The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 374

Chapter 16: 374.5

SETH MILVIEW

Everyone was screaming as the stadium shook.

A translucent bubble of mana covered our group. Mayla was clinging to my arm. I was dimly aware of blood dripping around her fingernails where they'd dug into my skin, but I couldn't feel it.

Deacon was on the ground, holding his head. Yannick had slumped back in his seat, unconscious. At least, I hoped he was just unconscious.

Brion and Linden were screaming at them both, half their attention still on the fight that was tearing the coliseum apart.

Only Pascal didn't seem to be completely losing it, but then I followed his line of sight…

The first several rows of our section were full of corpses. Spikes that were the size of crossbow bolts stuck out of stonework and flesh alike, having broken the shield that was supposed to protect us from combat even between retainers and Scythes. Some of them must have used their own magic to conjure shields, but, against the full might of a Scythe…

There was a crashing boom and an entire section of the coliseum crumbled, directly across from us. I watched as thousands of people were swallowed up by a cloud of brown dust. Gone, just like that…

The arena was a blackened and broken field of rubble. Blood iron spikes stuck up like gravestones everywhere. The cloud of void wind was breaking up and fading away. Soulfire burned in dark patches, just like the wisp-flames they always mentioned in stories. The ones that would lead the hero astray, into the swamp or the beast's lair…

At the very heart of the battlefield, Professor Grey stood over Scythe Cadell Vritra of Central Dominion. They could not have looked more different. Professor Grey…Can I even call him that still? I wondered. It seems like such an insufficient title now.

Professor Grey stood straight and tall, his strength an undeniable, inescapable…physical presence. Clad in black-scale armor, with onyx horns like a Vritra's curving out from his head, he might have been a deity himself.

I struggled to understand what I was even seeing. I'd studied magic and runes since I was just a little kid. My illness meant I couldn't begin training like Circe, and so I'd stayed inside and read. All the time. But I'd never heard of mana arts like these.

He had flitted around the arena with impossible speed. His weapon came and went instantly and with no apparent effort. His summons changed from an already intimidating wolf-creature to a huge, flying monster that could destroy every kind of Decay-attribute mana attack just by breathing!

It didn't even make sense. I'd never felt any mana come from him, none at all. Scythe Cadell Vritra's was overwhelming, stifling, but the professor's power was…something else entirely.

And so it was with a certain amount of detachment that I watched Professor Grey's weapon plunge through the Scythe and devour him. It felt…inevitable. The way the weird purple fire curled across the Scythe's skin, unmaking him, made me feel deeply uncomfortable. As if I were watching the rules that bound my world together unravel before my eyes.

"H-he—but…what?" Mayla stammered.

"No freaking way," Linden said, forgetting the unresponsive Yannick as our collective attention was pulled to the sight of Scythe Cadell Vritra burning to ash.

"What even was that?" Pascal muttered, his head shaking like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I've never seen magic like that."

"The way he just stabbed his summons…" Mayla's voice was full of horror.

"I think he absorbed it into his weapon," I pointed out, remembering how the wolf had dissolved and the blade had come alive with violet flames. "Some kind of crazy combo attack."

It was all pretty hard to make sense of, honestly.

Professor Grey had defeated a Scythe. But no, that wasn't quite right. I had nearly forgotten about Scythe Nico already, my mind and memory both sluggish from trying to process everything that had just happened.

The professor had just defeated two Scythes. And he killed one!

"He must be freaking covered in regalias," Linden said. "That's why he doesn't show them off like most mages."

Pascal's eyes went wide. "Dude, maybe that's why everyone in the class ended up with such strong runes at the last bestowal…"

Doubt suddenly smothered my wonder. And with it came…dread.

This wasn't right. It was way, way outside the bounds of what usually happened at the Victoriad. A challenge alone was rare, but to have killed a Scythe, maybe even two…this could be a declaration of war.

I swiftly became uncomfortably aware of just how little we knew about Professor Grey. If Pascal's guess was accurate, what would this mean for all of his students? Was the professor some kind of enemy of the Vritra? We'd all benefited from his training, maybe even somehow from his mere presence. Did that make us…accomplices, somehow?

I leaned my head against Mayla's.

Her eyes rolled up to look at me askance. "I'm scared, Seth. What's going on?"

"I don't know," I answered, my chest tightening. "But I am too."

SERIS VRITRA

The wave of relief I had felt at Sovereign Kiros's joyful acceptance of Cadell's death collapsed into disappointment as the portal appeared below us, cutting off the Sovereign's words.

Immediately, I set to work planning how I might get Arthur out of this situation alive.

I was now more certain than ever that this human boy was the key to everything, and I absolutely could not allow him to fall into Agrona's hands.

It was quite frustrating, really. If he would have simply done as I requested, dueling and defeating Cylrit then declining the position of retainer…it would have made things much simpler. I still could have used his victory to put him on a pedestal, holding him up as a leader among the "lessers," but without drawing Agrona's attention. At least not yet.

This victory though…it was much too large, and too soon. Agrona had banished all thought of the boy, focusing entirely on the Legacy instead, no longer concerned with the anchors that brought her here. That was useful. It couldn't last forever, of course, but if I'd only had a few more months to work with…

If I didn't get him away, somehow, then Agrona would strip him down to his base components to figure out how Arthur's aetheric powers functioned. I'd seen enough of the dungeons and laboratories beneath Taegrin Caelum to know exactly what fate awaited him. More frightening perhaps than losing Arthur was the prospect of Agrona somehow divining a way to control aether from Arthur's dissected corpse.

Given the situation at hand, even giving myself away would be worth it. I'd prepared thoroughly enough that my plans could be put into motion from hiding if necessary, despite not being ideal. Arthur, or rather Grey, would be a household name in Alacrya within days. No one of any stature wouldn't know of his victory. In the event we actually could manage some miraculous escape from the Victoriad, utilizing him as a figurehead would be a simple task.

I resigned myself to simply watching and listening as I waited for the right moment. But when the Legacy cast her spell an instant later, the bottom fell out of my stomach.

Despite charting her progress, I hadn't seen this ability before. Such a spell could, theoretically, defeat even a Scythe, if her control over it were strong enough. No, not just a Scythe. Considering that asura relied on mana simply to exist, with it infusing their very bodies, such a spell might be able to neuter even the strongest beings in this world, dividing them from their own power.

Dragoth and Viessa drifted into the sky, moving to circle Arthur's trap. I had no choice but to follow, letting the situation play out.

Watching Arthur's face, though…somehow, he did not seem afraid. If anything, he was calculating.

Even a little…sad?