow effortlessly and surged once more toward the Cleric in the back row—and toward Lanqi even further behind.
The Executioner's axe cleaved only empty air, whipping up a tempest.
"Don't even think about getting past!"
The instant the Executioner engaged the Saintess of Destruction, the Paladin had kept his gaze locked on her. Clasping his sword tightly in both hands as holy light swirled around it and blue veins pulsed like serpents at his wrists, his face hardened with grim resolve as he stepped into the gap left by the Executioner.
Mustering all his strength, he unleashed a brilliant slash that streaked straight toward the Saintess of Destruction. Yet she raised her blazing longsword without the slightest fear of injury, parrying the brunt of his strike. Letting the residual force of colliding holy light and searing flame crash against her pitch-black armor, she kicked the Paladin away and continued her charge toward the back row!
In the distance, watching the unstoppable Saintess of Destruction, Hyperion felt her heart pound furiously against her ribs.
She knew the two frontline tanks were having such a hard time holding her back not because they lacked skill.
It was because a certain guy in the back row had drawn absolute maximum aggro without even casting a single spell!
It was just like the entrance exam, when Hyperion had tried her absolute best and still couldn't hold back Examiner Ferrat after Lanqi drove him into a murderous rage!
Chapter 135