At the heart of the Protos Royal Magic Academy.
Inside the vast council chamber, the solemn weight of power and the deep radiance of history silently enveloped every corner.
Every breath in the hall seemed abruptly severed by the shifting feed on the screen, leaving the room terrifyingly quiet.
On the display, the classroom that had been so peaceful just minutes earlier had turned into a purgatorial colosseum.
Grisly streaks of blood trailed across every corner, while cleanly sheared tools and splintered desks and cabinets lay strewn about in ruins.
At the center of it all, Lanqi stood looking as though nothing had happened, an amiable smile on his face.
He was even lending a hand to the faculty members rushing in to retrieve the students.
"Thanks for your hard work."
After helping load a student into a transport cart, Lanqi waved to the rescue staff member.
"..."
The faculty member, at a loss for words, hurried away.
He had truly never witnessed such a scene in his life.
Dozens of near-death students inside and out.
Just hauling them off would take multiple trips.
If this guy got any more of them killed, the infirmary wouldn't even have room for them!
If severely injured students had to be transferred to public hospitals in the imperial capital of Herrom, the press would surely run headlines claiming a massive campus terrorist attack had struck the Protos Royal Magic Academy.
And how on earth could this person help lift students onto stretchers with the cheerful helpfulness of a passing local? Weren't you the mastermind behind all this?!
Meanwhile, at the other end of the screen, around the conference table.
"..."
"Just how many students did he get killed in one go?"
Not only those inside the classroom, but even the students who had been sprinting down the hall with hostile intent—before they could even barge in—had run straight into the old man as he charged out the door, and were promptly branded malicious little brutes by him.
The entire corridor of the evaluation zone had become extraordinarily perilous.
Any student who dared skip class and wander the hallways ran the risk of being casually butchered by the old man.
From the split-screen view, one could see it clearly.
The Mutilation Reaper had made a limited-time return and was on an absolute rampage.
This would undoubtedly go down as a terrifying legend of the Protos Academy's Monthly Evaluation Day for years to come.
Meanwhile, Zestira's bounty on the bulletin board was still steadily climbing.
Not even ten minutes had passed since the start of the exam.
The bounty had already skyrocketed to 309,820.
"By visual estimate, over eighty students have fallen within their evaluation zone."
Defeating more students in the same evaluation became exponentially harder, as each defeated student added a 1% multiplicative increase to the total bounty.
"If Luoqi McCarthy keeps this up, his 20% cut alone might surpass a hundred thousand credits."
"When this period ends and the other students step out of their classrooms to see the number on the board, they'll shudder in horror even without knowing what happened."
"I'm kind of tempted to bet on Zestira now."
"Too bad it's too late."
Bets could only be placed before the exam began.
"Damn bastard..."
Some faces gradually shifted from arrogance and amusement to sheer fury.
They had always been the ones controlling the board, treating this like a game of cricket fighting.
How dared a mere attendant inside the exam grounds overturn their will with such casual ease?
"From here on, I won't let him clear a single classroom."
Accompanied by an arrogant male voice, the spell formation on the table gleamed once more.
"..."
Everyone knew that this person's chosen favorite had been effortlessly eliminated by Lanqi without even laying eyes on him.
Now, he would rather spend his own credits just to ensure Lanqi suffered.
"Can't take a loss, can you?"
"So what? I don't want him to win either. If his demon master walks away with that many credits, wouldn't they be walking all over us?"
Amid the chatter, various interventions permitted by top-seat privileges fed back into the evaluation zone.
Only Duchess Cloris, the first seat sitting on one side of the round table with her eyes closed, remained completely silent.
"Luoqi McCarthy..."
Cloris murmured the name inwardly.
She had known from the start that this man was on an entirely different level from the other students.
Those examinees in the evaluation zone were likely not even enough to make him draw a magic card.
Someone scouted and favored by Sido at this critical juncture could hardly be a mistake.
Could he become one of the key figures capable of shifting the landscape of the Protos Empire? Even if just a little?
Cloris looked toward the screen, her expression unreadable.
The current tensions between Protos and the northern nations appeared to be the natural, inevitable culmination of history. Yet behind the empire lurked a host of formless phantoms.
No one knew where they came from or what their ultimate goal was; one could not even prove their existence.
The only certainty was that many invisible hands were guiding the course of events.
Perhaps in the near future, a mysterious gale would sweep across both the Northern and Southern Continents, triggering an unbroken chain of escalation, spread, and eruption, until far north of the great northern nations, the theocratic powers that even the Resurrection Church feared to provoke, the ancient races slumbering beneath glaciers for tens of thousands of years, and the legendary beings of the Barrens were all dragged onto the battlefield.
The Protos Empire, a vast realm occupying a corner of the Northern Continent, was merely a fuse.
Even the distant shores of the Southern Continent would not be spared.
If a godlike calamity descended, then no matter how the dice of fate fell, everything would end.
Humanity's Tier 8 supreme powerhouses and hard-won national strength should never be squandered over foolish causes.
Rousing her spirits slightly, she glanced toward the far end of the round table.
The others still seemed dismissive of Luoqi McCarthy.
"Individual strength has its limits after all. An opportunity like this won't come twice. Let's see how he actually carries those credits out of the exam hall."
Hearing their words, Cloris let out a soft chuckle.
"Cloris, you find it ridiculous too, don't you?"
A top-seat student noticed her reaction and looked over, his eyes burning with a thirst for power and an obsession with control.
"Yes. Keep up the good work making trouble for him, and force him to show his true colors sooner," she said with a sweet smile.
Whoever intervened would have their actions announced to the entire venue, effectively serving as a real-name sponsor.
In any case, she wasn't the one who would suffer.
...
South Zone, Protos Royal Magic Academy.
After the Magical Beast Rearing Classroom was swept and cleared, nearly an hour and a half passed in tranquil silence.
Once the old man rushed out in pursuit, Lanqi had seamlessly altered the symbols on the door sign back to their original form.
From then on, Lanqi and Zestira remained in the classroom like zookeepers, playing with the beasts and feeding them from time to time, enjoying a leisurely reprieve.
"Teacher, how should we get through the rest of the time?"
Because things were so relaxed, Zestira had begun to wonder whether they were visiting a zoo or an animal café, or running for their lives in a deadly, high-speed hunt.
There were four more periods left—far too long.
The same trick likely wouldn't work a second time, and once the first period concluded, formidable students would probably arrive as a second wave of hunters.
Yet Lanqi merely sat in an armchair, raised his glass, and took a calm sip, entirely undisturbed by the beasts playing behind him in a swirl of shifting colors.
"It's almost over," he said with a smile.
"?"
Seeing his absolute certainty, Zestira felt as though she could practically see Lanqi's victory results screen rolling before her eyes.
Chapter 291